One of the ladies on my blogroll, Eden, has an excellent article about how hard it is to pigeonhole those of us who are atheist libertarians. Her conclusion sums me up in penultimate paragraph and then goes on to correctly nail the "liberals" in the final one. I agree with practically the entire article but the last two paras are the best.
I am increasingly disenfranchised from the mainstream in my country. I hate top 40 radio, watch very little network television, don't read many bestselling authors, and can't recognize the people considered celebrities. I've never seen a NASCAR race and most country music makes my ears bleed. It's easy to be patronizing of the people who are pleased by such simple things. It's harder to realize that they're the majority and you are not.
It's not really a surprise when someone from the Bible Belt displays intolerance. That's unfortunate, but you liberals: what's your excuse? You rant about the small-mindedness of the religious right, but most of what I've seen from your side in the past few days has been despicable. You don't own the United States. You are not the majority in this country. Neither are people with my beliefs. Bitching about it like petulant teenagers who think everyone else is stupid is a ridiculous way to behave.
I have personally witnessed more visible toleration for others with divergent lifestyles/views in "red state" places such as Utah or Kentucky than in the liberal heartlands of San Franciso/Berkeley or Bahston. The problem with the atheit liberals in particular is that they seem to fail to recognise that in many cases liberalism has become their religion. They therefore demonstrate all the intolerance of a fundamentalist religion without apparently seeing the irony in that position.
PS A happy Guy Fawkes day to all - enjoy the fireworks in Fallujah and I was surprised to see that the Palestinians still maintain the tradition of a penny for the guy