OPINION | BRENDA LOOPER: Don’t be a jerk

It used to be a safe assumption that pretty much everyone's default setting was "kind" and "polite," except for those people who had hatred and malice seeping from their pores, but they were a small bunch.

We were taught to say "please," "thank you" and "you're welcome," and kids always called the grownups "Mr.," "Mrs." or "Ms." So-and-so (I still have trouble calling some people who were grown when I was a kid by their first names unless they allowed us to call them by that name then). We didn't assume that everyone else was evil and/or out to undermine us; that was just rude. And that wasn't us. We were nice people.

Unfortunately, it seems nice people are getting a little harder to find nowadays, having been overtaken by people who've been given license to be as loud and obnoxious (especially when wrong) as they can, and they're using it.