For some reason, the idea that participation in our public discourse needs to be conducted with something known as "civility" continues to float around, like an untethered balloon. The notion that we should conduct our discussions of questions of national import without rancor and with respect toward those with whom we disagree persists even as our freedom to be uncivil continues unabated. Usually, those who insist that we the people not get too heated when discussing politics comes from those who, until relatively recently, enjoyed a role as gatekeepers of our national discussion. With the advent of the internet, however, the gatekeepers stand around a gate attached to nothing, the wall having been torn down by crowds chanting and cheering.
When a writer like Ann Gerhart at The Washington Post tries to approach the subject, it becomes muddled, false equivalencies suddenly arise, and much of our recent history is ignored. For example, she calls Michelle Malkin "a best-selling and often inflammatory conservative writer with a heavily trafficked Web site." Except, of course, Malkin is much more. She has posted the personal information of opponents on the internet; she has stalked the family of a young teenager who spoke out publicly on an issue; when she published information on a group of college students, they were harassed so much by her readers that one committed suicide. These are facts, and flesh out why someone not in the public eye might be a bit concerned when Malkin's feral gaze turns upon them.
Gerhart mentions the man whose finger was bitten off this past summer. At all the town hall meetings, with all the invective thrown at the President, at Democratic members of Congress, all the guns being worn, we have this one, single incident as an example of liberals behaving badly. Of course, it occurred because the biter was being slapped by the bitey, which also goes unmentioned.
The long and the short of it is quite simple - issues of public import arouse passions. Sometimes, those passions crowd out rational control and our insistence that we be heard, that our point-of-view be considered meritorious ends up in shouting matches. There is nothing wrong with this. Those who desire that we keep accord ourselves with some arbitrary notion of civility forget that questions of war and peace, taxation and healthcare are important to people; sometimes, they mean the difference between life and death. The gatekeepers at their lonely stations may stand like Kevin Bacon in Animal House, shouting "All is well!" to the mob, but it is far more important that all these voices are out there. Even those, like Malkin's, one finds odious. Freedom and democracy are far better practices today because of our freedom to ignore the calls for civility.
