If violence becomes a tool of politics, the rich will command violence at greater scale and with more impunity than anyone who cannot command an audience at the White House.

I actually wish that were the case.

The problem today is that we've scaled up the damage that a single attacker can do. I won't go too far into it, but think of it this way, what happens when someone wakes up to the fact that they can use autonomous ordinance (e.g. - Drones)?

We made a big mistake with this whole "incivility is cool" thing in public discourse. In retrospect, it's kind of obvious that it set us on a slippery slope.

> We made a big mistake with this whole "incivility is cool" thing in public discourse

I remain a fan of bringing back the Athenian institution of ostracism. If more than a certain fraction of voters in an election write down the same person’s name, they’re banned from running for office or have to leave the country for N years. (And if they can’t or won’t do the latter, are placed under house arrest.)