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Compsci's avatar

Bo, there you go again—as the most famous of modern conservative pol’s, RR, liked to say of his opponents. It is precisely your recommendations that must *not* be followed if we are to win this battle for America and our Founders’ ideals. In that, your missive today was quite instructive—if we simply learn to do the opposite.

Your ideas of virtue are precisely what our Leftist enemies use against us everyday. This is the reason the Republicans have been “glorious losers” since I was a young boy. For example, you decry the false claim that Illegals (Yes Bo, that’s what they are. Illegal aliens who have crossed our borders under false pretenses! But you cannot even bear to use the correct terminology to describe them!) are eating dogs and cats. However, whenever a violent shooting spree takes place, all gun owners are pilloried by the Left and described as impotent hillbillies clinging to their guns and Bible. Of course, what immediately follows is a too often a successful appeal that even more restrictive gun regulation be enacted for the good of the nation. That is the famous ratcheting process the Left uses to great effect.

The above is only one typical example of emotional appeal of the Left to the crisis de jour—there are dozens—and illustrates how the Left has been so effective in the past. Is the appeal to the revulsion of gun violence any more “outlandish” than an appeal to the emotion of IA’s eating dogs and cats? Any more immoral, unethical, unvirtuous, even untrue…?

This is a war, nothing less, in which our very existence as a “virtuous” people *is* at stake—and we are losing. There is one solution and that stems from the unfortunate consequence of war, any war that has ever taken place—that is to win! Our enemies set the “terms of engagement”, not us. You leave your virtues at the door when you enter the arena, you fight with everything you have, and then some, because to lose is to cease to exist as a decent human being—and if not yourself, then certainly your children and their children.

After the enemy is defeated, you can exit and pick up those discarded virtues and use them once again among those who will cherish them as you have shown yourself. That is the path to victory, your path is one of defeat.

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John's avatar

The lack of civility on the right has been on my mind recently. It's good to see this article pop up. It's an excellent reminder for people to remain civil and polite.

I notice some of the commenters on this article mistakenly believe that the Right has been losing due to not being aggressive or 'mean' enough like the left has. This is not the case. The left has been winning because it attracts intelligent and highly educated people. Theses same people matriculate into top positions at major institutions where they push leftist ideas on the people coming up behind them. Eventually these ideas become dominant and everyone thinks that in order to be high status they need to signal a leftwing perspective. It's mostly the bottom dwelling people on the left who are mean and snide on the Internet. Can you imagine Merrick Garland or William Galston shit-posting on X? I really doubt it.

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