I’m rubber, you’re glue

I’ve been debating conservative politics online for over 25 years now, and over the years, I’ve noticed two things.

1. Things started to get personal sometime around the ramp-up to the second Gulf War. Where I could once argue with a progressive about matters of policy and maintain respect for each other, after the Iraq War, it was automatically assumed by the left that I was in the thrall of Big Oil or some other conspiracy. There could be no rational argument against progressivism, because progressivism was the One True Faith and their god was a jealous god indeed.

2. There was a simply staggering amount of projection when the topic came to civilian disarmament. “You gun nuts only want assault rifles because you want to shoot people!’ was a typical argument I heard, never mind that “assault rifles” are one of the least-common methods of violence in the United States. What I noticed, though, was the same people who thought that owning a gun made someone mentally unhinged were themselves barely keeping it together. Of COURSE they thought that’s how people who own guns would act, it’s how they themselves acted, and they just couldn’t imagine that other people might have a better handle on their emotions.

I mention this because a new survey has come out which shows that a large chunk of American society says they are willing to use force to further their political goals. The usual suspects in media and academia are all a-twitter over the fact that some Republicans are willing to use violence to prevent another miscarriage of justice like the 2020 election, but if you break down the cross tabs of survey, you’ll find that it’s Democrats are far more likely to say they’d use violence to further their politics.

As my friend Larry Corriea said, progressives think violence is a dial that can be turned up or down as needed, while with conservatives, it’s a light switch with two settings: Just Let It Go or Kill F****** Everyone.

Theodore Roosevelt once said that America was founded on three boxes; the soapbox, the ballot box and the cartridge box. The rampant censorship done by the Biden administration (and others) and the shenanigans of the 202o election have taken away two of those boxes.

Let us pray we can resolve this without having to use the third.