The answer (for all I love Delaware Dem) is "No."
When we start thinking in terms of "us against them," we are taking the first steps down the path to our own totalitarianism. We are beginning to reject the very basis of liberalism, that a variety of viewpoints is the basis of effective democracy. We are beginning to become like "them."
And we are refuting one of the most basic points of American idealism, that people can change.
Delaware Dem's little story about a scorpion has a logic that will lead one to execute one's enemies rather than listening to them. It has happened often enough, both on the left and on the right. I reject that logic completely.
Yes, there are times when it is no longer possible to discuss, when fighting (defensive fighting) becomes necessary. But that's a failure all by itself. And we haven't reached that stage in America. Not yet.
And we won't reach it as long as most of us refuse to fall into the trap of seeing those with other points of view as the enemy.
When we start listening to other people, start considering their points of view, we can begin to understand them and (gasp!) even to start to change them--even if only in small ways. We won't change them by attacking them.
Sure, there's no hope of changing Bill O'Reilly (or Ann Coulter, for that matter, or Rush Limbaugh, or Wiener Savage), but these aren't the most of the right. Most of the people on the right are even members of our families, or neighbors, our colleagues.
Yesterday, a woman came into my store, a friend who is very, very conservative. She admitted, finally, that I had been right all along about Iraq.
How could she do that? Because I had never attacked her when arguing with her, had never called her evil or stupid. Instead, I listened... and treated her with respect and friendship. Now, she could admit she was wrong with no loss of face.
To me, that's the best of liberalism. When we reject that, and attack people rather than ideas, we are no longer liberals but are starting down (as I said above) that road to totalitarianism.
Update: I thought I'd add this verse from Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages":
In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.