A stream of curse words. A river of filth. The coarsening of our culture. This article is a response to an email sent by the Tea Party Nation to its members that fits, in every important point, the notion defined by the previous statements. But the Tea Party Nation is not the only perpetrator of such offenses in our society. I am guilty of them; The Rational Middle, I have often noted, is an aspiration rather than reality. Liberals, conservatives, truck drivers, and school teachers; we Americans have become proficient in the debased art of degrading language.
What I will do in this article, I hope, is to deconstruct the obscenities hurled by Melissa Brookstone in the aforementioned email. I will not call her a traitor; I will not call her a bigot. I am writing this column in the full understanding that the Tea Party Nation email is written in a tone that more than a few friends and family members, folks that I respect and love, will agree with. This article is not being written about the character of the Tea Party Nation, it is being written to refute the premise of Tea Party Nation.