Don Surber notes the problem with being civil to liberals:
For a decade, from the election of Bush 43 forward, the Left has lied and cheated as it tried to return to power. Al Gore made a mockery out of the American electoral system by being a spoilsport over Florida, which Bush indeed won by 537 votes. Dan Rather forged a document to try to derail Bush’s re-election. Twice Democrats stole U.S. (senate seats) from the Republicans. After voting to support the war to get by the 2002 election, many Democrats quickly soured on the war. The profane protests were cheered by liberals who mis-attributed “dissent is the highest form of patriotism”to Thomas Jefferson; the words belong to the late historian Howard Zinn.
Once in power, liberals were the opposite of gracious.
For two years now, I have been called ignorant, racist, angry and violent by the left. The very foul-mouthed protesters of Bush dare to now label my words as “hate speech.”…
All of us, even minor, little bloggers like me, have felt this – liberals calling us every name in the book and blaming us for all ills. Heck, guys, I’ve had liberals try to find a picture of my house so they can post it on the web – and the doubly bad thing about that is they found a different Mark Noonan’s house and posted it! (Seems there are a lot of Mark Noonans out there – apparently, I come in six packs…joking aside, one should be careful as to which Mark Noonan has been found; it may not be me, so have a care in your stalking, liberals). Matt was once roughed up by union thugs, a liberal radio host once opined that I should be beaten up. On and on it goes, day after day without a let up – just pure evil being directed against all conservatives. After all this, we’re supposed to be civil?
Well, truth be told, yes, we are – that is, those of us who are Jewish or Christian are required by our religious beliefs to turn the other cheek and be patient…and the worse the other side gets, the nicer we’re supposed to be. Its not fair – but the point is not just to provide an example to these foaming-at-the-mouth liberals, but also to protect our own souls. If we went off giving tit for tat with the left, we’d be putting ourselves at eternal risk.
But it is difficult. It is hard for me to work up sympathy for liberals when they say untrue things about me, or about conservatism in general. The American Catholic has a video up of liberal twitter posts in the aftermath of the Arizona shooting – it is not safe for family viewing; though if you’ve a mind to really see what liberals think about conservatives, it is invaluable. We are to mortify even the least desire to pay them out in their own coin…but in day to day terms, no one should look for any particular conservative to spend a lot of effort trying to be nice to liberals.
If we do wish to have a civil debate, then it will have to be liberals first stopping their nastiness, and then apologizing for what they have done. No matter how many times we conservatives bury the hatchet and try to make nice, it won’t work because the liberals will just call us nasty names, again, the next day. I’m going to try and do my part – in fact, I already do my part. Time and time again I re-draft my posts to try and soften the blow. I can’t lie – which would be the only way to make liberalism out as something worthwhile – but I probably re-write passages and sentences several times a week for the sake of civility. I’ve yet to see any such efforts on the part of liberals – and I doubt much I ever will. The conflict is too fundamental for that, and the side which is advocating for wrong things won’t be able to pretty themselves up for the battle.
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