I know this sounds utterly weird coming from me (who criticizes Bush every chance she gets) but I’ve seen some things that are completely over the top recently and I’m getting sick of it. I have been critical of Bush from Day 1 but I’ve backed up my criticism and praised him for things I think he did right. (Those entries do exist. Really. They do.) Here are some rules I think all bloggers should follow in discussing politics, regardless of where they stand on issues.

1.) Do not apply labels of “God’s chosen party” and “Satan’s party” to the U.S. political system. No party has a monopoly on the truth and no party is all good or all evil.

2.) Do not claim that Jesus was a Democrat or Republican. This goes along with #1. No party has a monopoly on Christianity and likewise Jesus. Jesus is not a Republican or Democrat — He is the Son of God and God does not discriminate between the two parties.

3.) Do not refer to members of either party as “the embodiment of evil”, “the Great Satan” or anything like that because it just stirs up more divisions. No person is that evil nor their ideas insidious enough that they should be called “the embodiment of evil” unless they have done one or more of the following:
a.) taken over a sovereign nation and created a dictatorship
b.) killed off all of their political enemies in the attempt to do a.
c.) caused the genocide of a minority of the population or of the opposing ethnicity after committing a and b.
d.) rigged an election and taken over the government in a bloody coup attempt involving a,b, and c.

4.) Name the news source from which you have taken the evidence to back up your claim and said news source shall be judged on the basis of its leanings. Let’s face it: the Drudge Report is garbage, FoxNews is hardly fair and balanced, and AirAmerica is leftist in response to the other two. Let’s try to find impartial news sources, mkay?

5.) Agree to respectfully disagree with those who do not share your views. I am not going to call you a “fascist pig” if you disagree with my somewhat Democrat leanings , so please refrain from touting how evil left-leaning people are, OK?

6.) Do not morph the name of the hated political candidate into a string of profanities. I think we’re all out of high school and don’t need to engage in such behavior as it is sophomoric and really does not help your case or argument. 🙂

If we could get bloggers to follow these rules, perhaps politicians would follow suit.