Video: The obligatory “Carrie Prejean melts down on Larry King” clip

Folks, the key here, the thing I’m fighting for here, is that right now when the left decides they are going to mau-mau someone, we get behind that person, to be sure–Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, the early Ms. Prejean–and fully support them as they go out to be our single-combat champion, until they get defeated in battle, at which point we do a risk-benefit analysis and abandon that person, and we really need to stop that.

We can decide that a person won’t be a standard bearer, shouldn’t be a standard-bearer, while still deciding to unleash holy hell upon those who broke the rules of society in an “all’s fair in love and war” manner designed to excommunicate conservatives. So Mr. King is dead to me–not that it matters to him or anyone who likes him–but it is going to take a series of counterblows restoring a sense of proportionality in society before this gets better. Likewise, I don’t watch the NFL anymore, not because I’m overly worked up about Mr. Limbaugh not getting to own a team, but because I feel it could be me tomorrow. I know my view is something of a minority, but that is the way we are going to keep our head above water–by always turning into the attack if the attack is unwarranted. The attacks on Ms. Prejean were unwarranted–or at least went too far–and so I stand by her side. Period. Not out of admiration, but out of a sense of “there go I next.”

Next:

Honestly, if the proponents of gay marriage feel that “by any means necessary” is the appropriate way to advance their cause, then they just need to go ahead and resort to violence, because it is the next logical stop.

How about, instead you, those who favor a change in the status quo, have enough respect for your fellow citizens to start and explain an examination of what society is, the relationship of citizen to government and government to citizen, the role of the state in supporting social norms for the health of the commonweal, and the implications of natural law. You might actually get somewhere with that approach (and you might not–no promises)–but at least you will be advancing something, whether it be your cause or the cause of rational discussion or the cause of public knowledge of applied political science.

Or you can just continue to do what you do now, which is nothing but emote and vilify. Well, I’m sure you feel that you are in the right, which is why I once again challenge you, if you feel that you are in the right, to just go ahead and finish the job of annihilation you seem intent upon, out of that spirit of divine righteousness which you possess. Stop screwing around and start actually killing your enemies. After all, they are evil and immoral, are they not? What is holding you back? All’s fair in love and war, right, and this would not seem to be love, so the logical conclusion is it’s war. And in war, you kill. So why aren’t you killing?

However, if you choose to do that it would be well to remember that your enemies get the right to kill you back. So, since you actually have a case that you might win if you would but actually develop it in the public forum (of course, you might not win. Them’s the breaks, and there are very few issues that rise to the level of “these are the times that try men’s souls.” With the ability to have civil unions, this is not one of them). Anyway, as I was saying, how about instead you render unto order what art order’s, and society what art society’s, and liberty what art liberty’s (for those who disagree with you have the right to have freedom of their conscience just as you have freedom to yours) and play by decent rules of the game? So that you then get the self-same protections, which you have no right to assume will be unilaterally yours alone.

Yes, you feel oppressed and put upon in an unrighteous way, with a history of even greater oppressions. I get that. But you would do well to remember that we are in the process of growing as a society of self-governing individuals, the process is not complete, may never be complete to our individual satisfaction, and that Rome was not built in a day, but it was burnt in one. How about you start expanding your view into an argument fit for the ages, instead of the fits of pique we have instead? Maybe I’ll vote for you, maybe I won’t, but what I won’t do is sit still much longer why you unilaterally decide who gets to be in society and who doesn’t, just because you think you have a sword of righteousness in your hand and think the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored needs to be trampled down. Like I said, I don’t see that level of moral urgency. Convince me otherwise.

But the key word is convince, not convict. You have power now. Liberals own the schools, and the colleges, and the media, and the culture-making devices–and not all fairly won, either; and certainly not wisely or fairly used. So you might want to realize that there is no universal law saying the oppressed of yesterday can not be the oppressors of tomorrow. Neither is right, and as Lincoln said, as I would not be a slave, neither would I be a master. You, on the other hand, apparently would.

Once again, as I said, you have two choices. Take arms against a sea of troubles, or play by the rules. Your choice, but having the best of both worlds is going to end soon, I would hazard.

Horatius on November 12, 2009 at 9:28 PM