As the aphorism goes, “if you aren’t a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you aren’t a conservative at 40, you have no brain.” She seems to have neither heart nor brain.

Strangely, I did not find a single reference in her essay that suggested that Republicans hate anybody, only that they have a different view, yet at the end of her essay she says, “So now we hate them back.” Hmm… who are the haters, again? And what’s this “we?” Is she speaking for others whom she does not name? Since she is so hateful, where is her heart?

Does her irrational hatred of Republicans make her a bad person? No, as Jake pointed out. It does, however, mean that she is misguided (as are the progressives currently protesting against the police — the law abiding ask for more police protection, but the law breakers demand less).

Republicans tend to be conservative, meaning that they would rather teach a man to fish than to give him one (from the proverb, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”). But I can see how this could be seen as being mean, as it makes the lazy man work (adding to the prosperity of everyone) and prevents the downtrodden man from resting in the safety hammock of the government dole and, therefore, learning laziness and voting Democrat. She must think that it is truly mean to want people to be responsible for their own lives rather than have the government (and the intelligentsia, like her) be in control.

I spent some time imprisoned in a liberal university, and the liberals often patted themselves on the back for being “intolerant only of intolerance.” They, too, failed to recognize that to them “intolerance” meant anyone who didn’t agree with them.

From the article: “[Republicans] usually have psychological traits such as ‘dogmatism, rigidity and intolerance of ambiguity,’”

Except that it is the Democrats who shun anyone who does not toe the party line. Thus, if you want to keep your Democrat friends, you have to keep them believing that you agree with them on virtually every topic (e.g. you are allowed to disagree on the weather but not on climate change).

From her essay: “I miss the Fred Lippitts of yore and the civilized discourse and political accomplishments they made possible.”

She chose a social progressive as her Republicans to miss, someone who would disagree with her the least and help her to ‘fundamentally transform’ America. Also, it is strange that anyone who is conservative on economic issues is willing to be progressive on social issues, considering that these very same social issues drive up the cost of government, thus making society more and more economically progressive. You can’t be both; otherwise you are hypocritical about being economically conservative.

From her essay, “[I] think it’s terrible we’ve come to this pass of such extreme mutual animus,”

And thus she projects her own feelings and attitudes onto others – others whom she hates so violently that she does not bother to get to know them nor to read their papers with an open mind, as she bigotedly decided that these papers are worthy of her hatred.

Her attitude is one that I have observed for a third of a century. Many have been just as blatant, vociferous, and hypocritical about it. In today’s fundamentally transformed America, professors are finding it easier and easier to be just as blatant about being biased against their students.

Got the order backwards, but you know what I mean.

That’s pretty close to the typical views of teenagers and their parents, respectively.