Decency and decorum are essentially interchangeable, or at least essential companions. That character or quality within society will thrive in the absence of conflicts or poverty, which otherwise tend to excite human behavior. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, and although many other military conflicts continued around the world, there has been a measure of peace, or as a Vox article recently characterized, a long peace, i.e., a period during which battlefield deaths declined dramatically since the mid-1950s.
Historians generally mark the start of the Cold War with the announcement of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 and ending with the demise of the USSR in 1991. For the most part, decency and decorum were not at risk during this period
The Vox article offered:
The last half century or more hasn’t just seen a historic reduction in the casualties of war. It’s also witnessed an unprecedented expansion in human prosperity, as measured in health, wealth, and education. It’s an expansion that is far from perfect and far from complete but one that has opened the door, even just a crack, to a future that truly could be perfect.
A crack in the long peace for decency and decorum arose in 1954 during the televised Army-McCarthy hearings. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) had made theater of the pursuit of communists in the country, particularly in government. The “Red Scare” prompted paranoia in the nation, including an “invasion” of a small town in Wisconsin named Mosinee (https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/reds-under-the-bed/).
In May, 1950, Mosinee was invaded by trenchcoat-wearing ‘Soviets’ (the invaders were really members of the American Legion, a returned servicemen’s group). The mock Reds heralded their arrival by arresting Mosinee’s mayor and chief of police.
These ‘arrested’ local officials were marched to the town’s main intersection, renamed ‘Red Square’, and subjected to a mock trial. Local priests were also arrested and detained behind barbed wire. ‘Communists’ took over the town library, confiscating most of its books. They forced the local cinema to show Russian propaganda films. Local restaurants were ordered to take hamburgers and steaks off the menu and replace them with coarse black bread and potato soup.
“Reds under the bed” became the somewhat nervous and humorous antidote to the pervasive fear of communism aggravated by the Cold War, nuclear arms race, and fallout shelters.
You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
During one televised hearing on June 9, 1954, Sen. McCarthy and his counsel, Roy Cohn, a New York City pit bull attorney and later associate of Donald Trump, railed against Communist infiltration in the Army ranks and in defense plants. The broad and generally unsubstantiated attacks included a young attorney serving in the law firm of Joseph Welch, counsel for the Army in the hearings. Fed up by McCarthy’s and Cohn’s allegations, Welch uttered the now classic barb:
You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
Decency and decorum suffered during the Vietnam War 1954-1973, most visibly through television graphics of wounded and dead combat soldiers backgrounded by enemy body counts. The two qualities were also diminished by three assassinations in the 1960s—JFK in 1963 and RFK and MLK in 1968. Protests and debates over war and peace and racial strife added heat and fire to the national discourse.
Across the airwaves, however, in 1967, uplifting music and lyrics from the musical Hair augured and invited the dawning of the Age of Aquarius:
Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation.
Despite this dawning, in 1971, Don McLean envisioned a less hopeful message about the American experience, losing a Chevy, drinking whiskey and rye, and realizing the day to die in his iconic folk song, American Pie.
The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the September 2001 attack upon New York’s World Trade Center were painful, stark reminders of a hostile, angry globe, one where decency received little tender or loving care. Despite over five decades of pothole-riven roads navigated by decency and decorum since Welch’s call out, the twin qualities survived, badly battered in the last ten years or so by political rancor.
The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the September 2001 attack upon New York’s World Trade Center were painful, stark reminders of a hostile, angry globe, one where decency received little tender or loving care. Despite over five decades of pothole-riven roads navigated by decency and decorum since Welch’s call out, the twin qualities survived, badly battered in the last ten years or so by political rancor.
On June 9, 2009, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress regarding legislation for a national health care plan. Defending criticism of the proposal, Obama stated that coverage would not be available for illegal immigrants. “You lie,” shouted Rep. “Joe” Wilson (R-SC) to the shock of a national television audience and his congressional colleagues. Decency and decorum both suffered a blow. Now, the elected head of the country’s government was fair game for insult.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demonstrated that assaults upon decency and decorum are bipartisan when, in 2020, she dramatically tore up President Trump’s SOTU speech on camera at the podium. Reminiscent of the often raucous “Question Time” sessions with the British Prime Minister and Parliament, congressional heckling and hectoring appear to have become a fixture in the American arena.
President Biden gave his first State of the Union address on March 1, 2022, greeted by mutterings and shouts from two women members of the House – Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). It is unclear what political purpose the display served and their words were uninspired, according to press reports. Nonetheless, the behavior was undertaken consistent with previous episodes.
The lyrics from Hair and the Age of Aquarius seem not only forgotten but may be as dead as the dodo. One may only wonder how Wilson, Pelosi, Boebert, and Greene might themselves respond to such treatment. Their trashing of decency and decorum speaks more about their own character than that of their targets. As public figures, they bear a responsibility to conduct themselves with respect toward one another and their constituents as well as the public. It is to be hoped that decency and decorum are more resilient than their churlish behavior.
While there are Russians invading Ukraine, they are not under our beds. If there is an enemy, it is us and, perhaps, our failure to condemn the behavior of those who display indecent and indecorous conduct.
Categories: democrats, elections, Issues, National, political discourse, political parties, politics, republicans, State
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