Civil Discourse

...has gone the way of the dodo bird and the Pontiac Bonneville. Kaput, extinct, deleted, discontinued.

I guess it began in earnest in the Clinton era when a liberal leaning President dared to poke the haves of society with health care reform and gays in the military. That seemed to rock their world to the core, shaking their very core values of "me, mine and more for me". Clinton paid for his sins by having his very life and Presidency ruined by malicious, jealous that he could still get a blow job, "investigators" who really found nothing and spent the country into oblivion making a few lawyers rich but proving little. The skepticism over Bush's two victories, the morass of Iraq and Afghanistan and the "you are either with me or against me" mentality of the last administration further fractured the country.

Patriot = agree with Bush and the wars.
Traitor = anyone who disagreed or criticized.
Idiot = anyone agreeing with Bush
Idiot = anyone who didn't

The color gray was washed from the palate of conversation, dark black and shocking white were all that remained.

The advent of online additions of newspapers has brought with it the concept of instant comments, letters to the editor without a stamp and paper. Sometimes the comments are interesting, most of the time they show the still widening divide.

Most of the time they show the "haves" losing their touch with reality.

Re this comment:

"When that "Democrat" digs in my pocket, instead of cutting spending (ala Cali), to take money for "taxes", when you Dipsh*ts, voted for him. You right! What happen to we are only going to tax 250k, 175k, 150k! This SAYS MIDDLE CLASS. Nuttinclown, what do you classify as middle class! Some "middle class" are making a choice of gas in the gas or food on the table! A tax when we are discussing taking over healthcare, clunkers for cars, a failed stimulus program, is absurd! It just shows how out of touch CONgress and this President are. Is It's funny you bring the race card in, I just take as you thinking "stupidly", and go about your business."

This in response to an article in the KC Star about University of Mo scientists working to control an alien plant species (spotted knotweed) that is threatening to take over cropland.

When discourse gets this silly and polluted, all possibility of compromise or progress is out the window. I read another article that Members of Congress, mostly Democrats, are facing organized hostile crowds at "Town Meetings" shouting the lies of the FUX news lovers, Birthers and other loons. As much as I thought, and still think, Ronald Regan was a fool, he had the class and style to actually have regular card games and informal evenings with his nemesis Tip O'neil. Imagine Bush and Pelosi at a BBQ? Not hardly.

Sadly, this ranting and raving what goes for TV news commentary and "reporting" in 2009. No wonder my TV sets dark. No wonder we miss Walter Concrite. No wonder there is no social progress. The haves, who make the most noise and can buy the most power, get what they want.

The beauty is the US is a free country and all loons of all stripes have the ability to speak their mind. But when the discourse comes down to name calling, lies, innuendo and deceit, we all lose.

Especially the powerless.