An Open Letter to my Fellow Conservatives

Below is a letter I recently submitted to our local newspapers. I had trouble limiting myself to just 400 words, but I hope it gets my point across. We can disagree, even vehemently, but we cannot let those disagreements tear us apart. Both our current political climate and our national news media – from established television networks and newspapers to talk radio and the blogosphere – thrive on manufactured outrage, keeping us all worked up about whatever “they” have done that “we” must fight back against. The details and even the truth are irrelevant, as long as the advertising revenue and the campaign donations keep coming. We have serious problems which require serious thought and action, and instead we have an increasingly polarized and heated climate that can only lead to violence and the disintegration of our political society. We have to think about what we’re saying when we argue and what message we’re really sending. We have to stand up not just to our opponents, but especially to our friends, and say, “This isn’t right. This has to stop.” This is my attempt to say that. I hope you’ll stand with me.

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY FELLOW CONSERVATIVES
I’m frustrated, too. Both major parties are to blame for the fiscal mess in Washington, but I’m particularly disappointed that the Republican Party – which I’ve supported my entire adult life as the party of limited government, fiscal discipline and local control – oversaw much of the past decade’s debt explosion. I understand why many of you have been so disgusted that you’ve turned to the Tea Party “movement.” I don’t always agree with their arguments or their actions, but that’s how democratic society works: concerned citizens engage each other on issues that matter, even when they disagree.

However, I cannot sit quietly by as our local Tea Party, like far too many other “conservative” groups and individuals, goes beyond political debate to inciting violence and advocating treason. The group’s booth at this year’s Boone County Fair proudly displayed and offered for sale t-shirts that proclaim “Got Ammo!” Such a threat – and it is clearly a threat – has no place in political debate, nor in civilized society. Tea Party supporters tell me they expect a civil war if the federal government does not return to what they consider “constitutional” principles, and they want to be ready. Advocating this position is advocating treason. It threatens violence to those who disagree and endorses armed resistance to government. Another big seller encourages violence by stating “Our forefathers would be shooting by now.” Tea Partiers claim to advocate “Liberty, not Tyranny;” the only forefathers who might call our government today “tyranny” are the fathers of the Confederacy, who claimed to fight for liberty while committing treason to protect slavery. The patriots of the Boston Tea Party petitioned their government and carried out peaceful protest, only resorting to violence when, in response to that protest, the Crown took away their rights to self-government by closing their courts and outlawing their democratic assemblies. Our forefathers took up arms to defend those rights, rights we enjoy today to an extent none of them could even have imagined.

Losing an election is not tyranny; it’s democracy. Compromise is not treason; it’s governance. Living in a diverse society with people whose views differ so dramatically is difficult. Freedom requires behaving responsibly, and remembering that our words have consequences. Violent and threatening rhetoric has no place in our political discourse. I want no part of it, nor of any group which condones it. We’re better than this.