Saturday, August 1, 2009

Liberals vs. progressives

I recall seeing a study a few years ago about voting patterns in San Francisco, although I can't remember the author's name. The finding was that Republicans were essentially a negligible political force there -- the main political division was between liberals and progressives. Now, some folks use those words interchangeably, but this particular study differentiated between the two. Liberals were somewhat older and had resided in the city for multiple generations. They did nice things like raise money for the poor and donate to environmental causes. The progressives were younger and considerably further left. They tended to resort to activist politics -- attending rallies and so forth. Liberals drive Priuses while drinking fair trade coffee; progressive ride bikes and key SUVs while doing so.

If this is the proper distinction, then there's some sort of low-grade civil war of the Left occurring in Austin, Texas, where someone in a blue Prius has made a habit of shooting bicyclists with a pellet gun. Says one victim:
I mean, I guess it's nice they're concerned about the welfare of our planet [...] But it would be nice if they could stop shooting people that live on it.

1 comment:

Joe said...

That's just the way they say "hello" in Texas.