Letter about conservative hate wrong — and hateful

I am highly offended by a recent writer’s claims that equate conservatism with hate.

I am a conservative, but I am not a hater, and I don’t know any conservative that I associate with who is a hater. Most are loving, charitable people whom I long to emulate.

Having said this, I would like to take the opportunity to condemn the vitriol in this letter. He says that hate does not come from many sides. I wholeheartedly disagree.

Yes, conservatives must own up to the white nationalists and the Ku Klux Klan, but liberals must own up to the Antifa, the Black Panthers, and a subset of Black Lives Matter. And what about ISIL, al Quaeda, Hamas; are they not hate mongers? Hate does not only come from the extreme right, it comes from “many sides.”

What I would like to point out is that you rarely, if ever, hear a mainstream conservative supporting the extreme right. They usually condemn them. The same cannot be said of the mainstream liberal.

This letter spews forth hatred towards all conservatives, blaming them for intolerance and violence. What about liberal-driven violence on college campuses when conservatives speak, or the constant mainstream media attacks on conservatives?

Like the writer, I too would like to see radical changes in 2018. I would like to see tolerance of diverse ideas on both sides, without attacking and labeling.

This story was originally published September 24, 2017 at 1:30 PM with the headline "Letter about conservative hate wrong — and hateful."