Jim: Are you the canary in the coal mine or prepetuating the problem?
I reflect back on a more polite time when I was city attorney for Rockford IL, in both GOP and Dem administrations. Across from city hall at Erwin's Restaurant the political honchos had a large reserved table every day of the week--one either knew he (or she, our congresswoman and later Secretary of Education) was welcome, or not. There were no party lines. The real players, political money men, presidential candidates, state and federal elected officers, the sheriff, mayor, and news media types would drop by to discuss the hot topics of the day. No one ever called anyone a "liar" or made any derisive personal jabs at risk of being no longer welcome. In other words, there was a vested interest in being civil. The debate involved the clash of points of view, not personalities.
Oh! how this has changed. I'm no longer in the political arena, so I don't know whether the politicos are still civil face to face, but in the media they have crossed the line. Even some of my personal friends have no qualms about calling Geo. Jr. a "liar" and "stupid." I questioned this at dinner last week; my friend Dave is mentioned in Ch. 6 of Parker Guns: The "Old Reliable", and he used the "S" word. I asked how a person who went to Harvard and Yale and was a fighter jet pilot could be stupid...and Dave's reply: "well, I understand he didn't get good grades." This is what substitutes for intelect nowadays.
People are so caught up in the fast times of the Internet, 24 hour cable news, iPhones, instant messaging, e-mail, blogging, Blackberries, and the like that every debate that used to be time consuming, real face-to-face, and civil has been compressed to one word or less--what Rush calls "drive-by." Alas! EDM
