For some older readers

[veronica_rich]

At the age of 38, I've only witnessed a certain amount of things in history, of course. So I'm curious about something, from people my age or older, who can speak best to this: Do you think the political rhetoric/discussion/debate in the U.S. today is more ... incindiery, or charged, uncivilized (use your own word to basically mean "less diplomatic/calm") than it has been for decades?

I'm just curious, not only in the wake of Arizona last weekend, but as something I've wondered for the past several years. Some of the remarks and rhetoric and arguments and words I hear now as a matter of course are the kinds of things that back in the 1980s, I only truly remember from shows like "D.C. Follies" or "Spitting Image" - parodies of politics, exaggerated for comedy.

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I have to agree somewhat that the Idiot Radical Right's talk hasn't helped things at all. Disturbed people are going to do disturbed things sometimes, but making triggering rhetoric easily available at all times can't make it better. However, I have to say I've had enough of the harping on it by the Left - the same way I had enough of the harping on 9/11 by the time Sept. 13, 2001, rolled around. The constant barrage is pissing me off.