Recently Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton is “totally bigoted.” Here is the video.
If one can wade through the cascading words and phrases and non-sequiturs, Mr. Trump seems to be saying that Clinton does not care about minorities because she knowingly supports policies that keep them in poverty and crime-riddled neighborhoods. Therefore, because she does not care and because she purposefully keeps them in misery, she is a “bigot”. Apparently what Mr. Trump really meant to say is she is an exploitive agent interested only in votes, one willing to manipulate others to achieve personal gain, like the plantation master.
Although he compares to her favorably, describing himself as he describes her, he has a point. The Democrat Party has been very successful garnering most minority votes primarily by purchasing votes with cash, food stamps, welfare, housing subsidies and other forms of bribery, all the while promising liberation, never delivering. Financing dependency for votes for 60 years has been profitable for Democrats.
The Trump exchange with Anderson Cooper is problematic however because it shows how imprecise language and incoherent ramblings serve only to incite emotionalism. We don’t debate. We demonize. Trump uses the term “bigot” in an entirely inappropriate way. It is an inflammatory word used in the same way Clinton used the term “racist” in referring to Trump recently: both aim to whip up the masses to anger and hysteria to garner votes, period. These tactics are despicable. They do everyone a disservice, and this is one reason neither candidate deserves support.
Look at the actual definition of the term “bigot” and compare that definition to Trump’s usage:
big·ot -ˈbiɡət/ noun: “a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions.”
Certainly Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are bigots. The term absolutely applies to Trump and his supporters. Legions of people on both sides, led by demagogues, allow themselves to be driven to frenzy, causing complete intolerance, driving disrespect, leading to violence. Clinton and Trump don’t care, so long as they “win” the election. Politics is forever a low, low enterprise, driven lower by the lowest candidates yet seen on the national stage.
When you get down to it, the only people showing much tolerance for the opinions of others (the non-bigots) are conservatives, independents, libertarians, and spirit-filled Christians. Communists, people on the Far Left, ideologues of various kinds, Jihadists, Soros and his mob, radicals like Bill Ayers and Obama, and people with BLM have no interest in tolerating the views of those with whom they disagree. They have an interest in destroying all opposition: debate be damned.
Some will say those who oppose Clinton and Trump are intolerant of them and we are therefore bigots.
There is a difference between granting another person their right to an opinion, at the same time disagreeing, and denying another person’s right to opinion and its expression simply because you disagree. Trump and Clinton deny others their right to an opinion and its expression. Clinton has flat out said Christians must change their views on same-sex marriage and abortion if they wish to participate in this democracy. Trump calls for protesters to get punched out, he proposes the FCC and the courts be used to silence anyone with whom he disagrees, and he has a history to suing people only to intimidate them and silence them.
It is very clear neither Clinton nor Trump have any respect for the 1st Amendment or your right to conscience, opinion and free expression. Conservatives and Christians deny no one’s right, but we can exercise our right to strongly disagree. I can disagree in a disagreeable fashion, but that is not intolerance. It may be rude, but it’s not intolerance. The intolerant agent is the one who denies the rights of others.
When Trump, an agent of intolerance promoting the infringement of free speech, calls Clinton a bigot, he is right because she too is an agent of intolerance promoting the infringement of free speech, but it’s a matter of the pot calling the kettle black.
Another thought: for one to be intolerant of another’s right to opinion requires me to assume a superior position, allowing me to condemn your opinion while giving myself permission to deny your right to it. On the other hand, taking myself out of it, and appealing to ultimate Truth, by which we must evaluate all things, one cannot be said bigoted but wise to disagree with opinions and behaviors that are clearly wrong, sinful, even evil. Abortion is clearly wrong. Objecting strongly is not a sign of bigotry: it is a sign of moral clarity and the courage to speak that out, lawfully, rationally, even forcefully. Murder is clearly wrong. Objecting strongly is not a sign of bigotry but of moral clarity.
The true bigot must be arrogant for arrogance is required to assume the superior position allowing the bigot to condemn others, and deny their rights, the core of dictatorship. Both Clinton and Trump assume this arrogant position, claiming superiority, aspiring to dictatorship, the ultimate reason both are unfit for office.
Image:shutterstock_172349585.jpg; feng yu
