ICOULDN'T tell you the topics they debated or the positions they argued.

But I very vividly remember the way my grandfather and a neighbor enjoyed arguing the issues of the day when they got together on Saturday nights to share company and conversation.

With their wives chiming in, my generally conservative grandfather and his generally liberal friend got great joy disagreeing with each other.

With a libation or two under the belt, they'd loosen up and argue with great zeal, occasionally getting a tad loud as they bounced from point to counterpoint and back again.

Just before the political discourse became personal, they'd always pull back from the brink, smiling after the intellectual workout.

They would agree to disagree on almost everything, but never on the fact that each respected the other's beliefs and his willingness to argue for them vigorously.

When I flip on the television or follow political campaigns in the newspapers these days, I'm sad for what's gone from my grandfather's day.

Friendly political debate is as outdated as 30-cents-a-gallon gasoline.

It's been replaced with unfriendly, scorched-earth verbal warfare, in which you don't so much debate as try to inflict body blows on anyone with a mind-set different from your own.

Trying to blame this change on one faction or another is pointless.

Both major parties and most of the minor ones are more into attacking and tearing down than in creating and defending well-conceived positions on issues.

While there has been a slow descent into a shrill, hurtful approach to politics, it has gotten much more caustic and offensive this year.

Today, if people come from the opposite political camp, they aren't seen as simply having a different set of beliefs.

Instead, they are perceived by opponents as somehow intellectually and humanly inferior, somehow sordid and far out, devoid of common sense and easily misled.

Think I'm exaggerating?

Check out the stories of people whose cars have been vandalized because they have the "wrong" bumper sticker.

Cable television is partly to blame for some of the polarization we now see.