Ask: Can't We All Get Along? Answer: NO!

"There has been a great effort this week to come to grips with the American left's reaction to the Tucson shooting." - Daniel Henninger

You can say that again.

Doug and I were stunned to discover that an assassination attempt had been made on the life of a recently reelected Democratic Congresswoman and that constituents were wounded and killed. The first details about the shooter were that he was a white, male twenty-something that attended Pima CC and enjoyed the writings of Hitler.

With only that to go on, before the victims blood was dry on the Safeway parking lot, the media, leftist bloggers and Democrats began attributing the actions of this obviously disturbed man to supposed incitement on the part of the TEA party, Sarah Palin, Fox News and various talk radio hosts on the right.

Major newspapers (NYT, LA Times, Washington Post, etc) and network news (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc) attacked the right, days on end, even as every bit of new evidence revealed the shooter as being criminally insane. Not to be outdone by the reporting, Democratic lawmakers joined the fray, including the Sheriff investigating the crime! Even a week later, newsmakers and lawmakers have yet to acknowledge they were, excuse the pun, dead wrong.

Polls showed that most Americans didn't buy the false blame gaming being orchestrated by the left. Well, 60% of them didn't. That leaves 40% of Americans who are either poorly informed or will believe anything if the narrative is that the right are monsters.

This week was pivotal for me as a citizen, a second time for me. Previous to the second Clinton administration I wasn't all that interested in politics. I voted Democrat. However, Clinton's derelictions of duty, not to mention the whole Lewinsky affair, were just to much. I switched parties and was determined to be more active in politics. I have served my Republican community, educated myself on our political process and am a insatiable consumer of political news and commentary.

"After Hofstadter, (author of the 1964 essay, The Paranoid Style of American Politics) the American right wasn't just wrong on policy. Its people were psychologically dangerous and undeserving of holding authority for any public purpose." DH

Watching the ungrounded attacks on the right and watching the general populace sit back and accept this has changed me. There was a time when I felt it was responsible to read and learn about the liberal perspective to be fair. There was a time when I have moderated my words and behavior to be more pleasant around a liberal. There was a time when I might later view my discourse with liberals as overzealous and regret it. There was a time when I overlooked that friends and family are liberal and love them anyway. There was a time when I believed Americans share different perspectives and somehow what's best for the country would prevail. Not anymore.

"The divide between this strain of the American left and its conservative opponents is about more than politics and policy. It goes back a long way, it is deep, and it will never be bridged. "
DH

This tragedy has shown me who liberals in America really are. Not just the leftist media, bloggers, elected officials and ideologues but the common liberals and Democrats they represent that I interact with in my everyday life. After such a display, the foundation of my relationships with liberals and democrats has changed. I now see that the only getting along with liberals and democrats is to go along with them. And I just can't anymore.

"Hell is a place with no reason." - Michael Savage