I'm going to respectfully disagree with our founder and kind host. I guess that's predictable given that I'm one of very few Democrats at FR who openly post as such. However, in truth, it's more because I believe that Mr. Robinson has missed the more basic problem that conservatives face.
Conservatives seem to have forgotten that the underlying idea in any political debate is to convince those who might not necessarily agree with you of the veracity of your arguments. Preaching to the converted or the nearly converted allows you to keep what you already had. If that.
Unfortunately, conservatives have become very comfortable in spending their time preaching to the long since converted and resorting to fear-mongering polemic as primary means of discourse. Are there some horrible threats facing our nation such as those listed by Mr. Robinson? Of course. And the vast majority of people posting or lurking at FR, including myself, recognize that.
But what are we as conservatives doing to convince those who don't necessarily agree with us? Here is what Mr. Robinson said in his first post:
"And I'm directly speaking of the primary American home of socialism/liberalism and the party that champions all of the above isms and includes them in their party platform, and in addition to all of the above also directly aids and abets the foreign enemy: the Democrat Party."
And here are a smattering of taglines I saw this morning at FR:
"liberals only love politically correct poor people" or
"Democrats DO have a plan! They apparently plan to stay stupid" or
"Help control the Leftist population. Have them spayed or neutered."
Stand back for a second and consider how such comments appear to someone who is not already amongst the conservative converted. Do these comments persuade? Do they convince nonconservatives of the veracity of our political philosophy? Do they provide a positive alternative?
Please understand, my intent here is not to single out specific FReepers or Free Republic. This type of commentary is also widespread and pervasive on talk radio, FoxNews, and other forums where the conservative political philosophy is generally favored.
I guess we can take some thin comfort in the fact that our opposition tends to resort to similar types of techniques. And it isn't terribly effective for them. But be assured that there is a great amount of philosophical and political conversion being acomplished amongst the populace at large.
What the majority is being converted to is the politics and philosophy of Despair. A belief that our system of self-government is broken beyond repair, that their vote is meaningless, that the prevailing political philosophies (liberalism and conservatism) are both nasty and extreme, and that decent people shouldn't even consider having anything to do with politics.
Don't be fooled... the base will come out as it always does to vote.
Contrary to what may appear to be the case most of the time, I do appreciate the validity of what you say.
However, as someone who tries to spend significant time converting the unwashed clueless liberal idiot heathen . . .
It depends on the individuals involved and the context. In the college adjunct office . . . probably 85-95% of my colleagues are flaming liberals. Some of them give pause and ponder a bit more--evidently BECAUSE of my strident off-the-wall polemics.
Others, I adjust my tone and wording for.
But hereon . . . hey--it's family--gotta let my hair down somewhere. Gotta have somewhere to rant and rave so I can play sane out in the conventional world.