The Death of Civil Discourse

Since leaving the military nearly a decade ago I have dedicated myself to pursuing an education and increasing my knowledge and intelligence. I am starting to regret that decision. With the advent of social media, the continued polarization of politics, and what I feel is a severe decline in objectivity I feel like my ability to communicate with my fellow human beings in a civil and reasonable manner is severely hampered. It feels like a self-imposed alienation sometimes.

A case in point is this site. Though I am a huge fan of most of what happens here I get discouraged often. I try to create discussions that require critical thought and serious discussion but they often fail to gain traction. When they do get traction and I start to get responses they are often quickly driven down the list by many of the mindless and/or politically-charged posts that permeate the board. Even worse, I had a decent discussion going about mandatory voting in the US after I read an article that Obama had floated the idea. I intentionally left politics out of it so as to get objective answers. However, though my post had come first, I received this message "RallyPoint has merged your discussion, "Mandatory Voting in the US?", with "Obama suggests "FORCED VOTING" for Americans... how does THAT grab you?", and your original post has been closed." So my post was removed because someone posted the same thing but with a loaded title that infuriated people against the president and was filled with vitriol and disgust as opposed to the decent and objective content that filled my post. I understand that there is a desire and need to keep content together as much as possible but my civil discussion was trumped by a charged one, why? Because it had more responses? Obviously I am upset about this portion but there are other issues in this that I would like to touch on.

I read an interesting article in the Havok Journal the other day about veterans lashing out at each other and others when their opinions do not align. Apparently we are some of the worst offenders, even against our own. I'll post the link in the comments so as not to distract from the intent of this post. At any rate I find it very interesting that we as a nation find it so difficult to communicate and discuss civilly and objectively.

Rant over.