"Put that thing on a leash," he spat.

This tale isn't that interesting. The question is why was this guy so rude? What made him think I'd accept it? Does he always push his luck with strangers? No doubt he has his story. My view is that he was a little man sorely testing the patience of a big man who does almost anything to avoid confrontation.

The regiments of the rude, once an irritant on the periphery of our lives, has become a mighty army. This is especially true at Tahoe in August. With the crowds of tourists, traffic, and Caltrans, the rude are inescapable.

Just ask Robert Ash. In Tahoe City this past Wednesday, August 17th, he was allegedly stabbed by an irate George Brooks after a road rage incident on Highway 89. Ash died. Brooks, in jail without bail, will face murder charges.

Do you wonder how such a moronic confrontation could escalate? Just look around. The other day I spotted a friend in Tahoe City, a fine gentleman, who almost duked it out with a smart-aleck mountain biker. The biker had cut in front of my friend's vehicle and then flipped my friend off.

Rudeness, anger, and bad manners are gaining ground everywhere. The preposterous Geraldo Rivera, who has had his nose flattened more than once, runs a more courteous show than the present U.S. House of Representatives. With pugnacious Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist as its role model, the House has become a combat zone.

It seems like only a month ago that feisty Democrat James Moran threatened to alter the features of nasty Republican Dan Burton. Ohio Republican governor Bob Taft recently told investigators to screw themselves over his four ethics violations, for which he could possibly go to jail. This past year Dick Cheney, who many believe is our real president, used four letter words on the floor of Congress.

"Fag," "Homo," and "whore" are among the lovely epithets recently exchanged by members of congress. Led by Texas's amazing Steve Stockman, the gun gonzo who was a salesman, laborer, and vagrant before finding his niche as a legislator, we now have a trash-talking class of freshmen Republicans that have made the House more disreputable than ever.

California Governor Arnold Swartznegger's right-wing views would play better in Singapore than America. Trent Lott, perhaps the trashiest person to ever dishonore the U.S. Senate, served up racial slurs that discredit Howard Stern.

Rocker Ted Nugent, elected to the board of directors of the NRA, settled out of court after calling an animal rights activist "a worthless whore" and a "shallow slut" on the radio.

Rush Limbaugh, who invented rude and irresponsible radio, was recently a celebrity on Larry King's show. "Crossfire" and "The McLaughlin Group" bring us a bright group of politicos who fight like rutting elk and chop off the ends of each other's sentences like drunks in a Tahoe honky tonk.

The norm seems to be for people to push their behavior to the limits. Even Miss Manners seems fluttered these days, her composure is becoming a bit shattered by the social chaos in the air. She mentions in her column that "Some people have always managed to talk or act unpleasantly." True. But self-expression may be more and more a lack of self-control.

A college friend from North Carolina was brought up to believe that rude people were always Yankees. Another housemate was raised believing that the uncivil always came from families in which the old man staggered home and beat everybody each night.

Nevertheless, there are many of us who were brought up to believe that courtesy is a keystone of civilization and that we should treat every single person courteously, at least until he or she proved unworthy.

The key is that we were "brought up." Today there are plenty of people with money, and education even, who were raised by TV networks, rock lyrics, and strangers. Their sitters were paid by the hour or they were peers or overworked, underpaid teachers. In other words, such people were brought up by no one. In the absence of guidance, role models emerge anyway—celebrities, athletes, politicians, and anti-heroes of feral self-expression.

Rudeness is never trivial. Its cousins include self-worship, irresponsibility, callousness, contempt for the unfortunate, and rapaciousness disguised as self-reliance. Rudeness can beget belligerence; in an armed nation this can lead to murder.

None of this is new, as Miss Manners reminds us. But in a society un-patrolled by common courtesy, it's tough to rise free of fleas after being with some of the dogs you meet.