"The Field of Honor at dawn, sir!"

Meditations on Civility

Yup, still AI.

When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution of the United States, duelling was an accepted and honourable fact of life — in fact, three¹ of our Founding Fathers met their deaths in duels.

Insults, mockery, verbal abuse … lying — all and more were accepted grounds for an issuance of an invitation to a morning round of “Pistols for two; coffee for one”.

When the First Amendment Freedom of Speech was added to the Constitution, it was as the first of the Bill of Rights — controls upon the government. The government would not be allowed to abridge the right of free men to speak their minds.

At the time it was abundantly clear that — through the mechanism of duelling — society would provide a check upon the abuses of Freedom of Speech, and a pretty firm check at that.

In simpler language, if a citizen were to use their guaranteed right to Freedom of Speech to insult, abuse, denigrate, mock, harass or distress another — then sooner or later that citizen was going to get the stupid beaten out of him with a cane, bleed out on a Vidalia sandbar from multiple knife wounds², wind up skewered on the end of a sword, or simply have a large percentage of their vital bits blown out through their spines by way of a heavy-calibre pistol ball³.

In the America of the Founding Fathers you were polite and courteous, or you got your butt killed in a duel.

Which worked remarkably well, up until we decided that we was civilized⁴ and did away with the barbarity of the duel.

Probably not a bad idea — except that we never came up with a replacement for the check on incivility that the duel gave society as a whole. We left the right to speak your mind, but we took away any deterrent to being a jackass about it.

Not sure we’ve improved our lot, truth be told, and when it comes to politicians, I’m pretty positive that we haven’t improved things in the least.

I’m 58 years old. I’ve been paying attention to American politics for 40 years, and while there has always been rampant lying on the part of politicians, I don’t recall it being so naked and unashamed in the past — when they got caught in a whopper they at least had the grace to pretend to be embarrassed. And if you got caught telling a large enough whopper, there was usually some sort of a slap on the wrist.

These days — not so much. Not only is the lying open, bald-faced, and blatant; but when they get caught — there’s no shame. Indeed, these days, there’s not even the common decency of an acknowledgement of getting caught in a clear deceit. Half the time they double-down — just louder.

I really am of the opinion that the political class should be exempt from the prohibition on being challenged to a duel — and there are a number of islands in the Potomac along borders that would be splendiferous neutral duelling grounds.

If a politician knew that if he got caught telling a big enough lie he’d be bleeding out on a sandbar before noon the next day, some of the little bugsnipes would starting unexpectedly discovering the truth in odd places.

“But, Ian, there would be citizens lined up down the National Mall for a chance to duel a politician!”

I’m already sold on this idea, you don’t have to convince me further.

“But, Ian, people would game the system to interrupt the political process!”

Add a rule that a challenge would be on hold until Congress is no longer in session.

I can dream, anyway.

Ian

1. Alexander Hamilton, Button Gwinnet, and Commodore Stephen Decatur.

2. Jim Bowie.

3. Andrew Jackson had a case of the ass at Charles Dickinson (no relation) who insulted Jackson’s wife.

4. “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split.” ~ Robert E. Howard