Intolerance will not be tolerated

I am an equal opportunity hater. I don’t select the things I am going to hate based on race, religion, sex, sexual preference, physical abilities, physical attributes, ethnicity, wealth, education, social or political affiliations, or personal beliefs. There are probably more, but I can’t think of them at the moment.

What I hate is hypocrisy, abuse of power, and allowing your ignorance to delude you into believing that being highly emotional about a topic makes you an expert on it.

These things that I hate, I will call sins (the greatest of these being abuse of power followed by hypocrisy). Use of these sins will be transgressions, and the sinners will be referred to as transgressors. (I could be reaching here because transgression means going beyond a law, and our society obviously doesn’t hold these sins to be above or beyond the law).

In any case, I am trying to establish that hypocrisy, abuse of power, etc. are not dictated by whom you are or what you believe. They are dictated by your behavior.

Let’s consider Abuse of Power. A common transgression (in my mind) would be using a piece of legislation (that is originally authored to address an issue that would greatly improve the lives or condition of a large segment of the American population) to enhance the political or financial stature of one or more legislators or a select group.
An example of this might be difficult to produce because most legislation is actually written on pretense, and is designed to further interests other than those of the American people. Verified voting legislation may be the exception here.

Hypocrisy and self-delusion are often difficult to separate; especially when the transgressor professes to be the arbiter of moral values (i.e., Gingrich, Bennett, and O’Reilly) or an expert on the inner workings of any class of people, especially those with some opposing viewpoints.
An example of this transgression was highlighted by Karlo at Swerve Left when he dissected and linked to this article.

I think it is very important to understand that the political and social environment we are currently bathing in is pretty much an illusion. When people interact one-on-one, it is generally with some respect and seldom saturated with hatred and vitriol. For the most part, the intense debate you see taking place on the factor or hear on a multitude of radio talk shows is one-sided or completely fabricated to draw an audience. Of course, there is additional consequence at times, but not as the result of intelligent thought.