"The Death of Demosthenes"

                                               CIVIL DISCOURSE BE DAMNED

"I grow old," lamented Eliot's Prufrock. Well, don't we all. Frankly seniority, if it has little rank these days, nonetheless has great privileges. Approaching my 8th decade I find fewer and fewer people to whom I am accountable or obligated to please save for my own pleasure. I no longer have employers or boards or oversight committees to satisfy and be critiqued by. No wonder the elderly often become crusty and contentious. Who's stopping them? This position is liberating. I seldom look back over my shoulder as I state what's on my mind. Free speech is a profoundly satisfying liberty.



Into the bliss of my declining years has come the common media harangue that America must return to a kinder and gentler day. Was there ever such a day? We must turn down our strident voices, soften our indignation, and treat the opinions of those with whom we might disagree with greater respect. Why? I will submit to the divine command to love your neighbor. But nowhere stands it written to respect your neighbor's opinion no matter how absurd, no matter how crass, no matter how much it contradicts the values you hold dear or the logic of simple common sense.



The latest crisis the current administration and its supporters are taking full advantage of is the tragedy at Tucson where six innocent lives were taken by the evil actions of a wicked man. One would think the horror of such an event would speak for itself. This was not allowed. First the shock troops went over the side with fierce salvos against talk radio and other right-wing media. "They have promoted a climate of hate," they intoned. With all manner of twisted logic and clever innuendoes the guys and gals at MSNBC, for example, began to place the blame for such violence at the door of their competitors at Fox News and of course at the horned and hairy feet of every liberal's favorite demon, Rush Limbaugh. As might be expected this storm of irrationality began to fall of its own weight even before the arguments against it were reasonably fashioned and carefully put forward. Blaming talk radio and the exercise of free, if angry, speech for providing incentives for acts of evil was painfully seen as nonsense by most. Insanity needs no outward motivation. Evil impulses and evil acts, since the days of Cain are self generated in the main. "Lead me not into temptation," said the wag, "I can find it quite well by myself."



But now we see the true genius of the craftier left wing politicians emerge. Rising in the dignity of his office, our President, mindful of the need to recapture the center of the spectrum and raise the flagging numbers of his popularity polls, took the rostrum the other night and spoke to those who attended the pep rally, excuse me, the memorial service that was held at the University of Arizona. With measured words he told us that political rhetoric did not cause the tragedy. Most of us had figured that out already but he went on. Sounding something like a modern day Lincoln-wannabe, our President said in effect it is for us the living to make for a kinder and gentler world of political discourse, a world that would better befit the sacrifices of those who were slain last week. Who could take issue with that? Well, as a dyspeptic ornery old man, I could.



To begin with the President's seeming magnanimous concession absolving right wing rhetoric had all the trappings of the old joke that goes "have you stopped beating your wife?" It establishes as a fact the very sin that will be absolved with no evidence of its commission. It’s a win/win proposition. The allegation is both established and tolerated and the President appears, well, quite presidential through it all. The fact remains that the only people who are upset by alleged incivility of discourse are those against whom the discourse is directed and those who don't care much about the issues involved but simply grow uncomfortable over any conflict.



Of course no one could possibly dispute the direct statement that our world could be kinder and our conversations gentler. But please, someone, somewhere, rise to point out that American political discourse has never been kind and gentle. I grow increasingly more nauseous as self styled moralists, largely without any demonstrable morals, decry the terrible state of our present discourse. It is absurd to suggest that today is the worst time in our history for angry protest and harsh language.



From the days of the Boston Massacre in the 18th century to the shooting up of congress by Puerto Rican separatists in the 1950's, from the sturm and drang of the Viet Nam era to the shouts against Watergate when various leaders were dubbed everything from crooks to despots; Americans have always been passionate and sometimes murderously stupid in their dissent.



I suggest that the current hew and cry about our public incivility is a ruse by those who know better. It is a cynical attempt to tacitly grant respectability to the horrific left wing attacks of the past 30 years on the Judeo-Christian values of our nation. I realize that our President told the world last year that America is not a Christian nation but he was an ass to say that. And so they continue. "Let's stop getting upset", many on the left-wing piously cry. "Get over it and get on with it." Their unstated assumption is that the things a vast majority of Americans feel deeply about are no longer worthy of vigorous opposition and even angry protest. Well, I say to hell with civil discourse in this age of moral blight.



How can we seek a more civil discourse when the left continues to defend the right of the individual to dismember and destroy infants through abortion on demand? How can we who care deeply about the values of Christianity be placid when our President repeatedly lauds gay "heroes" and brazenly strikes a noble pose while supporting their predilections for sodomy as members of our armed services? When I see our President and other congressional leaders carefully maneuver the passions of one segment of American society against the other, when they pit the poorer of us against the rich, when they paint those who care about the security of our borders as enemies and racists and do all this with loud and largely self-serving claims of compassion and deep concern for the needy among us, I grow angry. I will raise my voice in appropriate protest. Don't tell me to be civil. Don't presume to dictate the manner of my exercise of free speech. Stop arrogantly attempting to set my agenda and politically correcting and fine tuning my vocabulary to suit a certain secular level far below the moral values of a Judeo-Christian world-view.



Much is said about civil discourse today by people who talk softly and yet trample down moral values like barbarians. Are we becoming overly mannered in the face of such hypocrisy? The late William F. Buckley, more than 60 years ago, lamented that in the face of moral evil Americans were increasingly becoming an obliging generation. With his typically dry humor, Mr. Buckley noted that Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Mr. Hitler is certainly no gentleman." The faint damning of evil by Mrs. Roosevelt would be laughable were it not for the fact that our current President continues to speak with a mouthful of unmelted butter. He no longer likes the term "terrorist". He refuses to acknowledge a war against terror. He would try foreign mercenaries captured on the field of battle with all the constitutional benefits granted American citizens though these enemies despise our freedoms and indiscriminately murder our people. I fear this President's civility is approaching insanity. It is all too apparent that his civility is crafted to gain political advantage. Who knows the true convictions of his heart? In the meantime our Republic under his leadership is becoming more like the infamous Lord Chesterfield. Lord Chesterfield, Dr. Johnson said of his fickle patron, had "the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing master." How uncivil of the good doctor! But if the ballet slipper fits one must wear it.