I couldn't have been more wrong. I was shocked at the anger and vitriole shot at me.
After writing my first political column on one website, I was called a Nazi and an idiot. I was shocked when it happened. I knew it was a liberal website started by journalism students from the Detroit area, but I didn't expect to be attacked like that.
I almost quit after this shocking introduction into the political writing world. But, since I knew no other websites that allowed me to write whatever I wanted, and because I wasn't a quitter, I continued to write for this website. In all the four years I wrote for it, I never once received a glowing comment about any political column I wrote.
Occasionally someone would write, "nice column," but that was mostly an attempt to make me feel at home because they knew I wasn't one of them. I wasn't a liberal.
"Everybody disagrees with you," the lady who called me a Nazi wrote, "There is no one that I have ever met who thinks the way you do. You are dead wrong in your thinking."
What do you mean nobody agrees with me? I wanted to ask. There are many people I work with who agree with me? There are people on the radio and TV and in Washington who agree with me. So why would you say such a foolish thing? Why can't you just disagree with what I write, and not attack me on a personal basis?"
"I talked to my friends about what you wrote, and they all think you are a loon," she later wrote.
So now I'm a loon, a Nazi and an idiot.
I was upset at that point. And I almost quit because of it. But I didn't. I wrote for four more years until I started this blog.
I understood those writers. I knew they were from Detroit, a mostly liberal city. I figured all they did was hang out with liberals, who obviously would agree among themselves about everything that was brought up. Anything conservative wasn't even considered logical, it wasn't even thought about.
That's why it was so easy for them to attack me personally, because it was obvious anyone who didn't agree with them was simply an idiot. There was no point in discussing such illogical viewpoints. And that also explains why Bush is an idiot to them, and every other conservative as well.
However, I knew there were many people who agreed with me, I see them all the time at work.
Not only that, but 80% of the counties in the United States voted against Gore in the most recent election at that time. Many of them, I figured, would have agreed with me too.
So, why would she say that nobody agrees with me? Such a general statement, to me, sounded foolish. But I never said anything. I wanted the discussion to be over.
And yet, while I knew so many people agreed with me, seldom did anyone ever come to my side in any of the debates I had with people on this site. I was always the bad guy. And while I didn't necessarily like it, it made me stonger as I learned how to deal with it.
Basically, while I understood liberals, these guys had no clue about conservatives. They treated me like I was an outsider. While I had empathy for them and stuck to the debating rules by criticizing their words and not them, they had no such empathy for me, and did not follow the rules.
I realized from then on that the writers on that website were not alone in their hate for conservatives. Not only that, but they are angry. They are angry that conservatives now had a voice on Fox, radio, and the Internet. We are all idiotic morons and must be destroyed.
Since they were sheltered, and still are sheltered, from conservatives, they have no clue about what kind of people conservatives really are. They don't see us as kind loving people who want the best for our families and the best for America, they see us as selfish, ignorant pigs pent on destroying the pen.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Hollywood. Whenever someone is proclaimed as the Conservative in movies or on TV, he's always a raunchy guy, womanizer, crook, mean person who takes from the rich and gives from the poor. He drives gas guzzling boats, lives in a mansion, and has no respect for women. I wasn't shocked when I learned that William Shattner's character on Boston Legal was conservative.
I quit writing for this website for a few months about a year ago and found a writing critique website. I met people there and we critiqued each other's work. It was fun, and I was loving it because people were nice to me and treated me like I belonged, not like that other website I used to write for.
That is, until one day I responded to a political thread on this site with my honest opinion instead of simply agreeing with what was said just to be nice. Everyone came down on me like I was Satan pent on destroying the world. And all I said was I believed the Palestinians didn't want peace.
I understood why they might disagree with me, but they ganged up on my like gangsters. I felt like I was never going to get a fair critique after that, so I left the website never to return.
I was tired of writing fiction anyway, and this made it easier to quit, but still they didn't have to attack me like that. All I wanted was a good debate.
I felt as though no matter where I went to post my political views, something I love to do, I was attacked like I was the only one with non-liberal views in the world. Basically, I was an idiot because I was not a liberal.
I had all these ideas about liberals in my head, but never heard it expressed by anyone else until I started reading a book recently called, "Crazies to the Left of Me and Wimps to the Right of Me," by Bernard Goldberg.
In his book, he described what I experienced:
Conservatives, I think, understand liberals, mainly because we see their influence everywhere in the culture. They're the ones who make our TV shows and our movies, and who run the music industry. They run our network news divisions and our biggest, most important newspapers. They're the ones who put out our news magazines and our women's magazines. They teach our kids and run our colleges. They're even the comedians on TV... except for talk radio, liberals pretty much control the culture... so much as we want to, we just can't avoid them. Liberals, on the other hand, lead more sheltered lives. If they stay away from just one or two places on the radio or TV dial, they can pretty much escape conservatism in culture. Which explains why they really don't understand conservatives."It's something that makes a lot of sense to me, especially after being called a Nazi.
He added that in the big city, you have a greater chance of running into "a redhead from Helsinki than a conservative, which would explain why my liberal pals can't figure me out."
That about says it all, until he added, "Conservatives, like everybody else, have their shortcomings, but we're nothing like the evil simplestons that liberals make us out to be."
While I know that not all liberals are so full of anger, I have found few on the Internet who will participate in an intelligent discussion with me. They tolerate me, and that's about it. I find it best if I simply stay away from them altogether.
Which is what triggered me to start this blog. I'm hiding out at Freadom Nation, and if they find me they can debate me they can do so as gentlemen.
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