(image via Blue Collar Republican. May be a helpful warning to carry at your next townhall or tea party)

STOP BEING NICE!

I couldn't agree more with John Hawkins:

...there are far too many people worrying about taking the "high road." We don't tacitly support violence against our political opponents like liberals do. We don't think it's okay to lie about our political opponents like liberals do. We have 100 times more respect for the Constitution than liberals do.

Simply put, we're far better people than they will ever be -- but, do we have to be Mother Teresa while they're coming after us in a dark alley with a pipe wrench? If people like Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi have their way, this country is going to be decimated. Do future generations of Americans have to live in poverty because we don't want MSNBC to say anything mean about us? Do hundreds of thousands of Americans have to die waiting in line for medical care because we don't want to use even 1/10 of the tactics that are used against us?

Politics isn't a business for saints. It's dirty, it's ugly, and it's full of people who'd be in prison for pushing their grandmothers down the stairs if they had 20 less IQ points. When people like that get you down, they put their foot on your throat and push until your eyes pop out. It's one thing to be magnanimous in victory, but when they have the upper hand, either you fight back with everything you have -- or you get used to spending a lot of time pinned to the ground, watching them destroy everything you care about.

But another thing to remember is not to be goaded into engaging in the violence they are beginning to bring with their union and ACORN thugs. We have been peaceful, as we always are, but now they are using the rhetoric of violence and sending in people who have beat people twice in the past couple days. They want us to engage their violent behavior so that they can paint us as they are for the government-compliant media to broadcast.

The Anchoress has some important thoughts about this.