Pop Quiz:
What former Presidential candidate said: “Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.”?
What former Presidential candidate said: “Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.”?
What American writer said: “That’s what we’re missing. We’re missing argument. We’re missing debate. We’re missing colloquy. We’re missing all sorts of things. Instead, we’re accepting.”?
What former Presidential candidate said: “What we have to do… is to find a way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities.”?
What former member of the House said: “It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.”?
What pundit observed: “Political debate with liberals is basically impossible in America today because liberals are calling names while conservatives are trying to make arguments.”?
Answers at the end of the post.
In 1858 Abraham Lincoln gave a speech which included the following line: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He was, of course, making reference to the “peculiar institution”, slavery. It was a foretelling of the American Civil War.
Today we are witnessing a growing phenomenon…a family divided against itself cannot share a holiday dinner table. It is a reflection of the divisions we see across the breadth and width of our country. We all hear stories of family members turning their backs on their loved ones. Aunt Millie can’t tolerate Cousin Jim because he wore a MAGA hat during a family Zoom call. Uncle Fred is boycotting Thanksgiving dinner because his niece thinks the murder of Charlie Kirk was justified…he was, after all, a racist. Brother Bob discovered that his sister watches Fox News. The sad result is that all discussion of these topics has been shut down and the divisions that have resulted are becoming permanent.
A tragic result of the death of free and open debate is the increase in political violence. More than 50% of young Democrats believe it is morally justifiable to assassinate our President. Luigi Mangione kills the CEO of United Health and young Leftist women swoon at the mere mention of the name of their murderous hero. ICE officials are physically attacked for enforcing the law and two Israeli embassy workers are killed in broad daylight on the streets of our Capitol. How does this come to pass?
The illuminati at CNN and MS Now are absolutely certain that the cause of all this is discord is none other than President Trump. Remove Trump and the world will return to it’s Edenic origins.
But we may need to examine “the rest of the story”.
What happened to open and free communication?
Many young people today are unable to look into the eyes of those they communicate with. They are creatures of the social media, public education and smartphones. As a result they are ignorant and have no context with respect to the world in which they live. In addition they lack intellectual confidence. Charlie Kirk went to college campuses and challenged students to “prove me wrong”. Up until October 10, 2025 the debates were civil and peaceful. However, if you watch videos of the Kirk campus events you will note that many students who challenged Kirk could not do so extemporaneously. Rather they required the aid of a smartphone from which they read “arguments and facts”. It would be interesting to understand where those “arguments and facts” originated. In addition the use of AI to write papers for school allows students to avoid research and it is likely they have no idea whether what they are arguing is accurate. How can you have a dialogue with someone who is simply parroting something generated by an unknown third party?
Evidence of this inability and/or unwillingness to communicate directly is all around us. People sitting next to each other text rather than talk. At restaurants families are so wrapped up with their electronic gadgets that they dine in silence. In addition, young people take any disagreement as a personal insult.
What has caused this breakdown of civil discourse?
The Family
In ancient times, i.e. the 1950’s, the family dinner was a staple of the American household. As a general rule politics and religion were not to be part of the evening conversation but all other subjects were fair game…with the possible exception of sex. A regular inquiry from a parent might be: What did to learn in school today? The Saturday trip to the public library was a excursion into the worlds of Dumas, Verne, Kenneth Roberts and the 920 section of the Dewey Decimal System introduced young readers to the stories of Washington, Lincoln, Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett. The Landmark books, published from 1950 to 1970, were found in every school library. Fodder for the intellectually curious. Holidays with grandparents allowed a glimpse into the events that made up the family history…the Great Depression, World War II and the civil rights revolution.
Today such activities are ridiculed and we are diminished thereby.
The Schools
Over the last 75 years the schools have been transformed from greenhouses of true learning into institutions that teach children what to think not how to think. Recess, where children learned social skills and gained physical confidence, are a thing of the past. All school activities are rigidly supervised, Debating classes and clubs are rare and the students are forced to memorize, regurgitate and forget..all designed to make the school look good on the standardized tests. New ideas, or ideas that contradict the enforced curriculum, are not welcomed or accepted. Any excursion into heterodoxy is an invitation to a failing grade and any challenge to the prevailing zeitgeist is aggressively stifled.
Colleges and universities are incubators of intolerance and hostility. Kirk was killed on a college campus. Speakers who do not goosestep to prevailing “wisdom” are barred from campus or shouted down by the mob. Riley Gaines was to speak at San Francisco State University in the People’s Republic of California. She was physically assaulted and detained in an empty classroom for three hours purportedly for her own protection. The police chose not to investigate the case. Apparently the First Amendment does apply to the college campus.
What Happened?
The Divider in Chief, Barack Obama, who was neither intellectually or experientially qualified to be President, has always been an enthusiastic supporter of Critical Theory. Pursuant to that theory all the world is divided into two groups: the Oppressed and the Oppressors. The application of Critical Theory results in the pitting of various demographic groups against those who are believed to be oppressing that particular group. Civil dialogue between the conflicting groups is impossible. Violence is inevitable when glasnost is not permitted. The force multiplier is ignorance.
The internet plays an aggressive role in the suppression of the exchange of ideas. Censorship is rampant and has been amply demonstrated by the media handling of the Covid outbreak. Dissent by the peasants from mask mandates, vaccine efficacy or social isolation resulted in social media accounts being cancelled and when Elon Musk purchased Twitter and allowed open and free exchanges Tesla owners paid a steep price. A fear of being ridiculed or silenced for offering a conflicting opinion is a powerful incentive to remain silent. Suggested reading: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
Sticks and Stones
The need to resort to name calling is an earmark of what passes for “debate” in America today. Those who support Trump are Nazis, Fascists, white supremacists and all around bad people. If you don’t support abortion up to the age of five you are a Christian domestic terrorist subject to a SWAT level arrest. If you insult Ilhan Omar you are a sexist, racist, Islamaphobe who is intolerant of people who marry a sibling. Name calling is a way to avoid a serious discussion and it is on page one of the Leftist playbook. Now is the time to return to the time honored playground response: Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.
A recommended cure to our house/family divided
Our schools should go back to education: Jump start a desire to learn. Stimulate intellectual curiosity. Emphasize critical thinking not critical theory. Focus on how to think not what to think. Teach not just the ability to engage in intellectual discussion but instill the desire to seek it out. Create an atmosphere conducive to personal and intellectual confidence. Support free thinking and free speech. Open the minds of the future voters.
The biggest problems we face today are ignorance and the inability of people to think for themselves…which makes it easier for Big Brother to herd the sheep.
Answers to the Pop Quiz:
What former Presidential candidate said: “Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.”? Jesse Jackson
What former Presidential candidate said: “Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.”? Hubert H. Humphrey, one-time mayor of Minneapolis, including it’s suburb Mogadishu
What American writer said: “That’s what we’re missing. We’re missing argument. We’re missing debate. We’re missing colloquy. We’re missing all sorts of things. Instead, we’re accepting.”? Studs Terkel
What former Presidential candidate said: “What we have to do… is to find a way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities.”? Hilliary Clinton, Gaddafi killer
What former member of the House said: “It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.”? The inestimable Barbara Jordan
What pundit observed: “Political debate with liberals is basically impossible in America today because liberals are calling names while conservatives are trying to make arguments.”? Anne Coulter
Linda Strawbridge
The liberals can now start with our babies and convince them to believe anything I am telling you. While a few will not be able to convince them to think on your own two feet. We have a lot of work to do in order to stop the liberal teachers from continuing on the journey they are on.
Next Door
If the mainstream media wasn’t so blatantly biased and in the pocket of the left, most of what we’re witnessing now would have never come to pass.
Leaning left, in pre-Obama times, and acting as a mouthpiece for the left to support and amplify their perverted views is the difference between then and now.
So far, I am not hopeful. We are loosing generations and the promising young minority might not be able to pull victory out of jaws of defeat.
Ron
The other day, I heard some podcaster say that you can immigrate to any other country, but you’ll always be an immigrant. You can go to Germany, but you’ll never become a German. You can go to Japan, but you’ll never become Japanese. You can go to Mexico, but you’ll never become a Mexican. America is the only place you can go to and become an American!
Or, at least, that’s the way it used to be. I fear we have lost the concept of assimilation as the bedrock of this once phenominally successful experiment in societal participation. And without everyone becoming an American, we will certainly lose our exceptionalism. E pluribus unum has become a motto on our currency that is meaningless to the vast majority.
Unless a visceral understanding of the concept can be restored, I fear we are doomed to be just like everyone else!
The Observer
True… kids rarely reads books these days. To add: schools should teach and reinforce what makes this country great.