The USA is a democracy, a Republic, and currently the world's premier political, economic and military Power.
What it is not is a civil society. To be civil is to understand the difference between the private and the public spheres. In the private sphere an individual is free to hold opinions (no matter how hateful others may find them), to engage in discussion of those opinions with family, friends and co-workers, and to generally conduct his everyday life as he wishes - provided only that he does not break the law in doing so. In the public sphere, the citizen is concernced for those things which constitute the res publica, those issues of national policy (that is, some positive course of action, some public initiative, some enactment of Government, that will have some consequence for the lives of citizens, over and above and irrespective of whether or not it will have consequences for the lives of private individuals).
The Patriot Act is a matter concerning the res publica, as is the war in Iraq, as is Social Security Reform, as is Taxation, as is the question of immigration. These are all public issues as opposed to private issues - though no one would deny that they can and will have an impact upon the private sphere also. To be civil is to understand that even detrimental consequences for private individuals can be in the public interest, and to accept that this is properly so.
But - and this is what Americans of all political affiliations utterly fail to understand - the language of private interests, private passions, is not admissable within the public sphere precisely because it is public, and therefore concerned with the general and public interest of the polity as a whole, and not with the hopes, aspirations, desires, wants, grievances, of some section or faction within that polity.
It's this distinction that marks the difference between a Debate, and the comedy that took place between the candidates for election to the Presidency last year. It marks the differece between a Debate, and the gross practice of the filibuster, which is in no sense an attempt to promote or defend the working of democracy but is instead an attempt to kill democracy at its root by preventing debate and thwarting the will of the majority.
People, if you don't want Judges with a conservative disposition, don't vote for a President who is certain to appoint such Judges. If you do vote for such a President, then don't allow his will in this matter (that will which you authorized) to be thwarted by sectarians and malcontents in Congress who believe they know best and who are determined to impose their will over and above that of the electorate.
The filibuster is not a strategy fit to be employed by a political adult intent upon engaging in democratic debate. Democracy in its essence is the art of persuasion raised up to be the foundation of the civil life of a polity. The filibuster is an equivalent strategy to that employed by a spoilt infant, stamping and screaming and waving its arms, until in desperation, and so they can get on with the other business of life, the adults around it give it its way.
The filibuster is perhaps the most gross, the most pernicious, and the most laughable expression of American political infantilism (give me MY WAY and give it to me NOW or I will scweam and scweam and SCWEAM) but there are others, especially the notion of 'political correctness'.
Political correctness is what Americans have instead of civility. Political correctness, like civility, is a way to control the kinds of things that can be said or done in public (public here meaning the res publica, those things which are of concern to citizens as citizens and which must be arbitrated by the properly appointed Public authorities). But where civility is devoted to the public interest and avoids all private passions in pursuit of that interest, political correctness instead enshrines sectarian agendas and personal grievance and makes of them the sole business of the State.
The State, in the interest of political correctness, must see to it that no one's feelings are hurt. It's not enough,for example, to imprison a person for assaulting another. If, during the assault, the term 'nigger', or 'yid' (though interestingly, not 'honky') is used, then the crime is somehow more of a crime and must be punished more severely. Myself, if I'm getting the shit kicked out of me I don't actually care what I'm called during the process, and my only interest in the punishment of the perpetrator lies in seeing that he's punished according to law and for that offence, the breaking of the civil peace.
To be called a 'nigger', a 'yid' (or a 'honky") is a matter of personal insult, it is not a matter that requires legislation. To make it a matter of legislation is both an unwarranted intrusion of the State into the private lives of citizens (who, if they are adults, can settle such matters between themselves - and do so peaceably), and an unwarranted intrusion of the private into the public since it takes the attention of law-makers and law-enforcers away from those things which are properly their concern.
This intrusion of the public into the private is just as much at work in the case of Affirmative action, which is equally an affront to civility, especially in a democratic-meritocratic Republic, where the public is best served by having the most qualified, most able citizens as office holders, where the interests of commerce and capitalism in general are best served by having the most able persons occupying positions within an enterprise. But no. Instead, and in order to prevent some perceived injustice based upon the course of events some two hundred years ago, the most inept are appointed over the most able, to satisfy an imposed skin-color quota. The dumbest creature on the planet can be appointed to the most sensitive position, demanding the highest degree of intelligence, providing only his skin is the right color and the quota requires it.
What do these two offences against civility have in common? They place the personal above the public in situations where the public ought to have priority. And in the process they degrade and corrupt Public life, making it a theatre of personal wants and grievances paid for out of the public purse and to the detriment of the public interest.
If the filibuster marks the most crass intervention of factional interest in public life (no matter that those who carry on this factionalism are public office-holders, in their devotion to their particular causes they are all private men first) then the 'debate' concerning homosexuality marks the most complete confusion over what is public and what is private.
Let me give you an example. I refuse to use the word 'gay' to designate homosexuals. Firstly, the correct term for both male and female homosexuals is.... homosexual. Secondly, I have never yet met a gay homosexual - they're usually as miserable as sin and far too hung up over their sexuality to ever be gay. And thirdly, I'll be damned if I'll have my usage of language dictated to me by the paranoia, insecurity, self-loathing and general fucked-upedness of one segment of society.
My choice of language ought to be a purely private affair. Just as what consenting adult homosexuals do in the bedroom ought to be a private affair, of concern to them alone. Whether homosexuality is a fact of nature, a fact of nurture, or a fact of sheer bloody-minded perversity - is none of my damn business. And just as I don't want to see what my heterosexual neighbours do in their bedrooms paraded up and down the street, neither do I want to see 'gay' parades, or fetishistic sexual practices, paraded up and down the street.
Homosexuals, if you want the government to stay out of your bedrooms then keep your bedrooms out of the street. If you want to be accepted simply as citizens, don't announce your sexual orientation in the same breath that you tell someone your name - because to do so treats that orientation as if it were a matter of public discussion in the first place, which it is not.
If you want others to respect your privacy then learn a little respect for it yourselves first. Learn to distinguish between what is public and belongs to the citizen, and what is private and belongs to the individual, and then treat them accordingly.
To do anything else is the mark of the political infant, and the mark of one not fit to engage in political discourse.
Why does the rest of the world regard America as at once laughable and terrifying?
How would you feel if there was an infant in your living room and the kid had a loaded gun with the safety off?"
