Dear Baker,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some of your remarks are not in good taste even though they may be accurate.\u00a0 I am a big fan, but some of your phrasing makes me uncomfortable.\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Could you please be more civil?
\nComfy Conservative<\/p>\n
Dear Comfy, Dear Baker, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some of your remarks are not in good taste even though they may be accurate.\u00a0 I am a big fan, but some of your phrasing makes me uncomfortable.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Could you please be more civil? Comfy Conservative Dear Comfy, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Out of curiosity, I explored the origins of the adjective \u201ccivil.\u201d\u00a0 It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-letters-to-the-blogger","category-politics-us","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Out of curiosity, I explored the origins of the adjective \u201ccivil.\u201d\u00a0 It comes from a Latin word meaning \u201ccitizen\u201d and carried a sense of the quiet\u00a0of citizens as opposed to the rudeness and militant aggressive nature of soldiers.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Going further back into the Indo-Euro roots, we find that the Latin version came from \u201ckei-\u201c\u00a0 which originally meant \u201cto lie down\u201d and was associated with the comfortable couches or beds one finds when quietly passing the evening in a\u00a0\u00a0night\u2019s lodging or in one\u2019s ordinary household \u2013 as opposed to the roughhewn bunks in a military barracks or the bare ground when campaigning.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So today when someone urges us to be \u201ccivil,\u201d he may be reverting to the oldest concept and means that we should \u201cshut up, go home, and go to bed!\u201c\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This\u00a0concept directly conflicts with the later context in which the obligation of the citizen is to participate in the political process.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Justice Clarence Thomas put everything in wonderful prospective in his famous 2001 Francis Boyer Lecture \u201cBe Not Afraid\u201d which may be found at www.aei.org\/speech\/15211<\/a>\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He tells of Gertrude Himmelfarb who discusses the \u201cvigorous virtues\u201d as opposed to the \u201ccaring virtues.\u201d\u00a0 She writes in One Nation, Two Cultures<\/em>, \u201cTo reduce citizenship to the modern idea of civility, the good-neighbor idea, is to belittle not only the political role of the citizen but also the virtues of the citizen \u2013 the \u2018civic virtues\u2019 as they were known in antiquity and in early republican thought.\u201d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Justice Thomas points out “… by yielding to a false form of “civility,” we sometimes allow our critics to intimidate us. As I have said, active citizens are often subjected to truly vile attacks; they are branded as mean-spirited, racist, Uncle Tom, homophobic, sexist, etc. To this we often respond (if not succumb), so as not to be constantly fighting, by trying to be tolerant and nonjudgmental\u2014i.e., we censor ourselves. This is not civility. It is cowardice, or well-intentioned self-deception at best.”
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His speech should be read aloud in total at every annual GOP convention.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, I would note philosopher and historian of science Karl Popper who correctly pointed out that the tolerant who are always civil and tolerate the intolerant eventually cease to exist.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Your discomfort may be a sign that you should reexamine your criteria.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But thank you for being a loyal fan.
\nYT, Baker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"