Some of us may have been so focused on the differences between Rick Santorum (who I favor), Newt Gingrich and Mitt “etcha-sketch” Romney during this GOP Presidential primary, that you may not have noticed there’s a crowd out there which doesn’t care, because they hate us all the same.

For them, the “line in the dirt” is very clear and they are taking dead aim to all of us they see on the other side of that line from them.

Yes, they hate us, you and me and all of us, regardless of which of these three candidates we support.

To these haters, there’s not a “dime’s worth of difference between Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

To the haters there’s only two sides in this battle – and most people who are RED STATE and Human Events readers and who support any of these three candidates for President, are on the wrong side of the line, are the enemy.

And they hate us.

Which side of this line do you stand on?

The street protestors who hate all conservatives and Republicans but especially Rick Santorum – their “flavor of the month” lately, or on the other side from them?

I do not know if your mother or father ever told you they did not want you to be friends with someone you wanted to be friends with.  I had such a situation at a very young age.

I listened to my parents but I was really upset about it what I thought was unreasonable interference with my private life (makes me sound either very young or else, like a liberal or libertarian?).

Well, that kid ended up being arrested a few years later and went to jail.

Whereupon, it dawned on me that “there but for the grace of God” while true, is incomplete until you add, “and the choice my parents forced on me at that youthful age, of who I should NOT associate with.”

Harken.  (“listen well” for you youngsters, per Merriam Webster).  Therein lies a lesson.

For most of us today it is your choice, not your parents, who you associate with.  Who would that be?  It tells the world a lot about you, who your choice is.

We oldsters, not as well versed as the “now” generation with their “smartass” phones and their 2-thumb typing, their “social” media and their Facebooking, know something you might not have yet figured out.

You are who you hang out with.

Oh you can argue about that – but few argue with Plato’s old “perception appears to be reality” idea (popularized into what he did NOT say – perception is NOT reality it just appears so).

Your choice of friends, gives the appearance of WHO you really are.

Or as some who “bastardized” the original Plato might put it today, “your friends SAY WHO YOU ARE.”

As we listen to complaints from our libertarian friends about the surveillance and “information mining” (as it was called by Admiral John Poindexter who under our hero Ronald Reagan, first proposed it), that the “guvamint” is “collecting” information on all of us – and they are – the people who complain the loudest should HARKEN the most.

You are who you hang out with.

In today’s facebook age you go to someone’s facebook page and you see some real crazy people sometimes, on their facebook page as their “friends.”

What do you conclude about that person, whose page you are looking at?

If you are like me, a little older and “choosier” about who you might want to be friends with, you draw a conclusion – and in some cases you say OK, and accept their friend request – or even initiate it.

But in other cases you run like heck the other way – perhaps you click IGNORE (that is Facebookese for “no I do not accept”).  Or you go further in your flight and you click BLOCK (which means, we have each turned “invisible” to each other using the “Facebook” search).

But how many of those young people who laugh at us oldsters, how many of those libertarians worried about the “guvamint’s surveillance” of publicly available information – such as our Facebook page – have ever considered this question: WHO are your friends, and what does that tell the world about YOU?

I recently had one of my friends “refer” or recommend someone, using the Facebook mechanism, to become MY friend – I had but to do one “click” to accept the invitation and invite that person.

After looking at that referral’s facebook page, I wrote this, which I wanted to share with you (blocking out the name of the friend of mine who kindly suggested this for me).

“(name of my friend), just wanted to thank you for your recent “referral” but I must decline in this instance.  Although I am more of a “mainstream/full spectrum” conservative, people who identify themselves as a capital L libertarian (ie. Libertarian Party) tend to call people like me “neocons” and they especially hate the Christian-right.  It is not a mutual feeling, ie. I do not know any people on the Christian-right who ‘hate’ anybody, much less hate Libertarians. 

“But for an example of what people like this GET ANGRY ABOUT (ie. who you recommended to me), read my column of today.  The people who were there to jeer and express hatred towards Rick Santorum (Tues. nite in in Gettysburg, PA), as I report from eyewitness accounts, were BOTH the Libertarian (capital L libertarians) and the Occupy Wall Street, and from the perspective of any fair minded observer they are the same thing, they mingled together comfortably, and they hate the same thing/same people/same candidate. 

That would be my friends standing in the line to hear Rick.  And it includes (especially) Rick.  And it would include people like me, who gave a ‘fair and balanced and truthful’ report on what ‘Libertarians’ were up to yesterday. 

“So long as somebody identifies themselves as your friend did who you recommended to me, not as an open minded, fair minded, affable lower case ‘L’ libertarian that Ronald Reagan spoke of over 25 years ago but instead as a partisan, anti-conservative, Santorum-hating, capital ‘L’ libertarian, I am not interested in being publicly identified, not on Facebook and not anywhere else, as a ‘friend’ with such a person, or even of being associated with such a person in any way.  See my RED STATE column of today for specific reference  … and thank you again for thinking of me in making the referral, I do appreciate it.  -PAT HENRY”

Now the liberal left is big on the theory of “free speech” and the first amendment, although they never do read the entire text – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Notice it does not say there, that your “freedom of speech” is absolute?

Notice the First Amendment ALSO refers to our right to assemble, petition, and to practice our religion?

Notice most of all, it does say that I must give you a platform on my Facebook page to express YOUR views which oppose mine, nor do I have to give you access to MY FRIEND LIST so you can go spew forth onto them, views with which I don’t agree?

Most of all, notice that it does not say, you have the right to “pose” as if you were my friend – using Facebook – while you post on MY WALL and speak to MY FRIENDS, views I don’t at all agree with and don’t wish to be associated with?

It is one thing to be “friends” with someone who is for Rick Santorum while you are for Mitt Romney or for Newt Gingrich.  You might disagree on a few things and friends can do that but still remain respectful and amiable towards one another.  Especially if they say that they are Christians.

But when the core of your belief is that there’s no difference at all between the two political parties, that you want to stand side by side with Occupy Wall Street protesters expressing hate towards Rick Santorum and with those who are standing in line to hear him and see him – as happened at Gettysburg, PA, then it is time to draw a line, and see which side of that line you want to stand on.

Yes I know.  I’m not Colonel Travis, and last night was Gettysburg and Santorum, not Alamo and Davey Crocket.

But the line is there, nonetheless.  On this side of that line stand I, and most of those who support Santorum, Newt Gingrich and yes I do believe, Mitt Romney as well (even though many are far more moderate than those of us who support Rick or Newt).

Most of us are not at all Olympia Snowe Republicans (though some are) and if we live in Pennsylvania most of us didn’t agree with Santorum and didn’t vote for Arlen Specter as he suggested..

On the other side of this line, are those who stood with Occupy Wall Street last night in Gettysburg.  Who think it is great sport to brandish about – on their Facebook pages in some cases – the symbol of leftwing Occupy Wall Street – the terrorist Guy Fawkes’ mustachioed cartoon drawing or even the most “popular” image in the world (see wiki’s entry) of that other terrorist thug, Che Guevara.

They love that quote, those on THAT side of the line, about the blood of patriots and tyrants refreshing the tree of liberty (as did I until I kept seeing it on their pages), they sport photos of guns and knives and happily of themselves bearing it, of “speaking truth to power,” and “throwing them out” and even “resist.”

Sounds like the Black Panthers from the 1960′s so far?

They hate all GOPers, most often hate all conservatives who they say are just apologists for the wicked Republicans.  They say they cannot see any difference between the GOP and the Democrats.  It is all “the establishment” to them, all needs to be torn down and lets start anew.

They are for “power to the people” and most often have no clue that is exactly what the 1960′s leftists used to chant, and it is what the Occupy Wall Street crowd says, and why they are so comfortable with them, and with their rhetoric.

They don’t like you is an understatement because so many of them HATE you and they say it loud and clear.  And some of you my friends, are THEIR friends on Facebook because, I suppose you would say, you have “an open mind”?

When it comes to trash and filth and those tearing down America I must tell you plainly, I do not have an open mind at all.  My mind is very made up.

When it comes to protecting my wife, my family, my country and my faith, my mind is very, very made up.

And you and I my friend, should be far more “choosy” about these matters and about the friends we have – especially on place like “Facebook” where your choices very much help define WHO you are and what you stand for.

I’m very happy with the company I keep, here at RED STATE online and in what some of us still call “the real world” – the people that would NEVER be seen associating with the people on THAT side of the street in Gettysburg, PA.

It has nothing to do with Rick Santorum, who was there in Gettysburg on Tuesday night, nor with Mitt Romney nor with Newt Gingrich.

The sooner the supporters of these three candidates understand the real “line in the dirt” is not between us, but between all of us and those people in the street at Gettysburg last night, the sooner we can get back on track to throwing out of office those people who are destroying our country and defeating in primaries those who won’t stand up to them but wish to run away from battle.

Most of us here agree with the purpose of RED STATE – to help the most conservative, articulate and experienced candidate available win primaries and then help them win elections.

We can only win in general elections by defeating in primaries the wishy-washy “etcha-sketch” Republicans who RED STATE’s Erick Erickson warned us about – one of whom won renomination anyway on Tuesday in Illinois’s 16th Congressional District (A Case Study in Why Republicans Do Not Fear Conservatives).

That is what happens when we don’t stand together.  That is what happens when we say “oh I’m just too busy” instead of doing what several hundred people did this past Tuesday night – turn off their TV set, get out of their comfortable house and drive off – some drove a few hours – to stand up on the other side of the line from the Occupy Wall Street leftists and their hater-allies in Gettysburg.

The winner when we don’t stand together, are those people in the street at Gettysburg two nights ago – the Occupy Wall Streets, the direct descendants of the hateful radical left of the 1960′s, those who line us all up in their gunsights and say, “we do not see any difference between them.”

Despite some differences in primaries – and I do remain a steadfast supporter of Rick Santorum – the real “line in the dirt” is between us, and those who would either help, or stand to the side, while Barack Obama and his army tramples us to win reelection in 2012 and continue their “transforming” work on our beloved country.

Defriend them on facebook.  Stand apart from them.  Take issue with them.  They are not your friends and they think all of us are the same thing, all of us are “neocons” and all of us conservatives, are the same thing as the liberals.

They cannot tell the difference between conservative Senator Marco Rubio and leftist Senator Chuck Schumer.  The two parties are the same thing they keep chanting.  It is right there on their Facebook pages, and some of these people are listed as YOUR friend.

They are either stupid and/or misinformed or they are purposely lying with the purpose of destroying us, discrediting us, defeating us.

Either way, stand apart from them.

It is time for us to have a clear field of fire, regardless of which candidate for President each of us on THIS side of that line support.

Take a good look, at who is throwing the rotten eggs and tomatoes, the epithets and angry words at us.

It is clearly there to see.  In the street of Gettysburg this past Tuesday night.

On the pages of Facebook, all over the internet, at hate sites like Daily Kos and at the Facebook pages of those who echo that hatred and that defamation of conservatives and in some cases use the material from the leftwing hate sites to attack conservatives.

Take a good look at those who hate us, and then make a decision.  And then I pray, you will do something about it.

As for me and my house, we serve the Lord, and we stand with Ronald Reagan in urging, “hold up that banner of no pale pastels but of bold and vibrant colors.”  The Colors of concerned Christians who will not lay aside our faith when we step into the public square.  The colors of conservatives, proud of our country’s heritage and determined to preserve all that is good.

We did terribly in Illinois watching conservative Don Manzullo go down to defeat in a primary at the hands of a GOP “regulars” candidate.

As Erick Erickson said, so often, conservatives “won’t pony up for their own. (therefore we are) Paper Tigers… desk ornaments, not cause for concern.”

Men of the West, to echo Tolkien’s King, make your stand now.

Oh.  And as for a choice of friends?

Were I there this past Tuesday night I’d have happily stood on the Santorum side of the line, and this weekend, I’ll be there with Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney’s emissary Gov. Nikki Haley at the PA Leadership Conference.  Stand with me there in Harrisburg, now and onward, and I’ll happily be friends with most anybody there.

Stand with me, with RED STATE activists, on this side of that line in the dirt.

HanoverHenry is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section.