Civility, wherefore are thou?

The summer of 2009 should go down in history as the Summer of Bad Manners.

First there were the numerous town hall meetings across the country. These were supposed to be informational meetings between elected representatives and their constituents on the upcoming legislation to reform healthcare in America. However, instead of a rational and reasonable debate, the meetings, (except for here in Southeastern Louisiana, thank goodness), turned into screaming matches, where invectives were hurled willy-nilly, and nobody, not those for reform, nor those against could get in a rational word.

The rancor caused by healthcare debate spilled over into the Congress. During President Barack Obama’s speech to the joint Congress last Wednesday, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson yelled out to the president, “You’re lying.”

During the semi-finals of the U.S. Open this weekend, tennis superstar Serena Williams became angry over the decision of a line judge and proceeded to threaten the judge using very foul language. Williams was penalized for her outburst, and lost the match and her chance to go to the finals.

If that wasn’t enough, at Sunday night’s presentation of the MTV Music Video Awards, hip-hop star Kanye West rushed up on stage, grabbed the microphone away from singer Taylor Swift who was making her acceptance speech for winning Best Female Video, and went into a rant that Ms. Swift did not deserve the award.

Have we all gone stark raving mad? Have we lost all sense of fair play and civility? What has happened to good manners?

Yes, we have the right to free speech in this country.

That right sets us apart from most countries in the world. But free speech does not mean throwing insults and screaming to get one’s point heard. We do not care where a person stands on healthcare reform, we do not know if the line judge at the U.S. Open was correct, and we have no opinion of Taylor Swift’s singing abilities, but we do know one thing — screaming foul language and hurling insults is not rational discourse. It accomplishes nothing.

Above all, calling the President of the United States a liar on national television shows incredible disrespect to the office. It doesn’t matter what you believe, what matters is how you express that belief.

We the people in the greatest country in the history of mankind should know better. This is not the way civilized people behave.