Political Debate Rage

As I grow older, I'm finding that something peculiar is happening to me. I think some of my pride is melting away. I want to be nice to everybody. Some of it may be selfish. The older we get, the more mistakes we pile up behind us. (It's a sort of... side-effect of our humanity.) To put it morbidly, the closer we are to death, the less we can afford to point any fingers. And I'm really feeling like a freak lately, because it seems like the last priority on anyone's list is to be kind to others.

But hey, it's election time...so why are we talking about "nice"? Quite frankly, I think a good shot of nice would really help the election process. (Not to mention everyone's daily commute.) And I'm not even talking about from candidate to candidate. Politicians are fairly practiced at diplomacy. I'm talking about the way we debate with each other, on street corners, in restaurants, and in our own living rooms. We're being rude and condescending, and that's no way to win an argument. It's just a good way to look like a jerk. We're losing our cool, America. And if we're losing our cool, I think it's safe to say we're losing our self-control.

Gone is the art of the polite conversation. Especially when it comes to the election. Honestly, I can understand all the rage. The anger is coming from a place of what we like to call, "righteous anger" in "churchese". We're fed up, terrified, and sick of death, greed, and fear. And that's good. But we're just kind of throwing our rage around in all directions, and it's landing on everyone. Our friends, our families, the people we work with...the list goes on and on. So maybe polite isn't the word I'm searching for here. Maybe the word I'm looking for is patient.

Yeah, patient. I'd love to see our news anchors and commentators display even a modicum of patience. These days, when someone asks a question on a political cross-fire type show, or even during official election coverage, it basically acts as a starter pistol. Before you know it faces are red, yelling ensues, and by the end of it all someone has stomped off or been bleeped/censored. Multiple times.

Nobody has had the ability to answer the first question, let alone have a legitimate conversation about the candidates and their policies. Or if someone does ask a question, it's usually something like, "Tell me Bob, when exactly did you become such an idiot?"Quite frankly, it's embarrassing. And don't even get me started on the lack of legitimate political coverage. Almost all of what we're seeing is tabloid reporting, but hey...what did I just say about not getting me started?

When I watch our political coverage, I'm often reminded of that Monty Python sketch where the boys dress up as old ladies and sock each other with purses in a field of mud. In fact, that might be a more civilized way to handle things.

We're free to talk about whatever we want in America. We can rant, rave, and rail if we want to. And that's fantastic, and there's always a time for that. But just because we can, doesn't mean we always should. Everybody's always turned up to eleven.

It's a strange feeling to literally not be able to have a conversation with someone of a differing viewpoint. To put it bluntly, I'm sick of being yelled at. And what I'm finding is that when everyone is always at their boiling point at all times, I stop listening completely. Everyone is screaming over top of each other, and literally nobody is willing to listen. You do the math.

Let me go Chris Farley on you for a second. Remember in Ghostbusters II when there was that pink ooze, and if they squirted it on you when you were mad you just got even more mad, and then everyone around you got mad, and you just started fighting with everyone? Remember that?

Well it's kind of like that out there right now. And I have to say, it's really ineffective.

So cage the rage everybody. Let's put some dignity back into our conversations. You can be mad without going berserker rage on everybody. You really can. Where's that whole, "What Would Jesus Do" movement now?