{"id":3799,"date":"2009-12-18T05:12:18","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T05:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/questions-worth-asking.html"},"modified":"2009-12-18T05:12:18","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T05:12:18","slug":"questions-worth-asking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/questions-worth-asking.html","title":{"rendered":"Questions worth asking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see a poll on this. Yes or no: Have we become a more vulgar country? Are we coarser than, say, 50 years ago? Do we talk more about sensitivity and treat others less sensitively? Do you think standards of public behavior are rising or falling? Is there something called the American Character, and do you think it has, the past half-century, improved or degenerated? If the latter, what are the implications of this? Do you sense, as you look around you, that each year we have less or more of the glue that holds a great nation together? Is there less courtesy in America now than when you were a child, or more? Bonus question: Is &#8216;Excuse me&#8217; a request or a command?&#8221;<\/p>\n<div align=\"right\">&#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/declarations.html\">Peggy Noonan<\/a>, asking some very good questions.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see a poll on this. Yes or no: Have we become a more vulgar country? Are we coarser than, say, 50 years ago? Do we talk more about sensitivity and treat others less sensitively? Do you think standards of public behavior are rising or falling? Is there something called the American Character,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Questions worth asking - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/questions-worth-asking.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Questions worth asking - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see a poll on this. Yes or no: Have we become a more vulgar country? Are we coarser than, say, 50 years ago? Do we talk more about sensitivity and treat others less sensitively? Do you think standards of public behavior are rising or falling? Is there something called the American Character,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/questions-worth-asking.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-18T05:12:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Questions worth asking - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/12\/questions-worth-asking.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Questions worth asking - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"&#8220;I&#8217;d like to see a poll on this. 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