Nothing about being civil requires you to accept or defend the premise that Republicans are acting in good faith. You can argue, perfectly civilly, that Republicans are behaving badly–in bad faith even–when they negotiate by threatening to harm things they do not actually want to harm.
The reasons to be civil are also pretty obvious. It’s more persuasive, since our political brains are pretty much ruled by tribal emotions. It’s more likely to lead to compromise. Being nice is good in and of itself. And if nothing else, recognizing your opponents good qualities keeps you from getting too blindered by your own partisan biases. By contrast, anger doesn’t accomplish much. It doesn’t persuade your opponents. It doesn’t make your vote count double. It doesn’t make friends. It distorts your ability to reason objectively.
A lot, actually. There is, at most, a tenuous link between civility in legislative houses and widespread civil disturbances, especially is taken to the state level. Claiming such behavior is reflects general civil unrest may be defensible. Claiming such behavior is a cause of such unrest is unsupported.
There have certainly been several cases of armed assault by legislators inside legislative halls at the state level that did not lead to civil unrest.
And if we include international examples (outright physical brawls in Taiwan and South Korea among lawmakers in recent years, for instance), there’s even more support that such behavior doesn’t cause the type of unrest you claim.
It hasn’t caused rebellion yet, no matter how much you claim otherwise, but I guess it’s within the realm of possibility that it can happen sometime in the future.
The worst stuff our politicians have said about each other hasn’t yet reached some of the nastier stuff tossed between the Federalist and Democratic-Republican camps in the post-Revolution era. I suppose you can claim that such behavior eventually led to the Civil War, but it’s a stretch.
Frustration, I’ll agree with. Note that a lot of the current behavior started under the Texas Hammer, Tom DeLay (who was the representative of my district, actually). A lot of people will agree he was responsible for much of the current divisiveness, but you’d be hard pressed to find (sane) people who say it’s going to lead to anything resembling rebellion.
I’ll certainly agree I prefer people in general, not just politicians, exhibited civility in public, but ‘preference’ is as far as I’ll go with that.
I’m all for a civility that doesn’t obscure the truth.
But when the point of civility seems to be to hide the reality that one party is willing to do significant damage to our economy, our democracy, and our political system if they don’t get their way - or maybe even when they do - then it’s important to quite civilly call evil by its name.
Unfortunately, no. Far too many of our citizens are vacuum citizens, they don’t participate, the Apathy Party is number one. This works very well for the committed cadres of fanatics. Most people, it is fair to say, do not agree with TP fanatics, but they change the channel rather than change their minds.
Worse, the Forces of Darkness are on the march, they are exploiting very last drop of power. Apathy is their ally, they will do everything they can to discourage the middling voter. Voter repression works for them. And they are totally blatant about it, they don’t even bother anymore with fig leaves.
If we truly had a one person, one vote republic, where all votes were equal in power, and all citizens having equal access to voting rights, they would be crushed. And what is their solution? Would it be to alter their policy to fit the circumstances, or alter the circumstances to fit their policy?
Sorry, Judge Parker, I’d love to agree with you, but cannot. If we are not angry now, when will we be? I look forward with hope to the day when I can, when political debate can be reasoned discourse over cups of tea, pinkies akimbo, polite murmurings exchanged. That day is not today. Tomorrow ain’t looking all that good, either.
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The right didn’t seem to care about civility in politics until the left started pushing back, it’s kind of like they didn’t seem all that upset about deficits until a black guy got in office.
I don’t know how to civilly state my position, but here goes: I respectfully suggest that fear is the key defining feature of the modern American conservative movement and that their political elites cynically and knowingly use that fear to manipulate the populace; therefore members of the GOP are either cynical fear mongers, or easily duped pawns in a culture war they don’t understand. Thank you for your attention.
Do you think your display of anger will impress the apathetic into action?
I think most people who are apathetic about politics are unlikely to be influenced either way by the tone of the non-apathetic, but if I had to pick one, I’d guess that an angry tone just makes them less interested in tuning in.
You know what made the most apathetic liberals I know engage with politics? The West Wing–a fictional world in which Republicans are portrayed, most of the time, more charitably than they deserve. Anecdote, I know, but I see no evidence that angry rhetoric serves to wake the apathetic from their slumber.
Thomas Paine, in Common Sense, wrote one of the most closely reasoned works in political discourse ever. When power is unreasonable, reason becomes revolutionary.
I can accept, to a certain degree, being dominated by the majority. My views have pretty much always been unpopular, and I signed on to that, that’s the deal. Fair enough, and I’ve swallowed it.
But now they want to play Republican Poker, where they get seven cards, you get five, all your cards are face up and they get to draw twice.
You know, sometimes I find myself thinking that a civil war is the only way to settle this shit once and for all. The two major factors behind my not actually trying to figure out some way to get one started are that the rebels, this time, aren’t organized by geography and that they have most of the guns. Otherwise, I’d just be all “Let’s get it on, already.” Persuasion, logic, and reason have proved utterly useless, and even self-interest has failed us.
I’m not arguing against anger. I’m arguing against angry rhetoric. When I get mad, I donate money or time to the people I think will help things. I argue, civilly, with the people who are on the wrong side. Those things actually matter. Displays of anger only make you feel better.
This isn’t a scripted television show where the tame Republicans are outfoxed on a weekly basis by clever quips told by the star of the show-this is fucking reality where the Republicans depend on their opposition to take their time to calmly reason things out while they do as much damage as possible. You don’t calmly stand up to the bully and try to reason with him while he’s kicking you in the nuts.
In a democracy (or representative republic, even) there isn’t really such a thing as “settling it once and for all”, is there? But the US voters elected Obama twice, the Rs lost 8 House seats, and the Tea Party are threatening to "primary’ every reasonable R they can identify.
I think rationality may be gaining, for the time being…
On the internet you call out those who give the standard “Both sides do it!” response and refuse to even go down that road with them-just say “That’s absolute bullshit. You know it and I know it, so drop it.” In person, do the same thing, then say, “I was willing to listen to your side, but if you’re going to insult my intelligence to my face we’ve got nothing to talk about.” Get angry. Get angry in public. Stay angry. Vote angry. Realize that the game isn’t Cricket any more, it’s Austrlian Rules football, and if you continue to try to play by the rules of Cricket you are going to continue to get you ass plowed under by the rules of Australian Rules football.
There’s a scene in Duck Soup where Groucho agrees to make peace with Sylvania, to offer them his hand in friendship. But then he starts to imagine himself offering his hand in friendship only to have it rudely rejected by Sylvania. And he gets himself so worked up over the (imaginary) prospect that when the Sylvanian ambassador arrives, Groucho slaps him in the face, which brings the countries to the brink.
Finding something nice to say about other people does not necessarily involve sacrificing “the truth”, even if you find these people objectionable on many levels.
Again, the point of civility is to enable yourself to live in peace and harmony with others who - whatever you think of them - exist and are a force in this country. Aka “diplomacy”.