Reply #215: You Touched On Several Points, Mr. Kid [View All]

[The Magistrate]

My purpose was to amplify those portions of your comments that seemed of largest importance to me. My target here is a tendency displayed by some persons to treat as nefarious the ordinary processes of political life, by which it must proceed in the absence of gunfire, and which even in that latter state still have some relevance. To view these ordinary activities as some form of heretical back-sliding from pursuit of the pure, and declare any who indulges in them evil to the core by virtue of that, seems to me a counter-productive foolishness, that when it leads to some to concentrating their vitriol on Democratic Party office-holders and officials, has the effect of assisting the worst elements of reaction in our polity, gathered together under the standard of the Republican Party. These, it seems to me, are the only ones who stand to make any real gain by attempts to slur and smear Democratic Party figures, and that is so whether these attacks originate from left zeal or reactionary fervor.

"I am a man of principles, Sir, and chief among them is flexibility."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"