Years ago, Frank Sinatra sang a song essentially in tribute to the sense of loss created by the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Los Angeles. It was about sense of community, sense of being part of a group.

Bill Bishop's Big Sort powerfully and persuasively points out that now our ballparks, our communities, are filled with fans from one team or the other. He makes the case that like-minded individuals are grouping themselves together in increasingly high percentages. There may some sort of "diversity" of demography, but diversity of opinion is too often going by the wayside.

All of this is more than unfortunate. Many of us of a certain generation were taught Political Science 101 in college using the Robert Dahl book that celebrated pluralism--the competition between points of view that resulted in the best of possible outcomes in our American democracy.

The statistics, cited by Bill Bishop, speak for themselves. But, there is far more to all of this. Who among the individuals of good will cannot be disturbed, if not offended, by an article Bishop quoted concerning the "hostile reaction from urbanites" to rural voters being more Republican than Democrat?

The editors of Seattle's alternative newspaper, the Stranger, published a widely distributed manifesto titled "The Urban Archipelago." Here is what that article said.

"Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion...And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers."

Let me guess. If I cannot have a civil exchange with one of the enlightened from urban American, this simply means they were right from the jump. All of this is not to say there is not, in addition, a reverse approach to things where conservatives, those living in rural areas, do not look at urban America as foreign territory. Too often, they do.

However, the simple fact of the matter is that the overwhelming amount of public discourse (mainstream media, Internet blogs, etc.) is dominated by a point of view that closely matches the Urban Archipelago approach to things. It is why the mainstream media has a deaf ear when someone (most especially their beloved candidate for president) proclaims faith and ownership of guns reflects a certain bitterness. It is precisely how these liberals view the world.

What is lost, what ought to count is the absence of respect for one another, for points of views different than our own. The argument becomes unattached to anything other than pre-existing point of view. "I am right. You are wrong. The reason I am right, and you are wrong, is that I want good things to happen, while you want bad things to happen. All of this, of course, is simply a matter of me being a good person, and you being a bad person."

None of this can be considered progress, except by those who are utterly confident in their own righteousness. Count me as one old, fat, bald white guy who misses the days of exchange of ideas without the ugliness of today. Count me as one who is greatly upset by the premium on anger and unwillingness to consider the point of view of those who do not agree with us. Count me as one who wishes the America Bill Bishop examined was one where pluralism reigned in more communities.