BASHING CIVIL DISCOURSE TO NEW HEIGHTS

How often do you catch yourself in civil discourse and regret what you’ve said?

It usually goes something like, ‘this would have been better if I had just stayed on topic.’

That’s the polite self-talk. The other?

Not so polite.

‘Let’s just shut the hell up next time,’

If there is a next time. If there isn’t proves the saying, ‘You only get one chance to make a first impression.

If that sounds like you, if you’ve told yourself to do better, you probably will do better.

The other way? Tell others to shut up, call them stupid, and ramble on until you tire from the effort to help others.

 

Keep Civil Discourse Civil

If you have something important to say, write a blog post, write an op-ed, just keep it on track.

In London I told some people I was going to Hyde Park, to Speakers Corner, and get up on the soapbox.

From the general response it was a bad idea as it’s more of a Ranters Corner than Speakers Corner.

 

The challenges we face in life come in two categories: Those we face, and those we ignore.

If we face our challenges we have a better life.

If we ignore those same challenges we have a shorter life.

And, if we find a way to triumph over our challenges we’ll set an example for others to follow.

Lastly, if we triumph over our common challenges and help others learnto do the same by setting a good example, we have a chance for a great life.

What is the main key to help others triumph over their adversities?

The most important fight on the planet today is fighting the fear that nothing anyone does is good enough. No one can make a difference sort of fear. The sort of fear that says, “Why bother?”

If that’s you, here is one answer to Why Bother:

Once you quit caring about things unimportant to you, what’s left? You quit caring about things important to you.

In the words, you start to quit on yourself. You turn into a quitter, find yourself surrounded by other quitters, then wake up one day wondering if teaching others how to be quitters is a good idea.

It’s not. Which isn’t to say winners never quit and quitters never win like a junior high football coach who quit trying and ended up coaching junior high football.

It’s worse than that. How bad? No one likes a quitter, and once you get that stench around you, it stays around you. You never hear, “Nobody like a stinking quitter,” but that’s what they mean.

Thank you for reading my Speakers Corner speech.

 

Making Time To Listen

The man who lashes out against people doing their job is not the sort of man to put in front of young people as an example.

If anyone chooses to live a pubic life, but act like they are not a public figure, is confused.

I’m confused why someone who loves the roar of the crowd, the excitement of the area, isn’t able to have civil discourse with people asking questions, the reporter, the journalist, the muckraker, the people who want answers for their bosses.

Does anyone ask why someone on record for saying how much they love the under-educated gets off calling others stupid?

If you trust the judgement of someone who shows poor judgement in public, are they better in private times, those soul searching times of making wrenching decisions?

Or is their focus elsewhere?

As your blogger in chief I trust your judgement; I trust that you know the difference between right and wrong, between shit and shinola.

 

“You don’t know shit from Shinola” is a 20th-century American idiom meaning a person lacks basic intelligence, common sense, or discernment. It refers to the inability to distinguish between feces and Shinola brand shoe polish, which was historically dark brown and commonly used.

 

For example, this is shit:

 

People hired to serve and protect can not walk past an old man knocked out on the cement no matter how he got there.

Would the policeman who stopped been fired on the spot?

Would he have been yanked away?

Men in uniform beside a down man in civilian clothes is never a good look.

 

PS:

I’ve been on trips outside the country, hosted cultural exchange students, foreign exchange students, and feel I’ve got a good ear for outside views.

People see America as a goal, a destination, an achievement. I always agree.

Have I called anyplace a ‘shithole country?’ Noooo. Why?

Because most of what anyone knows about a place depends on available information.

What most people know comes from current times, from social media, Facebook, and YouTube, for better or worse.

PSS:

A grown man, a man with a family, with adult children, who gives a breathless waiting world one ignorant blast after another is living his best life.

He’s the boss and no one can deny it.

If he says something, it’s true.

Whatever he does is something that must be done.

Any questions? Don’t be stupid piggy, you know what you’ll get.

You also know what you won’t get.

You won’t get civil discourse.