How hard should we be on those who agree with us - belatedly?

[Land Shark]

The quote below from Thomas Paine, architect of the American Revolution, has my answer to the question of how hard we should be on those who don't agree with us for even a long time - but change their mind. Though it speaks of "principles" and "revolution" it applies with equal force to opinions and politics:

"It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once. Time and reason must cooperate with each other to the final establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy."
---Thomas Paine

My occasion for posting this quote (again) is a frustrated thread claiming everyone ought to have known, based on Nancy Pelosi's statement in 2006, that there would be no prosecutions of Bush administration officials for war crimes, as opposed to concluding the same thing yesterday based on President Obama's speech regarding Iraq.

[stray cat]

1. Do you want them to support the GOP instead because dems are arrogant jerks?

[Land Shark]

2. No, argue the case while they disagree, when they agree, welcome them aboard! nt

[Land Shark]

3. Perhaps I should have put an irony emoticon of some sort in the title of the OP. ;) nt

[Quantess]

4. I probably wouldn't even say "I told you so".

[RandomThoughts]

5. Something like that is not a government saying someone will not be prosecuted.

It is a government giving up authority in areas of justice.

Just snag it up as they drop it, and have some fun, with compassion of coarse.