20051110 The Great Civility Sorting Out

The Great Civility Sorting Out

November 10th, 2005

Syndicated columnist Larry Elder wrote in a column on October 20, 2005 that “nearly 70 percent of Americans, according to a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll, consider people more rude than 20 or 30 years ago. Over the last 20 years… Americans [have] engaged in a kind of "great sorting-out" -- staking out hard, well-defined, even intolerant, ideological political camps.”

Apparently Carroll County is unfortunately not trying to be any different. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan recently wrote a 2,018-word column, which she started by saying, “I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads… a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon.”

Reading local publications has recently been quite a chore. I want Nicky Ratliff, director of the Humane Society to prosecute anyone using a newspaper in a litter box as the Dayhoff Institute for Animals in the Public Interest (DIAPI) has determined that it can cause constipation in cats. Cats are already finicky as it is and no one wants a grouchy cat in the house.

I think that there ought to have a seven day waiting period before anyone is allowed to use the newspaper to express “outrage.”

I suggest these folks eat more vegetables instead. There is something about eating applesauce or a friendly carrot that soothes the raging beast and calms the soul.

One of the great lessons of history is that public policy is not a political gotcha game. The public interest is not well-served by cherry picking opportunities to criticize those in a positions of responsibility. Public policy is about our lives.

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