Having listened with much chagrin at the uncivil discourse at these Town Hall forums, I'd like to ask a few questions, rather than return fire with my own incredulous anger. Rather than ripping into these people, no matter how justified an act that might be, we might seek to understand why there is this degree of unreasoned, irrational anger in our society. I could point fingers at a long list of wholly understandable things: a government that has historically promised much and delivered little, a belief in cynicism so intense that a sense of powerlessness results, a society in the middle of a shift to a fully information-based economy, a history of anti-intellectualism that discourages developed opinion, a supposed War on Terror that quickly bogged down in Iraq, an economic recession that further exacerbated existent negative growth, and a tremendous amount of change that has occurred in a short period of time, just to name a few. Where we place the blame is not nearly as important as acknowledging that this degree of fear and hostility is real.
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