Today’s headline in USA Today reads as follows: “What Happened to Civility?” At the risk of sounding rude: hahaha, oh that’s a good one, RAFLOL.

Our current rash of incivility is nothing new but it does seem at times to be particularly threatening. Once thought to be the province of teens and outcasts, incivility has found a home in the hands of a rash of angry, overwrought, impassioned (and surely calculating) commentators, all with access to airwaves or broadband and many espousing a so-called “conservative” point of view. Their idea of free expression consists of  name-calling and their expression of ideas boils down to inane invective that makes Triumph the Insult Dog look like Gandhi.

Since appeals to reason apparently aren’t appealing in the least, we are treated instead to Anne Coulter’s “towel-heads,” Bill O’Reilly’s “traitors,” or Glenn Beck’s “racists” 

 The other “side” – um, non-conservative – has been feeling the heat. Not wanting to be seen as weak, they’ve responded by hauling out a big brush in order to paint all Republicans as “wing nuts” and “craz ies” or even “big fat liars.” As a certified ECL (east coast liberal, although I was born in the Midwest and “liberal” means open to discussion), it’s hard not to resort to naughty words to describe the crap that sometimes comes out of Sean Hannity’s mouth – or Michelle Bachman’s, for that matter. I refrain because name-calling, while easy, says nothing and solves nothing.

The common thread that seems to bind the behavior of  a Joe Wilson, Kanye West or Serena Williamson with any of the aforementioned talk show hosts (and you can throw Keith Olbermann into the mix if you like) is a sense of entitlement. They are “free” to say or do whatever they want. We grant them immunity and they seize it in the name of expressing their “honest” emotions or giving voice to the honest emotions of others. In truth, there’s nothing honest about attempting to intimidate a young  singer or a courtside judge, or injecting oneself rudely into a speech and then turning it into a PR opportunity. Nor is it honest to use information selectively in order to manipulate public opinion.

 Incivility has always existed in public, particularly political life. Our democratic tradition has proved to be messy at times. Britain’s House of Commons has hosted some particularly  nasty fights. In this country, earlier presidential campaigns were brawls (or duels: Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton eath after Hamilton’s interference prevented Burr from becoming vice-president; talk about a sore loser). The newspapers in our nation’s early years were overtly partisan vehicles for disseminating not just a candidate’s platform but gossip, rumor and innuendo concerning his opponent. In the fifties, Joe McCarthy held sway in my home state of Wisconsin and nothing says rude like being called a Communist - and denied your livelihood.

Maybe it’s not worse. Yet I could swear vitriol is raining down on us these days. We’re almost at the point where we can’t even pretend we’re exchanging ideas within the context of an open democracy because we’re not. We’re ranting, folks. The proliferation of outlets for self-expression means there are more places than ever to roll in the mud or sling it every which way. If we aren’t down and dirty, we’re analyzing every single outburst to death; actually we're giving bad behavior life after death.  

I believe vigorous debating is healthy; it hones our critical thinking skills, opens us up to other people’s ideas and may produce highly satisfying outcomes, like the Torah, the U.S. Constitution or agreement on who to vote off the island or into the semi-finals. But these outbursts and the lengthier diatribes don’t represent debate but the triumph of raw feeling. We must be heard so we will be outrageous; outrageous has more entertainment value. The disease has gone viral; we’re all ready for a fight.

 Have we always had each other on the ropes or by the throats? Are we doomed to live in states of red and blue and see everything in black or white? Is there anyone refereeing or are we all too busy renouncing one another? I’m all for differences of opinion, but do we have to be so friggin’ rude about it?  

We act as if discussion is for sissies and reasoning is for wimps. There is no room for concession and no place for common ground. Everything gets reduced to the level of a barroom slugfest. We persist even though we must know such behavior is not humanity at its best and has the potential to be dangerous.               

Bigot! Traitor! Pansy! Hate-monger! Racist! Socialist! Lily-livered liberal! Fundamentalist fanatic! You idiot! Says who? Says me! Shut up! No, you shut up! 

Stop it, all of you! Go to your rooms; you will stay there until you learn to behave civilly.