Someone said the strangest thing to me the other day in a townhall forum.  We were on a forum discussing an article of Mr. Medved.  We disagreed with each other and cited reasons for that disagreement.  I understood their position which was reasonable, and I asserted my disagreement without any disparaging remarks.  When they replied they took me to task for referring to the author as “Mister” and asked me if I felt he was somehow superior to me.  

The more I thought about this the more confused I became.  Why would someone not call him Mr. Medved?  When is that appropriate?  When did it not become appropriate to use Mr., Miss, Mrs., Ms. Dr. Sir, and Ma’am etc when referring to an individual?  When is it a sign of weakness or inferiority to be polite?  Do people beside me still say please and thank you and you’re welcome?

When I refer to Arianna Huffington I might use her full name but I wouldn’t say “Huffington says blah blah” I would say “Ms.  Huffington says blah blah” I would use Miss or Mrs.  If I knew or carried about her marital status.   Using a full name to describe someone is ok I think but a first name or last name only?  How is that respectful or decent?

Ms. Huffington has a column that appears weekly in the Stars and Stripes Newspaper every week in Iraq.  It appears across from Ms. Coulters.  I don’t think I have ever agreed with one of Ms. Huffington’s columns and find them devoid of well formed opinions and good logic.  However, I would never insult her on a personal level.   Why would I not use Ms. when referring to her unless I am using her full name? 

How often do intelligent discussions of point and counterpoint on townhall forums degrade into name calling and attacks?   What does it say about an individual when they refer to a serving US senator by an intentional misspelling of her name?   Now I can name a dozen reasons to dislike Sen. Clinton without even batting an eye and more if I think about it BUT she is a US senator.  I have to respect her office and then respect her as a lady.  In my opinion anyone who intentionally misspells her name is in the same category as those who disgustingly altered Gen Petreaus in the infamous attack ads.  If you graduated the sixth grade don’t try to justify bad behavior by pointing out the other side does it.  That defense went out with grade school.  Incoming and IEDs may break our bones but names will never hurt us. 

I happen to like the comments of several very liberal posters on townhall.  As I write this Lilly comes to mind.  Even if she did correct me once on poor word usage.  She is an over 60 year old lady who is married to a WWII vet.  She is well educated, well spoken, and knowledgeable on a variety of topics and in my opinion she is frequently wrong.  However it would be a much duller place without her comments.    Yet people tell her things like “shut up and go away”.   People should attack her ideas if they are up to the challenge, and they use credible facts and sources.  But when is it ok to attack a little old lady personally?  My dad is in his 70’s and I am 44 and I think he would still spank me if he heard me talk the way some supposedly conservative people talk. 

Ann Coulter is a comedian.  She makes a living saying outrageous things and making fun of people.  She can be excused if she gets more leeway in her comments because it is an obvious attempt at humor.   The few times that I listened to Rush Limbaugh it was an eternity of him bloviating, commercials constantly and very few opinions from the other side.  He is notorious for calling people names.  He makes a lot of money by doing it by why the personal attacks?  He has enough to shred the opposition on ideas why call names like a 10 year old? I guess it is what sells but it pains me to see the loss of civility in what should be informative educated discourse.   Even if I agree with people that are rude I have little tolerance for them.  How many people have kids and would correct them if they called someone, maybe a teacher, Shrillary or worse, listen to people who claim to be intelligent stoop to name calling.   Can anyone  see Thomas Paine , Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams making fun of King George’s name instead of his politics? 

Some really great posters on both sides have great gifts of satire.  It’s always great to see them because we do need more humor in life.  But some common decency, respect, manners, and civility would be nice.