An Open Letter To Conservatives... March 23, 2010

Many of you have seen this already, but if not, swing by TPM and read the excellent “An Open Letter To Conservatives” – it’s a well thought out, and impressively well-cited and well-researched blog entry. It also touches on a point that I often see lost – the end result should never be the elimination or destruction of either conservatism or the Republican party, it should be the restoration of a more sensible political balance and more civil, reasoned discourse. I’m going to cheat, and copy/paste my comments from that blog entry below:

Thank you, AmericanDad - not just for the excellent and well thought out letter, and not just citing sources extensively, but for approaching things as level-headedly as possible.

I've spent most of my adult life being called many a nasty name by people who hold opposing political views to mine, and there was a time that I slung invectives right back as well, but really, all this does is create more fuel for the fire.

I don't want to hate conservatives - I'd like the Republican party to be a viable opposition to the Democratic party simply because we need some sort of balance to the system. Absolute power does corrupt, and I can't imagine any party, no matter how well intentioned, not going off the rails without being properly checked.

So Republicans - come back. Be the conservative voice that gives us pause and second thought and keeps us from galumphing joyously into a minefield (because come on guys, we're not infallible here, and even as the most compassionate liberal possible, it's entirely too easy to wreak havoc with the best of intentions). Most of all, stop listening to the pundits who play on your fears.

It's easy to be scared right now with everything that's going on, and everything that has gone wrong - I am right there, right beside you as an American citizen, more uncertain than ever about my future, the future of my family, and the future for us all. But please stop listening to those who capitalize on our very real and justifiable fears for political gain. Turn fox news off. Turn Rush Limbaugh off. Let's actually stop yelling at each other and start talking.

And that goes just as much for my friends on the left, too - After being bashed over the head again and again with scathing and irrational ditto-head-esque propaganda, it's really easy to think that balance is achieved because there's someone on the TV telling us that hey, here's how dumb those Republicans and Tea Party nut jobs are, hyuk hyuk hyuk (I'm especially looking at *you*, Keith Olbermann) - it's the same fuel on the fire, just out of a different gas can.

So seriously - guys, let's not hate. Enough, okay?

I’d like to think that this is where a lot of us are, with minor variations allowing for political orientation and ideology – that most of us wouldn’t mind actually engaging in civil conversations where we at least agree to respect people, even if we can’t agree – but back away in disgust when we see pages of comments that are chock full of “Republitards” and “Democraps”. As an example:

In an acquaintances Facebook, he ranted (justifiably, in my opinion) about the invective being slung around by Tea Party protestors and how tired he was of the oppression of minorities (as he is one), and how absolutely tired of the right wing crap (paraphrasing here) he was – and most importantly, he was tired of the people who believed in lunatic crap being broadcast by extremist pundits. Someone took offense to this, as they didn’t appreciate the inference that they were stupid for having opposing views, and like most discussions around political hot-point items these days, it got really ugly, really fast.

But then something interesting happened. After people cooled down, they apologized, and reigned in their rhetoric. And even if there was ultimately no shared political ground, at least there was a chance to realize how caught up in the moment we all are.

I’d like to think that there’s still room for dialogue like this to grow – but I’m also aware that even at this age, I’m still sometime enthusiastically naïve.