Six days ago, I wrote a post about conservative bloggers waging war on each other. As I made clear in my article, I believe we (I don’t care whether you’re an American or a European conservative) all have to distance ourselves from racists, xenophobes, etc.

On the other hand, we should also accept and respect differences (of opinion). Heck, you may even think a particular conservative or libertarian is a loon (think Glenn Beck), but you have to keep in mind that such a ‘loon’ caters to a different audience than you do and that he will be important when election time arrives: after all, those who listen to him will volunteer and do everything in their power to help conservative politicians to win.

The best way to deal with such “loons” is to simply ignore them. Do not bash them, do not go after them. Let them do their thing while you do yours. Besides, even “crazies” are right every now and then.

That becomes a bit difficult to do, however, at the moment the loons start hitting those who disagree with them. Case in point: Glenn Beck went after moderate conservative blogger Charles Johnson yesterday because Charles believes conservatives are wise to put some distance between themselves and Beck.

Here is the video (he goes after Johnson at approximately 7:45 minutes):

If you watched the first part of the video as well, the first seven minutes, you will understand why I wrote that Beck is crazy but right sometimes nonetheless. He feeds conspiracy theorists and lunatic extremists, but he is also right about how progressives try to accomplish some of their less than popular goals. He is extreme, but quite regularly dead-on as well.

Ironically, Beck even has a point when he referred to Reagan’s 11th commandment. Never speak ill of a fellow Republican.

Still, Beck’s assault on Johnson – the “Jazz musician” is clearly meant to be an insult – is useless, even counterproductive. Beck’s over-the-top remarks should be ignored because going after him too often hurts the conservative movement as a whole. But he should not make the mistake of going after serious, thoughtful Republicans. When he does, he is in the very real danger of tearing the conservative movement apart.

What’s more, he forgets that it are moderate conservatives – pragmatists, realists, and thoughtful individuals – who are able to develop solutions for America’s most pressing problems and who can succeed in convincing moderates and Independents to vote Republican. Serious conservatives are the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement. Beck is an entertainer. He is not less, but especially not more. He and his fans should keep that in mind whenever they decide to go after a conservative member of the blogosphere, be it LGF’s Charles Johnson or Hot Air’s AllahPundit. We all have our roles to play, accept differences.

Here is the transcript (again: Beck is clearly an entertaining clown, but he’s sometimes right nonetheless – for all his radicalism, he does make some good points):

“Today’s Glenn Beck expert: Charles Johnson, a jazz musician, software programmer and writer for the blog “Little Green Footballs.”

Johnson says: “I don’t know if he’s necessarily going to incite violence, but I do think it’s irresponsible. It kind of drags down the discourse to a level that I, for one, am not comfortable with.”

As evidence of this lowered discourse, he posted a video that supposedly showed a fan of mine yelling “burn the books” at a 9/12 project meeting. Only later, did someone do the two clicks of research that showed she was actually just a liberal there to make fun of the gathering.

That’s not really the point. There probably are a couple of stupid people at the meetings. There always will be stupid people saying stupid things. There will always be violent people doing violent things.

But the insinuation that this network is somehow responsible or approving of anything violent is ludicrous and quite honestly a destructive attempt to silence free speech. That’s something blogger Charles Johnson should know about, since he’s been called an anti-Muslim bigot by most of the same people that unfairly said the same things about me.

We’ve come to a place where we’re not even playing a game of “blame the messenger,” it’s a game of “blame the messenger who’s specifically saying the opposite message.”

That message — for the one trillionth time — is: If you are considering violence against anyone who isn’t a pirate off the coast of Somalia, you are not only wrong, you are an enemy of the state and an enemy of freedom and liberty.

The Founding Fathers fought and died for our freedom so that we would have the structure available to achieve change without doing the same.

And you know that: 300,000 people peacefully gathered yesterday and honored our founders. That’s why today, instead of an honest critique of the spending of Barack Obama, George W Bush and both sides of the aisle in Congress, you’re getting non-stop “tea bag” jokes and accusations.

It’s almost like they want to distract you from what’s really important.”

Ladies and gentlemen: remember Reagan’s 11th commandment. And his 80% rule. I respect Johnson tremendously – I think he is doing a fantastic job calling out neo-nazis, fascists, xenophobes, conspiracy theorists, and focusing on solutions-based, modern thinking – and I appreciate what Beck’s doing on a daily basis (even though I do not enjoy listening to him) so I wonder: why can’t we all get along?