Nasty, nasty, nasty

“All politics is local.” — Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr. 1912 - 1994Watching the race for the Senate in Connecticut, including TV ads and the televised debate on Sunday, Oct. 7, one can’t help but notice that there are too many personal attacks going on that seem intended to distract voters from the business at hand. Has political discourse become even nastier this election cycle, or does it just seem that way?It’s not just at the federal level that civil discussion has suffered, either. Local discourse has become more and more heated and partisan in a way that has not usually been the case in Northwest Corner towns. Just because people voted as Republicans or Democrats didn’t mean they couldn’t work together to run their towns and their schools. The labels could be left at the door of the town hall when necessary to provide an atmosphere of cooperation where things could get done for the good of the towns. But perhaps this corner is now becoming a microcosm of dysfunctional Washington, D.C.In Salisbury last week, a line was crossed that polarized citizens from the two ends of the political spectrum. Rather than simply discussing civilly and accepting the result of a vote on the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance (see story, Page A1) and moments of silence for our troops, several people at the selectmen’s meeting got into name-calling after the meeting concluded.Why not get into the ad hominem attacks during the public comment part of the meeting? Better not to have it on the public record? There were enough witnesses to the personal, vituperative attacks on the first selectman, for example, that they were indeed public, in the town hall with a crowd present. And the general atmosphere from both sides was not one of mutual respect, but rather one of mutual disdain.Where is the line drawn on such behavior? How far does it go? Is this the way we should start acting in the workplace if we don’t like the way things are panning out? Shall we encourage our children to call their teachers names if they don’t like an assignment, or a grade they’ve received? If those who did the name-calling felt they were justified due to their own frustration, they should just step back, take a deep breath, and realize they’ve done more harm than good to their cause by behaving with such truculence. While all politics may well be local, as the late Speaker of the House noted, it shouldn’t also be steeped in personal attacks and vitriol, not on the federal level and certainly not on the local level.