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Gil Troy: America's Search for Civility

[Gil Troy teaches history at McGill University. He is the author of Leading from the Centre: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents.]

The tragic Arizona rampage that critically injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed six citizens, including 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who wanted to see "how our government works," has triggered the predictable recitations about America's long history of political violence -without any evidence that this was a political crime.

That vast numbers of shocked observers immediately concluded that the gunman's lunatic actions were in some way linked to the present fervid red-blue debate in the United States speaks volumes about the overheated rhetoric that has come to characterize much of America's political discourse in recent years.

But political civility has an equally long and robust U.S. pedigree. We should appreciate the coalition-builders, not the partisans; the statesmen, not the demagogues; the magnanimous uniters, not the cranky dividers. In matters political, the big broad tent with stakes driven deep into America's rich soil is more constructive and more lasting than partisan lean-tos tilting left or right....
Read entire article at Montreal Gazette