Clarification On Comments Here

SATURDAY, I did a piece on Sarah Palin and in no time flat I and my liberal commenters were off to the races. I appreciate fellow blogger mRed at Invincible Armor jumping in with me because it got heated very fast. There were several comments with personal attacks that I didn't post and several more I erased. One intrepid commenter declared herself outta here for good. I certainly respect anyone's decision not to come back for good reason or no reason at all.

However, I want to take this time to outline what's acceptable and what's not in the comments section here. If I haven't made it crystal clear before, I am now:

First I've noticed three trends over the past three years of blogging:

1. Observation: Liberal readers/commenters often tend to take everything personally even when it's said in general and not personally at all.

Take for example the statement Saturday I made to the effect, "Believe me, vienna, I do indeed think there are liberal elements in this country who would like to take down every one of the principles on which this country was founded."

Fairly general and a true statement on my part. I said what I meant and meant what I said. What I didn't say was who some of these radicals are (Saul Alinsky, Ward Churchill, Al Gore with his one world governance nonesense, Paul Krugman, George Clooney and Barbwa Streisand only to name a very few). I assumed most readers knew who and what I was referring to.

I was then met in my comments with a long detailed note from her saying she'd reached the end of her rope commenting here (Didn't she say that two years ago before leaving and then coming back?) She was personally insulted and now she just cann't possibly keep coming over here week after week to comment (or insult me) anymore.

How dare I make such a statement condemning her personal patriotism: Why, after all she's a Cub Scout leader and her husband is in the military! ( statements like this have gone on here for several years though they rarely get published.)

Again, I started Webutante because I'm a recovering liberal who loved my country also....and I even taught Sunday school back in those olden days of my liberalism and did all sorts of patriotic things, even winning awards and silly stuff like that. Still later I discovered that as a liberal, I had been complicit for years/ decades in accepting a liberal agenda that I never bothered to understand or comprehend the effects of. One day I---patriot I thought I was--woke up and realized I'd better start paying better attention to what's going on.

Let me repeat what I just said: I and others can be patriotic as hell and do all the right stuff and still participate in the downward slide of our country by complicitly accepting ridiculous notions we know little or nothing about the effects of---because it just sounds like a good idea. It's easy for us to get swept up in the emotion of man-made global warming etc. without really knowing what effects a government policy based on such a foregone conclusion will have on us for generations.

1) Suggestion: Don't take everything personally. But if the shoe fits, you're welcome to wear it, although it's none of my business; otherwise take what you want and leave the rest. And if all else fails, you're always free to leave.

2) Observation: Liberal commenters don't just take things uber-personally, they respond by attacking their opponents personally, and more often than not, it's very inappropriate and highly presumptuous.

When something I've said evokes personal attacks from others to me like: a) "You need psychiatric help IMMEDIATELY!" b) "You're lucky to have so many liberals in your family however it remains to be seen whether they're lucky to have you...." I'm left scratching my head and wondering what if I said these kinds of things to them? Not only are they off-topic and a distraction to the subject at hand, they're arrogant and highly presumptuous. These people take great liberties as guests on this blog. If I've allowed this in the past, then it's ending now.

Additionally, I can tell you one thing from this: I know in a very, very, very small way what Sarah Palin has had to endure on a monumentally greater basis from her detractors this past year. And much of it is viscous, mean and wildly uncalled for.

2) Suggestion: If you want to get personal here, get personal about yourself---like Stacie did on the post below. However, I don't need you to tell me what I need/don't need/how sick//unfortunate I am. Any further comments that take inappropriate liberties here will not be read and certainly not published. Comments are desirable when they further the conversation and inspire, otherwise they're a waste of time to read and write.

Manners are't optional.

3) Observation: I notice a wide preponderance of globalizing simple statements people make thus making them into something totally different than what is said or meant (also, see #1).

Ellen, my liberal commenter reminded us, then globalized, generalized and insulted. Watch. Ellen commented:

Do you recall Palin saying 'real America' is not in the cities or suburbs, it is in the "small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America."

It's pretty clear who not a 'real American'... anyone with an education. The educated are the elite that the right disdain. The same right wingers that idolize football players and nascar drivers have no respect for education, intellectualism, science, or fine art.

Huh? We conservatives disdain education? Fine art? Science? Idolize football players----are you kidding me?---This is so silly as not even to merit a response.

All that may be pretty clear to you, Ellen, but it certainly isn't to me and many others.

As I pointed out earlier, Sarah Palin is applauding the values of small-town America. Nothing more or less was said by her. She said nothing about education, science, the arts, football or NASCAR.

This kind of mythical inference will no longer be published here. It's a rant that leaves the rails of reality quickly and never comes back. This is a typical tactic of the attack-left--ascribing to others things that are never said and deducing what was never meant---and it will no longer be tolerated here.

3) Suggestion: Stick with reality in commenting, and leave the wild flights-of-fancy to post on someone else's blog. They won't get published here.

I hope I've made myself clear. I welcome comments here always that are on topic, courteous, humorous, personal in that they're about you or your principles and experience. Otherwise, the door is always at the delete button.

Best wishes and thank you for coming by.