This month we are witnessing a phenomenon of intensity unparalleled in my lifetime – Congressional August recess “town hall meetings” where citizens are turning out in droves to shout their congressional representatives down, to call elected official unsavory names from microphones, and to compare our nation’s leaders to Hitler and Attila the Hun.

             Last week I spoke with one of my colleagues who, like me, attends public hearings on matters related to changes in the landscape and where opinions are expressed more through emotion than logic.  Both of us wondered if we were embarking upon a new and acceptable standard of public discourse, where civility is sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.  We both agreed that this current phenomenon was the result of mass communication in the digital age, where crowds can be whipped into action through fear tactics and threats, when Medicare- dependent Americans can be convinced that the government should not be involved in health care, leading to identical letters to the editor and identical slogans use on placards in Oregon as in Florida.  We also agreed that it was unique to this president and this issue.

             Time will tell whether we are wrong and whether we have embarked on a new age.  I hope for the sake of all of us that we haven’t.