Alastair, thanks for your message concerning Ad Hominem, irrelevant assertions about the author of or the person offering an opinion. Your point is made most tactfully and certainly is timely.

On the whole, with realityTV, celebrity news, tweeting, texting, and the demise of a free press whose duty is to prevent ANY part of the government from deceiving the people, I observe the loss of the art of critical thinking, conversation and civility.
I regret to say that such untutored crudeness portends an impoverished future. I search for hope on the horizon and find little cause for it.
Education seems to be unable to raise the level of discourse, statesmen and heroes are out of fashion.
We've gotten to the point where everybody's got a right and nobody's got a responsibility, and the disappearance of a sense of responsibility yields a
far-reaching cycle of submission to authority.