They're just so Enlightened, Compassionate and Progressive

Gerard Alexander writes in the Washington Post about the attitude many modern liberals have about those who disagree with what they assume are their obviously enlightened opinions.

Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.

For example, Mona Charen writes at NRO how a recently published study affirming the benefits of abstinence education challenges the assumption that proponents of liberal positions on issues always have science and reason on their side.

The Obama administration had disdained and defunded abstinence education in favor of "evidence-based" programs to prevent teen pregnancy. (Note the assumption that liberal ideas are founded on evidence whereas conservative ideas spring from prejudice, ignorance, or downright orneriness.) No single study settles things, but this one, conducted by an African-American professor at the University of Pennsylvania, will be hard to ignore.

And of course, there are the Earth shaking revelations that in the last three months have caused the collapse of the "global warming"/"climate change" advocacy and it's claim that the science is "settled."

"I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper skepticism," says John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser to the British government. He is a staunch believer in man-made climate change, but he also points out the complexity of climate science. "Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed." In his view, it's time to stop circling the wagons and throw open the doors. How much the public will keep caring is another matter.

Just for grins, here's an article citing a recent proclamation from one famous activist that global warming has caused a scarcity of winter weather here in the DC Area.