No Cure For Stupidity

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The debate over health care is all over but the shouting.  And the death threats, the vandalism, and the racial and sexual slurs directed at the Democratic members of Congress (and their families) who voted for this bill.

We hear 'you lie" and "baby killer" being shouted in the otherwise decorous House chamber, uttered by those who should know better.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what passes for political discourse in 2010 America.  It has devolved to the level of a five-year old.  Or is it three?

Using your First Amendment right to disagree on the issues of the day is as old as the republic itself.  But when it comes to threatening violence against elected officials, a line has to be drawn somewhere.

This is not a new problem, of course.  Since Barack Obama became President, we still have people who claim he's not really an American citizen.  Is it because he was born in Hawaii, which is so far away from the mainland that it might as well be a foreign country?  Or is it because the way he has been pushing for health care reform an indication that he doesn't really believe in democracy?

All of this seems to have been coming from the conservative fringes who have been getting their information from Fox News and from talk radio.  They also tend to be overwhelmingly white and male, and are not really interested in what the other side has to say.

The Republican Party, from whom these fringes tend to gravitate, have been slow to tamp down the rhetoric they themselves have created without devaluing their political cred.  It's to the point where any sane person who once thought of themselves as Republican are now voting as independents.

The longer this trend toward political incivility keeps going, the more likely it is that it might end with somebody getting seriously hurt or killed.  Those who think sending a dead rat or a used condom to their representative in Washington is an effective way of sending a message should be getting one of their own--a visit from the FBI.  And those who encourage that sort of thing should take a long look at themselves in the mirror.