The Spirit of public debate

I was sitting in a local coffee/breakfast place here in Jasper this morning, reading the news. I got to one article which was discussing the previous vice president Dick Cheney and his role in current politics and what is going on in America. There has been a call from the "left" for him to shut up and go away and also from some people on the "right" as well. I find this to be suspected but someone sad. One of Cheney's spokespeople said that it had nothing to do about parties or politics but with right and wrong in Cheney's line of the thought. He was following his heart and beliefs about what is going on around us. This is where I thought about the spirit of public debate and how it should be encouraged on the major platform of our country's politics. This style of discourse is where we came from, it is who we are as a nation. If we do not embrace debate and the exchange of opposing ideas, then we just transfer control of one group and the other whines for a few years and then they switch places, oh wait, that is what we do right now. So, lets support debate and stop being ignorant about our situation as a country, differing ideas are good, it is how great ideas are made.