Whatever happened to civility? There was once a time when reasonable people could disagree with each other without vilifying each other. There was a time when two people could have opposing points of view on a topic without having an angry, name-calling confrontation because of it.

My mother always told me that if I lost my temper in a disagreement, I had already lost the argument. If I had to resort to cursing and name-calling, I was showing my ignorance. If I didn’t know how to lose gracefully, I would lose horribly.

I am fifty-six years old, which means that I was a teenager when the Flower Power People fought “the establishment” in the mid and late sixties. I remember Woodstock. I remember Kent State. I remember the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. It was a time of upheaval, a time of tension, a time of revolution, a time of deep national division.

But out of all that uproar, some good trickled through the cracks, took root, and grew. The woman’s movement had its germination in those raucous days.

We became, as a nation, more tolerant of those who were “different” than we were.

We learned that sometimes politicians and government officials lie. Therefore we learned to be wary.

We also learned, for the most part, that “keeping your cool” in trying times worked a hell of lot better when presenting an argument than did tempers and violence.

Violence always backfired. When protesters became unruly, public opinion swayed against them. When violence erupted in the streets of Chicago and the campus of Kent State University, those condoning and propagating the violence found themselves painted as villains, and, ultimately, their causes went down in defeat.

After living through what some have called the most tumultuous time in our national history, I can honestly say that never before in my life have I felt such a rift in the population as I do today. The only difference is that today’s violence is more subversive, more hidden, more “behind the scenes” than it was back then. However, it is every bit as destructive and dangerous.

Outbursts of temper on the floor of Congress serve no good purpose. Labelling each other as “liberals”, “conservatives”, “socialists” and “Nazis” only causes more derision and more tension thatn already exists.

The gap between “The Right” and “The Left” seems to be an ever-widening chasm that is impossible to bridge when tempers are flaring.

What can we, as a people, do about this?

Well, in my opinion, we can start by drawing our own conclusions on issues, and stop getting our “opinions” from others. When we let other folks do our thinking for us, we allow them to control our lives and fill our heads with their own prejudices.

In other words, we need to turn off our radios, computers and t.v.’s.

We need straight, Edward R. Murrow facts. We need newscasts with no adjectives…no slants. We need to tune out the hate mongers and manipulators on both sides of the political spectrum. To me, the truth always lies somewhere in the middle, and not on the far reaches of the pendulum.

While conservatives rule the talk radio airwaves and liberals have a firm advantage in the national blogs, we, the listeners and the readers, have got to find the middle ground.

The media personalities make their money by delivering an audience to sponsors who are hawking their goods. And these personalities do their jobs by pandering to our prejudices and our fears. Words such as “whackos”, “liberals”, “Nazis”, “socialists” and “Bible thumpers” do nothing to forward our arguments or find solutions to problems. In fact, they only serve to drive wedges between two sides, insuring that resolutions will never be reached. (Think about it, when a talk show host uses the term, “Femin-nazi” to describe feminists, or a blogger calls a right-wing conservative a “storm-trooper” what are they trying to do? Are they trying to present a reasonable argument? Or are they trying to “rally the troops” and be entertaining at the same time?)

Think back to the people who have made the greatest positive impacts in your life. Are they ranting, close-minded, manipulating maniacs, or are they reasonable, understanding and yet forceful individuals who knew how to smooth out choppy waters and make life more palpable for everybody around them?

Ghandi brought down the strongest political force of his lifetime without firing a single shot or lashing out angrily at “the enemy”. He did it by peacefully calling attention to unadulterated facts and presenting them quietly on the world stage for each of us to judge in our own way.

Jesus did the same thing. He never raised a fist against the opposition. (Well, okay, there the incident with the moneylenders in the temple, but EVERYBODY has a bad day once in a while, right?) He never screamed names at his enemies, other than the occasional “Hypocrite!” And yet his message of peace and love lives on over the millennia.

I firmly believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans are reasonable, intelligent folks. I know that I can sit down with folks who are diametrically opposed to my political beliefs, argue with them, and, at the end of the night, still respect them, gain something from their insights, and consider them to be friends.

I know that, as always, it is the extreme radical fringes on both sides that get all of the media attention, and they are same factions that fan the fires in order to spark anger among reasonable people on the other side of the political aisle.

We need to learn how to discount these extremists. We need to learn to respect those with differing opinions from our own without trying to pigeon-hole or belittle them. We need to understand that the world is not neatly packaged as black-and-white, right or left, conservative or liberal. We need, all of us, to understand that we don’t always have all of the correct answers. We need to see that compromise and “reaching across the aisle” are not the same things as abandoning our beliefs and our principals.

We need to see each other for what we are – Americans – Americans who truly want what is best for ourselves, our families, our friends, our country and our world.

Simple as that. We can do it only if we work together, affording each other the dignity and respect we all deserve, no matter what our political or personal beliefs may be.

We need to look past convenient labels.

We need to re-learn how to think for ourselves.