"We are NOT vigilantes."
Given the degree to which even today's "conservatives" have accepted leftist concepts, I don't think "long, hard slog" begins to describe it.
For instance, the concept of citizens protecting themselves was turned into a bad thing by the left, and "vigilante" is the catchword they employed. A leftist laughs his butt off when he hears a "conservative" say, "We are not vigilantes," because he knows that means the left has deceived that person into thinking that defending good against the onslaughts of evil is a bad thing.
Look what happened with the Minutemen. They wanted to bring attention to the failure of government to protect our borders, so they began identifying illegal border crossers. Not arresting them, not lynching them, not shooting them, just reporting them. And what happened?
George W. Bush denigrated them as "vigilantes."
Today's media would have used the word "vigilante" to describe the French resistance in WWII. If a resistance to Chavez in Venezuela springs up, our media will call them "vigilantes."
"Vigilate" is a leftist buzzword, plain and simple, and when you accept the leftist notion that it's a bad thing, you've lost.
Point well taken and true. I was just trying to mellow out your "... how we're going to defeat the left without bloodshed" comment on FR.
[Mr] T