These days we only shoot off our mouths
We wring our hands over the loss of civility in our public discourse. Blabber-mouth talk radio hosts and incessantly jabbering 24-hour cable newscasters seem to be constantly working Americans into a frenzy. The "birthers" over Obama. The elderly over health care reform "death panels." Same-sex marriage, clean air, global warming. Is there nothing we can agree on?
And people no longer seem willing to just "agree to disagree." They call names and destroy reputations to win their points. Oh, woe is us. What has happened to the civil in our civilization?
Maybe it was never there. It seems civility may be just a figment of our imagination when it comes to politics. This month provides an anniversary that illustrates this point.
One hundred and fifty years ago, former California Supreme Court Chief Justice David S. Terry shot dead California's U.S. Sen. David C. Broderick in a duel in a ravine near the shore of Lake Merced outside of San Francisco.
Broderick was anti-slavery and Terry was pro-slavery. California entered the union as a "free state." But the duel was not just about high principles. It was about a build-up of bad political blood between the men, "friends" egging them on and a public that grew excited over the prospects of two politicians facing off against each other at gunpoint.
The details of the political rivalry, the colorful lives of both men, the rough-and-tumble times and the shootout that ended Broderick's life are contained in California history books. It's such a good yarn that the duel is scheduled to recreated today in Daly City.
The 150-year anniversary demonstrates how far we have come from those days. We bemoan media-maniacs who shoot off their mouths, but it's only the crazed lunatics today who escalate political squabbles with guns.
There are tragic exceptions -- the anti-abortionists who have struck down clinic staffs; the alienated teenagers who have opened fire on classmates; and domestic and foreign terrorists who have victimized the innocent.
But most Americans -- and most other "civilized" folks around the globe -- have traded their guns for words to settle political questions.
It's good to reflect today on the shootout that is credited with turning California more solidly against slavery, making a hero-martyr out of its fallen senator, and ending dueling in California.
It helps keep our sometimes "uncivil" civil discourse in perspective.
We have come a long way. Our society still is too violent. But we have embraced the concept of being a nation of laws. And those laws do not condone settling political (or any) disputes with guns.
And while political differences can still work us up into frenzies, most of us will defend our fellow citizen's right to hold differing views.
For more than two centuries, these concepts have been embraced in our nation's founding documents. It seems the reading and re-reading of these documents over the years has allowed the meaning of these concepts to sink in.
Better late than never.
