Being Civilized

NOT LONG AGO, a tea party lady was talking to a republican member of Congress at a fundraising function. She said that getting Obama out of office is urgent, because the President is a traitor who should be tried and executed. The Congressperson chimed right in, declaring that Obama is absolutely lawless, and constantly violates the Constitution. Amazingly, but tellingly, the Congressperson made no attempt to rebuke the comment about executing Obama. Why bother? He probably agreed with the idea that the President should be put to death, to save the country. You hear this sort of vicious talk all the time, so much so that it no longer even seems surprising. This is the extreme depth to which extreme right wing Americans have fallen. And make no mistake, extreme left wing Americans, extreme liberals, are no better. Bush is a moron. Reagan is an idiot. Conservatives are uneducated, unintelligent, and thoughtless. Same kind of garbage. There is probably some sort of cyclical nature to cultural crassness. Abraham Lincoln was often called a baboon, and Thomas Jefferson was accused of being an adulterer. In his case, the accusation was true. And maybe conservatives do tend to be less educated than liberals. Whether we are more violent, more aggressive and vicious with words is not really the key question. The key question, ofr us, is: are we becoming more civilized, or, if not, are we at least avoiding regression?