America Could Use More Robust Political Debate

Exchange Of Ideas: Does passionate political debate in America trigger politically driven bloodshed? More likely, it prevents it. And we could probably use more of it.

A 14,000-seat basketball arena is not the first place most people would choose as a place of "healing." As Politico's Glenn Thrush described it, in "the jarringly campaign-like atmosphere of the University of Arizona's McKale Center," President Obama gave "one of the most passionate, if hard-to-define speeches of his presidency."

It actually may not be that hard to define. The president's message on Wednesday was that "only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud" — "them" being Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other innocent victims of a deranged gunman's shooting spree last Saturday.

As audience members wore T-shirts with a markedly political-sounding slogan — "Together We Thrive" — the president implored us to "make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds."

Leave aside the fact that the president himself has engaged in plenty of wounding talk — calling on Hispanics to "punish our enemies," for instance, and infamously telling a Philadelphia crowd in June 2008 that the way Democrats will beat Republicans is, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

Instead, consider his point in last year's State of the Union address that "deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works" have been "growing for years," therefore we must take action "to give our people the government they deserve."

The people are enraged at Washington and for very good reason, not the least of which are trillions added to the national debt and a pricey government takeover of health care. How are Americans supposed to get the government we deserve and fix it all without a full-blown debate?

Rhode Island's new "independent" Gov. Lincoln Chafee thinks barring government workers from having contact with talk radio hosts is the answer. Could it be that what big-government politicians want is not a more civil public discourse, but less — or the replacement of public discourse with public acquiescence?

It was a liberal icon, Adlai Stevenson, who said "the first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum." But in Congress, the phrase repeated most often is "I thank my distinguished colleague." That feigned chumminess muffles a brand of debate that could lead to real reforms the country needs.

In other free countries, politicians are freer with colorful language. A Labor MP in Britain's House of Commons once compared Margaret Thatcher to a boa constrictor. And only last summer, the health minister called the House of Commons speaker (and fellow Conservative Party member) "a stupid, sanctimonious dwarf."

The wisest commentary since the Tucson attack may come from the political figure attacked the most. "Our Founders' genius," said Sarah Palin, "was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways."

A sure way to risk getting people to start settling their political conflicts in uncivil ways is by suppressing the full, fervent expression of their differences.