I don't think I can add too much here, DD. Other than that there is, sometimes, something to be said for not suffering fools gladly.

Dickday I love you man,great post.Do you remember
Vic Morrow, the actor? His first role was in "The Blackboard Jungle" in 1952 costarring with Glen Ford.His last movie was the Twilight Zone. At the time of his death, Morrow was playing the role of Bill Connor, a bigot who was taken back in time and placed in various situations where he would be a persecuted victim: a Jewish Holocaust victim (his character hated Jews), a black man about to be lynched by the Ku Klux Klan (his character hated blacks), and a Vietnamese man about to be killed by United States soldiers(his character also hated Vietnamese). In each scene he becomes the very one he hates and is forced to live in their shoes see through their eyes.A reversal of fortune so to speak, to be put in the shoes of those you despise so much. Were it only possible, many blind hearts and minds would be changed, dont you think? Since I mentioned Vic Morrow I must also say how sad it is that he was killed making that movie. This episode was his last statement with his art and it was a significant one.

Good blog, DD, as usual. Love the way you get out of the first two discussions. Love the solution in the third, too.

But you forgot to mention Will Smith in your last example. Will, who loves his mama and his wife and his kiddies, who never drops the F bomb in mixed company, who blew me away in "The Pursuit of Happyness". He's the epitome of civility.

Buchanan, on the other hand, thinks he's better than Will Smith. Go figure.

Great post, DD - very accurate and extremely entertaining. In fact, it was so entertaining that it basically refuted your entire premise that civil discourse can't compete with uncontrolled, uninformed tirades as a means of influencing public opinion.

You just showed that it can in the hands of an accomplished writer.

I have read numerous commentaries that echoed many of the points you made here, but there's an enormous difference. They came across as angry, and your piece radiates great good humor - it has a smiling quality to it.

I'm sure your internal response to some of the idiocies you cite is not pleasure but anger, but the fact that you keep your composure is what makes you civil in your discourse.

The tone of the angry writers alienates readers, yours engages them, and in my view, will win out every time in the eyes of anyone who is open-minded and has not yet settled on an entrenched opinion. Angry rhetoric may play a role in rousing the faithful, but is almost always counter-productive in appealing to those still struggling to decide what to think.

The faithful don't always see it that way. Indignantly, they ask why our President, let's say, doesn't answer the vitriol of a Pat Buchanan or a Rush Limbaugh with even fiercer rhetoric.

Each, of course, is entitled to his or her own view of what works, but I should mention that an angel who sits within whispering distance of God's throne informs me that every night, the same prayer is wafted upwards from the White House to the Heavens:

"Dear Lord, we love Rush exactly the way he is. Please, Oh Lord, we beseech you - don't let him go soft on us!"

And who says prayers are never answered?

dd, you are so right (left) on!

In reading Pat Buchanan's piece of shit, I find this to be the most egregious insult out of all the insults in his piece of shit [my emphasis]:

Republican senators should use this Sotomayor nomination to put affirmative action in the dock for what it is -- race-based bigotry against white males so that persons of color can receive the rewards of society that they could not win in free and fair competition.

Anyone who thinks that white males are the best, should just look at the Georgia legislature. And then ask themselves, "can the barnyard at TPM do a better job of governing than these unintelligent assholes?" The only possible answer to that question is "yes."

Great post dickday! Outstanding examples.

I must say that I think the Rosen analogy of civil discourse is BS. While it depicts what we might refer to as "areas of opinion," it has absolutely nothing to do with the civility of discourse.

In my opinion "civility of discourse" has to do with HOW dialog occurs - not whether we are confining ourselves to the "center of circle." People can disagree - even vehemently disagree - and still engage in a civil discussion.

Your examples, however, are classic and well conveyed... and civility or not I still just want to cuss sometimes.

Regarding the "earth is 6000 years old" claims. I like to ask things such as "Are you concerned with antibiotic resistance?" or "Do you get flu shots?" or there are numerous other examples of "evolution."

Got ya, DD. All good points. I am trying to be civil, but watch Romney on Stephanopolis.

It can't be done.

Polonius:

My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
What day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. . . .

This post is a bit on the long side but entertaining as always Lord Narrator. But we live in the age of Twitter. You’ve got to pare this down. Might I suggest:

Christianists – mad.

Global Warming Deniers – mad.

Pat Buchanan – despicably mad.

See? Bums on seats Dick. Bums on seats.

(Just kidding of course. Your writing has now become so good that I read it just for pleasure and then sit back and have a smoke. I just hope it was good for you.)

Nice work, DD.

Joe Sacrborough (sic) or Joe-Sac, is full of BS.
If he spent a week living as the only white person in an inner city neighborhood, he may begin to see that the discrepancy between that life and his own is much greater than his own apprehension at being the only one who is different. But people like him will never understand that claim, because they are not willing to go find out.

I went to school in an African-American neighborhood while in the Jr Naval Academy. At first, my apprehension was as his probably is; I was the only one different. BUt years later, when I decided to MOVE TO, and not from, the inner city, I picked the neighborhood of St. Louis's northside. Smack Dab in the so-called "worst neighborhood" in St. Louis. Guess what I found out? It was not the worst because it had a 99.9% black population, but because--for some reason--drugs and propstitution was allowed to sell on the open market, at the gas station, near the doorstep of the ever-present abandoned building, and on any sidewalk one passes in their daily life. It was the worst neighborhood in spite of who lived there, not because of it. The fact is that it is allowed to thrive there, despite the many, many law abiding people who have either by choice or by necessity have not yet abandoned their home, and despite their best efforts to change it.
BUt if it were a white suburb, and the same conditions existed, it would not be tolerated, and would not be allowed to continue in the open life of the community, for all to see.
I came to believe that some people want that image seen there. And I was not just taking a vacation there. I lived there for years, and then moved to another equally challenged and crime rampant community, perhaps just to see what truths were out there to learn.
By the time I had lived in my new community, also on the city's northside neighborhood--I realized not the obvious fact that I was the only white in a black community, and not that I should be applauded for forcing a sort of integration process. I noticed that the same problems followed, that most of the boys I organized from pranks and running the streets to now playing baseball in a nearby field--that only one out of 15 or 16 of them actually lived with their father.
Half of them were in jail for some offense, a quarter of them were living with a sibling's mother, and the other quarter had either never known their father, or had a dead one. They lived in apartments with plastic furniture, that had come from thrift stores, or new furniture that usually could not be rented for long. Some wore the sme dirty pajamas over and over. Some apartments were trash heaps. But they all went to school every day, they all knew how to act in front of my Mother they all helped me when I arrived home with groceries, and they all played baseball with my children and I when we came outside.
But guess what had to happen first? No, it didn't take a white man to change their focus, or to save them, or to put them on a different path. It wasn't that I was doing anything. It was that I cared. The rest was already there, and was just being used or neglected in so many ways, if it were a white neighborhood, the people would rise up and demand, along with the media, that this must stop. And it would.
They already knew how to play baseball. They could play better than me. It was that no one had ever played with them. They never saw people playing it there. All it took was someone to start doing it, and it caught on.
It is a metaphor for the whole problem that exists. If they never see anyone planting, but only uprooting--how can they ever grow anything?
If no one is there to teach the right things, but instead only the wrong things--then why should they be expected to perform as well as those in a gated community?
I think it would surprise many racists to see just how well African-American kids in the inner city can work and learn, and actually have more responsibility in their own homes than the typical white family in a suburb. I never had to do the things these kids had to do, nor was I disciplined so much either.
The wrong set of expectations have been set, and the right set of expectations are too low, and too often become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It is not what I brought, but what they did. It is not what I taught, but what I learned.
It is this.
Racism can't just be about the "N" word. It can't just be about stereotypes. It can't just be about history.
It has to be about how a child lives, and about if that child is getting what yours gets unquestionably. It has to be about safety. It has to be about people who put fear aside and help. It has to be about enforcing the law, and opening the eyes, and not allowing things to ruin a child's environment.
It has to be about outrage. If it is lukewarm, and about words that offend people, then the true problem is misdiagnosed; the cause missed, the condition stays the same or worsens. The patient will never recover. If we want to end racism, then end the inequities that really affect people's lives, and their children's.

Civil discourse.
Hmmmm.
Interesting concept, dd. When does it start?

Civil discourse is a cruel joke. The U.S. Senate prides itself on civil discourse. I see nothing civil about racists, liars and thieves who happen to talk nice. While they are mouthing their soothing soft tones my BS detector is going off so loud it threatens to deafen me.