ID: A scene from Legally Blonde of a conversation between Warner and Elle in the corridor at Harvard, in 4 panels:
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Warner asks “What happened to the tolerant left?”
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Elle replies, smiling “Who said we were tolerant?”
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Warner continues “I thought you were supposed to be tolerant of all beliefs!”
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Elle looks confused “Why would we tolerate bigotry, inequity, or oppression?”
If that’s true, it’s because you have never read a book or a serious article. This is a hundred year old distinction, and is how the entire rest of the world and the study of politics uses these words normally. E.g. in Australia “the liberal party” is the right wing pro capitalist party.
It’s true that in North America the common use has diverged somewhat, so it’s not totally surprising that people haven’t always heard it, and you could make a good argument that it might be more practical for American leftists to do outreach using different words to make conversation easier. But it’s nonsense to come into a leftist space and get upset about a much more traditional usage of those terms and which draws exactly the distinction which divides leftists from liberals, even “centre-left” liberals.
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