Can America be civil?

Something important to me has come up in the wake of yet another all out character asassination attempt on Rush Limbaugh this week. And I've been puzzled by this my whole life - starting at a very early age.

Can America be civil?

I was a kid in the late 60's and early 70's watching the so-called "hippies" on  TV every night raging against the Viet Nam war. They had such anger and hostility. And spit on our soldiers when they came home. And my Archie Bunker father just about had a stroke every night screaming at the TV. I couldn't understand all the hostility myself...

40 years later I still can't. The political discourse in this country has been bitter my whole life. Probably everywhere on planet earth since the dawn of time, I suppose...

But in this day and age I have this ridiculous notion that the "world's sole superpower" can actually have highly educated citizens who practice respect for each other and our institutions as we debate disapproval and disagreements.

For example, our presidents, no matter who, should always be treated with decorum and respect. Can you imagine the left treating President Bush with any kind of respectful language whatsoever? I mean you can disagree, or even be angry with him, but adults should be respectful. And what about us on the right treating former-President Clinton or Carter this way? Even though both have angered me greatly in the past I still try to refer to them respectfully (not here of course - those of you who know me) - but descriptors such as "former-President Clinton" as opposed to BUBBA - and acknowledge their past achievements. They have done many great things for our country. And I am a hard-core conservative fundie saying that - which is pretty much unheard of in today's environment. Same deal on the left regarding President Bush, as we here all know... 

We see it here on NB everyday - the government is always "too damn big," or "completely wasteful" or the liberals are "totally corrupt liars," and Hillary is a "feminazi communist," or Kenndy is a drunk who leaves his girlfriends to drown, etc, etc, etc...

This is disgustingly uncivil discourse. It is sickeningly shameful. We do not behave as a civilized "superpower" when this takes place. Our petty "comedy central style" civic discourse is a an absolute joke, it is embarassing, it is sad, it is extremely disappointing, it is a tremendous dis-service to our founders and all of those who have fought and died to provide it for us...

This is why I really think "the world hates us." Behaving like this, the rest of the world should freaking dispise us. I am as much to blame as anyone. But I've been through anger management recently and have learned quite a few important things. I haven't changed over night - but I am trying everyday.

I don't want my 2-year old son to inherit this childish American civic culture. Our civic issues impact the entire planet tremendously. While people die and starve all over the world every day, waiting for us to fix our policies we yuk it up on NB, Dkos, Air America, Rush Limbaugh, and Comedy Central, etc, etc like spoiled brat kids bitching at each other in the back seat of the family truckster. I feel like hitting the brakes, turning around and yelling "STFU dammit, yer giving me a GD migrane, already!"

We have work to do in this country. Can we please get to it? Do you think we can?

Can we be civil? Or is it impossible? Not even worth trying? Can we respect our political/cultural opponents and our imperfect institutions? I'd like to hear from others here about this...

I defy all of us here at NB to carry on in a respectful manner for just one day - let's see if we can do it. I hope so...