David McElroy

The doctors had been on strike for several days before anyone figured out what was going on, because nobody could read their picket signs.

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There was a time when I wanted to change the world through politics. I grew up believing that a great, moral people elected wise leaders, who then made decisions in our best interests. If I could just become one of those leaders, I could change so much and help so many.

But I finally grew up and quit believing in fairy tales.

I’m having more and more and more trouble lately being interested in politics, even enough to write about the subject. If you’re not a partisan of the two major “teams” — and you have no illusion that enough people are going to adopt your ideas to put them into practice — it’s pretty boring to watch the political spectacle. Have you ever tried to separate yourself from the shouting participants in the political process and just observed the way they interact with each other? It’s sickening.

If you’re a part of one side or the other, you imagine that the people on your side are the kinder and more intelligent and more well-meaning. You notice the positive examples of people on your side, but you don’t notice the many angry, hateful people on your own team. On the other side, you see screaming idiots who hate you and don’t have a good bone in their bodies. When you’re caught up in that trap, you have no idea how much the two sides are mirror images of one another.

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When most people demand “tolerance” of others, they really mean they insist that others accept their own positions — and then they’re outraged if positions contrary to their own are actually tolerated.

I keep thinking about that when I read about the gay activists who are leading obsessive boycotts of the fast food chain, Chick-fil-A. For decades, these same gay activists have demanded that everyone show toleration of their sexual orientation. There was a time when gays and lesbians were horribly mistreated by the law. We’re not living in that day, and it’s silly to pretend that we are. (I’ve argued that the state has no business defining marriage and dictating who can marry, so I’m not in a camp that wants to legally define marriage in any particular way.)

Activists are angry with Chick-fil-A because the private company’s owners have given money to Christian groups, some of which have favored efforts to legally define marriage as being between a man and a woman. The activists say this isn’t just a disagreement. No, it’s “hate,” they say. They don’t give any evidence that Chick-fil-A hates anyone. They simply define disagreement with their view as hatred. It’s hard to imagine a more insane twisting of what words really mean.

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