On what is happening with our politics

Voltaire, upon receiving a copy of the latest work from Rousseau, thanked him and then said "never was such intelligence used in turning us all into beasts. One feels like walking on all fours when reading your work".

Uncharitable in its context for sure, but it seems strangely appropriate for our times.  I really hope someone out there runs on a platform of return to civility and wins big.  Civility has come to be identified strongly with weakness of late.  What we need is the the sensibility of being firm, while being civil.  It may be a hard balance to acheive, but this may be what is needed to bring down the currently entrenched culture of hate speech masquerading as free speech and as authentic.  Without this, base instincts of racism and sexism are likely to permanently polarize the nation and take it down a very dark alley by forcing a lot of otherwise decent people to make hard choices.

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