I remember that era

Dave Barry wrote something very profound and I, although a bit younger than he is, still remember those times:

You know what I miss? I miss 1960. Not the part about my face turning overnight into the world’s most productive zit farm. What I miss is the way the grown-ups acted about the Kennedy-Nixon race. Like the McCain-Obama race, that was a big historic deal that aroused strong feelings in the voters. This included my parents and their friends, who were fairly evenly divided, and very passionate. They’d have these major honking arguments at their cocktail parties. But unlike today, when people wear out their upper lips sneering at those who disagree with them, the 1960s grown-ups of my memory, whoever they voted for, continued to respect each other and remain good friends.

What was their secret? Gin. On any given Saturday night they consumed enough martinis to fuel an assault helicopter. But also they were capable of understanding a concept that we seem to have lost, which is that people who disagree with you politically are not necessarily evil or stupid. My parents and their friends took it for granted that most people were fundamentally decent and wanted the best for the country. So they argued by sincerely (if loudly) trying to persuade each other. They did not argue by calling each other names, which is pointless and childish, and which constitutes I would estimate 97 percent of what passes for political debate today.

What I’m saying is: we, as a nation, need to drink more martinis.

No, you know what I’m saying. I’m saying, now that this election is over, whatever the hell happened, can we please grow up and stop being so nasty to each other? Please?

Political discussions around the family table when I was a kid were not personal attacks on people’s morals and morality.  Instead, they were discussions about political goals and the means for achieving those goals.  If people disagreed about goals, that was one civil discussion; if they disagreed about the means for achieving agreed upon goals, that was another discussion.

Dinner parties were lively, not offensive — and this may well be why I’ve got all this political energy percolating in me, which I take out on my blog.  Sadly, I don’t live in a world in which I can replicate those intellectually stimulating parties that I remember so well from my youth.

Hat tip:  The Weekly Standard