The death of discourse

I happened to catch a funny comment made by comedian Dennis Miller the other evening.  Here is the actual comment

When you mash this up with the stance he took on birth control last week, it appears to me that Barack Obama believes life officially begins when you can sign up for entitlements.

Left/right political beliefs aside, it is simply a comment I found funny, made by a comedian.  

I indicated on my facebook page that I found this humorous, but I also felt the need to qualify my comment of finding it humorous with the statement  

(Not being political here folks...just thought the comment was funny - it is a conservative comment about a liberal - just like I find some liberal comments about conservatives hilarious.....)

Why did I qualify it?  Because in today's day and age, discourse about anything remotely held to be "political" is  dead. 

As Americans, we have reached a point where so many individuals are polarized. Wait, that is probably not the right way to put it.  We, as Americans have always been polarized with respect to our political views.  What we have reached, is a point where the expression of our views has denigrated into nastiness and into the realm of Me-sation.  (Me-sation - the belief that only what I say in conversation is right and appropriate, and there is only one side to a conversation, ME)

It has become okay to toss around words like "racist, idiot, moron, a**hole" as it relates to someone else's political views and espousements - and it is okay for them to toss it right back at us.  Well, that is not true.  It is only "okay" for ME to toss it at them.  Because, obviously, :my viewpoint is correct".  

It breaks my heart.