--- title: "2 Powerful Quotes About Civility From An Iraq War Veteran" date: "2018-11-02" modified: "2018-11-02" authors: - name: "Tom Ricks" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/tom-ricks/" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/military-life/civility-political-discourse/" categories: - "History" - "Iraq War" - "Military Life" - "Past Conflicts" - "Veterans" --- # 2 Powerful Quotes About Civility From An Iraq War Veteran ![]() Civility isn’t really a military-related topic, but I bring it up here because Phil Klay, a terrific [author]() who is an Iraq vet, recently had a good [essay]() on the topic. I suspect his time deployed there informs his views. I certainly know I have seen enough of the Balkans and Iraq to know that I don’t want to see my own country sink deeper into the politics of rage. Two lines of his that particularly struck me: 1. “The moral certainty of my rage must be met with humility about the limits of my knowledge.” 2. “Civility is a style of argument that implicitly welcomes response. It is a display of respect and tolerance, which make clear that you are engaging in a conversation, not delivering a last word.” A related thought from J.M. Opal's [*Avenging the People: Andrew Jackson, the Rule of Law and the American Nation*](): “Their enhanced sovereignty required both the degradation of others and a certain kind of chaos in the nation at large: the daily freedoms for some to go armed, to seize lands, to vote, to take offense, and to threaten; the daily demands on others to retire, to hide, to bear quietly, and to forgive.” ![]()