{"id":1195,"date":"2010-03-22T12:19:34","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T12:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html"},"modified":"2010-03-22T12:19:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T12:19:34","slug":"this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html","title":{"rendered":"This Is Why We Can&#8217;t Have Nice Things (Like Civil Discourse)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t care which side of the fence you&#8217;re on when it comes to health care reform in the U.S. or abortion rights in the U.S. or the place of either debate in the context of the other: shouting &#8220;baby killer&#8221; at anyone who doesn&#8217;t tow the hard pro-life line is stupid.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"640\" height=\"385\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/8CDIk9o64Po&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/8CDIk9o64Po&amp;color1=0xb1b1b1&amp;color2=0xcfcfcf&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;fs=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" width=\"425\" height=\"385\"><\/object><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s stupid because it reduces the discussion to absurdities. It&#8217;s stupid because, in reducing the discussion to absurdities, it further precludes there being any possibility of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/theirbadmother\/2010\/02\/lets-bring-compassion-into-the-abortion-debate.html\">reasonable, respectful discourse on matters pertaining to reproductive rights, freedoms and responsibilities<\/a>. It&#8217;s stupid because it&#8217;s stupid.<\/p>\n<p>Why can&#8217;t we all just speak nicely to one another? Discuss our differences of opinion without calling names? We demand it of our children &#8211; why do we not demand it of ourselves?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t care which side of the fence you&#8217;re on when it comes to health care reform in the U.S. or abortion rights in the U.S. or the place of either debate in the context of the other: shouting &#8220;baby killer&#8221; at anyone who doesn&#8217;t tow the hard pro-life line is stupid. It&#8217;s stupid because&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>This Is Why We Can&#039;t Have Nice Things (Like Civil Discourse) - Their Bad Mother<\/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\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Is Why We Can&#039;t Have Nice Things (Like Civil Discourse) - Their Bad Mother\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I don&#8217;t care which side of the fence you&#8217;re on when it comes to health care reform in the U.S. or abortion rights in the U.S. or the place of either debate in the context of the other: shouting &#8220;baby killer&#8221; at anyone who doesn&#8217;t tow the hard pro-life line is stupid. It&#8217;s stupid because&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Their Bad Mother\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-22T12:19:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Catherine Connors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (Like Civil Discourse) - Their Bad Mother","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\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (Like Civil Discourse) - Their Bad Mother","og_description":"I don&#8217;t care which side of the fence you&#8217;re on when it comes to health care reform in the U.S. or abortion rights in the U.S. or the place of either debate in the context of the other: shouting &#8220;baby killer&#8221; at anyone who doesn&#8217;t tow the hard pro-life line is stupid. It&#8217;s stupid because&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html","og_site_name":"Their Bad Mother","article_published_time":"2010-03-22T12:19:34+00:00","author":"Catherine Connors","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html","name":"This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (Like Civil Discourse) - Their Bad Mother","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-03-22T12:19:34+00:00","dateModified":"2010-03-22T12:19:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/e5cb41c7478a8741b1ca837d0ad3eace"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/2010\/03\/this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-like-civil-discourse.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"This Is Why We Can&#8217;t Have Nice Things (Like Civil Discourse)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/","name":"Their Bad Mother","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/e5cb41c7478a8741b1ca837d0ad3eace","name":"Catherine Connors","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/48c\/48c0936a787715d590be21174b52d353x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/theirbadmother\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/48c\/48c0936a787715d590be21174b52d353x96.jpg","caption":"Catherine Connors"},"description":"Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic who traded the lecture hall for the playroom and discovered that university students and preschoolers have much the same attention span. 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