>As a liberal of yesterday I am upset (first emotion was disgusted) by the liberals of today. They have moved away from the idea that people are free to believe whatever they want as long as their behavior does not deprive others of their rights - like voting and being able to use public facilities, etc. Now they have become the equivalents of the Palmerites and McCarthyites of days gone by. It's awful to refuse to rent to a Jew, Black, Catholic, Communist, etc because those things have no relevance towards being a good tennent. Of course, it's OK to refuse to rent to Nazis, Skinheads, because we don't want to have anything to do with their ideals. The idea of "Hate Speech" being illegal is, to me, unfathomable and blatantly un-constitutional.
>
>What gets me particularly upset is the rhetoric of both the liberals and conservtives. Both sides impune not only the ideas of the other, but the motivation. To listen to (well, you know who they are), liberals INTEND to march this country down the road to Stalinism and conservatives are closet admirers of Hitler and Mussolini who INTEND to march this country down the road to a theocratic oligarchy.

Maybe I should stress the point I'm not argueing Republicans, Liberals or whatever political colour. My rant is about conservatives against one with a more progressive view. And as I said in another reply. Change will go hand in hand with mistakes. But changing AND making mistakes (and more importantly, learning from them) is the only way for get forward.

So, traditions, laws and social values need to be questioned and evaluated. One of the best remarks came from Charles saying that no-one should impose its religious traditions and values onto another. I totally agree. If we are allowing people to dictate policy based on religion, pragmatic progression goes out of the door.