"I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream!"

Call me ambitious, but I have a bone to pick with the generators of public discourse.

That is, I have a bone to pick with almost everyone.

I've been living in this Southern town for about two months now, and I've been hearing and seeing things I have never encountered in my two decades living in the Midwest, and that I have only seen the likes of on particularly provocative days in Washington.

People here are scary. I'll start with a grave illustration.

Every so often on my way to work I pass a handful of protesters decrying the violence of abortion. I knew that most of them probably came from the ultra-conservative Pensacola Christian College community, but I never really understood why they stood where they did, because from the street it looks like they are clustered around a dilapidated furniture store. On one particular morning, I happened to see a police officer trying to talk them down and convince them to take their complaints and their giant grotesque images of abortion elsewhere.

A few days later, I asked my coworker, a young woman who has lived here her entire life, what it was all about.

"Well, there's a clinic somewhere off the street over there," she told me. "A doctor was shot and killed there, oh, about 15 years ago."

I nearly leapt out of her car. She went on to tell me that the man who shot and killed the doctor (and his bodyguard) was put to death a few years ago. Apparently the 1990s protests had been so violent that a group from a nearby Unitarian Universalist church volunteered to protect patients, doctors, and relatives entering and exiting the clinic. All this news came to me on the heels of the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller in Kansas. Read about the connection between the two events here.

I knew that abortion doctors were being killed. I just didn't know it had happened on the very streets of my adopted hometown.

Speaking of streets, let me present to you the less-scary illustration of how scary people can be. On another crowded intersection here in town, just a few blocks from the abortion clinic, Pensacola Christian College students, or Pensacola Christian Academy teachers, or simply those who live in the area and espouse the same beliefs, gather for a different purpose. I hesitate to call them protesters, because it doesn't seem like they have anything to protest, except maybe the demise of the entire human race's moral backbone. Usually they are men in their 30s, well-dressed, waving Bibles and shouting at the top of their lungs. Sometimes they bring their bonnet-clad wives and children, who stand alongside holding signs that claim, "NOW IS THE TIME TO REPENT."

I get it. They're preaching. I do happen to have a problem with their signs that threaten those with different beliefs or lifestyles with eternal damnation. But it's not really their message I'm calling into question here. Ironically, I've driven by these men at least twice, but I have never heard them. Their chosen intersection is one of the busiest, and as a result, one of the loudest in town. Since they compete with dozens of engines and stereos, they have to shout that much louder to be heard.

And this is the bone I have to pick. In the end no one hears what these "protesters" are saying. All we know is that they are screaming. Merely adding to the din of public debate that never seems to quiet down long enough for us to extract an ounce of intelligent conversation. Regardless of the message, people seem to believe that if it is said loudly or forcefully, it is persuasive and true. Consequently we have watched our discourse decay into a glorified shouting match, perpetuated by a 24-hour news cycle.

Not that my input matters much, but here's what I'd like to see: more face-to-face talks between leaders of interest groups, members of Congress, and other important public figures. If these meetings are going on, let the public see them instead of the constant demonization of those with opposing views.

I'd also like to see more genuine displays of public interests. Demonstrations is probably a better word for these than protests. Last year I noticed a small group of students seated quietly on the ground next to a celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary. They were silent, some with green tape over their mouths, merely holding small cards. I don't have a strong opinion on the issue, but I was moved enough to refuse to patronize the celebration, despite the free food. I was similarly moved on a rainy day when I saw thousands of tiny pink and blue flags strewn across our university lawn. As I passed a representative from the Catholic Student Association handed me a small flyer telling me that a flag was placed for each baby aborted in the US each day. Thousands. No shouting. No grotesque images. I took notice.

I'm not sure how we go about fixing our public discourse. It almost seems a laughable ambition. Maybe the best place to start, though, is with a kitchy mantra (isn't that always the best place to start?). So I'm asking, no, I'm begging you: If you don't have anything nice to say, at least say it quietly.