Hopefully, kids learn positive lessons from the adults in their life as they grow up. I know I sure did. Mother’s were simple: “Always be kind.” “Never judge a book by its cover.” “Stand up to bullies.” “Don’t eat yellow snow.” And of course, “Never name-call.”

At one point she made sure I understood this last one. It involved me eating soap. She had a fair point. Name-calling just wasn’t tolerated. I learned my lesson. I’ve since made it a point to try to use the gift of language for good and not for evil.

And yet I found myself passing the book display at my local Fred Meyer store recently and there it was again. Another bestselling book that name-calls right on the front cover. Glenn Beck’s “Arguing With Idiots.” That’s name-calling, right Mom? “The Obama Nation.” Say that one fast, it’s name-calling. Ann Coulter has one too. “If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans.” Intentional name-calling.

And these people get paid big bucks!

Even Al Franken’s literary masterpiece “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot” is name-calling. No doubt Mother would have grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made me apologize to every big fat idiot in the entire neighborhood if I’d said something like that. And Al is now a U.S. senator!

I see and hear it all around me. Political discourse in this country has slowly degenerated to where “news programs” now look like little more than a playground full of second-graders taunting one another.

The ancients called this “ad-hominem” argumentation. Roughly defined, this means that you can name-call in the course of political debate and make it look like a valid argument. Plus, it’s fun.

Let’s face it, saying something like “I felt that the former vice president’s positions on national security issues were controversial and had a tendency to compromise a large number of our most cherished constitutional rights,” won’t net you many style points in today’s environment. I tried that one on the dog and she fell asleep before I got halfway through.

But when you say something hip and cool like “Dick Cheney was a complete, stark raving mad lunatic who spent his entire time in office trampling the rule of law,” you’re ready for prime time! I’d try that one on the dog, but Mother might be listening and I’d have to apologize to everyone with mental health issues.

I keep wondering how this happened. Are we all just used to it? Are we so desensitized to personal insults that someone can now say, “The former president was a tongue-tied moron who was completely unqualified to be the city dog-catcher” and get away with it? Realizing, of course, that if someone were to actually say it, all verbally inept city dog-catchers would have a right to feel completely insulted. But you hear these types of things being said all the time and I’m wondering why more people don’t object to it.

Much of our political media has been in shout-down mode for many years now. Talk radio is to blame for some of this. Before the King of Pontificating Blowhards Everywhere ruled the airwaves, there was absolutely no one who would dare to hurl a personal insult at someone else in a media situation. Now, it seems like that’s all you see and hear.

I wonder why it has to be this way. What happened to good, old-fashioned American civility? Instead of saying that a prominent national politician “looks like Scarecrow Barbie that’s been left out in the sun too long”, and using this factual observation to try to invalidate the arguments she makes for national health care reform, why can’t we just all focus on the debate at hand and be nice to one another for a change?

I think Mother would approve.

There’s just one question Mother never answered. I’m sure I still had some Dial stuck to my teeth that day when I asked, “But Mom, what about that other thing you always said was so important? You know, the one about “Always tell the truth?’”

John Humen, a software developer and University Place resident, is one of six reader columnists whose work appears on this page. E-mail him at nhojster@yahoo.com.