a glimpse into how the left thinks

I was off at a meeting this past week and most of the folks there were, I'm sure, of the left - leaning persuasion. I was out to dinner one night with some of them and as our group is walking along, I hear a snippet of conversation to the effect of "... so they think that because we haven't had a terrorist attack that that is a good argument". So I sidled up and, against my better judgment asked what they were talking about. I guess the one fellow had been relating the story of being at a dinner where there were some conservatives and the latter had cited the fact that we hadn't had a terrorist attack since 9/11/01 on U.S. soil as being an argument in favor of the success of Pres. Bush's anti-terror policies. He thought that wasn't a good argument. I was kind of incredulous. I was like, well... that is the case isn't it? He admitted it was, but said well we only had one terrorist attack under Pres. Clinton and that was home-grown (Oklahoma City). I said, well what about the Africa embassy bombings? what about the attack on the Kohl? I guess he didn't want to count those. Then he said something to the effect that well, San Francisco hasn't had a super earthquake since 1906 so we shouldn't be worried about another 9/11, like 9/11 was just some freak occurence. Hoo boy.

We dropped it for awhile but got back into it later talking about why conservatives don't like John McCain. He seemed to think that a big reason was because John McCain didn't support the constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. I certainly can't speak for everybody, but that seems to be a really peripheral complaint to me. As the conversation progressed he suggested that all conservatives were basically homophobes because of being against gay marriage. This is the type of stereotype that Rush Limbaugh always talks about and here it was on full display. I tried to explain that one could be against gay marriage and not be a homophobe, but I don't know if I got through.