Manners and the Heat

You cannot have missed how beastly hot it has been and I am not talking about the weather. We are in our political stockpot with its rolling boil until the November election when we will either show the Current Resident and the Challenger where the boxes and tape are kept or cancel the moving truck for both of them. Until November, the rhetoric’s adjectives go home at night and sharpen their elbows and knees to better jab and slice, hoping to land a death blow from which the opponent cannot recover.

This is the process.

I am not against it. Quite the contrary. I enjoy kvetching about the ‘other party’ over a cup of coffee with my like-minded friends. With all of the methods from which to get the news, it’s almost a sure thing that one of my buddies will have read or heard something that I have not. It’s the world’s biggest horse race and all of our citizens get to bet. Every year that I live to see it happen, I love it more.

But even as muddy and hot as the process gets, good manners have a place and they should be given one at the head of the table.  Let me explain:

Several weeks ago I was in a meeting which involved a discussion of charitable giving and how to avoid certain tax consequences through giving. A group member began to rail about one of the Presidential candidate’s ideas and treatments of such taxation. From what I know of this group, I am sure that it is divided almost equally into the two major political parties. This means that the member who decided it was time for a lecture insulted half of the people in the meeting. Does he really imagine that anything he says is going to make anyone change their vote? (Note to James Carville and Karl Rove: rest easy.) Meanwhile, and of course unnoticed by him, 11 people were squirming in their seats, examining their cuticles, hoping he would run out of gas and we could shift back into neutral.

Such things have happened to me during past races at every kind of social gathering - business, family, friends and the neighborhood block party. The most surprising thing about these social hijackings is how oblivious the hijacker is to the discomfort of his audience. But I should not be surprised. People who have few manners come up short in consideration, as well. The two qualities find each other like flies and manure. One is annoying and the other stinks.

Once, a neighbor and friend cornered me numerous times about my political choices while we ate at a community cookout. Eventually, and with great unease, I divulged my intention to vote a certain way. The reaction was swift and amputated our friendship for years. But how could I have such beliefs?  Didn’t I care about...?  What was I thinking? I must be losing my mind...? I did not lose my mind but I did lose my temper. Thus, the severed friendship. It struck me at the time and still does that this breech of etiquette and the fallout it caused was avoidable and silly. I have many friends and family who belong to a different political party than mine and somehow we manage to avoid calling each other names or worse, not speaking at all. This is accomplished by agreeing to disagree and finding other topics of conversation.  This way of avoiding conflict is known as civility. Civility is getting harder to find these days.I suspect the reason for this is that civility is hiding under a blanket somewhere thinking of permanent retirement since its services are so seldom requested.

I am not against freedom of speech. How could I be? I’m a writer. I am suggesting that all of us have the right to hold our own opinions and vote them, which is exactly what we do. It is bad form to evangelize to anyone trapped in a room with you on your political beliefs, (or your religious ones, but that subject is for another column.)The right that someone has to invade another’s ear space is the same right that the ear’s owner has to wish they would shut up, already. The suffering would never think of saying such an insulting thing, of course, because they have good manners and so they sit there, prisoners to a political Jim Baker, hoping the pundit will go get seconds, (but not baked beans - they produce more gas).

I am not suggesting that we not have discussions about politics. I am suggesting that we gather around us the people we know who hold similar beliefs as ours and gripe, grumble and growl with them about the hopeful ruin of our political foes.  What fun! I do this a lot. And, believe it or not, we often disagree. There are differing opinions within the same political party, something you could not possibly miss in the run- up to nominate. Vilifying a political candidate to a group of unknown constituents will surely change their opinion of the speaker from something less than it was prior to his eruption. Even if they agree with him, the well- mannered will feel the discomfort of those who do not.

Good manners are — and will always be — a function of considering others before oneself. Assuming that everyone should believe as you do is the first step down a slippery slope of self-indulgence. Our political system works because there is a difference of opinion and we all have the right to have one. I just wish we didn’t have the right to ignore the advice of our mothers: One does not discuss politics or religion in polite company.