Yesterday, Steph and I attended a workshop put on by the League of Woman Voters of Washington at the South Hill Library. Entitled Civility in Our Democracy, the workshop focused on the need for civility, recognizing your triggers and your physical reactions to them, conflict styles and strategies, asking open questions, and neutral issue framing.
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I respectfully disagree with the League that we have a representative democracy any longer, or the implication that non-elites are the primary source of incivility.
Though, I'm not sure how anyone can claim to be "civil" and knowingly vote for advocates of torture, drone war crimes against noncombatants and first responders, Presidential assassination of US citizens, unilateral Presidential wars, Gitmo, illegal surveillance, corrupt and illegal "fusion centers," indefinite detention, trade deals violently bigoted against workers, Wall Street immunity and deregulation, Citizens United-style corruption, global warming inaction, etc etc.
These are profoundly uncivil actions that have destroyed US civil society. We need to distinguish between civility and docility, between being an engaged American citizen or just another Good German casting a meaningless vote in a plebiscite.
No one can vote for a Republican or Democrat, knowing their policies, and call him or herself a civil person.
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