When I walk through the bookstore and see the shelf labeled "political science" full of titles that scream "Traitor!" "Liar!" "Stealing Your Country!" "Ruining America!" I wish someone would revive duelling.
Why not? The national hackery is sadly overgrown and needs weeding. How about we reset the rules so that you no longer can just utter any sort of slander or insult without suffering any consequences.
When you insulted someone in the days of the code duello, you had better have thought it through beforehand and be prepared to eat your words or defend them.
Oh, calm down; it's just a dream. But I do now have some sympathy for the 19th century's dueling apologists, who argued that, as vicious as dueling was, it wasn't as bad for the nation as the flood of public calumny that flowed after it was outlawed. Charles Gibson wrote, "The code preserved a dignity, justice and decorum that have since been lost. The present generation will think me barbarous but I believe that some lives lost in protecting the tone of the bar and the press, on which the Republic itself so largely depends, are well spent."
At the very least, it would encourage the liberal commentators to get acquainted with firearms, which would perhaps bring them a little closer to a segment of America now invisible to them.
I have long loathed book stores such as B&N for having the nerve to have a 'political science' section and then stocking that section with hacks from the left and right who haven't a clue as to what it means to be scientific (or logical or rigorous for that matter).
As someone who works part time at a book store, I couldn't agree more.
Though on the other hand, duelling was frequently abused. People would call other people out even over small sleights, and sometimes talented duellers would deliberately engineer situations where they'd have an excuse to declare a duel and force the other guy (typically a less talented duelest) to either back out in disgrace or be killed. So maybe it's not such a hot idea.
Gonna toss off a quick sketch here:
There is a general decline in the sentiment that personal utterances and actions have personal consequences. AFAIK the code duello is only survived in the dcesultory doctrine of "fightin' words".
"Professionals" such as engineers, medical doctors, lawyers and the like have some vestigial support for this in their codes and in how much liability they are not infrequently found to have.
"Professional" politicians and loudmouths are another matter. I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I read Madison or George Mason and then look at the churlishness of many outspoken modern "senators".
"Professional" governments have sovereign immunity from many forms of prosecution, as do their agents.
Governments and corporations are still sometimes held to have consequential liability. When pressed hard enough, both settle matters out of court as often as possible, and neither can be actually punished as much as individuals can be (deprived of liberty for a certain term, fined a significant amount, or put to death).
The confluence of these factors has been a long slow slide. Brittle, fragile, pyroclastic and overblown public utterances are just the outside of the rockslide.
More on this, someday, on my blog.
Callimachus,
you should see Firefly. ;)
So the bookshelves are full of those books ... but is anyone reading them? Given the fall of newspapers across the country, my guess is "no".
The nice thing about capitalism is one day someone at the publishing companies will add up their profit/loss columns and notice -- guess what! -- no profits.
Just like Hollywood is starting to notice that no one is going to their over-priced anti-American movies no matter HOW much they assure us that it's good for us to be watching movies that tell "both sides of the story".
So unless all the publishing companies are owned by John Kerry and his gazillionaire wife who don't care about profits, if the exclamation-point books aren't selling, it will be considered to be a Very Bad Thing, and maybe at that point they'll start publishing something else.
My recollection is that most of these political books are in hardcover--it doesn't take all that many sales for the publisher to reach breakeven as long as the publisher doesn't overprint extravagently. (I'm thinking along the lines of 2500 copies.)
We are armed and ready on the liberal side. We can defend and attack. But our prefernce is a measured response. For every Juan Cole there is an Anne Coulter as NahnCee points out.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin
Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. -- Thomas Paine
On my reading of pre-Civil War newspapers and other publications, savage personal attacks were more common then than now.
I don't think there has been a long-term consistent trend in manners, for better or for worse.
The Code Duello did instill an extreme respect
for following the "Rules" of Civil discourse.
My favourite story is the one about the extremely fat man challenged to a Duel by a very skinny man.
The portly gentleman pointed out the thin man had an unfair advantage, in that he had a much larger target to aim at.
The Field Judges and Seconds conferred and the gave forth a Ruling.
The thin man was to be place up against the fat man, two chalk lines drawn, and any hit outside the lines did not count.
"But our prefernce is a measured response"
Like Gore, Kerry and Dean's descriptions of Bush?
Notice I am not citing media flacks but Party Leaders.
Your measured responce seems more like the slander and libel uttered by others.
Ha! Good story, Dan.
David: "On my reading of pre-Civil War newspapers and other publications, savage personal attacks were more common then than now."
That's true. Far from being a deterrent, dueling made insulting other people more challenging and fun.
Duels were also a great way to delay legal proceedings, especially in the South. If your case is a loser, just call opposing counsel a black-hearted #@$%$ and get an instant adjournment. If you wing him good in the ensuing duel, you might get a six-month delay while he recovers.
While allowing 'dueling' is a little scary to me, it does bring up the idea that comradery can be gained by competing against your opponents. For example: Jesse Owens and Luz Long becoming friends at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (despite the whole nazi thing).
So here's what I propose: We start up a series of competitive games between house/senate R's & D's: Softball game, basketball team (they could even do a 3-on-3 tourney). Or, maybe even bridge/chess championships for the less athletically inclined. Yes, they're busy people, but a few hours donated towards civility would benefit everyone.
Hell, we could even get a few matches of air america v. fox news.... Nevermind, I'd rather they just shot each other.