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Read other letters about this article
with many interesting reactions. Some things to note:
The left did it too. From car bombs and street trashings for 'peace' in the 60s to the accusations of child molesting based on 'recovered memories' in the 80s and 90s, the left has a lot to answer for in terms of setting the current tone of stridency in this country. Nobody found it fun to be called racist, sexist, or a warmonger back when it was young and brash liberals who were doing it.
It was the left which first asserted that 'the personal is the political,' a malignant notion which is behind the current smearings of decent politicians like Kerry, Gore, and McCain, as well as the exaltation of moronic politicians like Bush just because "you can have a beer with him." In many ways, today's right is a copycat reflection of the worst sins of yesterday's left.
The basic problem is that it's too easy to live in your own private cocoon in America. You don't have to live with your parents and they don't have to live with you. You don't have to listen to the people they listen to and they don't have to listen to the people you listen to. At the few get togethers, people don't think they have to get along and so they don't. Both sides yell at each other like farm yahoos at city slickers.
The media on all sides exacerbate the problem because all of them pander to their various constituencies. There is no longer an objective media in this country in the sense of putting out the facts as they are and letting the chips fall where they may. There is only a media that fears to offend its patrons and thus many people have grown intolerent of hearing any differences whatsoever. Blogs don't help this at all; to the contrary, blogs appear to be only increasing the tendency of many Americans to want to live and think entirely inside their own idiot mafias.
