HOW EXACTLY COULD A LIBERAL RALLY HAVE BEEN FUNNY?:

American liberals’ Rally to Share an Inside Joke: In place of political vision, Saturday’s Jon Stewart-inspired Washington gathering offered cheap shots at Republicans. (Helen Searls, 11/01/10, spiked)

The truth is the perception that the US is gripped by intolerant forces that lack sanity or reason only makes sense from a liberal perspective. Many, if not most, people on the Mall understood the Rally to Restore Sanity was really not so much about sanity and reason in the abstract. Rather it was a specific counter to the likes of conservative TV personality Glenn Beck, the Fox News channel and the newly emerged Tea Party.

The self-righteous undercurrent to the day’s proceedings was palpable. When people held signs saying ‘Think’, ‘Read a Book’ or ‘I have a sign and it’s spelled correctly’, everyone knew what the signs meant. These were not aimed at third graders urging them to take their studies seriously. Rather this is the familiar insider way that liberals think and talk about their conservative opponents.

Standing in the middle of it all, the entire event had the air of smug inside joke - and not a particularly funny one at that. The event was billed as an even-handed rejection of the extremes of the left and the right, but nearly everyone there knew that the only crazy people that mattered were of the conservative persuasion. To anyone observing the event with no prior knowledge of the liberal mindset, it would be near on impossible to make sense of the proceedings. It was incoherent, unfocused and served no political purpose. You had to get the joke to know that ‘Think’, ‘Read a Book’, ‘I have a sign and it’s spelled correctly’, ‘Africa is a country’, ‘There was only one Hitler’, ‘I masturbate and I vote (but not at the same time)’ and all references to witches were all poking fun at the same thing.

But perhaps the biggest joke of the all was the fact that a rally called in the name of tolerance and reason allowed so many to demonstrate just how intolerant and irrational the liberal mindset has become.