What Manners?

            I grew up in a family that placed a value on good manners. As a boy, I was taught to keep my elbows off the dinner table, to take my hat off in a restaurant, to hold the door open for a lady, and never to curse. But there was more: we were taught that respect and civility were marks of a cultured people. Class, my dad insisted, was not defined so much by knowing the difference between a salad fork and a pitchfork, but more by courtesy, kindness, and modesty.

            It would appear that many people never learned, or have conveniently forgotten, basic lessons in proper behavior in a civilized society. Or maybe they were taught different lessons. Where, we might ask, did the women marchers in Washington learn to wear hats suggestive of a vagina? Who taught the hysterical mobs that shouting “Nazi” and “Fascist” at Trump supporters and pasting four-letter words on their placards are acceptable forms of expression? Who said that students encouraging black-clad and masked thugs to break windows, trash cars, and light fires is a sanctioned form of protest?

            Of course, President Trump’s intemperate tweets are no model of decorum, nor are Senate Democrats’ despicable assaults on the character of presidential appointees. Elsewhere, Steve Bannon was certainly being uncivil when he told the media to “Just keep your mouths shut,” but then the media returned the favor with lustful retorts of their own? Didn’t these people have parents to teach them manners?

            Freedom of speech is a cherished right protected by our Constitution. But people who abuse that right with vulgarity, slander, boorishness, and civil unrest debase themselves, our society, and our culture.