pigfarmer
pigforger
pigfiller
pigfreeze
pigfudger
pigfinger
pigfolder
pigfitter
pigfasten
pigfarter
pigfather
pigfacade
(Yep, that did make me feel better)

You forgot "pigferret".

brad,

i have long battled with this attitude within myself, and find it ultimately to be past self-defeating into dangerous.

one can assume that if one's emotions get the better of one while driving, the expression of the anger may not stop at yelling. tailgating, speeding up slowing down, making gestures, etc etc, can probably not be far behind.

and this in turn, can lead to a response from the guy in front of you.

either way, the anger boiling up in either you or the guy in front of you makes for a careless driver, a dangerous driver, a punitive driver.

not to get on my soapbox, although it looks like it's a little late to worry about that, but i would highly recommend deep breathing and some sort of mantra to keep one's negative emotions in check when operating 2000 pound machines at speeds over 60 mph. my favorite these days is, "it's not my job to teach everyone else how to drive, it's not my job to teach..." etc.

one other quick note: you never know when the other guy has a gun and balls to use it, as witnessed here.

>>i have long battled with this attitude within myself, and find it ultimately to be past self-defeating into dangerous.<<

Well, yes...

(I take the final parenthetic remark in what I quote to be ironic.)

Amen to what skippy says.

One doesn't have to be a paleo-conservative to see it as a bad sign when civility declines. One need merely agree with that techno-libertarian, Robert A. Heinlein: 'a *dying* civilization shows a loss of manners'.

I like to think that people are beginning to see that, and that there is some movement back towards consideration of others -- but I'm probably just indulging in wishful thinking.

>>One doesn't have to be a paleo-conservative to see it as a bad sign when civility declines<<

One just has to not know very much about history. The language used in London of the late 1700s was terrible; Boswell recounts numerous incidents of drunken gangs of toffs going round starting drunken fights and abusing women. Great Britain was on the point of launching an Empire. Later in the Victorian era, we got all effete and prissy about our manners and it was the beginning of the end. Compare France, where manners have always been beautiful, with America.

I'd like to see any evidence at all that a decline in bourgeois manners is in any systematic way correlated with economic, political or military decline. I don't think it's true.

In my experience, people from places where everyone is heavily armed (such as Serbia amd Yemen) have very fine manners. You don't want to make enemies accidentally -- you have enough enemies ready to kill you already.

Question for class: is this an argument for or against gun control? Fine manners?

I believe Heinlein made a similiar observation to yours Zizka. And, yeah, it's an argument for gun ownership, just not a very strong one.