Public discourse lacking civility

The daily onslaught of dispiriting news — pot shops, the immigration crises, political rancor, bureaucratic malfeasance — compounded by the disappearance of civility makes you wonder what’s happening to America. Don’t you feel that way? Yes, we’ve always been contentious; indeed, this nation was birthed in rebellion.

But there’s something else going on right now that’s hard to describe, even though it’s happening right in front of us. There’s a meanness in the air, a nastiness in our public discourse, and concepts such as “the loyal opposition” have vanished to a point where campaigns are verbal bloodbaths.

You see it happening and wonder what you can do about it.

“It’s like you’ve just cut down a tree and it’s falling the wrong way, and you can’t stop it,” Carl Yastrzemski once said, describing a stretch drive collapse.

Lawyers vigorously asserting the constitutional rights of abhorrent clients are one thing; but when they sell their souls to spring savages by any means necessary, they, too, become a public menace, whores with law degrees.

It seems everywhere you look you can find reasons for discouragement if you’re paying attention to what’s happening in our society.

You can’t help thinking this is not the America you remember, the one whose history and traditions were imbued in you so many years ago, back when civics were essential to every student’s education.

You saw how America acknowledged its wrongs through corrective measures — the 19th Amendment, civil rights, even the resignation of a flawed president — while remaining “one nation, indivisible.”

But it doesn’t feel so indivisible now, does it?

And no issue is more incendiary, more seemingly irreconcilable than abortion, which is again clear when we see the wrath and hysteria of “pro-choice” advocates down in southern states like Alabama and Missouri where legislatures are now revisiting the wanton slaughter of unborn kids.

An innocuous word like fetus does not alter the reality an unwanted life is being snuffed out. Forget late-term abortions; advocates now demand a death sentence for any baby who miraculously survives the abortion process.

Imagine extinguishing the life of a viable newborn. If a child doesn’t fit into your plans, no problem: just toss him or her away and go on with your life.

That’s the America activists favor, a totally self-absorbed culture where babies, like Bic pens or Gillette razors, are considered disposable. And if you don’t agree, you must be either a misogynist or a religious nut.

Please. Is there nothing uplifting in the news? Actually, there is. Go Bruins!