I was surfing the web yesterday, and stumbled across a critique of a blog entry I wrote some time ago. The post was about how people generalize groups of people as "assholes," or some other derogatory and intellectually void term. Now I don't usually use such a term as "asshole" on my blog, but this post was in response to a person who generalized all Republicans as "assholes." So, the use of such a derogatory term was necessary. I made the point that we shouldn't just generalize all people who disagree with us in such disparaging terms. And I further made the point of how ironic it is that "those who claim to be against bigotry, who claim to believe in equal opportunity, and who claim to disdain any type of favoritism, speak against those whom they do not agree with in such bigoted, elitist rhetoric."

So, imagine my surprise to find this critique: "Here's a conservative asshole complaining that liberals call asshole conservatives, 'conservative assholes.'" That's it, no further examination of my post, just that statement. My first impulse is to paraphrase the words of Christopher Lloyd, written for an episode of Frasier: "What trenchant criticism... One can only wonder how many hours (he) sat in the glow of his computer screen before his trembling fingers sprang to life and pecked out this chef d'oeuvre..." But some sort of revenge is not my aim here. I wish to point out once again the irony of such a person, identified on here as "B-Dup," calling me such a word.

Perhaps it is apparent to him that I am such an "asshole." But it is striking that inherent in his comment is the fact that, if he indeed did read the blog post, that he entirely missed its meaning. What that says about him I will leave up to you to figure out. I certainly have my own ideas about his ability to parse the meaning of a clearly written idea, and they do not speak well of his intelligence.

The point I wish to make here is that in the battleground of ideas, we must not stoop to that level. Many who disagree with us have their own reasons for doing so, and if we wish to make real progress, we must address the ideas, not demonize the source. Our playbook should take a higher ground.

Of course, we see such low tactics all the time from both sides, but the liberal left has perfected the practice. It is right from the playbook of Saul Alinksy, who stated: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." In other words, don't engage on an intellectual level, but demonize the target. We see it in the persecution of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc. Those who engage in these tactics are rampant, especially on the Internet, where little men (or women) with a mouse in their hand spew forth such garbage with relative impunity. Shielded from face to face contact, they criticize and disparage others. Or, they gather in like-minded groups and wax poetic about how intelligent, and even more important, morally superior they are, spouting their messages of "Hope" and "Change," while engaging in smug group think and issuing gutter-speak proclamations about how stupid are those that disagree with them. But we must not let them get away with it.

That is why I am even bothering to respond to this small-minded criticism from this person known to me only as "B-Dup." He took his valuable time to call me out as an "asshole" with a feeble attempt at building himself up while tearing another down. The fact that his critique says more about him than it does about me seems not to have entered his mind. In fact, I should appreciate the link to my site that is included in his critique, for it may undoubtedly drive some traffic to my little relatively unknown blog. An army of B-Dups may only succeed in increasing my exposure. Now that would be irony.