with the tacit implication that the desire to see “mobs” “angry” enough to perpetually warrant “personal security” is ethically neutral. Even under natural law that cannot be justified on the part of an aggrieved citizenry.

… except an RS consenus in advance of the 2008 cycle that targeting any family members on any side would not be tolerated
… except the detrimental baggage of having to defend against opportunistic hypocrisy for having skewered our opponents for having done the same, as in the Rumsfelds’ evening out with the Pink people, and in your own footnote
… except the collateral damage of abandoning “With malice toward none, with charity for all”
… except the collateral damage of abandoning “The honour which inferiors owe to their superiors is, all due reverence in heart, word, and behaviour; prayer and thanksgiving for them; imitation of their virtues and graces; willing obedience to their lawful commands and counsels; due submission to their corrections; fidelity to, defence, and maintenance of their persons and authority, according to their several ranks, and the nature of their places; bearing with their infirmities, and covering them in love, that so they may be an honour to them and to their government.”
… except the collateral damage of abandoning “The sins of inferiors against their superiors are, all neglect of the duties required toward them; envying at, contempt of, and rebellion against, their persons and places, in their lawful counsels, commands, and corrections; cursing, mocking and all such refractory and scandalous carriage, as proves a shame and dishonour to them and their government.”
… except the testimony of the lack of animosity which the leaders of the CSA were generally and increasingly accorded
… except the flimsiness of evaluating virtuous behavior in light of its criminality
… except that little bit about loving one’s neighbor as oneself

Not just here, but anywhere in my posting history.

Maybe then we could move into your less-than-subtle implications about my being on the opposite side of “principled people” and “regular Americans”.

of silencing rebuttal or criticism or judgment of words or actions. My point remains that any potential benefit of those forms of discourse is nullified once invective, including dishonor of a federal head, is allowed in the room.

Also, please show me where I once implied that “we are not to speak as men when on this earth.” We are men … who have been created in the image of God … who has given all men perspicuous commands … about how we are to treat other men … including those wielding authority over us.

Here’s a gentle rhetorical challenge. I would ask you to gather ten, fifteen or twenty of what you consider the most moving, powerful, effective, persuasive pieces of conservative discourse that you have ever encountered. Then, find the instances of invective in the same.

about the Invective charge, and I have no difficulty believing you would comport yourself as you say in the presence of the President. There are others here, however, of whom that would be much harder to imagine based on their speech, and my criticism is of their unwarranted devaluation of the person and well-being of the President. (And not only the President, but their fellow citizens as well.)

I would ask, however, that you reconsider the biblical analogy you used. This is an example of what I referred to above as ATE, and it is really not helpful. Most of the signal events of Jesus’ ministry, such as the cleansings of the Temple, are cosmologically unique attestations of the validity of his ministry and are not meant to be applied analogically to citizens of a temporal kingdom. The next time I get shortchanged by the cashier at Bravo, would I be justified in tipping over the chip racks and sweeping the aisle shelves clean of condiments, since that would be taking a strong stand too.

But the White House is not Herod’s temple, and WE conservatives are neither the Chosen People nor the Servant of the Lord.

No problem with your commentary or scenario.

There are a few steps, however, between potentially justified anger and the use of discursive invective.

I brought “Invective” into the thread in an elaboration of Kowalski’s reference to “sharp knives”. In my first response I was bemoaning both inter-party and intra-party invective in general, including its use by and between allies at this site; in my second I pointed out that some self-professed Christians here had incorporated invective and worse along with their calls for failure of the President. I never came close to implying that the call for failure necessarily involved invective.

and his rider is called Faithful and True. I’m actually more at home with “you worm Jacob” who is helped and redeemed by the Holy One of Israel. Indeed, a brief detour to Calvin on that verse is apropos for one of the themes of this thread:

while the Prophet had in view his own age, he extended this doctrine to all the ages of the world. Whenever, therefore, we shall see the Church oppressed by the cruelty of wicked men, it will be our duty to bring these things to remembrance, that we may believe that the children of God, who are trodden under foot by the pride of the world, and are not only reckoned contemptible, but oppressed by every kind of cruelty and reproaches so that they are scarcely allowed to breathe, are held by God in the highest honor and esteem, so that they will soon lift up their head; and let every one of us apply this to himself, so that we may not be terrified by reproaches, nor by our wretchedness, nor by anguish, nor by death itself. Though we resemble dead men, and though all hope of salvation has been taken from us, yet the Lord will be present with us, and will at length raise up his Church even from the grave.
Commentary on Isaiah 41

Not that things have come remotely close to that extremity here, but it seems to be a fairly widespread fear at the moment.

To your question, Jack, guessing but not certain in which direction you want to draw the answer, it will probably save us both time if I give as short a summary as I can.

I assume you’re not thinking about Jesus’ encounters with individual Pharisees (as with Nicodemus in John 3 and Saul in Acts 9) but with the several public confrontations in the Gospels. Those tend to cluster around his refutation of either their doctrine or life, his confutation of their attempts at entrapment based on supposed violations of the Law, and his pronouncement of woes upon them.

Jesus’ “handling” of the Pharisees began as it did with his “handling” of everyone: the proclamation, frequently supernaturally attested, first by the king’s heralds and then by the king himself, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” His refutations and confutations and pronouncements of woe then followed the clear lack of repentance by the majority of the Pharisees. Common themes among his rebukes include: their externalization of both sin and righteousness; their debasement of the Mosaic Law by adding post-canonical duties the performance of which obscured the main purpose of the Law, namely to expose the need for an alien imputed righteousness; their exaltation of their own supposed righteousness over that of Christ, which not only cut them and their disciples off from ever being able to cry that most fundamental of Christian prayers “Lord be merciful to me a sinner!”, but also hardened their hearts into hatred of Christ himself, the very embodiment and fulillment of the Law they professed to love.

The adulteress–and I assume you mean of John 8 rather than of Luke 7–was also confronted with the command to bear the fruits of her (apparent to Jesus) repentance: “Go and sin no more”. There was no need for him to rebuke her as he did the Pharisees because she made no sign of resisting his judgment, having known only moments before that the just penalty of the Law could be rightly meted upon her; her eloquent silence before the Lord Christ demonstrates that her concern was not with the unjust motives of her accusers, and that she acknowledges him as the lawful Judge. In full compliance with the Law he lived and loved to fulfill, Jesus–upon whose shoulders is the authority of all governance, and who upon his return will indeed consign all of his unrepentant foes into unending condemnation–now continues to fulfill the Law while releasing the woman from its temporal penalty, because he was neither a witness, nor of the Levitical line, nor of the civil government, nor was the trial in any sense legitimized.