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David Horowitz has made the following cogent observations about leftist intolerance:

"Since ideologies of the left derive from commitments to an imagined [utopian] future, to question them is to provoke a moral rather than an empirical response: Are you for or against the future equality of human beings? To demur from a commitment to the progressive viewpoint is thus not a failure to assess the relevant data, but an unwillingness to embrace the liberated future. It is to will the imperfections of the present order. In the current political cant of the left, it is to be 'racist, sexist, classist,' a defender of the oppressive status quo.

"That is why not only radicals, but even those who call themselves liberals, are instinctively intolerant towards the conservative opposition. For [leftists], the future is not a maze of human uncertainties and unintended consequences. It is a moral choice. To achieve the socially just future requires only that enough people decide to will it. Consequently, it is perfectly consistent for [leftists] to consider themselves morally and intellectually enlightened, while dismissing their opponents as immoral, ignorant, or (not infrequently) insane."