I frequently hear people talk about confrontation.  How we deal with confrontation, in fact, is generally considered one of the defining points in someone’s personality.  Does someone shy away from it?  Do they run toward it?  Are they comfortable in conflicts, can they resolve them?  Sometimes people will use phrases like “non-confrontational” or “peaceful” to describe themselves in a positive light.  “I’m very non-confrontational.  I can get along with everyone.”  In this brave new world of political correctness and buzzwords that we use to dance around issues that we disagree with, tolerance is the new integrity.

Except…there is no integrity in tolerance for the sake of not hurting feelings.  There is no honor in being non-confrontational to the point of cowardice.

Liberals don’t know that, and most conservatives have forgotten it.  This is why we get candidates shoved down our throats that seem more left than right.  We’re told that they can “work with both sides of the aisle,”  they can “get things done in Washington because they aren’t extreme.”  Here’s a news flash for those who seem to have forgotten what it feels like to have the proverbial weight of a pair of balls between their legs–the founding fathers were extremists.  They weren’t interested in being tolerant.  They were interested in being free.  To them, that was worth poverty.  It was worth being ostracized by friends or family.  It was worth capture.  Torture.  Death.  Nathan Hale stood on a platform, about to be hanged, and his only regret was that he could not give his life more than once in the cause of liberty.  Two hundred and some odd years later, we’re so afraid of offending people that we’ll hide our beliefs.  We’ll stay silent in workplace discussions. We’ll yell at the TV newscaster or complain to our spouses, and then we shut up and obey.  We’re for gun rights, but we keep that to ourselves because people might think we’re aren’t cool anymore.  Think of the Sandy Hook children, you know.  Anyone who could possibly be pro-gun after that must be a ghoul.  That’s what we’re told, and we allow ourselves to be shamed into compliance.

What has happened during our slumber?  The Left is staging a coup.  A “coordinated effort by about 36 different interest groups with reported revenues of no less than $1.69 billion, pledging millions of dollars to work together to attack conservative supporters and organizations, to intervene directly in Democratic politics, to push for filibuster reform to better enable a push through their agenda without any input from the opposition, and expanding ‘voting rights’ and fighting voter registration laws to further grease the skids for their legislative agenda.”  Think about that.  Thirty-six different groups, with different causes and different viewpoints, united in one cause they can all agree on–conservative values and liberty need to end.  When was the last time you saw 36 conservative groups anywhere in the same place?

It may seem contradictory that I advocate for us to be more confrontational and yet bemoan the fact that we can’t get together on anything.  To the contrary–we don’t need a 36-organization coalition.  We just need to get off our fat, lazy, discontented-but-gutless backsides.  We can no longer ride the wave of America’s stellar history.  The sacrifice of Nathan Hale is not an eternal currency, and Thomas Jefferson’s admonition about the tree of liberty wasn’t a joke.    What people seem to have forgotten is that the First Amendment applies to all, equally.  I have the right to stand up and say that I am against gay marriage, just as others have the right to agree with it.  I have the right to say that I disagree with the idea of gun control, in any form.  I even have the right to make the incredibly controversial statement that if you want me to stay out of your personal life, then you need to stop expecting me to pay for a dime of it.  Westboro Baptist Church, however repugnant their ideas are to me, are protected by the Constitution, and I have the right to face off against them on the other side of the street and show them that I do not agree.  I have the right, in many states, to openly carry my AK-47 down the street, and a gun control activist has the right to walk up to me and tell me that he thinks my choice is ridiculous.  I then have the right to laugh in his face and ignore him.  See how this works?  We ALL have these rights.

Do we exercise any of them?  Or do we voluntarily give up our right to voice our beliefs because the Left’s campaign about tolerance has somehow made us believe that our voices are offensive?  Everywhere we look, we are told that we are intolerant, we are racist, we are this and that and whatever.  I read all about the word “slut-shaming” the other day.  It’s a big deal on liberal feminist websites.  Apparently we aren’t allowed to have opinions about women like Snooki unless that opinion contains words like “empowerment” and “comfortable with her body.”  Here’s the thing–she, and any women like her, have the right to conduct themselves as they wish–but we have the right to have an opinion, and they have the right to do what they like with that opinion.  See how that goes?

Confrontation, and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing.  It pushes discussion.  It explores truths.  It fosters liberty, if it comes to that.  We are in the mess we’re in because while we were learning our lessons about being “tolerant,” the Left was marching.  While we were learning to be quiet and not talk about controversial things we believed, the Left was pushing their agenda into our schools and into our homes and laws.  Protesting has become synonymous with being fringe.  Why?  Because only the Left is doing it.

Yesterday, thousands of my countrymen stood in front of capitol buildings all over this country and dared to be confrontational.  They dared to stand up, to have integrity, to have the courage of conviction.  This is what we ALL need to be doing.  We need to be carrying our guns openly and responsibly where authorized by law.  We need to be being open about our beliefs, about our convictions, regardless of whether the average sheep likes it.  The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee against being offended, it only guarantees that you get a say too.  So stop being tolerant and non-confrontational.  Stand up.  Fight for your rights.  Be bold, resolute.  Stop worrying about what your friends think or your coworkers think or whether this will make people drop you on Facebook.  It’s the modern equivalent of 1775, and your freedoms DO hang in the balance.  Pick up whatever caliber musket you’ve got and take your place on the line.

We all leave a legacy.  Maybe it’s time that we conservatives left one a little less cowardly.