On the lack of courtesy in public debate

Please read with an open mind. But I suspect there will be shooting the messengers, both myself and Ms. Noonan.

http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110009078

 

While she makes legitimate points about particular incidents, are we really to believe that Ms. Noonan has never heard of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly or Laura Ingraham?
No, that can't be it. She must own a radio.
So is she trying to get us to believe that these people are fair and civil?
No, that can't be it. Because she's got some mental capacity.
Or could it just be that she's doing what she's accusing Rosie O'Donnell and Babs Streisand of doing? Shouting down anyone who does not agree with her? Indeed.

 

I'll agree with her examples, but the idea this lack of courtesy is on one side of the political fence is a pretty absurd proposition. Political discourse got ugly on the way to the 94 elections and has never really stopped being so.

 

There are open-minded people capable of intelligent discourse on both sides.

There are blowhards more in love with the sound of their own voice and sowing discontent on both sides. The blowhards deserve to be shouted down (see entries for O'Donnell, Rosie; Coulter, Anne)

 

The whining from the right over "intelligent debate" is very, very laughable.

God, for four years, these people worked to do nothing other than destroy intelligent debate and divide the country so they could get a chimp elected. Now, six years after that election, as the majority of the country slowly realizes just how unbelievabley screwed over we all were, they're whining about our complaints.

You reap what you sow.

 

Just lay back and enjoy it

 

She's got a point in that civic discourse in this country has gone down the shitter. But to just gripe about obnoxious leftys, well, that's omitting a huge part of the story. Hell, she could have at least dumped on O'Falafel for some balance.

 

And dim dullard ones, at that.

Yeah, she seems real interested in civil debate. :

 

She's got kind of a point about the "dim dullard" thing. I would rather hit myself in the head with a hammer than have a dinner party conversation with Rosie O'Donnell or Barbara Streisand. Of course, I imagine chatting with Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity would be full of wonderful insights in the human condition and life itself :

 

This wasn't a diagnosis of a disease, merely another symptom of it.

That she ignores the bullies, blowhards and gasbags of the Right is only more exclusionary Republican revisionism. A skill, one must admit, at which they excel. And Ms. Noonan in particular.

What is most missing from the left in America is an element of grace--of civic grace, democratic grace, the kind that assumes disagreements are part of the fabric, but we can make the fabric hold together. The Democratic Party hasn't had enough of this kind of thing since Bobby Kennedy died. What also seems missing is the courage to ask a question. Conservatives these days are asking themselves very many questions, but I wonder if the left could tolerate asking itself even a few. Such as: Why are we producing so many adherents who defy the old liberal virtues of free and open inquiry, free and open speech? Why are we producing so many bullies? And dim dullard ones, at that.

I presume she means Nancy Grace, right?

And what soul-searing questions are American conservatives currently asking themselves?

"What would Jesus do if his Halliburton stock split?"

 

Fair point, but when was the last time Barbara Streisand was on the television and radio 5-days a week pushing her opinions forward? If Noonan felt the need to argue about discourse, she could have selected a better target than Streisand.

Clearly, she needed three examples. So, she comes up with Rosie O'Donnel, who was a guest on a show, a bunch of college kids dealing with a lecture circuit, and... Barbara Streisand at a concert in MSG where the minimum ticket was well over $150.

Call me crazy but Streisand isn't holding a concert and then asking for a debate. If she wants to give a speech about something, well, you know what you are getting. Don't cry about it later on.

 

It's a pox on both sides, and unfortunately I don't see an end in sight.

And Rufino, it didn't start in 1994. It started in '92.

It's created a society where civility is discouraged and admitting you're wrong isn't being noble, it's being weak. We're not trying to find common ground (yet we have a lot of that, if you think about it), rather we're digging deeper trenches.