Where did civility go?

Given my crazy work schedule, I tape quite a bit of news from both sides of the fence - from FOX news to shows on MSNBC with CNN being somewhat in the middle with most of their commentary and coverage. While there is quite a bit of hypocrisy on all sides, my point here is to not critique in detail about what they are saying...it's more about how they are saying it. How is it that everyone is so extremely mad all of the time?

Too many commentators use negative tactics such as fear and screams to motivate their supporters, and take to throwing out rancorous insults against their opponents. How did we get to this point of using third-grade bully behaviors to make our points?

Last week, one of the reporters for Examiner.com wrote an article after the McCarthy bill was introduced, and while I don't agree with his opinion, he wrote it in a manner that was constructive without lowing himself to ludicrous name calling. What really irked me was those who posted comments to the article that makes me question what these people are thinking.

One in particular - a Wendy Weinbaum posted this comment, with the misspelling and grammatical errors as she posted: "As a Jewes in the US, I feel that Eric Fuller, the whining Tucson survivor, survivor, is just another impotent metrosexual pussy."

The gentleman she's talking about, a military veteran, was indeed arrested the week before last for making threats against a Tea Party leader during a televised town hall meeting. I'm not condoning his actions, but to call this man names after he was shot in the knee and back during the Tucson massacre is just plain wrong. Sounds like the guy is suffering from PTSD and it seems rather shallow to kick a man while he's down.

It's time we grow up, get past the grade school name-calling bully stage, and use civil language to express our views. There is so much anger going around these days, and while it's human nature to result to profane language when other words escape us when we get angry, we're also adults who should possess the maturity to take a breath and think about what we say before we utter words that hurt rather than get our points across.

We all love our great country and aren't happy with the way things have been going for about the last decade. Rather than ripping each other apart and getting no where for solutions to our real problems (unemployment, job creation, health care costs, just to name a few), it's about time we express our views with respect to the opposing sides and make a real conscious effort to find solutions that will appease as many people as possible. We won't please 100% of the people 100% of the time, but all of this name-calling crap is not getting us any closer to solving the big issues of the day.

All of the gun control reaction to the Tucson shooting is just that - a reaction to a tragic event where some people think that additional regulations will prevent such an event from happening again. I see where Congresswoman McCarthy is coming from, and while I agree with her on the high capacity magazine bill, I certainly don't agree with others calling for the repeal on owning handguns in urban areas or other significantly restrictive actions. We have the right to bear arms - the Second Amendment gives us that right - and while the First Amendment gives us the right to assemble and to speech, maybe we need to consider what speech we use before we say it. This doesn't mean we need to censor ourselves, but it would be nice to bring back a level of civility that will likely be more productive to finding solutions we all seek.