I've followed this current election season more closely than those in the past (it being the second for which I am eligible to vote) and have noticed quite a bit of vitriol being flung around, seemingly more so than in previous years.
I would like to link to these two pages showing images of young party faithful criticizing members of the other party.
I then offer this quote from President George Washington's farewell address:
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."
It seems fair to say that we have a cultural issue that requires inward reflection, repentance, and change on a broad scale. We would be naive, as well, to assume this issue applies only to our politics - it is merely one manifestation thereof.
