March 02, 2008
The Decline of America
Ted left the following comment two posts down:
Welcome to the decline of America. Anyone who refers to the sitting president, whoever he is, as "that idiot" is shallow and classless. Sorry about ripping on your family, but there it is.I know someone who's major gripe with the president is that he's not eloquent, therefore he's dumb. Lord knows there are plenty of things to dislike about the man's policies, but to assume he's stupid because he's not a great speaker is - again - shallow and classless.
People have forgotten how to agree to disagree.
(emphasis added)
Well, Ted, ignoring in this case the insult to my family (only I get to badmouth my parents around here, btw)...I'm curious about this decline of American political discourse to which you allude. I assume that is what you're referring to, rather than a general, overall decline in America.
Apparently there was some gentile era in American politics where opponents settled their differences over milk and cookies before settling into their footie pajamas and braiding each other's hair? Or did they braid each other's powdered wigs? I'm really not sure what time frame I should be going for here--the one where they shot each other and accused each other of adultery...or the one where they didn't shoot each other and accused each other of adultery.
American politics have never been overly friendly and full of warm fuzzy moments. The great thing about being a citizen in this country, though, is having the right to criticize those we've elected. Heck, even criticizing those we have yet to elect or not...I'll go on record right now as saying Barack Obama is all package, no substance. Now someone can add a knee-jerk "racist" to my "shallow" and "classless" tags.
I'm not racist. I am occasionally shallow, and some people I can't be bothered to care about might think I show an alarming lack of class. I am what I am, and "I ain't what I'm not". Or something like that.
But what I am is an American, and one of the benefits is to call the sitting president an idiot if I so choose. Or his wife a "Hildebeast". And so on and so on...
Posted by Jenelle at March 2, 2008 01:10 PM | TrackBackWhoa.
You make a good point about insulting in general. I find this notion of a political discourse of yesteryear that was carried out in some morally aseptic hyperbaric, hypoallergenic chamber, to be quite naive, as though there once was a place where all was cream and cookies and ...
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.
(With appropriate apologies for any perceived Kennedy allusions.)
I'm certainly sorry if what I intended as a gentle tweak got this started. This is not generally a blog about niceness and sweetness. It's a whole lot more like your neighborhood pub or something where the patrons come in, have a pint, engage in the conversation. Or not. Maybe you come in, drink your brew, turn around and head home if the conversation doesn't interest you. But it certainly isn't any more civil to come into the pub and tell the other patrons that they should not be having the conversation they are having.
It would be nice if online or in person we could, as a society, recover a certain sense of self-sacrificing civility in our discourse, but then that's not what politics is about, nor has it ever been about this. Politics is about gaining the power to coerce another's acquiescence to our own agenda as well as to deny them the opportunity to coerce your acquiescence to their agenda. The notion that coercion can be "civil" is just wrong-headed.
Posted by: Rev. Mike at March 2, 2008 07:27 PM