What happened in Tucson is tragic. It seems pretty obvious that Jared Lee Loughner is really messed up. A kid expelled from his local community college for mental health reasons and concern for public safety should be in regular treatment, and should not be able to legally purchase a Glock. Private citizens cannot legally purchase the magazine he used which allowed him to rapidly fire so many rounds into the heads and bodies of folks just like you, me, our parents and kids. Whoever illegally sold the magazine to him should be tried as an accessory to murder and never be allowed within 1000 yards of a firearm again.
I get all that. I think just about every reasonable human being would agree with everything stated above.
As a slightly left-leaning down-the-middler, I also get the frustration and disgust with the current state of political discourse. I avoid Glen Beck, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, WHAM, and - for that matter - Keith Olberman and Ed Schultz. I find NPR to be much more level-headed in everything short of knee-jerk personnel decisions.
I don't like Sarah Palin as a candidate. I'm of the opinion that if she was physically unattractive she'd be back home in Wasila. Forever. She'd better quickly hit the books and gain some gravitas, because gravity is already beginning to address that which attracted the spotlight to her in the first place. (I can say that because I'm pushing 50, too.)
But here is where I find myself drawing the line: I can't find Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh or partisan bluster remotely responsible for a sick kid who did a sick thing. I firmly believe the above listed politainers play fast and loose with facts when they bother with facts at all. I firmly believe they further poison the already brackish political waters (and, again, I'd throw Keith Olberman and his constant faux outrage into the same pot). I firmly believe they make it very difficult to reach out and reason with "the other side of the aisle," no matter which side you're on.
But I find my conservative acquaintances to be among the most upright and law-abiding citizens I know. Even if I can't talk politics with them, I know I can trust them personally. Some of them own legal fire arms. As far as I know, none of them has ever so much as pointed a steak knife at another human being. Conservative anger -- or even hubris -- is not a crime. And even if political vitriol might speak to some armed-to-the-teeth psychopath, ornate wallpaper patterns and the neighbor's dog do, too.
I very much want to end the political polarization of this nation. How can we do that when we take our own accusations to such polar extremes?
Corey for President!! :-) I am worried it will take something way worse than what happened in Tucson to make most of the country wake up and want to de-polarize.
ReplyDeletePerhaps one can't find Palin, Limbaugh, Beck et al DIRECTLY responsible for a sick kid who pulled a trigger, but they surely bear some responsibility for cultivating and fertilizing a culture where such actions become increasingly more likely.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's not play the game of false equivalencies here. There is one side of the political spectrum that puts such rhetoric to use almost habitually and frequently. Hint, it ain't the Left.
Sharron Angle calls to "take Harry Reid out" by any means necessary. Another candidate remarks publicly that if ballots don't work, perhaps bullets will. And Sarah Palin did put a bulls-eye over Ms Giffords' district and name on her website. She called it a bulls-eye at the time in a twitter message. Now she says it was a surveyor's mark. She is also the one who admonished, "Don't retreat, reload."
No, there is one political camp that exercises such rhetoric almost exclusively. They are posturing. They believe they are speaking to their base. Did they contract a sick kid to fire on a US representative and a host of others? No. And no court in the land would convict them on any such flimsy association. But let's not pretend it is BOTH sides that speak the language of violence equally. It is not.
And our illustrious media deserve a lot of criticism for not calling out such rhetoric, not questioning it, at the very moment it is presented to them. Ms. Giffords expressed concern to Chuck Todd about threats she received during the campaign that escalated dramatically after Sarah Palin published her hitlist online. Todd smirked and essentially waved her off.
Yes, civility needs to be practiced more diligently on both sides of the aisle, but one side has much further to go than the other. This tough talk took off during Newt's neocon revolution and has progressed unchecked and is now out of hand. Perhaps they don't direct. Maybe they don't even incite by legal definition. But they publicly focus anger at individuals in terms that are less than ethical, less than kind and much less than civil. If a nutcase is in the area, he may take rhetoric as reason and avail himself of the trophy target.
Let's not pretend words don't have power. Anyone in high office should be aware of this. There is no excuse and I'm not for pretending what they do is without consequences.
No, you can't hang anything on the pundits. This sick young man acted alone. They aren't liable for his actions. But it isn't unreasonable to suspect they helped set the mood.
Well said. Jon Stewart also:
ReplyDeletehttp://tv.gawker.com/5730178/watch-jon-stewarts-poignant-speech-on-the-arizona-shooting
"Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give our power to that entity." -M. Scott Peck
ReplyDeleteExcellent quote, Kristin. Excellent link, Karen. I'm a big fan of Jon Stewart. How ironic that we rely on Comedy Central's top comic to bring sane commentary to the situation.
ReplyDeleteBut I stand corrected on the legality of the 30-round clip. Turns out, that ban expired in 2004. Apparently, the clip was legal. There's a move afoot now to renew the ban.
ReplyDeleteI am no fan of the growing reactionary movement in this country, but I find it silly that Palin, et al. are being blamed. It is far easier to believe in a vast conspiracy or the malicious intentions of the sane than to accept the terrifying mystery that is mental illness. With political enemies, you can predict actions and understand motivations. With insanity, you never know when something terrible can happen, and there is nothing to do to keep yourself or your loved ones safe. The people screaming for Palin's head would much rather have an easily recognizable enemy threatening them indirectly than a paranoid lunatic threatening them directly, which makes sense but leads to needless finger-pointing. Just like 9/11 conspiracy theorists, those making wild accusations want to believe that the corruption is coming from within the system that we created (and can change) rather than from insane people who could be anywhere and over whom we have no power.
ReplyDeleteRather than worrying about who is to blame, what if the media instead focus on raising awareness about mental illness and the importance of treatment? For every crazed gunman, there are hundreds of people who have recovered from diseases of the mind and gone on to live productive, even normal, lives. By encouraging people to seek help for loved ones who are "on the edge", the media could bring about the birth of a new attitude toward mental illness that does not lean so heavily toward shame and fear. If seeking treatment is shown to be a common, viable option for those who are struggling, perhaps fewer tragedies involving reactions to delusions and paranoia will occur.
Palin and Limbaugh et al aren't really being blamed for the shooting so much as the mood of the country. Palin DID have a map on her website on which one of several districts having bullseyes over them in which she wanted the tea party to challenge Democrats was Gabby Giffords'. Along w/the bullseyes was the phrase "lock and load".
ReplyDeleteThis may not have induced the shooter to do what he did directly, but it is a symptom of a sickness that runs rampant through our nation. And Sarah Palin, along with other politicians and pundits, uses violent imagery and phraseology quite commonly. She and others like her create and sustain the nastiness in our discourse.
As one who follows politics closely, I can tell you:
1) The Right uses this language and imagery many times more frequently, approaching exclusivity, than the Left.
2) Pols and pundits on the Left have been crying out about this for years.
3) The media apparently don't deem coverage of this cultural phenomenon as newsworthy.
4) Gabby Giffords specifically voiced concern over the escalation of threats that came immediately after Ms Palin posted her map on her website. In an interview w/Chuck Todd, he waved off her concerns as if they bore no weight.
No, Sarah Palin didn't cause the young deranged man to shoot Gabby Giffords. In fact, the shooter bore a grudge against Giffords long before Palin had the map on her site. There is no evidence the shooter ever saw Palin's map. The given reason he hated Giffords? She had visited his high school and was taking questions. He asked her about what she would do to correct the negative impact the increasing usage of bad grammar was having on society, an "issue" he complained a lot about. She had no answer and fumbled her response. He saw it as a brush-off. In his mind, she became part of the problem. That is the only connection I've read about so far. She may have been the only politician he'd ever had interaction with and that small thing was enough for him to develop a festering obsession with her.
I don't think this tragedy should be used to place partisan blame, either, BUT this tragedy has brought discussion of violence and vitriol to the forefront right now, and we should not pretend it isn't happening nor create some false equivalency between the two major political philosphies for the sake of "civility". Pretending the truth is other than it is, or ignoring existing conditions that don't blend well with our desired outcome do not serve us well. There are people of a certain political bent that exercise this damaging form of propaganda and discourse. There are people of another political bent that rarely do. Pretending otherwise mainly serves to let those that have been and are behaving irresponsibly to continue to do so without reproach.
It isn't "scoring political points" or "taking advantage of" this tragedy to point out what's been happening and whose mainly responsible. The savagery expressed in this nation in this era are mostly and deeply rooted in the political right. If that offends anyone, I'm sorry. Truth often can be offensive.
I won't pretend otherwise just to "make nice". That would be a disservice, possibly a lie, definitely a sin of omission.