Posted on 10/18/2005 8:18:22 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi
It is time to take some conservatives to the woodshed.
With a heavy heart, I write the above after visiting Free Republic this morning.
Why?
Simply our discourse is degenerating. I am dismayed at the amount of name-calling taking place in these pages. I am even more dismayed that this name-calling is being conducted by conservatives against conservatives.
I understand the anger and disappointment stemming from the Miers nomination, but also inclusive of the budget deficit, education department, immigration, etc. These are matters that bother me as well.
Unfortunately, the tone on Free Republic bothers me even more. When conservatives call each other names and friendly disagreement over issues degenerates into those proclaiming to be "real conservatives" versus "phony conservatives" we only bow to our lowest common denominator.
Rush Limbaugh calls this the "conservative crackdown". In many ways he is right (as Rush is so often). Conservatives do not want stealth candidates. We worked hard to win and will continue to work hard to increase our majorities and enact our agenda.
We are proud conservatives and we want to proclaim this from the mountain tops!
We also want those who represent us to be proud as well. We do not want apologies. We do not want stealth. We do not need to hide behind "compassionate conservative" labels.
We are the majority and we will remain the majority as long as we continue to educate the public about what conservatism is and why we demand responsibility from both the individual and the gov't.
However, lately, we are calling each other names.
This is liberal-speak. We do not want to stoop to the level of our enemies. We should not use their tactics, either.
Conservatives use logic and reason to support our ideas. We can disagree without being disagreeable.
We are not doing that, folks!
Too many of us are so caught up lately that we forget how to be civil. If you want to call names and use the F-bomb, go to DU. You will find that language replaces truth and fact everywhere.
And that is what names do, isn't it? Names replace truth and fact.
But we are conservatives. Truth and fact are what got us this far and it will be truth and fact that continue our rise to roll back 80 years of liberalism.
Some of us back President Bush and trust his judgement. Some of us do not. That is OK. That is healthy for our movement.
What is unhealthy for our movement is this name-calling.
Let it stop. Let us debate Harriet Miers over facts and truth. Stop pronouncing yourself a "true conservative" and anybody who backs President Bush a "Bush-Bot". That is liberal-speak.
No, it is the tactics to achieve our priorities that are skewed by this name-calling. The rape of the US Constitution will continue if conservatives try to preach rather than teach.
"Bushbots are not just anyone who backs Bush on Miers, but those who back him no matter what he does, who backed him on Federalizing education, on McVain-Vaingold, on the largest entitlement program in 40 years, on his massive ag spending, on AIDS aid for Africa, on his refusal to do anything about the borders, on issue after issue after issue. And they back Miers too, not for substantive reasons (as some do, although I disagree with tehm), but because they "support our President." Sorry, but that's not a good reason.
"
We have a winner folks!
Amen to that, brother.
What power? We have no power, we have no media.
So true and so simple, but apparently so hard for some to grasp.
"this is our first major disagreement,"
It's far from the first and won't be the last.
I don't agree with you at all.
You're assuming that EVERYBODY who comes on the Free Republic threads is a "FReeper". Most of the time, those who come here only to call people names, and are rude and disgusting, are not regular members of FR at all.
Disruptors turn out to be people who only come on these threads to stir up trouble. They've always been here, it's just that the current climate in politics is pretty nasty - and the DU'ers and the MoveOn people come here on a regular basis just to vent their poison.
Before you start labeling FR as the culprit, you should investigate more. During the 2000 election, it was worse than this. There was this group who would come on FR - start a thread complaining about GW - a few friends would join in with the Bush-bashing .. and off we would go. Others who supported Bush would join the thread and go ballistic. Funny thing .. as soon as the FR group went ballistic .. certain posters on the thread didn't post anymore.
I watched this phenom for awhile, and then I began to see a pattern. It was a game. The game was - say something nasty about GW and watch all these FR people go whacky. That was the goal. They were just saying stuff to stir the pot. I began sending private msgs to several of the posters who were defending GW and telling them - don't bite! It's a game. They're just saying that stuff to get people riled up so they can sit back and watch the explosion. Don't give them the satisfaction of replying to their stupid statements. Little by little I began to see this type of action disappear. Now, it's back again.
Don't be dumb and fall for it.
Perfectly stated. This is exactly it. I could never have said it with so few words. Thanks.
Why is it that the folks who support the President's nomination of Miers are called "Republicans" (as opposed to "conservatives"), while those who oppose the nomination are called "conservatives" -- even though much of the opposition to her nomination is coming from people like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol, etc. who are among the most limp-wristed "conservatives" on the national scene?
Believe it or not, it used to be a lot nastier here back around 1999, if I remember correctly. People posted all kinds of despicable rumors about George Bush when he was thinking about running for president.
" I am dismayed at the amount of name-calling taking place in these pages."
You're talking about the Civl War threads, right?
And what did you accomplish with that statement? Wouldn't it be better to detail how conservatives are upset by the President's choice because we wanted a verifiable, unabashedly vocal conservative nominated to the Supreme Court? Wouldn't it be better to explain that we missed an opportunity to debate conservative values in the open with a nomination fight? Can you bring people along to your thinking by saying they agree with "the Annointed One" or by persuasive argument?
And I did not demonize anyone --- I only criticized their methods as lacking any usefulness.
For good or ill, the Republican party has become the "big tent" that the Dems claimed to be for so many years.
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So true, and so kept from exposition or discussion by the establishment media, that it is almost unknown within the Party.
--Excepting Mehlman, Rove, and others working with them.
Silly...the Civil War happened long before Al Gore invented the Internet.
"Stop demonizing anybody who disagrees with the Anointed One's infallible proclamations, and you might get somewhere."
You'd know that better than most on FR, lol. Why, I got Borked, errrr ... Willie Greened just yesterday on a Sue Myrick for NC Governor thread. Yep, CAFTA.
And name-calling will cause conservatives to lose that fight. We need to use our tried-and-true tactics of logic, reason, truth and fact.
In too many ways, conservatives have regressed to the ugliness of the typical demonRAT.
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