During the second Presidential debate in 2020 with then Vice President Joe Biden, Trump constantly interrupted Biden. She shouted: "To hell with the Supreme Court, we will defy them!"Īlthough I agree with most of President Trump's policies and actions, he too lacked civility on several occasions. More recently Maxine Waters has shown incivility following the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion. Then in 2018 Representative Maxine Waters told an audience that "if you see anyone from (Trump's) cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gas station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back at them, and you tell them that they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!" Next year the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in a very public display at the State of the Union presentation, tore up her copy of Trump's speech while both houses, the judiciary, and a large TV audience watched in disgust. In September 2009 Joe Wilson, the Republican Congressman from South Carolina, interrupted a speech by President Obama on health care by shouting: "You lie!" He was rightly criticized by members of both parties. Incivility is also increasing in politics. Two passengers were injured in this road rage incident. Recently I saw a TV report of an enraged woman shooting a handgun at occupants of another car. When someone cuts off a driver in traffic the tendency for many aggressive people is to retaliate. In the 10 years between 20 fatal crashes linked to road rage increased 500% from 80 to 467. Road rage is a factor in over one half of all fatal crashes. According to the AAA, drivers between the ages of 25 and 39 years old are more likely to exhibit road rage than other age groups. It seems that civility is becoming an increasingly scarce commodity these days. I've seen newsclips of even small children taunting police. And we should raise our children to exhibit right values. Those people do not push others down in order to look better themselves. Part of a great character is to exhibit good manners. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines civility as "polite, reasonable, and respectful behavior." Many people do not accept that the yardstick of a person's worth should be the content of his character, which includes his behavior.
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