Jeffrey Lord at American Spectator has issued a challenge which all conservatives must heed.  One can accept the Battleground Poll numbers which consistently report that about 60% of America calls itself conservative or the Gallup numbers which place conservatives as "only" about 40% of the nation or the Survey USA which states that 34% of Americans are conservative and 20% liberal.  The fact remains the same:  conservative America is much larger than leftist America.

Why, then, can the left engage in the most despicable behavior towards conservatives while Rush's remark about Ms. Fluke produces a firestorm of leftist activity?  The left grasps that ballots in elections make for only one kind of vote that ideologically motivated Americans cast.

Every time conservatives stop watching CNN or take children out of public schools or stop supporting an organization which was once benignly neutral on ideological issues, conservatives cast marketplace ballots that count.  But every time the left convinces us that we should not boycott corporations that slavishly toady to leftist whims or gratuitously offend us, we lose a battle that we cannot afford to lose.

This is particularly true when businesses act as if the left is an eight-hundred-pound-gorilla but as if conservatism is a flea.  So when Carbonite sanctimoniously drops Rush but continues to support Ed Schultz, it shows no interest in the customer will of conservatives -- not because its executives doubt our numbers, but because they doubt our resolve.  The same goes for LegalZoom, Quicken Loans, and any of the other advertisers who clearly wish to please the left but are indifferent to the opinions of conservatives.

This has little to do with Rush -- those of us who have listened to him for decades recall when goofy leftists "boycotted" Florida orange juice-growers because they advertised on his program and the periodic calls from the left for jihad against Rush because he is so indifferent to their pismirish machinations.  The Rush Limbaugh Show is going to do just fine.

But what about the other conservative voices whose businesses, whose careers, and even whose lives can be crushed by the left's abuse?  It is fine to have a Stonewall Jackson Limbaugh in battle with us, but conservatives need to insure for ourselves equal and fair treatment even if we are not giants like Rush.

It is imperative that the left begin to know that we are watching them -- that when a business caves into the left's complaints, it loses permanently a slew of conservative customers.  The gnomes of leftist bureaucracy -- news executives, college administrators, politically correct "charities" -- associations which have been captured by the left and by leftism wherever we encounter it in the private, consensual institutions of American life -- must come to understand that each incremental movement toward fairness toward us will be rewarded with more attention, more business, and more support.

But these craven souls should know as well that when we take offense, when we see the bullying of conservatives or the mockery of conservative ideals, supplicating the ire of the left incites our deliberate opposition.  As one example, this review by TopConsumerReviews of online computer backup systems rates the top eight (Carbonite, by the way, did not make it).  Why could any conservative select Carbonite?  More importantly, why, in our social media and our e-mails to each other, should any of us fail to note the vile corporate hostility of Carbonite to our values?

Conservatives need to understand exactly what is going on here.  There are bigots who will hate us and try to shut us up.  We need not march outside their offices or write hate mail to them, but we also need not "take it" -- in fact, we betray each other when we do.  We must cast all our "ballots" in order to let the left see the true cost it its intolerance.  We should stand up for Rush...and all of us.

So this is the position conservatives should take against the liberal machine.  Argue against our policies all day long.  Take whatever position our heart desires or your mind believes.  Cherish and celebrate freedom.  But if you try to destroy personally a conservative simply for being a conservative, then know that we will heed closely and practice rigorously the caution of one of our nation's greatest patriots, Ben Franklin, after he signed the Declaration of Independence:  "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."