Civil Society?

Sometimes I think we give too much credit to and are over-adoring towards The Founding Fathers. After all, while talking about liberty and justice for all, a bunch of them were slave owners and others benefited from slave trafficking. They talked about how “all men are created equal” while conveniently ignoring men who were not white property owners and ignoring women altogether.

And yet…

As they cobbled together the Constitution that has pretty much stood the test of time -- with amendments, of course --they did not go after each other with the kind of venomous rhetoric we are seeing today in the contest over health care reform. Language that is racist and xenophobic and sexist and homophobic. Language that threatens the lives of the President and of members of Congress, some of whom have closed their offices while shielding themselves behind security guards.

I suppose the last time we were this "civil" was during the Civil Rights Movement and, before that, the Civil War. In both eras, many lives were lost.

Is this the U.S. or Taliban country?