Normally I don’t respond to criticism from other bloggers, and rarely do I make criticism of other bloggers. However, my post the other day regarding liberal feminism and radical Islam really brought my critics out of the woodwork, and this gives me the opportunity to make a few points about myself that I cannot pass up.
Once again, I’m not going to direct traffic to the liberal blogs where I was “taken to the woodshed.” You’ll have to use the link above to find your way there. I’m not trying to be a jerk. There are just some blogs that I will not link to.
First, Brittney of Nashville Is Talking has always been ruffled by the fact that I don’t read liberal blogs. I don’t know why someone would waste two brain cells worrying about the blogroll of other bloggers, but that’s just me.
To this, commenter S-townMike adds “So basically Rose doesn’t subscribe to the first commandment of engagement: know thy opponent. It must be quite a peaceful, hermetic world only reading the blogs of those with whom one agrees. An echo chamber, even.”
I don’t read liberal blogs for one very simple reason: I don’t want to read liberal blogs. My time is too valuable to me to waste it reading liberal blogs. (The one exception is Sharon Cobb.) I used to read NIT because it was a good one-stop shop for liberal (and conservative) blogs, but I even stopped that because I found that scanning the headlines at NIT was like standing in the supermarket checkout reading tabloid covers. So I venture over there now only when I find out that I’ve been trashed. (Thank you, ACK.)
As far as the first commendment of engagement, I actually do know my opponent. After all, I used to be a liberal. Let me repeat that. I used to be a liberal. But I left the wilderness of liberalism for the promised land of conservatism. Therefore, I know my opponent better than most. I used to be my opponent. Still, I read your editorials in newspapers, and I hear what your politicians and pundits say on television and radio. Believe me, American liberals are still playing the same hand they played in the days when I was a liberal, so I can still read liberals like a book.
Next, both S-townMike and TV on the Fritz accuse me of more or less living in an insular world. I plead guilty. I do live in an insular world, and it’s by my own design. My life revolves around God and church, family, and work (and baseball, of course). If there were ever a bounty placed on my scalp, I’d be doomed. I’m a pretty easy guy to track down.
I do not generally associate or fraternize with people who have different values than I do, because you have to be careful about the company you keep. I would cross those lines of influence to share Christ with someone — anyone — but otherwise I run in pretty tight circles.
The way I look at it, I’ve been blessed to have visited eight difference countries outside the U.S. (during my Navy experience). I’ve met all kinds of people, and seen all kinds of places. After all that, I am secure in the knowledge that I am in exactly the place I want to be. Some of you may find that ridiculous. I don’t care.
I have read most of your comments in various forums regarding my assertion that “I have never understood why liberal feminists, who are all about women’s rights, heap all (or at least 99%) of their vitriol on President Bush, the GOP, and fundamentalist Christianty while ignoring Islam.”
I’m not trying to be provocative toward my liberal critics, but your disapproval means far more to me than your approval. The way I look at it, if liberal readers start singing my praises, then I’ve gone way off track somewhere.
As I like to say, judge me by my enemies.
Boy, do I feel better.
