Army Bob: Civility should be practiced in political discourse

In this column I have discussed the manner in which folks on the right and left side of the political aisle use invectives to make a point. Referring to people with whom columnists disagree by using terms like “dumb ass” and “obese idiot” is so counterproductive.

Some call this type of writing red meat for the masses; acting like an underage schoolyard bully may make the converted overjoyed, but it will not convert anyone. If the point of a column on political issues is to educate and persuade good folks to your way of thinking, this type of personal attack normally backfires.

Please do not misunderstand; the practice of attacking people in the public arena is as old as history and works to firm up the preconceived stereotypes of true believers. However, it will not educate or move many people to your point of view.

The political and media environment we live in today with literally tens of thousands of media outlets requires most writers to be bombastic to be heard or read. A few suggestions for my colleagues, none of whom are blessed with good looks (with the exception of Ms. Amy Kerr Hardin), keep the emphasis on the issues, not the girth, hair style, glasses or dress/pantsuits or looks of a person.

Quite frankly I fail to see the logic in maintaining that a person who comes from a successful family must be considered stupid. One columnist who is published in this paper maintains Senator/Captain John McCain is stupid because his father and grandfather were brilliant United States Navy Admirals. Using that criterion Alexander the Great, Douglas MacArthur and Hannibal would have been stupid as well because they came from successful military families.

The stone cold fact is that the media is unbalanced to the left; our editor disagrees, stating that the major media outlets are owned by nasty vicious corporations. That is true, but they are run by liberal editors and general managers.

The corporation is concerned with profit, while the editors and writers are concerned with championing the liberal social issue of the day as defined by the New York Times. Let us look no further than this august publication; it has four  uber-liberal columnists and reprints other liberal points of view on a frequent basis. In an effort to achieve balance two conservative columnists are featured; a ratio of over two-to-one is considered fairness and balance in the eyes of a media professional. The saying is that they (the media elite) want balance, but not too much balance. The media wants to be fair but not too fair.

Getting back to the point, the level of personal and child-like attacks are more frequent on the left if nothing else because of sheer basic numbers. Attacking Governor Perry as stupid because his glasses were crooked is a very enlightened thing to do in the eyes of the media; attacking Governor Christie’s weight is also a very adult thing to do, attacking Mr. Trump because he is successful and his father was successful is equally intelligent.

Why liberals hate and degrade successful people always puzzles me; why they consider rich people evil, even though those rich include former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who are in the top one tenth of one percent, but they condemn the one percent? Always wondered how that works, and how the media rarely questions filthy rich Democrats, while condemning all the other filthy rich people because they are filthy rich.

What I write here will not change a thing, but we could hope those who scribble for this publication would read it and perhaps act their age. Words like ass, idiot, nitwit and fat/obese are empty and only serve to degrade the writer.

A favorite old saying of mine is that profanity is a sign of a limited vocabulary. It is easy to call people derogatory names but difficult to make a point in a logical, well written and thoughtful way.

Come on folks, you are better than this, let’s clean it up and act like adults and not like the mean kids in high school.