By: Garry L. Hamilton
The Radio Patriot

Friend and fellow blogger “G” wrote of the Glenn Beck /Daily Caller flap:

“You know, sometimes we really are our own worst enemies.

Today, as a low murmur in the background, I hear rumors of multiple conservative pundits foaming at the mouth about some sort of inequities supposedly perpetrated by Beck.

Oddly, it’s not like just one or maybe two people. It’s a whole gaggle of them.

And it’s being done in public.

What the hell?

Do we learn nothing? Are we all subscribers to the Association of Fair Weather Friends? What? We can’t resist the opportunity to throw red meat to our socialist enemies out of spite because someone can’t figure out a way to do laundry out of the public eye?

In October of 2008, just as the election was bearing down under full sail over the horizon, one of the biggest, best loved, most respected gun forums on the Internet — home of tens of thousands of pro-gun, pro-liberty people, ranging from timid new shooters to seasoned old veterans, from recently converted anti-gunners to guys who had been shooting before they could walk — suddenly lost all the momentum behind its efforts to support candidates who supported gun rights, as the leadership of the forum was sucked into a black hole of bickering over ownership of the brand and content of the thriving discussion board. It would be another two years before the dispute was resolved. For that two years, they would be rendered ineffective as a source of activism. Even now their clout has been significantly diminished.

Why? Because one of the parties involved in the squabble believed he could get more mileage if he took his case to the court of public opinion. There was infighting, there was name calling, there was a tremendous amount of effort required on the part of the moderator staff to keep things focused on the forum’s charter and out of the emotional gutter. I’ll spare you the underlying motivation and the names of the opposing parties; suffice it to say that underneath it all was money and fame. The court of public opinion, as it happened, did not win the day. It did, however, create rifts between people who had been online friends for years. The customary long reach afforded the forum, through participation in radio and press and blog interviews was severely curtailed. It is still not clear if they will ever regain the voice they once had.

AND THESE PEOPLE WERE ALL “ON THE SAME SIDE.” They stood for the same things. They backed the same causes. They held the same principles. They fought the same enemies. And they were at each other’s throats.

I don’t have any connection to Beck, or to any of the other involved parties, but I *do* know that every one of the people involved (or at least according to the rumors) has been an effective agent of conservatism and on behalf of liberty.

If any of these people has a beef with one of the others, I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT, and I especially don’t want to hear about it in the gleeful chortling of our common enemies. I want it to be something handled when “my people call your people” and discreetly hash out the details. It absolutely does not need to be the subject of public righteous indignation and vociferous finger wagging that short circuits the energies of our already rag-tag armies, wasting our efforts bickering about who gets to wear the uniform with the four stars and who gets to stand in the spotlight.

Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ.

We are at war for the future of liberty in America, and we are complete suckers for intrigue — and intrigue, moreover, that may well have been engineered by the very people from whom we hope to rescue the nation.

So, if any of you happens to have the ear of any of the involved parties, may I entreat you to counsel discretion in these matters, at least until we have hung the hides of our adversaries on the wall of history.

For myself, I will not be drawn into a drama pitting one of my friends against another, choosing up sides that I may feel righteous that I am, at least, not one of those people.

Do not do the enemy’s job for him.

Do not aim your volleys at the people standing in your own trenches.”

~~ G