Birdnow's Aviary

May 29, 2026

Automysophobic Conservatives And Death by Civility

Timothy Birdnow

This guy gets it!

Civility in an uncivil age: Why polite rhetoric cannot reform a corrupt system

It took six hundred years for Christendom to finally resist the rising tide of Islam because Christianity was too civil to take up arms against a vicious rival, a rival willing to break every rule, every covenant. But eventually Pope Urban said "enough!" when 1,400 Christian pilgrims were slaughtered on their way to Jerusalem to pray

The aggressor sets the rules of engagement. That is a military maxim and it is true. You either have to fight by the rules set by your opponent or face extinction. Yet for reasons that are just baffling there is a large group of Conservatives who believe we have to be civil, show good form, act as if we are dealing with rational and genteel opponents rather than fight them on a level playing field.

Well, we tried it their way for decades and were in the political wilderness. It wasn't until Ronald Reagan came along and actually fought back. Most people remember Reagan now as a gentleman but they forget the vicious attacks on him - and his very harsh responses on occasion. Reagan took the fight to the enemy. He was the first Republican to do that since Goldwater, who was the first Republican to do that since - Teddy Roosevelt.

We won big under Reagan and the Left got far nastier since. So now we have a guy who is willing to fight like they do and a bunch of knock-kneed Republicans want to go back to being lackeys and letting the Left run the table on us. But we will lose with good form, don't you know!

As Douglas McArthur said, there is no substitute for victory.

I am not suggesting we become monsters, or liars; that is the Democrat's purview. But I am saying we need to be combative and fight.

And waht is "incivility" anyway? The Left would argue it is speaking truth to power, which is what we do and what they cannot tolerate. In an age of deception telling the truth is a radical act, and the Left in media, academia, and the Democrats have done nothing but foster one lie after another. Just by telling the truth we threaten them in an existential way. Then brave souls like Mike Pence condemn those on our side who speak out as "divisive" or "uncivil".

In short, Pence and his ilk are weenies, accomplices to the stealing of America and her ultimate destruction. But we let America die with civility and good form!

By the by, the Founding Fathers, contrary to popular opinion now, fought some extraordinarily vicious battles with each-other. Thomas Jefferson was accused of taking liberties with his black slaves, for instance, which was a HUGE deal back then; it was considered one of the lowest things you could do to a slave, who is completely in your power. (Not that it didn't happen and in fact Jefferson may have taken Sally Hemming as a lover - or not - but decorum said you never made such allegations without proof, of which there was none at the time.) There were all manner of other such slimey accusations and much anger in many of the deliberations in the early republic. If America had Mike Pence at her founding we would still be British - or be run by complete radicals as the sober, sane men would have stood down.

The author states:

I argued during President Trump’s first term in "The Trump Administration’s Disruptive Reform of Political Communication,” that traditional political discourse had become a genteel game that preserved a corrupt status quo. The old rules, polite euphemisms, carefully calibrated rhetoric, and refusal to name enemies plainly, rewarded stasis. They allowed entrenched interests in Washington, the media, academia, and the permanent bureaucracy to maintain power while ordinary Americans watched their borders dissolve, their jobs shipped overseas, their culture eroded, and their children’s futures mortgaged.

Trump’s breakthrough was not just bluster; it was a necessary disruption that reframed communication as a tool for reform rather than ritualistic preservation of elite norms. Conforming once again to those old conventions today would signal surrender, not strength.

Verbal civility and measured debate are luxuries afforded by functional systems operating in good faith. When the stakes involve systemic betrayal on a massive scale, they are meaningless instruments of defeat.

Amen to that! Civil times makes for civil politics. We are in a very uncivil time and civility is a weapon used by the Left to shut us up.

And it's bad politics. How can you tell the American People that the Democrats are destroying the country (which they are) and that they are abusing the public while maintaining this studied decorum and mildness of speech? If you don't show anger at this stuff the populace will assume your words are hollow, just a big show to win votes. You seem to lack real conviction. The Democrats never make that mistake.

Your opposition then appears to be simply self-serving.

The author states:

A whole party deploys the power dynamics of an elementary school playground, with similar results. A political system riddled with corruption that impairs basic governance demands more than gentle words. Polite petitions have repeatedly failed. Blunt exposure of failure is required.

Indeed so. I am mindful of an episode of the Simpsons where Homer is at the Quickee Mart and drinking slurpees straight from the tap. The store's owner demands he stop "I've already asked you nicely Mr. Simpson, but now you leave me no choice but to ask you nicely again". THAT is exactly what fools like Mike Pence do. That is what this "civility" entails. If Pence found men raping his wife would he ask them nicely to stop? Maybe if he said "pretty please"? And if he did would they stop?

I know from whence Pence is coming; he mistakenly thinks this is teh Christian response because Jesus told us to let a guy slap our other cheek after slapping the first one. But Pence misunderstands the difference between interpersonal relaitons and political/military engagement. Turning the other cheek doesn't really work in interpersonal relations either by and large but Christians are to do it to show the mercy of God to those hostile to Him. Politics and war are about some things very different; we have to win the war because otherwise untold numbers of people will suffer, and in a terrible way. Souls will be lost. And THAT is something Mr. Pence will have to justify on Judgment Day. He and others were charged with the protection and care of the People, not about the salvation of Leftist political institutions.

Mr. Pence has forgotten the words of George Orwell "the purpose of power is power". The Left believes that, and also believes the words of Mao Tse Tung "political power flows from the barrel of a gun". They are true Macchiavellians in the nastiest form possible (much of Macchiavelli was actually benign and made a lot of sense but he advocated an amoral approach - the Left embodies the worst of that amoral approach.)

When the Israelites left Egypt they came to the Promised Land within weeks but turned around because they were afraid to enter, afraid of the fight they faced. For this (and the Golden Calf) God made them wander round in circles for forty years, long enough for the generation raised up in Egypt with the weak slave mentality to die off and those hardened by their experience in the wilderness would be ready to fight for the land God promised them. God does not like weenies. He wants people to be strong and bold and stand for what is right. If we won't fight for what is right now how do can we fight when the REAL crisis is upon us? When they are putting us in camps and disappearing our leaders? The fight is here and the fight is now and it is still winnable, but we have to have people willing to actually take up arms. Mr. Pence certainly is too proud of himself to sully his hands with the soil of liberty.

BTW Automycophobia is fear of being dirty. Fits these prissy conservatives pretty well.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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