I don't watch much television, and I especially don't watch the political talk shows. Most of them are long on shouting, short on thought, and not worth my time. But it doesn't have to be that way, does it?

Political and social discourse in America today consists largely of ad hominem attacks and thunderous denunciation of an opponent's position without offering reasonable alternatives. During the recent election season, attack ads reduced political dialog to cheap, vituperative bumper stickers bereft of context and clarity - some of the professional attack ad recorders can draw out the word "lib-er-al" so that you can just visualize the scorn dripping from the individual letters like smelly green ooze...but never explain just why "lib-er-al" ideas are so bad.

Now, contrary to what my good friend Jake would have you believe, and contrary to how it may sometimes sound in this space, I'm not a liberal Democrat. I like to think of myself as a socially liberal, fiscally conservative Independent, equally scornful of pie-in-the-sky Democrats and smugly self-assured Republicans. I'd just like to see some honest discussion of the problems and issues that face the country, along with some thoughtful debate about how to solve them. The country is never going to get anywhere until we can move away from the "I'm right, you're wrong, go to hell" school of political attack to a realization that reasonable people can have differing views of the right way to address our problems. What we have lost is the ability to recognize that principled compromise is not the same as "selling out," which is what the shouting, gesticulating talking heads on TV and radio would have you believe.

For some good, thoughtful discussion of how our ability to hold reasonable dialog has gone off the rails, and what to do about it, I recommend you read Deborah Tannen's superb book, The Argument Culture. But don't just read it...think about what it says. Professor Tannen is well worth listening to, and her basic idea can be summed up in one sentence - "If you're looking for a fight, you will get heat, not light."

And right now, we need light a lot more than we need more heat.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo