Jeff Hunter said on 20 Mar 2010 at 8:25 am: “They’ll still get the blame, but will not have the credibility to explain it’s so-called benefits to their constituents.”

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that politicians ABSOLUTELY RELY on the VERY SHORT memory of the American voter !!!

It’s what helps them blame the OTHER guy whenever election time rolls around !!!

If politicians were held ACCOUNTABLE (come election time) by voters, VERY FEW of them would ever be re-elected !!!

“I haven’t been thrown off, and I’m not afraid to air my often conservative opinions there or anywhere else, Chicko. I go head-to-head quite often, and I hardly think I’m a “toy” being “catered to”. These blogs wouldn’t have lasted as long as they have if everyone sang in the same key.

Same here, and while I post under another name over there, I have a conservative viewpoint and don’t think I’m being kept around as a “toy” either. And I’ve had violent disagreements with them over there, especially in terms of the name calling, which would be nice if it would stop on both sides.

It’s also a good point, if everyone agreed on a blog it would be a very boring blog and not worth reading.

And I will agree with you that there were “sinners” in this regard on both sites. Of late, however, my monitoring of this blog and my willingness to interact with the other site had demonstrated to me that the worst of this seemed to be receding on both sides. I counted this as a very productive development, especially at a time when the national debate on so many issues was reaching a state of white heat. Then, along came this sudden spate of denigrations on this site, happening at just the moment when we most had to fight off attempts by an often biased MSM to label the Tea Party and conservatives in general as “fringe.” When you get right down to it, it is not the Moonhowlings that are the real issue here. It is the MSM that poses the bigger threat when it involves defining us before the general public. I personally do not want to give Olbermann , Maddow, and their ilk the ammo to use in that effort. In my view and experience, the Tea Party movement is something now embedded deeply in the thinking of many Americans who have been put off by the current direction of government. These are Americans who love their country, their Constitution, and their freedom. Most of them are not “fringe” but they are not helped when some give that ammunition to the opposition and help the MSM to define all of us as “fringe.”

My entire working life was spent on the front lines of the battle for our Constitution, our freedom, and our way of life.This was both in military uniform and in the mufti of a clandestine warrior. It mattered not to me what the varied political opinions were of the people I was defending. My sworn duty was to defend them all because they were my fellow Americans. Age, some deterioration of health, and battle fatigue finally caused me to leave those ramparts for the last time. And what did I find when I got off the ramparts? The people I had defended were engaged in an internal political brawl with the nasty overtones of trouble in the prison exercise yard. That I do not like. I cannot speak for those whose political views are different than my own. But I do want my side to be able to fight a tough, professional, smart, and honorable battle without wallowing in the mud of that prison exercise yard. I worked for Ronald Reagan. I admired that man because he knew how to fight that kind of battle. He would have expected the same of us.

Let me close with one additional comment. Corey Stewart. He was blasted on the other site for the unkind remarks he made about the Coffee Party in PWC. I know full well that Stewart is generally a favorite on this site and I know the reasons why. But I will tell you that I cringed when I saw his remarks. I asked myself how a guy in such a key leadership role could ever decide to expend precious reputation and stature by labelling as “fruitcakes” or whatever a small group of 30 people or so meeting in a coffee shop in PWC. It was not like PWC was being invaded by a foreign army or something. These people were his own constituents engaged in exercising their First Amendment rights. He decided to say things which had zero potential for profit and a big potential for hurting his own cause. The boomerang came right back at him. Of all people, he should have known such a result would be forthcoming. He is not an inexperienced warrior. He knows the configuration of the current battlefield. I expected him to be smarter than that.

so that blog was despicable and if any vile comments are thrown their way they most certainly deserve them, not for their views on politics but for the fact that they are simply horrible people and their blog was the poster child for a socialist state.

Exactly, the liberal media already seeks out the fringe elements of the Tea Party and distorts them as being representative of the Tea Party as a whole. Why give them any more ammunition? You can see many people buy right into what the press feeds them in that regard. You can see it even in reading threads on the other blog. So Wolverine makes an excellent point there. There’s no need to give them more ammunition to label the Tea Party as a crazed angry mob - and some of the nasty stuff that gets written can easily be used by anyone who’d want to - to help make that case. I truly believe there’s just some fringe members of the Tea Party who are giving it a bad name - so it would be good to keep it that way. Of course, the press has already done a wonderful job of painting the Tea Party as totally being out on the fringe and just being an angry mob. Anyway, Wolverine’s point about not giving them any extra ammunition is a good one.

I’ve argued it often on the other board too. Both boards could learn a lesson from this and stop with the personal attacks and silly name calling. In my view, both boards are equally guilty of it, and as neither one will back down in the personal attacks and name calling, it just continues. In each case, it makes one take less seriously the real issues they want to debate. It’s hard to take someone seriously who engages in personal attacks and name calling, and then think they have anything serious to say about a real important issue, of which there are many, to debate.

Some of us know it very well - some of us who have friends of their parents that were directly affected by the events of the holocaust.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/state_regional_govtpolitics/article/HEALGAT19_20100319-163601/331559/

http://grovetonsvirginia.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/if-you-dont-tie-our-hands/

He sure likes to sound like he considers things–I think it is more, “heads I vote for the bill or tails I vote for the bill. It must be right because that is what my party leadership tells me is right.”

Like Wolverine so eloquently said, “I am finding out that it actually rebounds to the profit of those who are determined to label conseratives and those in the Tea Party as part of the crazy fringe. You know you are not part of that fringe. Why hand such ammunition to the opposition? You just make their day.”

Like I said, “Honest feedback… use it as you will.”

“And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.

Sons of Liberty, this is your time.

Break their windows.

Break them NOW.”

It immediately brought to mind another “night of broken glass” (Kristallnacht) in European History (especially to your older readers and their Children who remember WW II and the holocaust).

Like Wolverine said, “In fact, I am finding out that it actually rebounds to the profit of those who are determined to label conservatives and those in the Tea Party as part of the crazy fringe. You know you are not part of that fringe. Why hand such ammunition to the opposition? You just make their day.”

Honest feedback… use it as you will.

It would be valuable to the community to have two civil but different perspectives on the issues. Right now, as Wolverine correctly points out, the differences that show up the most dramatically are not the ones that will really help your cause… particularly next year.

But I did elect to go over to the other site in order to interact with the people there. Yes, there are liberals. Yes, they are believers in their causes. And, yes, they will argue their points without blushing or backing down. But I found that there are, indeed, some moderate views as well —even, in my opinion, a conservative take on some issues from time to time which surprised me very much given the history of warfare between these two blogs.

Let me tell you something else that surprised me: very little mention since I’ve been participating over there of the BVBL and not all that much really in the way of gratuitous slams. I’ve had some good, solid interaction over there; and rarely, if ever, are my contrary opinions run over by the blog bus. They don’t love you guys, that’s for sure. But there is not a heck of a lot of slamming going on these days. Opinions, yes, Strong opinions, yes. Opinions aimed at politicians local, state, and national, yes. Opinions aimed at conservative commentators and at Fox News, yes. Now, which one of you “conservatives” are going to fault a fellow American for using his/her First Amendment rights to express their political opinions? And what gives with all these personal comments about the people involved on the other site? Any conservative worth his salt ought to be an absolutely ultimate supporter of the First Amendment both in its official meaning and in the meaning which has long since been transferred to our conduct of politics. What does it say about the skill-confidence of a conservative if he/she cannot engage in debate with the other side without making it personal?

I’ve watched you guys for a long time. You do research. You argue the issues strongly as you see them. I am not your enemy. So why diminish your arguments by suddenly jumping all over the opposition with comments which have no relevance to those arguments? So they posted threads over there taking the Cooch and Corey Stewart to task. How many times have you done the same with regard to Connolly or Principi or Obama or other denizens of the opposition? That’s your right. It is also their right. You get your say. They get theirs. In the end, it all gets sorted out at the polling places. I think that the Founding Fathers intended it that way when they wrote the Constitution and added the Bill of Rights.

On most of the issues of the day, I am on your side up and down the line. But it sure doesn’t make us look good when we go into a personal attack mode. In fact, I am finding out that it actually rebounds to the profit of those who are determined to label conseratives and those in the Tea Party as part of the crazy fringe. You know you are not part of that fringe. Why hand such ammunition to the opposition? You just make their day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gIxuOabGBE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAwAY0LH9hg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9qDRZ6pSRE&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn0aj1NlvYI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co6wBUWKbOU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmUJY5EugcM&feature=related

The government is supposed to work for us not we work as slaves to the government. Okay you patriots…let your voices be heard! In the words of the greatest president in recent times, President Reagan, “let’s get government off our backs.”