This is a flagrant pitch for my own site, Parodies Lost. But at least I'm giving credit where credit is due!
The idea for this post came from one by Jan Herman today citing a column by New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, who worries about extremists ignoring the law in their messianic desire to bring truth the unwashed and unenlightened.
There were a number of pro & con comments, but it occurred to me that Krugman's fears are equally well directed at liberals as conservatives. Krugman is talking about conservatives, and conservatives dismiss him out of hand as a weak-kneed, pandering, girlie-man liberal.
But I think--or at least I hope--he's talking about extremists on both sides, and it's not just the loony extremists. There's too many signs that we're a country losing its civility and resorting to extreme solutions.
Neither the Dems nor Reps in Congress seem to know how to act with anything vaguely resembling sanity, with the result that important issues are ignored while both sides posture for posterity.
You can't reason with most pro-lifers or most pro-choicers. And both would restrict the freedom of the other side because their cause is holy.
America is a country whose greatness is founded on the Constitution and rule of law, not some exalted sense of destiny. And I'm horrified that we have casually allowed the torturing of people, the violations of constitutional rights for everyday citizens without even a discussion, and the easy trade off of freedom for security.
People may think folks like Ann Coulter is either cool or a moron. To me, she's neither. She scares me to death because her power rests not with her wisdom but with her withering wit used to demean. Her greatest strength is her cruelty. She offers nothing in the way of intellectual discourse. And the liberal response: rustle around in the bushes for someone equally as nasty. Hey, let's get Al Franken.
Coulter serves no value. Neither will Franken. All they are their kind will do is further drive a wedge between Americans, making it increasingly difficult for quaint notions such as respect and civility to guide us through these troubled times.
Article comments
1 - gonzo marx
ya strike a very real Nerve here
i have long since shouted out that the mutually exclusive binary Argument style that has so pervaded our political discourse does nothing but hamper actually solving any REAL problems...
i used an example in another Thread that illustrates my point very well
this past weekend , Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC asked the "teaser" about the topic of governmental video "news" releases...
"is it the fault of the government or is the media to blame?"
and i say...BOTH...the question was fallacious in that the two Postulates were NOT mutually excluseive..and yet the Question was posed in just such a fashion
if you look closely..and examine so many of the Arguments floating around in the political sphere, you will see just that..diametrically opposed positions...folks deciding where they stand on something before they even know what the Issue at hand is, forming their Opinion before they even know the Question
this is NOT a way to solve problems..very few things in Reality are clearly "black" or "white"...infinite "colors" not to mention shades of grey are out there
yet our elected Representitives and thei rflacks...on BOTH sides of the Aisle and with rare exception...seem so "color" blind
but what the hell..this kind of simplistic, 10 word answer bullshit fills the coffers of their re-election warchests
and THAT, gentle Readers is all that is truly important to the vast majority of them...NOT the real issues...NOT their constituents
the Proof is shown every day that they argue over bullshit...like baseball..and leave the REAL issues untouched
Excelsior!
2 - Z.Z.B.
You hit on it. The label factor often precludes taking sides because the system appears to be set up as some sort of "grand contest" IMHO.
I often observe this same phenomenon at work in a corporate environment. There are people who will always say "but" and / or contradict someone's ideas without fully considering what was being said. The driver for the behavior is the weakness we seem to have as a species to want to "belong" with a group who "thinks like we do". Once aligned with a group whether formally with it's badges, labels, uniforms, codes etc. some folks stop thinking as individuals and think in the collective often biased by their own perspectives of what THEY think the "group" really wants or stands for. Very interesting field Social Psychology.
3 - Mark Schannon
Both Gonzo & ZZB raise an issue that's being discussed in the scientific community & more often in the media than one would think--but that's not making it into the public arena. It's the power of our unconscious filters which distort how we take in and evaluate information, how we form values, opinions, judgments, and behaviors.
Scientists from a wide variety of fields are discovering that human beings are not the "rational animals" celebrated by the 18th century Enlightenment. It's disturbing on some level...but it's illuminating.
This isn't something appropriate to my own blog, but I'll post sources on this site where people interested in this can learn more about it.
But not tonight...in vino may live veritas, but fog lives there as well.
4 - gonzo marx
Mark sez...
*in vino may live veritas, but fog lives there as well.*
bingo!!
the nut of it there...as summed up by the Conflict betwixt Dionysus and Apollo told by the band Rush on the first side of the Hemispheres album!!
brilliant!!
"in a world of hammers, everything fits"
Guerridor after forging Mjolnir
too subtle and sub-referential , gonzo me boyo...can't seem to do better than the gist of my first Comment above...
need...sleep...soon...
Excelsior!
5 - Mark Schannon
Gonzo, may you live long and propser in both the house of Dionysus and Apollo.
Look forward to seeing you there.
6 - gonzo marx
thanx much Mark
>grins and bows, hand over fist<
it has always been my contention that BOTH *houses* are essential to a happy human...
but as Heinlein wrote.."everything in excess...moderation is for monks"
my Postulate is that Life is a matter of dosage...too much of anything will kill ya...too much oxygen, you perish...not enough..same result..
and so on...
i do Appreciate the vulcan greeting, and the compliment inherent...but this Fool is far too passionate for a life of sheer Logic...
but it does help in Problem solving..a bit more of a subtle tool than the aforementioned hammer, eh?
Excelsior!
7 - DrPat
Or, as another wise man said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess!"
Take big bites, chew hard, and DON'T TALK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL!
8 - RJ
Civility in politics has been a rare thing since FOREVER.
Some of the things they said about 19th century politicians were just as bad, if not worse, than we hear today.
9 - gonzo marx
i can agree with that RJ...however..
compare the actual CONTENT of the Lincoln-Douglas debates
now take a look at ANY of the debates in the last ten years..
discounting the barbs and insults etc..
scope out how much concerning the actual ISSUES of the day were discussed
hell, even the Kennedy-Nixon debates has more content in them than all the rest since then combined
the level of civility doesn't bother me half as much as the dearth of actual content..
but thas just me, your mileage may vary
Excelsior!
10 - RJ
Fair point, GM...
11 - Mark Schannon
Gonzo, fear not about Vulcan logic. In novels written by Shatner, Spock reconciles his human and Vulcan sides and allows his emotions to emerge. Badly written but great reads.
And I'm with you and DrPat re: moderation when it comes to life. When the Dionysian gods created Jamesons Irish Whiskey (or in rare times of wealth,) Middleton, the notion of moderate consumption would have been considered heresy.
Finally, RJ & Gonzo are right about earlier eras in American discourse. The things said about both daddy and son Presidents Adams would never be tolerated today. John Quincy, the son, was slaughtered by unfounded claims of corruption and "plunder," and it cost him the election.
And Lincoln! Reporter Henry Villard wrote of Lincoln's "grotesque figure holding frantically on to the heads of his supporters" while his legs were "dangling from their shoulders, and his pantaloons pulled up so as to expose his underwear almost to his knees." The Chicago Tribune reacted to one of his state of the union addresses, saying he was either "insane with fanaticism, or a traitor who glories in his country's shame." And those were the least vicious comments.
However, Gonzo is right that these were also times great issues were debated at length and with extraordinary brilliance. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are unlike anything we've seen in our lifetimes.
12 - alienboy
I think it should start at the top. It doesn't matter whether you are left or right, nobody can seriously claim that ANY recent Government has set a good example for its citizenry in recent years.
A sincere commitment to the basic principles of integrity would go a long way towards restoring faith in politicians and the political process.
It's no co-incidence that voter apathy is rising as political integrity is crumbling. Personally, I think the public at large is often more "savvy" than the pols themselves - and to be disgusted by the current level of political discourse is quite rational.
13 - Mark Schannon
What? You mean Bill Clinton didn't set an example of decency, integrity, and honor? I'm shocked! Next you'll be telling me there's gambling in Las Vagas.
14 - DrPat
Not only that, Mark, there's gambling in Springfield, Portsmouth, and Waterford. Also in Orange, Lincoln, Washington and Adams counties.
Pick a state...
15 - Mark Schannon
I'm not sure I want to know this level of fact. It interferes with my opinions.
16 - gonzo marx
Mark sez...
*I'm not sure I want to know this level of fact. It interferes with my opinions.*
the Persecution rests...
Excelsior!
17 - SFC SKI
This post started off fine but the thread quickly went off topic and died, which is a shame. Almost as bad as incivility on the BC is the problem of people who hijack threads with unrelated crap.
18 - Dave Nalle
By all means let's hunt them down and kill them, Ski. You do the hunting, I'll do the toe-tagging. Let's start with Gonzo.
Dave
19 - gonzo marx
heh..
yas will never catch me
after all, who do yas think taught the Gingerbread man?
we now return you to your regularily scheduled programming..
Excelsior!
20 - Mark Schannon
You go off line for one minute and look what happens. Civility dies and people are threatening the Gingerbread man's mentor.
I think the problem is that we all agree with the basic premise, so, unlike other threads where we can disagree most fair and foul, we're left here, standing around sheepishly, violently in agreement.
Civility isn't a left or right or even a political issue--it's a social one.
Worse, perhaps it's a social myth--or someone less cynical might suggest, a social vision. When has there ever been a civil society? When has citizenship with all its inherent responsibilities ever truly been the cultural norm?
So we agree that when you scratch the surface, you reveal a bunch of barely civilized apes, and then we go off merrily making jokes.