My granddaddy once advised me to avoid debating two topics: Religion or politics.

"You can’t win an argument when it comes to politics or religion," he said. "People get too passionate about both and that passion too quickly turns to anger. When people get mad they get personal and whenever a debate turns personal, everybody loses."

Granddaddy was right. When people start talking about politics or God, their voices often rise, the hands ball up into fists and, sooner or later, a punch is thrown.

We see it here on Blue Ridge Muse. A few weeks ago, a number of ministers and deeply-religious folks got upset when I wrote a column for another publication that combined God and politics. We saw it again over the holidays when I expressed concerns about the direction this nation is headed under the current Republican administration in the White House and an accommodating Democratically-controlled Congress.

The comments brought a sharp rebuke from a local conservative blogger who supports President George W. Bush, the war in Iraq and many other things that I, and many regular readers of this web site, find deplorable. I don’t mind folks disagreeing with me. I enjoy a good debate but the blogger, I felt, called my patriotism and love of country into question and that sort of thing makes me mad. I got pissed. I’m still pissed.

Others joined into the debate and some of their comments got personal, using the debate to unload on the blogger in question and vent their frustrations with him on issues that had nothing to do with the topic.

The result: A lot of anger, a lot of personal animosity and very little reasoned debate on the problems this nation faces.

I went back this morning and deleted the personal, nasty comments that some here directed at David St. Lawrence. They had no place in the discussion and their comments cheapened the debate. I have serious differences with David but those differences are philosophical, not personal. I’m sorry that he felt the need to respond in a way that I and others here felt questioned my love of my country but that bridge has been burned and only the future can determine if will, or should, be rebuilt.

But I’m also sorry that this web site was used for others to vent their personal dislike of someone else. As a rule I don’t moderate comments on Muse but the actions of the last few days have made me wonder if I need to start. It should be possible to discuss issues without making it personal.

The Associated Press recently went looking for optimism in this place called America and found little as this country slides deeper and deeper into both a recession and depression.

America the beautiful has become America the worried, America the once was and America that may not recover.

The American psyche is, at best, wounded and morale is in the pits.

Writes Pauline Arrillaga:

Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat line these days. Eighteen members of the volunteer organization’s Gilbert, Ariz., chapter have gathered, a few days before this nation’s 232nd birthday, to focus on the positive: Their book drive for schoolchildren and an Independence Day project to place American flags along the streets of one neighborhood.

They beam through the Pledge of Allegiance, applaud each other’s good news — a house that recently sold despite Arizona’s down market, and one member’s valiant battle with cancer. "I didn’t die," she says as the others cheer.

But then talk turns to the state of the Union, and the Optimists become decidedly bleak.

They use words such as "terrified," "disgusted" and "scary" to describe what one calls "this mess" we Americans find ourselves in. Then comes the list of problems constituting the mess: a protracted war, $4-a-gallon gas, soaring food prices, uncertainty about jobs, an erratic stock market, a tougher housing market, and so on and so forth.

One member’s son is serving his second tour in Iraq. Another speaks of a daughter who’s lost her job in the mortgage industry and a son in construction whose salary was slashed. Still another mentions a friend who can barely afford gas.

Joanne Kontak, 60, an elementary school lunch aide inducted just this day as an Optimist, sums things up like this: "There’s just entirely too much wrong right now."

Happy birthday, America? This year, we’re not so sure.

The nation’s psyche is battered and bruised, the sense of pessimism palpable. Young or old, Republican or Democrat, economically stable or struggling, Americans are questioning where they are and where they are going. And they wonder who or what might ride to their rescue.

These are more than mere gripes, but rather an expression of fears — concerns reflected not only in the many recent polls that show consumer confidence plummeting, personal happiness waning and more folks worrying that the country is headed in the wrong direction, but also in conversations happening all across the land.

I celebrate this 4th of July with mixed emotions. In fact, the only way I can stomach the 4th is by celebrating the American that was, not the America that is.

The America that exists today is a far cry from the one envisioned by our Founding Fathers. Freedom has become a disposable commodity under the Bush Administration’s unrelenting assault on the Constitution and the liberties that used to be the foundation for this nation. The Democratic-controlled Congress sits back and allows this to happen, making them willing co-conspirators in the dismantling of the freedoms we once enjoyed as a right.

America is no longer a country admired by other nations. Instead, it is an international bully despised by those who once fought with us as allies.

On this 4th of July, let us remember what we once were and pray that we may, one day, recapture that greatness. As things stand right now, there is little reason to celebrate.

Starbucks, the Seatlle-based company that proved Americans will drink acidic swill if you call it gourmet coffee, is closing 600 stores nationwide.

While I hate to see 12,000 people lose their jobs in these bad economic times, I’ve never understand how anyone could pay $3.50 for a cup of what Starbucks tries to pass off as coffee.  All of their so-called "blends" were more acid than coffee.  A large coffee at Frank and Sally Walker’s Cafe del Sol in Floyd costs less than half what Starbucks charges and it is, at least, a good cuppa joe.  So, for that matter, is the 60 cents a cup large coffee to go at West End Market.