Civility in politics, wherefore art thou?

[shogunthethird]

I'm not talking about either party in general and if this threat starts degenerating into partisan bickering I'm going to ask that it be closed.

Where has civility and intelligent debate in politics gone? I mean first moveon.org makes an ad comparing Bush to Hitler, the Bush campaign runs constant attack ads (including a counter-ad comparing Kerry to Hitler) and basically if you're a conservative you're a corporate religious fanatic jack-booted hatemonger and if you're liberal you're a godless heathen terrorist-sympathizer/enemy of the state) and debates between political pundits have been reduced to shouting matches where both sides try to make sure the other side never gets to speak, one man makes a film about the president and practically the entire GOP and all their associates try to stifle the film rather than debate it, how soon before we see a brawl break out on the senate floor? and these people profess to be more moral and upstanding than their constituency, what the hell is going on here?

[EinBebop]

I need a hug.

[Fone Bone]

Hugs EinBebop.

I dunno, as a Democrat who liked Bush Sr. I don't know why everyone has to be right nowadays. Probably because we live in such dangerous times. Doesn't excuse the petty behavior, but it might explain it.

Did the Bush camp really paint Kerry out to be Hitler? What's moveon.org?

[zmanjz]

Hugs EinBebop.

I dunno, as a Democrat who liked Bush Sr. I don't know why everyone has to be right nowadays. Probably because we live in such dangerous times. Doesn't excuse the petty behavior, but it might explain it.

Did the Bush camp really paint Kerry out to be Hitler? What's moveon.org?
you misunderstand, moveon.org, the democratic campaign group, painted Bush to be like Hitler.

[William C. Maune]

you misunderstand, moveon.org, the democratic campaign group, painted Bush to be like Hitler.

My understanding was the the Bush/Hitler video was only a contest entry submission to the site and not anything actually supported by Moveon.org itself. A contest entry which they deleted.

Edit: Here is Moveon.org's side of the story:

http://moveonvoterfund.org/smear/release.html

[Squall]

I hate the fact that politicians these days are afraid to see each other face to face and have a real debate, where people in the audience ask them real questions that put them on the spot. (Every US Presidential and Congressional candidate of modern times, including Bush and Kerry, fall into this category.)

I'm talking about good old public forums like the classsic Lincoln-Douglas debates when Lincoln was running for the US Senate in Illinois. Even though those particular debates are famous due to Lincoln, debates of that nature were very common in all levels of government before the 1930's. What happened? :(

Nowadays, all politicians do is read prepared statements, and all the public does is post slander both ways that are basically yelling insults at each other, and not a civilized, logical look at the issues... :rolleyes:

Imagine if Bush and Kerry were forced to have an open forum, random question Lincoln-Douglas style debate... I think they'd both wet their pants! :p

[Lucky Bob]

Imagine if Bush and Kerry were forced to have an open forum, random question Lincoln-Douglas style debate... I think they'd both wet their pants! :p
Oh great. And I'd have to watch THAT on CNN for a solid week.

"Here's a replay comparing the angles of trajectory, Bob...and as you can see..."

Never mind. Better kill it here.

[SSJPabs]

Last year, I did a presentation in a politics class on attack advertisements. There were no conclusive effects of real angry, vitriolic attack ads or spots. In fact, the only evidence attack adds had any greater effect was that the supports of the person that was attacked in the ad seemed to become so angry they turned out in higher numbers to vote.

So the moral is, be really mean=help your enemy.

Example: Witness despite 75% of Bush's adds being attack adds on Kerry having little to no effect on his numbers.

I'm sorry. I would love to discuss this. But the nature of the discussion makes it impossible for me to further discuss this matter in a non-partisan way.

[Ben]

Imagine if Bush and Kerry were forced to have an open forum, random question Lincoln-Douglas style debate... I think they'd both wet their pants! :p

No, an LD-style debate wouldn't work today because the audience would be 100% party faithful determined to tear down the candidates. It's because reasonable people have decided politics don't matter and have left it to the fanatics, who try to turn reasonable people in fanatics or prevent them from getting involved. It's a vicious cycle. It's really damn sad, especially because the uncivilized, polarized people are a vast minority of the population. The problem is that the *******s have the shrillest voices (I'm talking to you, Limbaugh and Moore).

[Psycho Fox]

No, an LD-style debate wouldn't work today because the audience would be 100% party faithful determined to tear down the candidates. It's because reasonable people have decided politics don't matter and have left it to the fanatics, who try to turn reasonable people in fanatics or prevent them from getting involved. It's a vicious cycle. It's really damn sad, especially because the uncivilized, polarized people are a vast minority of the population. The problem is that the *******s have the shrillest voices (I'm talking to you, Limbaugh and Moore).

It also have to do with the packaging of the politics. Politics became a product like everything else and sold in the same manner. Think if these party members had to debate intellects that had no intrests in running like Illich (uhh when he was alive). Think what would happen if they had to deal with independant thinkers using all different kinds of logic on them.

If you had real debates people might start thinking and ask questions instead of choosing prepackage answeres.

[Tapout]

The problem is that the *******s have the shrillest voices (I'm talking to you, Limbaugh and Moore).I'm not totally sure what that word is, but I can guess. The problem I have with it is that those shrill voices on the left are far louder than those on the right. The major TV networks, newspapers, and magazines will parade Moore, Al Franken, and the like all over the place. But Rush Limbaugh only has his radio show. Unless you watch Fox News you probably don't even know who Ann Coulter is. People have to search out far-right (and even not-so-far-right) opinion while the left is everywhere you look. It can't be avoided. You don't like Limbaugh? Fine. Turn off the radio. It's that easy. You don't like Moore? Too bad. You can't turn around without seeing that guy these days.

[Delthayre]

I'm not totally sure what that word is, but I can guess. The problem I have with it is that those shrill voices on the left are far louder than those on the right. The major TV networks, newspapers, and magazines will parade Moore, Al Franken, and the like all over the place. But Rush Limbaugh only has his radio show. Unless you watch Fox News you probably don't even know who Ann Coulter is. People have to search out far-right (and even not-so-far-right) opinion while the left is everywhere you look. It can't be avoided. You don't like Limbaugh? Fine. Turn off the radio. It's that easy. You don't like Moore? Too bad. You can't turn around without seeing that guy these days.
Not to pick on you, but I think that's passage is a demonstration of the problem. No part of that explains or breaks down the cause or nature of the problem. Firstly, I percieve the right as far louder than the left, I think because I despise Moore and (well, somewhat less so) Franken so much that I ignore and marginalize them and the far right seems quite visible without searching.

In short, people trust themselves and their perceptions too much.

All that post is about it perceptions and people, which I think is part of the problem. No one talks about issues any more, it's all about personal attacks and nitpicking on hypocrisy. People selectively listen to Moore and Franken rather than other, calmer voices and take them as representatives of the left because it's more convenient, it allows you to envision your opponents as deplorable caricatures. The last time I watched Hannity & Colmes, as I occasionally do for some reason, they spent some time yelling at each other about some person or another (only personal stuff, not issues), then shrieked incomprehensibly for a while about culture war issues that don't amount to jack **** in the end, then wasted a segment talking about the Lacey Peterson case (which doesn't really belong on a debate program), then more bickering and broad attacks. Serious analysis of philosophy and issues was nowhere in sight. Everything seems reduced to pissing contests where the words, "left, right, conservative, liberal, libertarian, communist, & socialist," are tossed around instead of ideas or facts.

And on an aside: So what if there is a liberal media?

[Eddie G.]

I remember seeing this play called Assasians which really summed up the problems with politics. Basically a character said the way the Democrats and Reublicans were acting was like two parents. But the mother told the child (us) to trust her and not the father, while the father told the child to trust him and not the mother, and the kid didn't know who to believe. I just wish we could grow beyond meaningless titles and groups and only worry about what is good for other people.

Oh, "wherefore" doesn't mean "where"... it means "why." It's a common mistake that comes from people changing the context of the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet is not asking where is Romeo, but why the hell does Romeo have to be Romeo.

[Ben]

I'm not totally sure what that word is, but I can guess. The problem I have with it is that those shrill voices on the left are far louder than those on the right. The major TV networks, newspapers, and magazines will parade Moore, Al Franken, and the like all over the place. But Rush Limbaugh only has his radio show. Unless you watch Fox News you probably don't even know who Ann Coulter is. People have to search out far-right (and even not-so-far-right) opinion while the left is everywhere you look. It can't be avoided. You don't like Limbaugh? Fine. Turn off the radio. It's that easy. You don't like Moore? Too bad. You can't turn around without seeing that guy these days.

That's because Moore has a movie out, and Eisner overruled Weinstein on distributing it so it became a news story and mushroomed. Remember Passion?

We'd better have a liberal media. If we don't have a liberal media then the media isn't doing its job. The liberal media is one of the liberal institutions the liberal founding fathers had in mind when they made our liberal country. And guess what? If we really live in a country in which the establishment is liberal, what does that make liberals? It makes them conservatives. These labels that people throw around so glibly have actual meanings and they're not mutually exclusive. I wish they could remember that.

[Speedy Boris]

Speaking frankly, it's gonna take an alien attack that wipes out half the Earth's population before the democrats and republicans will put aside their differences and fight for the greater good. It's sad, but true. And even then, they'd probably bicker about who had the better attack plan. :rolleyes:

[SSJPabs]

The real problem is, at this point we've achieved MAD. If either side backs down and trys to use civility, the other side uses volume and spin to rip them to shreds and take incredible ammounts of power.

If you'll allow me to take a phrase from Nixon (which I didn't think was a very good movie but have a more nuanced opinion on as a person) it all comes down to who do you think can ignore the "beast" when they have to for the greater good of the nation, and who do you think is trapped into serving the "beast."

[Psycho Fox]

I remember seeing this play called Assasians which really summed up the problems with politics. Basically a character said the way the Democrats and Reublicans were acting was like two parents. But the mother told the child (us) to trust her and not the father, while the father told the child to trust him and not the mother, and the kid didn't know who to believe. I just wish we could grow beyond meaningless titles and groups and only worry about what is good for other people.
If people did grow beyond meaningless titles and groups and only worry about what is good for other people that they would be enlightened as Illich described it. (questions every idea and every institution from the standpoint of whether it helps or hinders man's capacity for greater aliveness and joy.)

That would make society intellectual that in turn probably change more then politics since people might start use their new power of reason to question other parts of society.

Cool:cool:

[Frank Castle]

I can't wait to see the ads in 2008 when Jesse Ventura runs for president.:)

[SlyBoy]

Oh yes, civility in politics sure is hard to come by. Take a look at this (WARNING: Possible bad language)...

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=35

[shogunthethird]

I think it all comes down to the fact that with few exceptions...people are idiots, I'm not saying there aren't individuals with moments of brilliance but...well look at what happened with Gallileo and the church, or Socrates and the senate..people have this bias against intelligence, how else would you explain teachers getting paid so little when professional athletetes get paid so much? Don't get me wrong, explosive furor has it's place but it's not where intelligent rational discussion once sat, how soon before we see Bush adopting "Democrats are teh s uck" as his campaign slogan and Kerry responding with "I know you are, but what am I" as his?


and oh yeah, thanks for clearing up that language snafu TBW

[Mynd Hed]

O/T: The title of this thread contains a usage error. Contrary to popular belief, "wherefore" is not a fancy synonym for "where"-- it means "why." When Juliet asked, "Wherefore art thou Romeo," she meant, "Why do you have to be Romeo, a Montague, rather than someone belonging to a family not currently in the middle of a blood feud with mine?"

This has been your Note From an Anal Retentive English Major, a service provided free of charge. Tipping is appreciated.

[Ben]

You are, of course, correct.

This has been your Note From an Anal Retentive English Major, a service provided free of charge. Tipping is appreciated.

Here's a quarter. Wherefore shall I shove it?

[EinBebop]

people have this bias against intelligenceI SO know what you mean! Everyone just turns on me!

j/k :D

[Lucky Bob]

Here's a quarter. Wherefore shall I shove it?
I see your quarter, and raise you a lump of coal.

[sun]

you misunderstand, moveon.org, the democratic campaign group, painted Bush to be like Hitler.
Sorry to inform you, the Bush people have done the same thing to Kerry...It will be the ugliest election we have ever seen..Civility will be lost amid a pile of dirt.

[Delthayre]

The Moveon.org Hitler ad was indeed not sanctioned by the group, it was a submission to a contest, a submission that wasn't terribly well-recieved either. However, there is something illustrative in the fact that someone would even countenance such a thing. I general, Hitler and that drama company called the Nazis are, not unjustly, considered off-limits for comparison or commercial use. Something must be quite wrong indeed if someone would make such an advertisement and submit it willingly, probably eagerly, to a fairly high-profile contest. This does demonstrate Bush's failure to the be uniter he promised to be, but moreso it shows what may have made ever achieving that promise impossible or untenably difficult, a remarkable recklessness and fanaticism overriding decency and reason, symptoms that seem to be ravaging public discourse like a cancer.

The Bush campaign "Coalition of the Wild-eyed (http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/player/asx.php?media_id=7594)" ad is a different and more bizarre beast. Mike Schmitt of The Decembrist (http://markschmitt.typepad.com/) evaluates (http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2004/07/mad_scientists_.html) it well (The Decembrist (http://markschmitt.typepad.com/) is a very thoughtful weblog, by the way, I recommend it for liberals hoping to find a levelheaded and sensible weblog as well as to conservatives looking to experience something other than the caricatures of the left that win the most attention):
Finally, there's the Hitler ad (http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/player/asx.php?media_id=7594), which has been commented on at length. Although this was not broadcast but e-mailed to 6 million supporters, it remained on the Bush site for quite a while and also got plenty of the free media which it was designed to provoke. I have been enjoying browsing through the political ads of the last 50 years online through the American Museum of the Moving Image (http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/index.php), and haven't found anything this bizarre yet. It's not clear what the point is -- that the liberals are so crazy that they compare Bush to Hitler, which doesn't make sense as an explanation because the ad doesn't say that and they had to be browbeaten into adding an explanatory comment that might help a viewer who didn't know about the phony MoveOn ad story. Or, more likely to be the underlying message of the ad is that Bush opponents Kerry, Dean, Gore and Michael Moore are similar to Hitler in that they are all wild-eyed extremists, although from different extremes, while Bush represents the responsible middle: "steady leadership," the ad says. But if that's the point, why on earth would you use an image of Hitler? Hitler stands apart, he doesn't fit neatly into a political argument. Michael Moore looks a little crazy raging against Bush to boos at the Oscars, but that has nothing to with Hitler at Nurenberg, and bringing Hitler into it torpedoes whatever argument you were trying to make. That's why it was a lousy entry into the MoveOn.org contest that the images are taken from, and is no more effective when repurposed.

Both of these silly ads are reflective of a less responsible and more vicious arena of discourse. And it's something I doubt it solveable.

[sun]

I think the foundation for the loss of civility in recent years, is due to the polarization that has taken place on hot issues, like right to abortion, gay marriage, the war, taxes, and tax breaks....People are not even interested in discussing, just yelling at each other, with closely held points of view, that are unchangeable.. I believe you can hold those unchangeable ideas and still be civil in the discussion,,but that is not true of many others. Some people go for the jugular sort to speak, and , since Clinton's impeachment, things have gotten much worse, not better...Stuart

[randomguy]

I'll throw in my two cents, but it may or may not be wise of me to do so.

Anyhow, on the subject of over-polarization of politics, and the ensuing loss of civility, I typed up a little rant waaaaaaaaay back in the "Al Franken tackles Dean Heckler" thread. I'm sure that name will give CTZ vets warm fuzzies. At any rate, I spent some serious time writing it, Lucky Bob gave me a reasonable rebuttal, and I was never able to respond to it because the thread got closed (grrrr).

The rant has aged with debatable success, not to mention the fact that it was of questionable quality in the first place, but I'm posting it here anyway, because it more or less is the best representation of my views on this subject that I could ever conjure up.

The "you" I refer to is Lucky Bob.

I'm noticing this tendency, on both sides of the fence, to view the opposing political mindset as "those people". To de-humanize them. In other words, conservatives and liberals are, now more than ever, seeing each other as enemies rather than two parties with differences of opinion (and I think that word's important, hence the italics). Liberals are acting like conservatives are willfully evil people bent on suppressing women, lying to the public, stripping civil liberties, forcing religion on the masses, oppressing the poor, poisoning the environment, and seizing the world. Conservatives are often approaching liberals as people who hate America, don't support the military, desire to steal the money of citizens (either through social security or other taxes), or advocate tolerance only to people they approve of. In reality, none of these accusations are really true; neither side wants to willingly damage the country, as each seems to think of the other. This kind of rivalry is nothing new, but there's a hostility to it right now which is poisonous and destructive. This approach is remarkably commonplace on both sides, and I feel like it's a big problem, because this extreme polarization makes progress in the interest of the common good almost impossible. Instead of respecting differences in opinion on how the country should be run, the two mindsets are fighting tooth and nail, with vitrolic ranting, slanted media, and occasionally even violence. Finding common ground and learning to negotiate is becoming an increasingly lost art. It sets a terrible example for anyone who wants to go into journalism or politics. Conservatives and liberals need to stop seeing each other as dire opponents and realize that both sides love America and want to see the best for it. They simply differ in their views on how to accomplish this.

The pundits are a big part of this. You seem to pretty clearly detest Franken, and I'd hazzard a guess that you respect Hannity or O'Reilly infinitely more. Yet we need to realize that all these pundits, despite the fact that they're on opposite ends of the fence, are the same. They're ALL part of the problem. Moore, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, Franken... they're ALL bullies. They're all sustained by an audience who read their works merely to reconfirm what they think they already know. They write political pornography not intended to inform or honestly discuss or refute issues, but to rant, to accuse, to backstab, to whine. There's no conversation here, no growth, no hope of progress, and you might notice that their works hardly ever offer solutions to counterbalance the accusations they rattle off. I think as more and more Americans start reading these things (which don't require them to really expand their views or challenge their current modes of thinking), the problem is intensified, and that's not what we need. We don't need Coulter accusing people of treason and slander, and we don't need Franken calling people big, fat idiots and lying liars. We need honest discussion, and we need media figures who are interested in getting the truth out there. We need people to be willing to put their differences aside in the name of better political commentary and coverage. We need for the big media personalities to stop defining their jobs as attacking the opposition (and profiting, of course), and start trying to deliver actual news, and maybe some well-founded and respectful opinions.

All I'm saying is, don't join this "Us Vs. Them" mentality that's so pervading. We're all Americans, damn it. Americans with differences of opinion, but Americans nonetheless. We need to keep that in mind if we're gonna preserve this country's immense value.

Alright, rant finished.Yeah, so basically, I think the country's caught in cyclical cycle of over-polarization leading to a breakdown of civility and vice versa. And I think this is a problem not just because it's annoying, but because it's hugely detrimental to genuine discourse and any kind of progress in general.

If this whole spiel was too off-topic, my apologies to the mods.

[EinBebop]

I miss Dean. He was fun.

[Frank Castle]

I miss Dean. He was fun.Amen brother. YYYEEEEAAAAHHHH!:D

[randomguy]

Amen brother. YYYEEEEAAAAHHHH!:D
I'm never gonna escape that yell, and neither will poor Dean.

[Frank Castle]

I'm never gonna escape that yell, and neither will poor Dean.Yeah but I think that yell is just great.:)

[G. Wen]

The media presents what sells the best. Loud, accusing extremists sell much better than level headed liberals and conservatives who back their opinions with facts and try to present solutions to problems. As such, the media highlight the extremists and ignore level headed liberals and conservatives.

[shogunthethird]

You are, of course, correct.



Here's a quarter. Wherefore shall I shove it?

this reminds me of that classic zinger


"excuse me sir, can you tell me where the library is at?"
"here at Harvard we don't end our sentences with prepositions"
"very well, can you tell me where the library is at, a**hole?"