What happens when 300 million people, selected by fate to live together in one nation, stop being polite and start being real?

Maybe it's something in the air.  Or the water.  Or my Harvey Wallbanger.  Whatever the case, there's no denying that Americans have been letting it all hang out lately.

There was, of course, the month of August, which was marked by the, shall we say, colorful townhall meetings on healthcare reform.  People were getting out there, saying what was on their mind.  Literally.  Anything that was on their mind.  And pehaps "saying" doesn't really get at it.  They were yelling it, screaming it even.

But this was just a taste of America's new attitude.  The month of September somehow promised to be calmer, more restrained.  Summer was winding down.  Labor Day barbeques offered a serene closure to the insane heat of August tempers.  Kids would be going back to school.

However, America still had something to get off its chest.  While the first week of September offered a deceptive quiet, that placid moment was shattered by Rep. Joe Wilson when he shouted "You lie!" during the President's address to a joint session of Congress.  At the time, this breech of decorum might have struck some as anomalous.

Nothing could have been further from the truth, for Mr. Wilson's outburst would be prove to be less than solitary.  Later that week, thousands flooded into Washington, D.C., for a townhall to end all townhalls.  Grievances abounded.  Ranting and raving at the top of their lungs, Americans were hot about healthcare, socialism, czars, death panels, communism, fascism, communo-fascism (whatever that is) and just about anything else that could prove fodder for the flinging of spittle and outrage.

But on this day, America's new penchant for letting it fly was to move beyond the political disputes of the moment.  Tennis star Serena Williams took the ball, ran with it and threatened to cram it down the throat of a line judge.  The next day, Kanye West decided to pre-empt Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the VMAs to tell the world how he really felt about Beyonce.  Or was it Beyonce's video?  Perhaps Jay-Z can clear this up for me.

In any case, it must have been a wonderful moment for Mr. West, gently cresting the waves of a new America that finally understood and valued his typical mode of communication.

Was it over, this moment of collective catharsis?  Hardly.  No, not to be outdone, CNN's Rick Sanchez, who is one of the more anchorly anchors on CNN, had to take a few minutes to dress down Fox News.  Sanchez had apparently taken exception to Fox being Fox, which means disseminating bald-faced lies writ large:

Yes, folks, that was Rick Sanchez off the Washington Post, around the back, through the nation's capital.  Off.  Two.  Satellite.  Trucks.

Nothing but net.

There's something to be said for catharsis.  Anyone who's been through therapy (or really lost it during an argument) knows that wonderful moment when you finally say that thing that you didn't know you had in you.  Of course, sometimes, especially if in the context of a heated argument, the elation of catharsis quickly fades into the bitterness of regret.

There's another side to this, too.  Last year, my aunt passed away from brain cancer.  Her diagnosis was predicated by some odd behavior, which is common for tumors in the frontal lobe because they frequently fail to present physical symptoms that are relatively easy to spot.

For my aunt, the trigger was that she just sort of stopped thinking before she spoke.  This struck everyone as very odd, since she was usually the classic Texan: Sweetness and light.  However, if you know any Texans, you also know that there's a razor-sharp wit lurking.  All of a sudden, my aunt was all razor, no sweetener.

Things improved after she went through surgery and began treatment, but her filter remained somewhat defunct, which was okay because she got her sweetness back.  But she would still just sort of say whatever was on her mind.  Subsequently, we all got used to telling people to excuse her because the filter between her brain and mouth was blown out and replacements were on back-order.

There's an important difference between the Sanchez smackdown and other recent examples of keeping it real.  And it has everything to do with whether or not the end product has gone through the filter, lest we truly desire to turn our society into one giant, vapid reality television show:

As good ole Honest Abe quipped, "We are not enemies, but friends."  By all means, America, tell me how you really feel, but do us all a favor: Check your filter first.  That way we can still be friends.