The right-wing has been really stung by the massacre in Arizona and the criticism they’ve taken for contributing to an environment where such violence actually makes sense. They keep pumping out columns that seek to vindicate themselves and lay blame on the left for jumping to conclusions about the motivations of the shooter. The president asked us to stop pointing fingers and trying to assign blame. We all know that is not going to happen, but we could try honoring his wishes in this case out of respect for the victims and deference to the president’s wisdom and leadership. We could try, but first one thing needs to be made clear.
If it had turned out that the shooter had begun planning this atrocity the moment he received an email from Sarah Palin’s PAC that included crosshairs on his congresswomen, we wouldn’t have anything to debate, would we? If he said that he voted for Giffords’s opponent but after they lost he felt the need to take Sharron Angle’s advice and resort to a 2nd Amendment remedy, we wouldn’t be talking about whether the left’s criticism was off mark.
This isn’t a case of me saying that if we were right, we wouldn’t be wrong. What I’m saying is that the left has been complaining about the rhetoric from the right for a very long time because that rhetoric hints at violence, rationalizes violence, and sometimes openly advocates violence. How does it hint at violence? If the president isn’t a U.S. citizen, if he used ACORN to steal the election, then what is a patriot to do? Do we just let an illegitimate president continue serving or do we take some kind of action to correct this insult? Likewise, how should a patriot react to a president who is trying to turn this country in a Soviet Socialist Republic? Didn’t Thomas Jefferson say the following?
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure”
If half of what the Republicans say about the president and the Democrats were true, we should rise up and kill them all as a minimum down payment on proving our love of country. So, I don’t give a crap whether the guy in Arizona was motivated listening to Sarah Palin or Sharron Angle. The problem is so much bigger than one incident, even if that incident had a lot of casualties. Glenn Beck alone has inspired three thwarted assassination attempts, including the planned attack on the ACLU and Tides Foundation offices in San Francisco. That’s just one shock-jock with a television program.
So, what’s my point? Stop saying things that make murder seem like a logical step, or a patriotic step, or a morally justifiable step. Stop doing things that endanger public officials and even innocent bystanders. After all, the fact that the shooter may not have been influenced by Sarah Palin’s crosshairs is not exculpatory in the least. The fact that the right thinks that they can avoid responsibility for their actions by appealing to the motivations of the shooter just shows how little they understand about the criticism being leveled at them. Based on the rhetoric of the right, we have to wonder why they didn’t applaud the Arizona massacre. That’s the logic they’ve created and the message they’ve been sending. As Jefferson said:
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?
Either we’re supposed to be on the barricades or we’re not.
With that, I leave you with the words of our president.
“If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let’s make sure it’s worthy of those we have lost.
Let’s make sure it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle.”
I’m pretty sure all talk of “reloading” and “taking Harry Reid out” and whatnot is not worthy of those we have lost. But the same can be said for some of my rhetoric. So…
