But why should saying that be a double standard? Or conversely, why should it indicate your liberal friend is a hypocritical bigot?

The term “hard-hat” has always been used, on both sides of the political aisle, to denote a blue collar individual who favored Nixon and America’s participation in Vietnam, and who was critical of the politics and ideas of the Liberal Left (particularly as expressed by long-haired hippie college kids in the 1960s.) It was never used to attack working class people just because they were working class. But the Right has always accused the Left of their own crimes and shortcomings as a distraction. Similarly, “white trash” was what aristocratic and prosperous Southerners called their proletarian brothers. The Left did not invent that term either.

Of course, a lot of longhairs worked construction jobs in those days, I certainly did, and a lot of hardhats worked in offices, so the terminology was meant to be useful, not realistic. As for rednecks, they didn’t necessarily work on the farm. After all, in those days, as today, most farm workers were “wetbacks”.

No, blue collar workers should not be looked down upon, they should be disparaged only when they are “straights”. By the way, THAT term in those days meant anyone who wasn’t a freak. It had nothing to do with sexual orientation. A “freak” is what the hippies and longhairs called themselves.

I can see what you’re trying to do, Rob; to catch the local Lib using racist or demeaning terms so you can prove he’s really a hypocritical bigot. It ain’t gonna work. Its the old dictionary dodge, the kind TB was always trying to pull off.