Research somewhat ironically first reported by the Guardian has confirmed what we all already knew: the left are smug, self-righteous bigots who live in a sealed echo chamber. As the Good Oil reported, left-wing activists are almost completely dissociated from the reality of public opinion and, at the same time, they are absolutely convinced that they’re right and it’s everyone else who’s wrong.
This should surprise no one: previous research has found that left-wingers, especially women, are the overwhelmingly most intolerant group on social media. Right-leaning people tend to overwhelmingly be more tolerant of dissenting points of view: lefties are twice as likely to block, unfollow and unfriend people who disagreed with them. “Those who self-identified as politically liberal were even less tolerant of opinions that strayed from their preconceived notions,” the survey found.
At the same time, they are quick to brand different opinions as ‘disinformation’, while being more often simply wrong.
Progressive activists on average believe that 35 per cent of the British public want to abolish the monarchy, when in reality this is just 18 per cent.
And this group also believes that a quarter of people would agree with letting more refugees into the country, when the actual figure is 8 per cent […]
In focus groups, researchers found that progressive activists were more likely than other voters to believe their opponents had been misled by misinformation and to hold a negative view about them.
A court case in New Zealand shows that this sort of bigoted worldview is not exclusive to British lefties and social media loudmouths. A father in New Zealand demanded the right to ‘prole down’ his own daughter and make her schooling fit his lefty ideological preferences.
A father has unsuccessfully attempted to block his daughter from attending one of the most prestigious private girls’ schools in the country, a move her mother says would have been spurning a “golden ticket”.
Why on earth would any parent try to deny their child the best possible education they (or their ex-wife) could afford? A laundry list of leftist prejudices, that’s why.
Her father [objected] that it was “elitist” and mainly attended by children from privileged backgrounds. He instead wanted her to attend a state school.
The man, who was given the pseudonym David Russell* by the court, then appealed the ruling and emphasised his concern that the school was a religious institution and he didn’t want any of his children brought up in a religious environment […] though [ex-wife] York submitted its chapel services were only once a term and it had no religious education.
This is what he wants to deny his daughter, apparently on purely left-wing ideological grounds:
St Cuthbert’s is the top girl’s school in the country, according to the New Zealand Herald’s analysis of schools ranked by university entrance. According to that data, 94.1% of students gained university entrance, which is generally considered the best measure of educational attainment.
By contrast, just over half of students at the state school where Russell wanted his daughter to attend obtained university entrance […]
His ex-wife Jane York* told the court that attending St Cuthbert’s was “like a golden ticket” for her daughter with smaller class sizes, better facilities and outstanding academic results.
Russell views St Cuthbert’s as an elitist school, which is attended mainly by children from privileged backgrounds. He was concerned the school is separated from and is not representative of the general make-up of New Zealand society and has values that do not accord with his own.
It sounds more like someone has an inferiority complex.
Last year a Family Court judge ordered that the girl attend St Cuthbert’s and that York would be solely responsible to pay for her fees.
That judge said it was clear Russell equated St Cuthbert’s with the disparity in wealth in New Zealand society and said his opposition appeared to be premised on a concern about where he fitted within societal norms, and how her attendance could affect him.
Which is all kind of ironic, considering just how many of the most vociferous lefties are the beneficiaries of exclusive private educations.
