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New Years is approaching, and one resolution will help our democracy: Make a friend with opposing political views and be kinder to people you disagree with politically.

Liberal women, this especially means you, given new research from media company Axios showing just how intolerant young leftists, particularly females, are compared with conservatives.

Axios, working with the Generation Lab, found just 5 percent of Republican college students said they wouldnt befriend someone from the opposite party vs. 37 percent of Democrats.

It also determined 30 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of Republicans wouldnt work for someone who voted differently from them, while 71 percent of Democrats but only 31 percent of Republicans wouldnt date someone with opposing views.

Researchers found college-age women more likely than men to take strong partisan stances, with 76 percent of women and 86 percent of men saying theyd work for someone who voted for the opposing candidate. Axios reported just 68 percent of women, as opposed to 84 percent of men, would shop at or support the business of someone from the other party.

This new research is sad but not surprising, given how liberal our college campuses are. A 2016 Econ Journal Watch study examining voter registration of economics, history, journalism, law and psychology faculty at 40 leading universities, for example, found Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 12 to 1.

The study, conducted by Brooklyn College business professor Mitchell Langbert, George Mason University economist Daniel B. Klein and FICO economist Anthony J. Quain, noted the liberal ratio among faculty under age 36 was 23 to 1.

Samuel Abrams, a Sarah Lawrence College politics professor, found similar trends in his 2018 survey of 900 university administrators (people who manage professors and campuses). He reported, Only 6 percent of campus administrators identified as conservative to some degree, while 71 percent classified themselves as liberal or very liberal.

This year, student newspaper The Harvard Crimson surveyed 236 arts and sciences faculty members, and a mere 3 percent described themselves as somewhat or very conservative, versus 76 percent who identified as somewhat or very liberal. Thats a ratio of 25 to 1.

While the University has made a concerted effort across the past decade to promote gender and racial diversity among its faculty, Harvard has not made any explicit attempts to bolster representation from across the ideological spectrum, the papers Natalie Kahn wrote in April.

The left frightfully claims our democracy is under attack, but democracys root demos means people. If millions of liberals refuse to speak with and feel concern for millions of conservative people even though liberals claim to be enlightened and tolerant who is the threat to democracy?

Democracy Dies in Darkness, The Washington Post intones. Does that include darkness about half your fellow citizens?

Michael Barone wrote in The Wall Street Journal about how liberals are so immersed in cultural crock pots that they dont realize their ignorance.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues have shown that conservatives are better at understanding liberal views than the converse, Barone noted. Thats not surprising: Whereas liberal views permeate the news media and popular culture, liberals can easily avoid exposure to conservative views. That distorts their view of the world and produces oversensitivity to leftist social-media mobs along with overconfidence in demographic trends.

In a related vein, last summer the Cato Institute released research about political expression and self-censorship. It found 62 percent of Americans say the political climate prevents them from saying what they believe up from 58 percent in 2017.

Majorities of Democrats (52 percent), independents (59 percent) and Republicans (77 percent) feel they cannot express their views. Strong liberals are the only political group comfortable sharing their views (58 percent).

Cato found 31 percent of Americans support firing Donald Trump donors and 22 percent support firing Joe Biden donors; but 50 percent of strong liberals support firing Trump donors and 36 percent of strong conservatives support firing Biden donors.

My colleague Carrie Lukas wrote a whole book about our lopsided anti-conservative cultural bias. In Checking Progressive Privilege, she declared, Progressive privilege isnt just unfair to conservatives; it has warped our entire political environment and made our country more divided. Recognizing progressive privilege is the first step to ending it, so that we can have a fairer, more truly inclusive society.

To strengthen democracy, we need stronger civic fabric, which means speaking with and humanizing people with whom you disagree. Heres hoping for a brighter new year in which we do just that.

Carrie Sheffield is a senior policy analyst at Independent Womens Voice.

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Liberals should resolve to be more tolerant in 2022 our democracy depends on it - New York Post

Putting a bunch of Deep South conservatives and New England liberals together sounds like a recipe for fireworks. But a funny thing happened when that potentially combustible combination met online this fall.

Understanding. Civility. Maybe even friendship.

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute programs at LSU and the University of Southern Maine offered an eight-session opportunity for political opposites to talk with each other. When all was said, the participants found out they weren't quite as opposite as they expected.

That gives hope to the participants.

I had lunch with one of my fellow OLLI students just yesterday, and I asked him: 'Am I overstating the case here that most of us, the liberals and the conservatives, agreed on most issues most of the time at least to some extent much more than we disagreed? said Bud Snowden, of Baton Rouge. And he said thats absolutely right.

How can this be if, as pundits say, Americans are as divided as any time since the Civil War? The programs creator thinks the pundits have it wrong.

Mike Berkowitz, of Saco, Maine, organized and moderated the program. He says both traditional and social media have distorted Americans actual political and social differences, hyping the disagreements and obscuring areas of common ground to create the impression of an unbridgeable divide.

He said he believes if liberals and conservatives take the time to understand each other's beliefs and talked to instead of at each other, theyd be surprised.

So, Berkowitz started the Conservatives and Liberals; Not Conservatives vs. Liberals course.

The Louisiana-Maine program had participants meet on the Zoom video conferencing site for two hours weekly for eight weeks to explore the different philosophies on hot-button topics like abortion and gun control and to discuss their individual views. Berkowitz moderated the meetings and encouraged them to keep the discussions respectful.

Thats not to say the participants didnt come in with preconceived notions.

I didnt see compassion with conservatives, said Dorry French, of Falmouth, Maine, when asked about her stereotypes. Redneck, uninformed maybe I should quit while Im a little bit ahead.

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My stereotype of liberal northerners: rude, arrogant and condescending, Snowden said. That stereotype was dispelled. It really was.

The process of dispelling such stereotypes involved more than just conversation.

Berkowitz led participants through the book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, which explores why liberals and conservatives have different intuitions about right and wrong.

That established a way for the students in the class to see how those who profoundly disagree about things like abortion based their beliefs in something both sides valued.

Both conservatives and liberals have a lot of compassion, said Keith Fleeman, of Auburn, Maine. Liberals have compassion, it seems to me, toward the person who is carrying the child, and conservatives have more compassion, I think, for the fetus itself that it comes to term. Ive learned to see the compassion on both sides.

It made the point that it was about differences in values, not 'these people are stupid' or 'these people are wrong, said John Kovich, of Baton Rouge. The training helped a lot.

No one changed their political views, Berkowitz said, but that wasnt the point.

Rather, they discovered that they were more like their political adversaries than they suspected. They said their discussions were more productive than ones they attempted with family and friends and much better than those that take place online.

Those who participated said they enjoyed it so much that theyve discussed continuing the virtual meetings.

It made a huge difference to be able to look people in the eye, even on a screen, and feel like you were getting to know a person rather than just a set of opinions, Snowden said. That made a huge difference to me in terms of saying what I needed to say and to hear what I needed to hear. That wouldnt have happened in a purely digital exchange, I dont believe.

But being around Yankee liberals was a new experience. What I came to understand is these are just people like I am.

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Peace on Earth? Program shows how conservatives and liberals just might get along - The Advocate

Ive been a puzzle to a lot of my liberal friends. They cant figure me out. Over the years, more than a few of them have said: You cant really be a conservative. And when I ask why they would say that, they tick off a bunch of liberal assumptions about conservatives. I dont seem to be a racist, they tell me, or a homophobe or a sexist or any of the other sins they cavalierly attribute to conservatives. So how, they wonder, could I be a conservative?

My liberal friends may be dense but theyre hardly alone plenty of conservatives make sweeping misjudgments about liberals and other people with whom they disagree, too. But heres the dirty little secret about too many supposedly intelligent liberals: Theyre either clueless or nasty or both. They not only dont like conservatives in particular; they dont like ordinary Americans in general especially if they come from red states such as, say, West Virginia.

We just got proof of that from none other than a member of the New York and Hollywood glitterati, Bette Midler, who slimed the entire state of West Virginia, a state made up of a whole bunch of ordinary Americans, most of whom had the audacity to actually vote for Donald TrumpDonald TrumpNews networks see major viewership drop in 2021 Man who told Biden 'let's go Brandon' goes on Bannon's podcast, touts Trump Democrats should make Social Security a top issue in the midterms here's how and why MORE.

After Sen. Joe ManchinJoe ManchinEquilibrium/Sustainability Dam failures cap a year of disasters Narrow path forward for Build Back Better Four environmental fights to watch in 2022 MORE (D-W.Va.) said he wouldnt vote for Joe BidenJoe BidenFauci says CDC cut isolation time so people return to work faster Overnight Health Care CDC cuts isolation time for the asymptomatic Energy & Environment 2021's weather disasters cost 0B MOREs multitrillion-dollar, so-called Build Back Better bill, Midler tweeted, He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out.

Before we move on to Midlers non-apology apology, let me point out that West Virginia ranks higher than New York or California when it comes to literacy. There are a lot more people who cant read or write in the places Bette Midler hangs out than in West Virginia. But to Midler, West Virginia is where those hicks live, the ones who are too stupid and too strung out to know whats good for them. What else explains their support for Joe Manchin or Donald Trump, right?

Youd have every right to believe that liberals such as Bette Midler care about your average Joe. Liberals, after all, are always telling us how much they care about ordinary Americans. But a lot of liberal elites would rather walk over shards of broken glass than wash their hands in the same sink as an ordinary American. What Midler managed to do was expose what a headline in the Daily Beast calls an ugly brand of liberal elitism.

When her tweet hit the proverbial fan, she went back on Twitter to announce, I apologize to the good people of WVA for my last outburst. Im just seeing red; #JoeManchin and his whole family are a criminal enterprise. With apologies like that, who needs insults?

A lot of liberals talk and think the way Bette Midler talks and thinks especially when theyre in their safe zone, among friends.

Remember what presidential candidate Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaDemocrats should make Social Security a top issue in the midterms here's how and why How American conservatives normalize anti-Semitism VP dilemma: The establishment or the base? MORE said in 2008 about working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses? They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who arent like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

He never would make such a condescending statement in public and not only because that kind of talk wouldnt go over well in places he might need to win the election. That kind of elitist observation would have other long-lasting consequences. It would shatter Obamas liberal image. But he was among friends when he spoke about those ordinary, working-class Americans who cling to their guns or religion. He was at a fancy fundraiser in San Francisco, no less and didnt know his comments would get out.

Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonDemocrats must face the reality of their Latino voter problem Bette Midler is the latest liberal to pretend to care about the 'average Joe' Bill O'Reilly says Trump will run again MORE, who was running against Obama at the time, jumped all over him, saying, I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small-town America. His remarks are elitist and out of touch.

In case youre wondering, yes, thats the same Hillary Clinton who, in 2016, told her friends, at a fund-raising event in Manhattan that other mecca of American left-wing supposed sophistication that half of Donald Trump supporters fit into a basket of deplorables. And she was worried about Obamas demeaning remarks? She was upset with his elitism? Im not sure what Hillarys strong points are, but self-awareness doesnt appear to be one of them.

As for Bette Midler, youd think that by now she would have closed out her Twitter account. When Trump was running for reelection in 2020 and his wife Melania spoke in the Rose Garden on his behalf, Midler mocked her accent, tweeting, Oh, God. She still can't speak English, before adding, Get that illegal alien off the stage!

Wait a minute! I thought only bigoted conservatives made fun of people who dont speak perfect English. I thought liberals embraced people who came here from another country. And while were on the subject, when did liberals have a problem with illegal aliens?

As an editorial in the New York Post put it, The elite left literally cant conceive of legitimate disagreement: All of America that thinks differently is defective, a bunch of hicks and addicts. Progressives eternal blindness to their own bigotry is a marvel.

And thats precisely why Bette Midlers dopey tweet about West Virginia matters. I mean, who cares what some entertainer thinks? But its what she represents that matters. Its a brand of elite liberal hypocrisy that Midler exposed.

They cant stop telling us how much compassion they have for people less fortunate than the top 1 percent. But their compassion extends only to the less fortunate who agree with them. And when they dont, when they dont share the worldview of so many liberal elites, they see another side of elite liberalism the condescending, bitter side. Its the side the enlightened left usually reserves for talk with their like-minded enlightened friends.

Bernard Goldberg is an Emmy and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University award-winning writer and journalist. He was a correspondent with HBOs Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel for 22 years and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News and as an analyst for Fox News. He is the author of five books and publishes exclusive weekly columns, audio commentaries and Q&As on his Patreon page. Follow him on Twitter @BernardGoldberg.

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Bette Midler is the latest liberal to pretend to care about the 'average Joe' | TheHill - The Hill

It must have come as a shock to Philadelphia Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon when, in the middle of a sunny Wednesday afternoon, two armed men ordered her out of her Acura and drove off, taking her purse and government-issued phone with them.

Scanlon was the second Democratic lawmaker carjacked in 24 hours. The evening before, Illinois state Sen. Kimberly Lightfords car was stolen in a Chicago suburb.

Scanlon and Lightford are surely surprised. But the real surprise is that it has taken so long for a high-profile Democrat to have her car stolen. Grand theft auto surged nationwide in 2020, according to FBI statistics. Its continued to rise in major cities like New York, where thefts are up 14% relative to this time last year; Philadelphia, 15%; and Chicago, 7%.

It was only a matter of time before the surge part of a massive increase in certain serious crimes affected lawmakers who have pushed to weaken, or even cripple, the criminal-justice system tasked with addressing it. (Scanlon cosponsored a proposal to replace cops with mental-health professionals; Lightford played a pivotal role in abolishing cash bail in Illinois.) The question now is if these same lawmakers will moderate their support for criminal-justice reform or charge ahead with radical changes.

The rise in carjackings has paralleled surging gun violence and homicide the latter was up 30 percent last year and likely increased further this year. With more than 500 murders, 2021 was Philadelphias deadliest year on record, a dubious honor shared by dozens of cities across the country.

As with rising violence, the increase in GTAs could initially be explained as a byproduct of pandemic restrictions. As more people stayed home, streets emptied out and cars became an easier target, especially relative to other property. But as lockdowns have lifted and cities have returned to a semblance of normal, the mayhem has continued unabated.

Slowly, tepidly, leaders in cities like San Francisco and Chicago are recognizing the problem and trying to mobilize the public-safety system against it. Unfortunately, to do so, theyll need to undo the damage they themselves did to police, courts and jails over the past year.

That means turning around cratering employment numbers in many big-city departments. In Philadelphia, the City Council voted to slash $33 million from the Police Departments budget; whether to defund the department remained an active debate.

Doubtless because of this hostility, Philadelphia had 225 fewer sworn officers in 2020, the lowest annual total (with one exception) since 1994. The problem has persisted this year, as retirements swell and recruiting numbers fall short.

It will also mean resuscitating court systems, many of which remain below operational capacity under pandemic restrictions. And it will entail returning to prepandemic levels of pretrial detention jail populations fell 25 percent in 2020, a massive one-year drop following a decade of no change.

In Phillys case, even if there were more cops on the beat and more prisoners behind bars, theyd still have to contend with Larry Krasner, the citys progressive district attorney. Krasner, who has presided over a record spike in homicides, has dramatically increased his offices dismissal of charges. So far this year, for example, Krasner has dismissed 62 percent of carjacking charges brought to his office, up dramatically from 38 percent under his predecessor. (Krasners office blames this disparity on slow court processing during the pandemic, but even in 2019, he dismissed 58 percent of carjacking charges.)

Krasners policy of frequently refusing to prosecute or request bail has real public-safety consequences. In November, 17-year-old Latif Williams allegedly shot and killed Samuel Collington, a Temple College student, during a robbery. Williams, it turned out, had been arrested months earlier and charged with eight offenses, including carjacking. But Krasners office dropped the charges, and Williams walked free.

Perhaps their experiences will awaken Scanlon, Lightford and their peers to the dangers of Krasner-style criminal-justice reform. There are consequences to refusing to use, or dismantling altogether, large parts of the criminal-justice system. Until lawmakers recognize this, the madness will continue.

Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.

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Victims of crime and their own policies: Liberals learn the hard way - New York Post

Unabashed hypocrisy has become a defining feature of the Indian left intelligentsia. The liberals often subject others to higher standards of noble beliefs and virtues while refraining from holding their own to the same rigorous standards. They have a bloated sense of entitlement, stemming from the mistaken belief that they are a cut above the world, with a false sense of the notion that they are exempted from being evaluated by the same token as they use to judge others.

For instance, the left-leaning liberals have gone into overdrive to condemn Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati for the contentious remarks he made at the Haridwar Conclave. Ever prowling for issues to vilify Hindus, the liberals sensed it as a lucrative opportunity to build on their propaganda of vilifying Hindus and reinforcing minority victimhood. By contrast, they have studiously ignored actual hate crimes, like the murder of Kamlesh Tiwari and the Punjab lynching incidents.

The left-leaning brigade has accused Yati and others who attended the Haridwar Conclave of making hate speech designed to whip up genocide against Muslims. Calls for police action have also been made against the attendees. An FIR was also filed in connection with the case. However, the larger aim of the liberals seems to be somehow linking the Centre with the remarks made at the Haridwar Conclave. Several left ideologues have blamed the central government for indulging the leaders, who they claimed have felt emboldened to make the tendentious comments that they did during the Haridwar Conclave.

It is worth noting here that Yati Narsighanand Saraswati has himself been at the centre of a hate campaign directed at him by a section of society. Call for sar tan se juda or his decapitation have steadily grown, with even elected MLAs such as AAP leader Amanatullah Khan making a clarion call for his beheading. But none of the liberals who are today falling over themselves to condemn his speech cared to unequivocally denounce the death threats braved by the Dasna Devi Temple head priest in the past. Instead, they are using Dharma Sansad as yet another opportunity to besmirch the Centre.

Just like the liberals have been muted against the death threats faced by Yati Narsighanand Saraswati, they were also silent about the calls for the decapitation of Hindu Samaj leader Kamlesh Tiwari. No credible effort was taken by the Left intelligentsia to address the hate that was marshalled towards Tiwari, who years later was murdered in cold blood by followers of the murderous Islamist ideology that justified and called for his beheading.

And after Tiwari was ruthlessly murdered by Islamists, many of the liberals who are beating their chest today, demanding action for hate speech at the Haridwar Conclave, showed little concern to condemn his murder or call out the ideology that was responsible for his killing. In fact, an overwhelming number of liberals, including one of the left luminaries, who is the Wests latest damsel in distress in the Indian subcontinent, did not even bother to acknowledge his death, let alone issue an unequivocal condemnation.

Even in recent times, the hypocrisy exhibited by liberals cant be more pronounced. Even as they are outraging over the comments made by Yati Narsighanand Saraswati, they have maintained a stoic silence on the vitriolic speech made by AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, a video of which has gone viral on social media.

In the speech, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi said, I want to tell the police. Remember this. Yogi will not be the Chief Minister forever. Modi will not remain the Prime Minister forever. We Muslims are silent because of the times, but remember we will not forget the injustice. We will remember your injustice. Allah, by his powers, will destroy you, Inshallah. We will remember. Times will change. Then who will come to save you? When Yogi will go back to his mutta, when Modi will go to the mountains, then who will come to save you. Remember, we will not forget.

Despite the brazenly communal undertones of Owaisis speech, it did not attract the same intensity of criticism as garnered by the Dharma Sansad in Haridwar. A day after speeches of leaders like Yati Narsinghanand and other Hindu leaders went viral, an FIR wasfiledin Uttarakhand over the speeches that called upon Hindus to collect arms. But in Owaisis case, some liberals even went to the extent of defending the incendiary remarks made by the AIMIM chief, arguing that his speech should not be seen in the same light as the comments made during the Dharma Sansad in Haridwar.

Another instance where the hypocrisy of liberals has been stark is the Punjab lynchings related to sacrilege cases. The country was recently roiled with two horrifying cases of mob lynching that took place in Punjab over allegations of sacrilege. Angry mobs took law into their own hands and lynched two individuals to death on the suspicion of sacrilege, underscoring the abject state of law and order situation in Punjab.

The first incident ofmob lynchinglinked to sacrilege took place inside the sanctum sanctorum of Darbar Sahib on Saturday evening when regular prayers were going on while the other one was related to a Gurdwara in Nizampur village in the Kapurthala district of Punjab where a man was killed on suspicion of committing sacrilege. Punjab CM today said there has been no evidence of sacrilege against the Kapurthala victim. It was also reported that the man was mentally challenged and was seeking food at the Gurudwara when he was lynched to death by a bloodthirsty mob.

These incidents should have shaken the liberal conscience to the core, prompting an unreserved condemnation of the ghastly murders committed in the name of sacrilege. However, as warped as it has become, the moral compass of the liberals did not push them towards condemning the sacrilege incident, instead, they remained tight-lipped about the deaths while decrying sacrilege. Many liberals, Punjab politicians, others were quick to denounce sacrilege but they did not find mobs taking the law into their hands scandalising and alarming enough to call for impartial and thorough probes into the two incidents.

While an FIR against Dharma Sansad took less than 24 hours to be filed, it has been over 5 days since the horrifying lynchings in Punjab and yet no FIR has been registered against the culprits. Apparently, an alleged hate speech has drawn more condemnation than the actual hate crime where two men were lynched to death by mobs on the mere suspicion of sacrilege, of which one case has been dismissed by Punjab CM himself stating that there has been no evidence of the victim committing sacrilege.

Yet, the liberals dont consider lynchings of two men worthy enough of their attention and outrage. There is a deafening silence on the Punjab lynching incidents even as new revelations are being almost on a daily basis, pointing towards a deeper conspiracy to hide what appears as an orchestrated incident of violence carried out under the pretext of sacrilege. However, even then, liberals have not felt the need to direct their ire on hate crime as they remain preoccupied with their campaign against Dharma Sansad.

Earlier yesterday, a high-intensity blast took place in Ludhiana, resulting in the death of two persons. The blast highlighted the precarious condition of security in the state that has been on the boil for over 12 months now since the start of farmers protest in November 2020 that saw the participation of anti-social elements, including Khalistani proponents, and witnessed routine incidents of riots, vandalism, murder, arson, rapes etc. But liberals had then thrown their weight behind the protests even though various criminal activities were reported to have been committed in the name of protests.

As it has been evident now, for liberals, hate speech is more important to outrage upon than the actual instances of hate crimes, insurrection, anarchy and terror incidents. The deaths, the rapes, the murders, the concomitant violence are probably nothing more than casualties suffered in the larger ideological war against the enemies they sorely despise, which in this case, are the Hindus. So they dont mind being hypocritical by placing outsize focus on condemnable comments made during the Dharma Sansad while paying no heed to the much more dangerous hate crime incidents happening across the country.

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The ultimate liberal hypocrisy: How the Left outrages over hate speech but turns a blind eye to hate crimes and violence - OpIndia