Posted by
John Caile on Thursday, September 11, 2008 8:16:09 PM
For some time now I have tried to ignore a disturbing trend. Americans are becoming more and more strident in political discourse, to the point that even friends are refusing to talk to each other. True, there were vile comments made by political opponents going back to the time of the American Revolution, and Abe Lincoln was described in terms that would do Keith Olbermann proud.
But those were public discussions between rivals in the political sphere, just as a site such as this is, where we expect a certain amount of emotion. I'm talking about the emergence of something new. What used to be friendly debates at the local bar, or even over dinner at family gatherings, are now suffused with the same sort of nasty tone.
And like it or not, as I look at my very broad range of friends from across the political spectrum, I find that the increasingly vicious language is overwhelmingly from those whose views come from the Left. Whatever the topic, they are invariably the first to become angry, and the first to personally attack those who disagree with them.
I know as I write this that some liberal reader will...well, become angry. Not merely disagree, but get angry - really, really ANGRY.
Just as I know that someone else will proffer the tired cliche that "both sides do it" - but the fact is, they don't. Or at least they didn't. Look at the extreme violence exhibited on the public political stage today - it is almost exclusively the province of militant leftists. When has any group of conservatives trashed city streets, broken windows, thrown bags of urine, or participated in the kind of violence we saw in St. Paul last week?
This has been going on roughly since the 2000 election, beginning with the sour grapes of those on the Left who simply couldn't accept that their guy lost. Never mind how many recounts proved it, they weren't going to accept the outcome, and anyone who didn't go along was a "fascist" - or worse.
But my greater concern is that I see conservative friends starting to become frustrated with attempting to have a civil conversation - they are starting to "fight fire with fire." Before, they tended to stick to reason and logic in their debates with my more liberal friends. Now they, too are saying things in these conversations that truly disturb me, and the level of hostility keeps rising.
Perhaps the most telling anecdotal evidence of this shift in the state of the political landscape was a recent conversation I had with a guy I know. I hadn't seen him since last year and while having a light dinner at a local fast food joint, he dropped a comment about his car's "emergency kit" - which, when I inquired, turned out to include a 12-gauge shotgun, a handgun, and a whole lot of ammunition.
This is no "survivalist" or other such wing-nut. Just a regular guy with a wife and a couple of grown kids, one of the kindest, most mild-mannered people you'd ever want to meet.
When I asked why he was taking such a step, he replied with a surprised look and asked me "you're kidding, right? You have any idea what the loony lefties will do if Obama loses, especially in a close election?" He's so concerned about the political environment that he has a mini-arsenal in his car.
The scariest thing about this exchange was that, after we parted, try as I might, I could no longer assure myself that his fears were completely groundless.