So that's how it's done

Lance Mannion explains how to be morally superior to a Liberal.

First, you have to treat the easiset and most ordinary forms of good behavior, actions and practices that meet the most minimum standards of the definition of common decency, as if they were the most difficult and superhuman examples of virtuousness.

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Now comes the most important part. This is the sign that you are a true saint on earth. You go about loudly approving of it all. It doesn't truly count unless you talk about how good it is to be good in the ways you happen to be good.

From there, the next step is easy.

You simply have to believe that Liberals don't approve of any of it.

It would be a lot more rewarding if you could believe that Liberals don't practice any of those virtues. Some of those guys at work, the loudmouth on the radio in the morning as you drive to the office, your brother-in-law, they seem to believe it. But you know the evidence is against you on that one.

There's that damn Jimmy Carter, to begin with.

And you'd also like to believe that even if some Liberals have some virtues, all good Right Wingers like you, or most of them anyway, have all those virtues and practice them more diligently and more consistently.

But then there's Newt Gingrich. And Rush Limbaugh is a junkie, no matter what he says.

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So you can't really believe Right Wingers are better behaved than Liberals.

But you know that Liberals are uncomfortable talking about all that stuff as if it matters. You know they reflexively make excuses for people who don't manage the same high level of morally superior behavior as you do, even if you don't go to church, and anyway, your wife goes, and she takes the kids, and maybe you'll go with them next week, so, dammit, you are a religious guy, after all. You know Liberals like to see people burning flags and they love abortion and they don't care if the world is awash in pornography.

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You know that even if some of them aren't bad themselves they don't approve of good behavior. In fact, they disapprove of it. They must. Otherwise, they'd talk about it all the time, wouldn't they, about all the smut, and drugs, and sex? They may not be evil and depraved themselves but they are allowing the country to go to the dogs with their attitudes and ideas and their policies and their failure to constantly scold and complain about other people's immoral behavior the way you do.

And that's why you're better than them.

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