I awoke this morning to a new meme coming from the drive-by media. That meme angered me even more than the previous days. I know that it’s hard to believe, but the talking heads on the telly managed to sink even lower. Let me tell you what I wish to hear from the political/media left right now: an apology. Anything short of that makes them hypocrites. That being said, let’s get on with the outrage.

The new meme surrounding the Tucson shooting is we all need to slow down the destructive rhetoric, and quit trying to politicize the tragic shooting which occurred on Saturday. What good, sound, wonderful, and completely dishonest advice to hear! Nobody on the rational conservative side ever tried to politicize this tragedy. We responded, by defending ourselves against allegations which attempted to name us all accessories to murder. We showed our outrage at the notion that we should be silenced. We scoffed that somehow, our belief in limited government, people having a say in determining their own destinies, people being allowed to rise to their own level of success, people being permitted to make their own choices in life, would lead to a madman going on a killing spree and targeting those on the political left, all due to what we say on the radio, write in blogs, or say on T.V. I suppose that the new meme is in place of an apology, but it ain’t good enough, not for me.

Let’s look at several aspects of this nonsense. First, there have been zero, let me repeat that, zero acts of violence recorded to date at any Tea Party Rallies or demonstrations which have been perpetrated by their attendees. There have been several incidents of SEIU and Acorn members assaulting theTea Parties to be sure. At an anti Obamacare Rally in St. Louis for example, a member of the Tea Party had his finger bitten off and was beaten senseless by SEIU members. “Why?” You may ask. As it turns out they were angry that a black man would dare be a conservative, and felt an attitude adjustment was in order. I am waiting for the MSNBC coverage of this to happen. I am still waiting for the reports of how the anti-conservative rhetoric may lead to violence. The last two years have brought us demonstrations on the private property of U.S. citizens by angry mobs of Acorn members, and nary a peep from the drive by media about vitriol from the left being dangerous. “Bush = Hitler” signs were all over the Democrat National Conventions of 2004 and 2008, no commentary on that though. Now, I realize that examples of the, “heated rhetoric,” or the more ambiguously defined hateful language can be found on both sides, but look in the mirror, those of you on the left, before you point the dirty end of the stick at us.Here is an excellent look at that mirror for you. It is probably the best cataloged view of the left’s hateful vitriol from 2000 until the present. It was compiled by Michelle Malkin, who is not only a better writer than myself, but much better at researching these things as well. Fitting that I would point to Malkin’s work here, since Keith Olberman referred to her as a, “mashed up bag of ugly meat with lipstick.” Nice huh? Her crime it seems, is being a non-white female conservative. Special hatred is reserved for people who the left considers part of their pet groups that have the temerity to stray from the fold.

On to the present. On Saturday, a tragedy occurred. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. My prayers go out also. Within minutes of the shooting, I found out from the drive by media that it was all the Tea Parties fault. Sarah Palin was implicated as well, because she had a map showing congressional districts she felt were ripe for victory by Tea Party Candidates. Her map showed the districts with rifle target views on the map. I heard that Rush Limbaugh was to blame, along with the asinine claim again that Rush’s show was to blame for the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995. Sheriff Barney Fife (Clarence Dupnik) of Pima County Arizona went on the tube to claim that he had evidence, (which by the way he didn’t,) that the assailant was a Tea Party Conservative who did this as a politically motivated act. (More will follow on Sheriff Fife later.) This mantra was repeated loudly, and without deviation from many of my liberal friends. It never occurred to them that they were attempting to implicate a large swath of the country, and many of their friends in this heinous crime. Calling names which have to be defended against in baseless charges.

Not every, or even most conservatives are violent, racist, homophobic,xenophobic, bigoted evil monsters. In fact, most of us wish to help the same people who need to be helped as the liberals do. Most of us wish to see everybody share in the wealth of the world, have the lives available for people that they want to lead, and do all of the samegood that self-labeled liberals/progressives wish for. We just feel that the best way to achieve that type of society where everyone is in the best possible position to be happy is to adhere to the free market open society. As the facts came in, it became evident that Loughner was no conservative. He is a committed to an ideology of nihilism, and evidently psychotic. Undaunted by the facts, it wasn;t until Monday morning that the meme of evil conservative involvement began to wane. As more facts came out, it became obvious that Loughner could have been planning this since 2007 at least. Gabby Giffords’ only crime was to be a pretty public figure who caught the attention of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Now let’s talk about Sheriff Clarence “Fife” Dupnik. As it turns out, he was not unaware of Loughner. Since 2006, the people of Pima County have been making 911 calls to the Sheriff’s department about Loughner. Classmates and everyday acquaintances were afraid that Loughner would do something heinous, and that’s just what he did. Fife’s Dupnik’s answer was to assure the citizens of the county under his protection that the mental health services had things “under control” with poor, crazy, Jared. Even after the “conservative wingnut” accusations were falling apart, we got this:

So, let me get this straight, we are supposed to just take the charges that conservatives are accomplices to these murders, and then just turn the other cheek. Well I say no. My answer to everyone who repeated this charge, feigned anger at the right, or said one word about the hate speech from conservatives, hypocrisy is your name. Hypocrisy: you made this charge with not one scintilla of evidence that it was true. Hypocrisy: for you, hate speech and vitriol is defined as anything said by those you do not agree with. Hypocrisy: this makes you intolerant, which is what you accuse others of being.

Now let’s move on to the future. Heated rhetoric is an ambiguous definition at best. It’s determination is decided mostly by who is on your side, and who is on the other side of a debate. Beyond that, it is a needed part of our vigorous political debate. Our first Amendment rights include free speech, saying whatever is on our mind. There is a divide of ideology in our country right now. We are split almost exactly 50/50 on the direction we wish to take. Argue with us in the arena of ideas. This is why campaigns and elections take place. Any attempt to keep us from speaking our minds would show that they are afraid of that debate. This heated rhetoric as you call it happens to be individuals advocating for what we believe in. Our two sides may disagree, but nothing will be served by ending or hampering the debate. Finding common ground is just another way of saying: “you guys should just give up your core beliefs and let us have our way.” I am sorry to tell those people, that is not going to happen. I promise to be respectful and even cordial while stating my arguments, but make them I shall. I will never be silent to mollify the political left, especially if they try to characterize my positions as, “hate speech.”

Republished with permission. Stephen VanDyke contributed to this article.