Civil Discourse and Talk Radio

The intense heat of the political summer is still a year away. Yet, the rhetoric and fervor is already hot. Talking heads and pundits are tracking each move. For the most part I am not paying attention to what the candidates themselves are saying or how they are jockeying themselves in the field. Though I am not paying attention to specific Presidential candidates,

I spend hours at a time traveling the highways and listening to XM radio. When I want a good laugh I will listen to talk radio. The other day I listened to one show on terrestrial radio. He pontificated and joked with his audience regarding the quality of his intellect and the correctness of his views. He belittled those of the opposite side with degrading comments and oversimplifications. Those with opposing views were demonized. He repeatedly took a statement made by a Democrat and extended to be applicable to all Democrats. He argued that there is a great conspiracy afloat that he is seeking to expose. If a caller called to question a point he would cut him off before the caller could finish his/her point by peppering the caller with tangential and irrelevant questions. All the while the person spoke of the lack of civil discourse in Washington.

That same day I listened to another person on XM who was doing the same thing. Repeatedly she railed on and on about the viciousness of the conservative talk radio. She demonized them and would take wild comments by a Republican as Republican dogma.

That which I heard from the liberal talk radio personality was along the same vein as the conservative personality. Both individuals had wild uncontrolled passion filled bitterness and anger. Fortunately, there are few commentators and personalities who are of such extremes as Rush Limbaugh and Randi Rhodes. Both need to get a life and stop taking themselves seriously. Unfortunately, talk radio does not have enough commentators who help foster civil discourse and seek to bring clarity to issues. Though they are not good sources of news and truth or civil discourse, they are good for a laugh and outside the criminal realm serve as good examples of the baseness of human life.