CHARACTER ASSASSINATION

It seems that despite then Senator Hillary Clinton's strident declaration in 2003, when liberals are debated and disagreed with, a double standard rises out of the fires of discontent.

For those of you who don't remember, Mrs. Clinton was quite passionate as she proclaimed, "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, 'We are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration!'"

Yet today, character assassination is not just privy to political parlance, but applied across the board to all conservatives. Today I learned from former president Jimmy Carter that because I debate and  disagree with this administration I am not just unpatriotic, I am prejudice.

Imagine my surprise to peer through the blind spot of my Johari Window to discover such an arrogant, weak, and condescending blot on my soul.

I would hang my head in shame, except that unlike them, I know the truth.

I remember being evacuated from my home as a child when the Black Panthers came marching down our streets in the 1960s. I watched from my front porch as militant blacks streamed over a chain link fence to clash with police. I remember the night my dad wasn't allowed to leave the tear-gas clouded factory because the violence outside was too great a risk. I remember my mother sleeping with a gun beside her at night and driving with one in the glove compartment. Frankly, I have every right and experience to distrust and resent the black community. But I do not.

My family on both sides of my parentage served in the Union Army to end black slavery, and both had to endure inhuman conditions at Andersonville Prison. That alone should be enough.

But even more personally, I have put myself in harms way to save the lives of African-Americans. Not blowing my own whistle, just making the point that prejudice would pre-supposed any attempt on my part to give a black life any value worth saving.

Yet instead I fight for them, work along side them, and live with them as neighbors.

So Jimmy Carter, or any of the other media pundits out there who have decided that they know my predispositions, my motivations, or have any inkling what is going on in my head and heart, go wash the clouded panes of your own Johari Window and take a look around. You DO have blind spots, and if you do not cease this childish behavior, your irresponsible verbal abuses are going to throw our society back five decades.

For years during the Reagan Administration is was called a war-monger, a woman-hater, a homophobe, and any other number of banal appellations meant to assassinate my character. Immature attempts from impotent critics intent on shaming me into silence. Well, there is an equally immature response: sticks and stone may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Have we — the United States of America — really declined to such 3rd grade antics?

If you want to be take seriously as "progressives," then progress beyond this petty and ludicrous double-standard. Open your eyes to the incivility you are inciting, and think of the long-term and harmful consequences.

But no matter what, my guess is, like the photo says here, "It doesn't matter what this sign says, you'll call it racism anyway!"

But here's the heart of the matter. I know I'm not a racist. You know I'm not a racists. So why engage is such pathetic — and obvious — tomfoolery? It lacks political reason.