Exercise is Good For You              February 19, 2013

            Politicians often fail to agree.  The 112^th congress is an historic benchmark of such failure.  The 113^th is trending apace.  Two things are surprising—that so many were reelected, and that the language of disagreement, in congress, and abroad in our land, is so crudely disrespectful. 

It seems many Americans are taking communication cues from the sewer of political campaign advertising.  Those ads call a candidate’s opponent a lying two-faced charlatan.  They do it every ten minutes, for months.  How hard is it to imagine that that message and attitude adheres, especially with voters who are inclined to oppose the person anyway.  Comments like, “liar” and “thief” and “idiot” and sometimes even, “anti-Christ” and “Hitler” thus appear in public conversation ever after.  And that’s just the mild end of the scale.  The really nasty stuff, the product of mental illness, is sickening.  Upon reflection, you can see that lack of civility demeans the poor soul who displays it, exponentially more than the object of the criticism.  It belies an attempt to manipulate, or a conditioned response and the absence of reason.  If you hear such criticisms and get emotionally angry at the targeted individual, beware—the manipulation has worked!

As for the politicians who are disrespectful in the face of differing opinions, they are insecure, and/or currying anger, and/or believe their own campaign advertising. 

Around here, we think the exercise of public politeness is worthwhile, even when it calls for significant effort.