Have We Become a Nation of Incivility?

For the past six months I’ve been watching the ongoing political process as we go through the steps to elect our next President. As I’ve been watching this all unfold, I’m struck by the level of incivility that seems to exist in our country these days. And it’s not just the political candidates themselves that I’m referring to. I understand that there are strong feelings about certain issues on both sides of the fence. But, in my opinion, there is a right way and a wrong way to carry on this discourse and, more often than not, we seem to pursue the wrong way.

This may be the most unforgiving election season that I can remember in my lifetime. Both Mr. Romney and President Obama have not only been victims of having their comments taken frequently out of context, but they have also both used the tactic themselves with great effect. It seems like every word from either candidate is dissected by the opposition for political gain. Statistics are wrongfully characterized and repackaged to provide the most negative possible punch. The respective campaign organizations pounce on any ill-advised remark – yet they immediately cry foul when their own slip-ups get similar treatment.

In the meantime, countless armchair politicians spend time passing completely untrue propaganda via email under the guise of telling jokes. But these email exchanges have the effect of influencing people to believe something that, more often than not, is untrue or extremely misleading. And it’s not just one side or the other that is engaging in such tactics. I can’t remember the last time someone passed me such a document that was either a) innocuous and/or b) even-handed.

I recently received an email that began with the premise that 66% of the country’s budget is accounted for as entitlements. Honestly, I haven’t fact-checked that, but it’s probably a misrepresentation of the truth, in one sense or another. The fundamental idea behind the email was that, over the past 66 years, a country that was destroyed by two atomic weapons, detonated over Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the U.S., has made significantly more economic progress than the city of Detroit, over the same period. The writer of the original email concludes that this is because Japan does not have a welfare system and the US (specifically, Michigan) does and that, for this reason, Detroit has degenerated while Japan has prospered. Ostensibly, this is an argument for the cessation of “welfare” programs (an entitlement).

I really hate it when people take a fundamentally good argument and destroy it with a bunch of sensationalistic half-truths. I especially found the reference to Hiroshima to be revolting. There is no “light side” associated with what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Simply put, it represented genocide, the obliteration of a society, and extreme environmental devastation. It was a war and sometimes distasteful things happen in a war. But to trivialize it and then use it in a parallel comparison with Detroit is disturbing and baseless. There is no connection between what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and what happened in Detroit. Hiroshima did not grow and Detroit die just because of welfare. Detroit is in the situation it’s in because it hitched its wagon fully to a single industry that became non-competitive. The industry became non-competitive because we (the industry) greedily took too much profit and failed to reinvest in new technology and innovations. Our global competitors used that time to improve their products and, in the end, we got our proverbial asses kicked in the marketplace. We have finally started to turn the automotive business around, but that is a process of generations. As the industry waned, many highly qualified people left Detroit and went elsewhere to find work, in effect, leaving a disproportionately larger group of lower-level manufacturing employees behind. The problem didn’t occur overnight and no political candidate or party will change it overnight – it’s an economic process.

But the fundamental argument about limitation of entitlements is a good one – and one that is worth further consideration. And introducing limitations on (for example) welfare benefits and other handouts – or better yet, compelling those people to achieve goals that improve their marketability in return for the benefit they receive, is a sound concept. It’s a pity that, as a nation, we cannot have a reasonable discussion about finding a solution that works, without this sort of idiotic rhetoric and propaganda. I remember when Tommy Thompson took this issue on as the Governor of Wisconsin. He tried to keep the discussion even-keeled and bi-partisan. There was a lot of argumentation, sometimes heated, but they kept it reasonably professional and the participants persevered – they had a mutual goal. As a result, Wisconsin became a national leader with the “Wisconsin Works” program, known as “W-2” – which was an employment program rather than a welfare program that required those “who can work to get a job and those who cannot to contribute according to their abilities.” At the time, the new Wisconsin “welfare” system was touted as a model for the nation.

Tommy Thompson was a Republican, but he found a way to work across the aisle with Democrats and, while they didn’t all agree on everything, they produced a bill that worked. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t see why it’s not possible to use such an approach today to get our country back on track. We just all need to stop passing around propaganda that tends to offend and polarize, and instead start finding ways to bring people back to the table. In a nutshell, WE need to decide whether we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution and WE need to forego the battle, with an eye on winning the war.

How many of us got lectured as kids about the “Golden Rule.” How many of us still follow that rule today? How many of us have passed that important life lesson on to our kids? If you want to know what’s wrong – look in the mirror. We’re what’s wrong! And if we let people behave badly without calling them out, then we’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Is it that much of a stretch to seek the truth? Is it that difficult to accept that people have differing opinions and points of view? That diversity is what made this country great. We need to start recognizing it as a strength and stop using it as a tool to tear apart the moral and political fiber of the land that we love.