From the Comments

An anonymous reader comments (I tried to allow it to be posted, but fouled up the moderation, so am pasting it in from the email notification):

Sadly the VAST majorty of hate I have encountered in the great land is from conservitives. Always has been, and alway will be...

If that has been your experience, Anyonymous, that is indeed a sad thing. And I apologize on behalf of whomever from our side has expressed "hate" toward you, whatever that was.

I've been thinking that "hate" is probably not the word I should have used, as it assumes we understand the interior disposition of the person expressing some kind of opinion. I've been using "hate" as a shorthand for "vulgarity," "vitriol," and anger. And I've seen more of all those things from our own side than I'd like --- but I challenge the objective observer to do the following: open up two browser windows, one with Daily Kos and the other with Redstate or Powerline ... and tell us which posts (including those from the commenters) have more vitriol and vulgarity.

Of course, there aren't any truly objective observers of politics. Each of us processes these messages through his own set of filters, and draws his own conclusions. I'm simply sharing with you all what my own experiences have been.

Here's a practical, recent example: Think about the anger and vandalism directed at the Mormon temple in Los Angeles this last week. Can anyone find a similar YouTube video of angry Mormons (or Knights of Columbus) chanting "Faggots burn in hell!" or even "Tax Lambda Legal!" outside the headquarters of a No on 8 organization? I do know there are gay-haters out there, but my sense is that the Yes on 8 rallies looked and sounded a lot more like the families in this video than like the scene outside the Mormon temple.