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I always rolled my eyes a bit about the decorum calls when anybody would get a little rowdy. I don't know, I seem to find a little bit of profanity and pointed name calling an entirely different thing than an all out assault on truth and reason.

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The point of decorum is is that a devolution of language tends to result in an escalation of aggression which frequently ends in physical violence.

You generally don’t hear someone screaming “with all due respect I must disagree” before shooting someone.

Does make me wonder about the 18th and early 19th C, where the written language was very polite and formal but people regularly had duels and killed each other. But perhaps spoken language at the time was far less polite? What did Hamilton and Burr shout at each other in Weehawken, I wonder.

A formal duel following a set of rules is quite different than violently assaulting someone in a fit of rage.

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