Decorum, Anyone?

Late last week, I was already determined to write an article about the thundering ignorance and abhorrent decay in decorum expressed by people who should fucking know better, but was thinking to myself that it would sure be nice to have another example with which to flesh out my rant.

While I didn't actually pray for such a thing, God no doubt read my mind and then spoke directly to his faithful servant Kanye West, who, without thinking (as usual), leapt into action.

The thought never occurred to him that there might be something wrong with storming the stage and interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance of her MTV spaceman paperweight and, well, that's pure, 100%, unadulterated Kanye. I honestly expected the audience to applaud his actions, but they surprised me by letting him have it, and rightfully so.

The dude's a narcissistic, delusional no-talent who has been lauded by idiots-with-bricks-for-ears (Jay-Z, I'm looking at you) for far too long. While I would like to believe that most people were simply responding to detestable behavior and would have responded the same way no matter who it was up there acting the ass, a part of me still fears that the boos that went up from the cheap seats were merely an indication of Kanye's decline in popularity.

If it had been Beyonce herself her stormed the stage and declared herself the rightful winner, my hunch is that the place would have gone absolute ape shit...happy, gleeful ape shit.

And, well, that's not a good thing at all.

Of course, that's just one demographic of the great American pie.

When Serena Williams lost her cool and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade that culminated with her verbal threat to kill the line judge for an admittedly horrendous call on the official's part, the sold-out crowd that witnessed the event went so far as to yell "Yes you did!" in response to Williams' attempt to deny that she had, in fact, threatened the line judge's life.

Your average tennis crowd is admittedly upscale, college-educated, and not black. Some might even own a Kanye West CD, but mostly because they have idiotic kids (and, let's face it, from the looks of it, most kids these days are idiots..all except yours, of course) that think Kanye is the shit.

The U.S. Open officials penalized Serena (and rightfully so), resulting in her automatically losing the match. Sounds like a pretty severe punishment, right? Nah, not so much. Serena was pretty much well on her way to losing the match and some sports experts have gone on-record as saying that Serena was well aware of this when she went after the official. Regardless of how far ahead or behind you may be, a horrible call is a horrible call, but anyone who thinks they've still got a shot at winning certainly knows to handle their outrage with extreme diplomacy.

Even legendary tennis bad boy John McEnroe thought Serena crossed a mighty big line. You've got to admit that, while McEnroe certainly let his fair share of judges know how he felt about their calls, he never threatened to kill any of them and, thus, never got penalized to the extent that Williams did.

Ah, diplomacy...what a lost art.

Just ask Rep. Joe Wilson, who did the unthinkable and yelled "You lie" during President Obama's recent speech to Congress.

Never before had such a breach in decorum taken place and, while members of his own party were appalled at the outburst, you just knew that there were those secretly applauding his behavior. That's right, there are people in this country who don't think Wilson did anything wrong.

Now, I gotta ask...where was Wilson when Dubya was in office and the whole country knew that he and Cheney were lying to our faces? Oh, right, Wilson's a Republican. Truth doesn't apply to you if it happens to be inconvenient at the time. Oh, but if a Democrat doesn't spout your rhetoric, off come the gloves and suddenly Obama's mama wears combat boots.

Sadly, that is how divisive the state of politics has become. We've got the Republicans and Democrats fighting like the Hatfields and McCoys, willfully ignorant of the fact that, regardless of party affiliation, they are first and foremost Americans.

No longer do the opposing sides...of the same side...diplomatically work to come to some agreeable compromise for the good of the country. Instead, they enter into one childish pissing contest after another and those who have the most to lose potentially are the ones applauding such behavior from "their guy".

Nobody wants to admit they're wrong, nobody wants to lose, and nobody wants to take the time to read the specifics of the government bailout, much less the propsed health reform. Why bother when you've got some blowhard from Fox News telling you all you need to know when they haven't read anything but a teleprompter in ages?

Ignorance is bliss.

The sad thing is that those who undertake such behavior and contribute to continual lowering of the moral bar end up buying themselves a ton of free publicity in the process. You and I both know that there is no bad publicity that can't be spun or used for one's own career or financial gain.

Kanye Interrupts Taylor Swift's VMA Speech
You Lie! - Rep. Joe Wilson Interrupts President Obama's Speech
Serena Threatens to Kill US Open Line Judge