When I say hate in the context of the title of this article, I am not being hyperbolic, nor am I exaggerating. Let me explain why.
An adage I follow is "keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer." When Air America was on the air, I listened to it. In small doses, mind you, but I did regularly tune into that radio station. A couple of weeks ago, I added The Young Turks into my podcast list. I listened for an hour for three consecutive days, and I haven't activated my podcast app since, I was so revolted by the hate, the ignorance, the distorted mindset and the vitriol that spewed from my speakers. Two "events" came to mind as I was thinking about this post.
The first was one of TYT called Mitch McConnell "evil." I don't know about you, but "evil" implies a lot of things. When Harry Reid was the Senate Majority Leader of the Senate, I can hardly think of a subject or stance I could find common ground with him. I think Reid was a devious, underhanded, unscrupulous, kind of guy, but I would stop well before I would use the term "evil" with Senator Reid. But TYT had no problem using it. By applying that label to someone who only has a political or philosophical difference with you, that cheapens the value of the word. I'm sure that we can all agree that people like Adolph Hitler, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy and a few others really are "evil." When you throw Mitch McConnell into that group, you actually make the others sound 'not so bad.'
This is the second one. I actually found a video of it:
It should be understood that Aero Mexico wouldn't show someone who said no, because that would undercut their ad. In fact, there were 4 individuals and one couple asked at the beginning. The two people that expressed interest, one wasn't asked if they would go to Mexico. He didn't explicitly say "yes," it was an implied "yes" because he asked if his wife could go. The second person to imply a yes put a condition on it, "if there were Taco Bell's on street corners down there." I don't know if this gentleman knows there is very little in common with real Mexican food and what's on a Taco Bell menu. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and believe he knows there are no Taco Bells south of the border. To say what he said, knowing there are none down there I can only interpret as a big "screw you" to anyone who believed he would go there.
I am more concerned with how Mark Thompson, Helen Hong and Brett Erlich (L to R, as they sat facing the camera) spoke of and judged these people. Mark said, "These people don't have passports, they're not going to the next state over where Bubba lives." While Helen said, "Those people live within a 20 mile radius from where they were born." Later on, she mocks them (in a forced Southern accent), "The only thing I love more than my racism is discounts." I couldn't take it after, "I've been to Mexico and the best thing about Mexico is those people are not there."
This is not funny, this is not political commentary, this is an intentional and repeated mocking of people who live in "flyover country" and who don't agree with the talking heads.
Quite frankly, it's this attitude and mindset that sickens me. This is what I fight against, the belief that these elitists know better for other people, even better than the people know themselves. I am all for personal choice and personal responsibility of accepting the consequences of their choices. Why Leftists can't accept that, I guess I will never know.