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This is a great question, especially on a part of the forum, that quite frankly tends to be less than civil.
A few questions to probe deeper in to that I have come to mind:
When were things more civil? What changed to make them go downhill? Did it happen gradually or suddenly? Were things really that civil in the "good old days" or is nostalgia distorting the perception? What is the underlying cause(s) if political discourse has gotten less civil? How do we combat it? What about today's climate is making civil political discourse harder? Is there anything about today's climate that could actually help improve discourse? What kind of leadership is needed to see this improve?
I wish I had an answer for you, but I hope this thread yields some productive discussion, instead of the tired "things would be civil had [______political figure I don't like, whoever that may be, or had been] not gone into office."
I say gradually. I've always said that folks voting for the lesser of two evils will just continue to put forth more evil candidates, and we have seen some REALLY bad candidates. At the national level you had Trump and Clintin, and on the local level you have pedophiles and criminals running. Unfortunately the more people dig in on "their sides" and vote for the lesser of two evils, the worse it will continue to get. We need viable 3rd parties.
John Adams had his crew spread this lovely bit about Jefferson:
And Jefferson had a man named Callender give back in equal measure. Of Adams: rageful, lying, warmongering fellow; a "repulsive pedant" and "gross hypocrite" who
So it seems nastiness and ill-temperament is just the American way.
Good post. Yeah it was just as nasty then, if not more so. If you google for quotes by John Adams about Alexander Hamilton, you'll find some not fit to print on CD. And of course Adams wanted to put newspaper men in jail for printing stuff he didn't like--not very civil!
I think part of the problem is that, increasingly, there is an attitude that "anything goes, so long as it's my side saying it." Rudeness, cruelty, and disrespect are all overlooked when they come from those with whom we agree, and are picked up on and flogged to death when they come from an opponent.
If people at all points on the spectrum started holding their own allies a bit more accountable for their behavior, I think it would go a long way toward improving the general tone of political discourse.
As to whether or not it's always been this bad, it doesn't seem like it. Sometimes, to be sure, it's been as bad or worse, but I can remember times in my life when it was much, much better. I think part of the problem might be the 24/7 news cycle. It's possible to spend literally every waking moment consuming political content now, and that didn't used to be the case. Not sure what can be done about that, it would be like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.
We could start in trying to get more civil on CD. How about no more one line troll posts with no point other than to make the poster feel 'special?' How about no spreading of inaccurate memes, then never returning to say 'I stand corrected' when the meme is dismantled, often for the 100th time. How about no stuffing words into peoples' mouths? How about no arguments via imaginary dialogue, often with fake Southern accent thrown in?
This is the most "civil" it has ever been. Have you ever read about what went on at party conventions back in the 1800s? And those people were on the same "team".
Sweet Jesus, thank goodness there was no Twitter back then.
Digesting politics as a whole we can see that it's an immoral and illogical social construct therefore don't expect the better angels of our nature to be on display within the paradigm.
Yeah, it would be better to look at this from a bigger picture level, just because specific politicians come and go.
There are too many other worn out threads that get into the painstaking deals of who did what wrong. It would be nice to have a thread that talks about what needs to change about the process/discourse or how people need to look at these issues in general, so that discussion actually accomplishes something useful instead of pointing fingers and going around in circles doing nothing worthwhile.
We need to find some type of common ground. Any type of common ground. Right now we can't even agree what our nation is and what it stands for. We have no unifying principle that we can fall back on.
We even argue about the constitution, our founding document. How people can read the same words and come up with a different meaning is a real problem and a mystery to me..
You mean the guy who said 'they bring a knife, we bring a gun.' The guy whose chief of staff's favorite line was 'eff em, we've got the votes?' (but with the real f-bomb substituted). And who once gave a talk holding a steak knife while reciting a list of enemies, declaring each one 'dead' while stabbing the steak knife into the table.
The problem isn't incivility. You'd be astonished by the things that politicians and their supporters said about their opponents in both the 19th and 20th centuries in American politics. The problem is that we have created a society in which people can segregate themselves, both in "the real world" and in cyberspace, where they can be around people who think just like they do and can avoid people with whom they disagree. Consequently, they know nothing about their opponents and, by extension, little about themselves and their own beliefs. Both sides than bury themselves further in their cocoons.
The Internet has turned out to be a net negative, by the way.
The whole point of politics is fighting over power - power to impose your will on the population. That's a recipe for eternal conflict.
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