I was twelve when President John F Kennedy was assassinated, and I felt the pain and worry about America’s future along with the rest of the country. I couldn’t understand why anyone would kill the President of the United States. Wasn’t he doing good for everyone? I remember the fear that we might now be thrown into war with the U.S.S.R. now that our great leader and protector was gone.
The U.S., of course, was already at war but in a different part of the world and for very different reasons. True it hadn’t really reached full-out war until several years later but as I entered high school and began reading newspapers more regularly I began to see how politics affected how we do things in the U.S. and how the world views America. Trying to remember back that far, I can’t seem to remember any name calling or ‘uncivilized acts’ regarding candidates, but I would not be surprised to learn it happened.
As I learned more about the CIA’s role in Vietnam, I learned that we cannot believe what our government leaders tell us. As I learned more about how J. Edgar Hoover ran the FBI and his personal vendetta against the Kennedy family, I further learned that politics is a very dark and nasty arena to get into. Based on these revelations, I’m sure civility suffered.
The race riots and the war protests of the 60’s were trying to bring about positive change in our society, but the lesson I learned from it all was that the U.S. government does not want to hear from its citizens unless it is on their own terms. And I learned that the very government these protesters were trying to change actually perpetrated some violence against its own citizenry. Where is the civility in these actions?
Many of those protesters gave up, some were killed for what they believed in, some were thrown in jail. In the end, the letter of the law was really the only thing that ever changed. The real change comes from society making it happen on a personal level. Where is the civility in saying things are changing and then writing it down into law books to ‘prove’ it and then change nothing?
I was 17 when Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy were assassinated. Again I felt deep sorrow at the senselessness of both of these great leaders deaths. Where is the civility in killing instead of just voting them down or ignoring them? What has gone wrong with this country that to debate is not good enough? Why must people die for their beliefs?
When I became of voting age I was so disenchanted with the whole political party system that I just wasn’t interested anymore. Then I learned that the real political power lies in the electoral college and not so much in the popular vote, so I thought “what is the point of my vote?” where is the ‘civility’ in letting you think your vote counts when someone behind closed doors makes the decision for you?
Today I was traveling in my car and trying to find some good music station to listen to (trust me it is impossible to find a ‘good’ music station these days, am I right?) and landed on one of the conservative talk radio stations. The host was talking about Ann Coulters latest bigoted statement. That alone got my interest, but the program was about civility in politics. This is what got me onto this subject, by the way. He asked the question: Is political name calling and character assassination getting worse? I thought, there really hasn’t been any civility in politics in a very, very long time and yes it is getting worse. One of the main reasons why I don’t bother to vote anymore is that I have grown tired of voting for the ‘lesser of two evils’. There really is no ‘best’ candidate for any office, only one that is not as bad as the other. In the process of whittling down the field to only the two ‘best’ candidates (what a joke that label is), every candidate has had to defend himself or herself from their opponents ‘mud slinging’. And the press plays right into all of it by doing its level best to find as much ‘ dirty laundry’ as it possibly can on every candidate (except the one they back) and to find it before anyone else does.
The name calling and character assassination has become a political way of life. And it became so long before any of us was born. Anyone who has not had their head in the sand knows this to be true. Our forefathers did it. Does anyone remember that the first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton died as the result of a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr. Has our ‘civility’ fallen from the heights that these two individuals reached? They actually used to do this. So, in this regard, we have gotten more civilized.
The very idea that a political candidate will resort to labeling another person a derogatory name should come as no surprise given that all of human kind in general has become more uncivilized.
Just because politicians wear suit coats and ties does not make them civil. Only their actions can define their civility. Look at how many politicians have been kicked out of office for abusing their power. Look at how many have been convicted. Look at how many are still in office. All of these guys wore suits and ties, was that supposed to make them civil. No!
Are we really surprised that candidates call each other names and resort to under-handed tactics to win? It sickens me to see Americas’ political representatives behave in this manner. All it takes to stop this demeaning pastime is for each individual candidate to decide not to do it. And when you are called a derogatory name, don’t respond! Name calling only illustrates a lack of class and a lack of any substantive material about which the name caller can use against their opponent. This is all so childish, so grade school. Come on people, we are adults, act like it!
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