Incivility muzzles interactive debate

By Jonathan Merritt

Americans have always been a protesting people. After all, our country was founded upon a revolt. Unfortunately, we haven’t always been a polite people — especially when it comes to public discourse. Early in American life, if a debate got too heated, you might challenge your opponent to a duel. This option is now (almost always) off the table and many Americans have resorted to shouting, name-calling and demonizing.

Never has this been more apparent than in the current health care debate, which has polarized America, produced vicious town hall meetings with screaming protestors and whittled the president’s approval rating from superstar status to a shrinking minority. I’m the first to admit that this is too big an issue to simply forgo rigorous discussion. But, we need to ask ourselves if fighting to be the loudest shouting voice in a crowd is the most effective way to do it.

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) was booed for more than an hour and accused by one protestor of stuffing his pockets with lobbyists’ money. The office of Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) was defaced with a 4-foot swastika. In North Carolina at a town hall meeting hosted by Democratic Rep. David Price, a fistfight broke out. In Phoenix, more than a dozen protestors were carrying firearms outside the convention center where the president was speaking.

Americans must learn how to disagree without being disagreeable. Both sides should listen a little more and speak a little less, and perhaps we could infuse our debates with a modicum of respect. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be passionately engaged. We simply recognize that turning imperative debates into an episode of “The View” isn’t helping anything.

It seems I’m not the only one who feels this way. In 2008, cultural thinker Os Guinness wrote “The Case for Civility,” saying that through incivility “America is not modeling the American way of life as once she used to.”

Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan’s book, “Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It,” noted the trend. “What we need most right now, at this moment, is a kind of patriotic grace,” she writes. It is “a grace that takes the long view, apprehends the moment we’re in, comes up with ways of dealing with it, and eschews the politically cheap and manipulative.”

Atlanta’s Mark DeMoss has joined the voices calling for more respectful debate. DeMoss is president of the DeMoss Group, the largest Christian public relations firm in America, which has represented virtually every conservative Christian figure from Jerry Falwell to Franklin Graham to Chuck Colson. You don’t get much more red state than that. Yet, he has teamed up with Lanny Davis, former White House counsel for former President Bill Clinton and vetted political liberal, to launch the Civility Project.

The project encourages Americans to be respectful of others whether or not one agrees with the viewpoint being represented. It also implores people to stand against incivility whenever it rears its ugly head. While this may seem reminiscent of Rodney King’s famous line, “Why can’t we all just get along?” DeMoss says the reasoning runs deeper than impoliteness. It’s about effectiveness. “There are practical and pragmatic reasons for civility,” DeMoss told me. “It is virtually impossible to have constructive dialogue or to inform and educate people on any subject in an uncivil environment.”

DeMoss says those who disagree with the proposed health care reform should think about the future. One day, there will be a Republican president who will want to pass a piece of controversial legislation of his or her own. When that day comes, will those of us who consider ourselves conservatives want to face the same type of thing we are hearing about now?

“Neither side is making progress educating people on health care reform. If anything, there is a lot of misinformation,” DeMoss says. “Even if the opposition wins, I think it would be a hollow win, a shallow victory. If that’s what you have to do to win, I don’t want to win.”

I wish we were seeing the debate our country deserves — intelligent, thoughtful, respectful and civil. But we aren’t. And that’s something that should arouse the protestor in us all.

Jonathan Merritt of Buford is a faith and culture writer whose first book, “Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet,” will be published next year.