There's a difference between saying "the Left" and "some leftists".

I remind you that all these people in the article have something else in common: they're all in the film industry. If you were to substitute "filmmakers" for "leftists" in the posts in which such generalizations appear, you would see how silly...

Oh, wait... you have.

All right, there's the group "Doctors Without Borders". They're a good control group: they have the advantages of working in an occupation that no one can seriously deride, and also, in the case of this particular group, of exposing themselves to personal risk to treat patients in extreme distress.

Doctors Without Borders can also be defined as leaning Left (by the if-you're-not-for-us-you're-against-us Right) because they chide the US for our paltry contributions toward AIDS treatment worldwide, and for a worrisome trend toward disregard for International Humanitarian Law while pressing the war in Afghanistan. (See MSF Top Ten Under-reported Humanitarian Stories of 2002.)

Take this group and extrapolate. Start by saying, "Doctors Without Borders criticizes the US. They make us look bad, and I don't like it." Then say, "Doctors Without Borders aren't thinking straight when they criticize the US, making us look bad, and I don't like it." Then say, "Doctors Without Borders, who criticize the US, are stupid liars. I don't like it and you shouldn't either." Then say, "The stupid doctors lie about the US, and if you like that, there's something wrong with you." We've gone from a critical observation about the real statements of a distinct group and moved on to moral judgments on entire classes of people.

This happens here a lot.

It's like a game of Whisper Down The Lane. I'm told, when I object, that I don't understand what was said. But I do. I wonder if the speaker understands how far from his original, valid observation he strays.

Regards--
Mary Anne