[Strangler Lewis]

I know a number of very nice conservatives. Some of them live in my neighborhood. They run small businesses. They teach their children the golden rule. We get along fine. However, every once in a while, in every day conversation, these people will open their mouths and say things that come from a very dark and bad place. It passes, and we go on.

The problem is that when the opinion pollsters come knocking, the dark places answer the door. Talk radio caters to the dark places, and the dark places do the voting. So, for shorthand purposes of discussion, I have no trouble with ISM's generalization, even if it does not portray all self-identifying conservatives with nuanced thoroughness worthy of George Eliot.

That said, I want to cast my vote against some of the gaudier displays of humility and the paralyzing egalitarianism that seem to have infected the political discussions here lately.