Over the past several weeks I have been thinking about the level of political discourse in this country. Honestly it has become appalling to me how poorly we are able to discuss issues as a country. By way of a disclaimer, I consider myself to be conservative and tend to vote that way, but I try and see issues from different perspectives.

One might think by the name of my space that I am a "ditto head" follower of Rush Limbaugh, but I can assure you that is not the case. I do find his show to be entertaining, but would never claim that I subscribe to the belief that he has the first, middle, or final say on any issue. He is first and foremost an entertainer, not a serious political commentator.

What I find disturbing though is what shows from both the “right” and the “left” do to the political discourse in our country. One of the things I truly value in the Microsoft culture is the ability to have respectful conflict. What that means is that by while discussing issues passionately we are still able to treat each other with respect. To me this creates the best opportunity to come to creative solutions to problems.

I am greatly disturbed because we are getting away from that model in our political discussion. Instead we see representatives from both parties resorting to name calling, and demonizing the opposition instead of reasonable fact based arguments in order to defend their position. People will occasionally ask about what happened to civility in politics. I would add to that; what happened to logic, compromise, best interests of the country, etc.?

Like I said earlier, I consider myself to be politically conservative, but I enjoy talking to my friends and associates who look at issues from a different perspective. In fact I value those discussions because in the end they cause me to properly evaluate my position, and get a valuable perspective on the decisions our country is facing.

In the end though, I guess that our media driven culture doesn’t create enough ratings by rational, respectful discussion. I guess the producers of the popular political shows have never seen what a really good debate is like. It’s too bad because I think of the great things we could accomplish as a people if we would simply listen to what others think.