Why Are Politics Stuck In the Sixties?

...it's way more complicated than that. I remember the '60s. Granted, I was a young kid but I was there, courtesy of older cousins who where very politically active and the reports out of 'Nam on the T.V. every night. And I have to say that I think that America is more turbulent now than then and it ain't just because of the politicians.
Bear with me and I'll do my best to explain my thinking here; I'll try to stick to a point but this is going to be a long post; be patient, please. At one point in our history, if you said something vulgar about a man's wife or mother, there was the very real chance that you were going to get punched in the nose. Now, this guy might get arrested but not much was going to happen to him because there was an underlying assumption the you bore the responsibility for the consequences of exercising your free speech--i. e., a bloody nose. Starting in the '60s, you saw an erosion of that assumption of responsibility -- the attitude that a person's free speech didn't come with the price tag of personal responsibility for the event that came from the exercise of that privilege.
You also saw a growing sense of entitlement, based on the cause or ideology espouse-- because it was "right". Sort of to the effect that my free speech is more important than yours because I'm on the socially-enlightened side of this argument. Couple that with a growing sense of entitlement, of all kinds, and you have a very volatile mix.
Fast-forward through the '70s (sex, drugs and rock & roll) and the '80s (greed is good), with that whole volatile mix begun in the '60s gaining critical mass the whole time, and you arrive at the dawn of the PC era. Now we've gone from 'I'm more entitled to my opinions than you are because I'm more morally advanced' to 'I'm right, you're wrong and you can't say that to me because I don't like it and it hurts my feelings'. There is nothing too vile to say, as long as you are on the socially-acceptable side of the debate. You haven't changed what people think or feel, you've just pushed them underground and given yourself more license to behave badly in public forums.
Now, add the Internet. Now you can call someone that you don't agree with a f***ing, racist (homophobe, Commie, Jesus freak, fascist, etc.-- you pick the slur of your choice) s***head from the comfort of your own home, secure in your anonymity, to thousands of people, without any facts to back it up and with no consequences that you can't avoid with the click of a button. Facts are completely irrelevant; passionate feelings are all that matters. And, if your views are unpopular with even a very small segment of the population, God help you if you say anything that is subject to interpretation because it will be twisted to fit the opinions, biases, assumptions and agendas of thousands of other people.
For example; how many of you actually looked up what Trent Lott said at Strom Thurman's 100th birthday party? I did and, as near as I can figure, what he said was that the U.S. would be a different place than it is today if Thurman's bid for the presidency had been successful. Not that it would be a better place, just different. It's the sort of bland, empty statement uttered every day at retirement parties and birthday parties across the world but, because the person that said it was white, male, Southern and conservative, it was taken to mean that here was proof-positive that Lott was a racist and deserved to be hounded from office.
And this sort of crap goes on constantly, on all sides of the political spectrum. Take the sound byte, put your spin on it and scream to the bloody moon about it. Create an issue, if you can't find one that suits your ideology or agenda, because, after all, reason and civility are trumped by passionate feelings.
Much as I hate to give the politicians even a partial pass, they can't move pass the '60s because we haven't. It seems to me that, unfortunately, they are what we have created. By all mean, hold them accountable for what they say but remember that we, all of us, play a part in shaping the debate. The exercise of free speech is a precious thing but it was guaranteed under the assumption that we, as adult, were capable of using it wisely, with reason and tolerance for the opinions of others.