Okay, I want to know something. If I am arguing with a winger and lose my temper, the common wisdom goes that he has just won the argument.
I buy into that. I feel shame. I slink away and hide, gnawing on my considerable moral failures. He gets to go home feeling smug(er -- if it's possible for him to feel any smugger than he already did, because it's usually the insufferably smug types that send me over the edge. They're like live-action trolls. But in e-mail I can just IGNORE people.)
But is that true? Really?
Because if you look at the most powerful right-wing pundits, they are all perpetually angry. I've started calling them "the angriest dogs in the world." Many of them are famous for shouting down their opponents, for blustering and yelling and even using profanity.
So, is anger one more example of the Republican double standard? They get to do it, but we don't? Or is it one more example of deception, of the right wing using the liberal tendency to play nice against us?