Can We All Get Along?
January 10th 2011 19:56
On Saturday, January 8, Jared Lee Loughner, armed with a Glock 9mm semi automatic pistol, took a taxi to a shopping center in Tucson, Arizona where representative Gabrielle Giffords was holding a town hall meeting outside a supermarket. After exiting the taxi, Loughner, for reasons known only to him, sprayed 31 bullets at Giffords and those standing around her, killing a little 9 year old girl, a federal judge, an elderly couple, a retiree, and a congressional aid to Ms. Giffords. Additionally, he shot Ms. Giffords in the head, and wounded 13 others.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Liberals and Democrats have been pointing their fingers at Republicans and Conservatives, and the vitriolic language and media campaigns they used in the last election cycle trying to regain control of the various levels of government from the Democrats. But, before Liberals and Democrats go wagging their fingers at Republicans saying, “I told you this would happen,” they should be reminded that they did much of the same type of campaigning. The current center of blame is Sarah Palin, and an ad that was posted on her website, since removed, showing a map of the United States with the location of twenty Democratic politicians shown with the cross hairs from a telescopic sight superimposed over each of the locations. The implication then and up to the moment Giffords and the others were shot was that they were targeted by Palin and her supports, and they were going to be taken out. Palin and other Conservatives often use phrases like, “We’re going to take our country back.” Take our country back from whom? Democrats and Liberals? Aren’t they Americans?
Palin isn’t the only one to use the gun image as a threat to her opponents. During his election campaign for the Senate from West Virginia, Democrat Joe Manchin used the gun image. In one campaign ad, at the end of his speech, he is shown shooting a piece of paper, saying, “I’ll take dead aim at the cap and trade bill.” The implication was that Manchin was gun friendly, and that he would oppose the President on this issue.
The problem with those who use violence, threats of violence or implications of violence in their ads or arguments is that there are some people on the fringes of society without the capacity to filter out the nonsense and get to the real message in the ads. Palin’s ad says to these people that Democrats, and those left of center need to be taken out of office, and the only way to do that is by violent means. Manchin’s ad says very graphically that it is OK to do whatever it takes, including killing, to achieve one’s political goals. Characteristically, neither Palin nor Manchin would repudiate their ads or the influence they might have on the deranged. Palin’s spokespeople (she isn’t talking) contend that the cross hairs are from a surveyor’s transit, not the telescopic sight of a rifle, but they weren’t saying that when Congresswomen Gifford complained about it to the press during the election campaign. Manchin said of his ad, “Cap and trade is dead on arrival,” another reference to death. The Tea Party, Conservatives and Republicans immediately disavowed any approval of the shooting, as they should have.
The further left and right from center one moves politically, the greater the political paranoia. Leftists fear the federal government is a right wing police state trying to suppress the rights granted to them by the Constitution through the use of the Supreme Court, Republican Presidents, and Republican held Congresses. Those on the extreme right fear the federal government is a left wing police state trying to suppress the rights granted to them by the Constitution (they are always waving their personal copies of the Constitution in the face of anyone they suspect is not of their ilk, and in fact, Republicans had the Constitution read in the House as their first order of business after all members were sworn in) through the use of liberal laws that raise taxes that take money from the wealthy and pay for social welfare programs for the poor. They call this “redistribution of wealth” and accuse Democrats and Liberals of being Socialists and Communists (dirty words designed to inflame) and Robin Hoods (because they’re merry men?).
Mr. Loughner has already been described as being schizophrenic with paranoid tendencies. If this diagnosis holds up, this means that he may hear voices that no one else hears, and these voices may insult him and magnify latent fears, commanding him to do unspeakable things. I’m not trying to lay the ground work for his legal defense; I’m only trying to explain that while the vast majority of people will not act violently on their political anger, political disappointment, or political frustrations, and while the vast majority of people will ignore outrageous ads and messages or search for the real messages in these ads, there are a few people who these ads and messages will affect negatively, and for a politician to deny his/her role in the consequences of their ad is unethical.
There has to be a better way for the message to be given without inflaming the nuts out there. In the words of Rodney King, “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?”
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Liberals and Democrats have been pointing their fingers at Republicans and Conservatives, and the vitriolic language and media campaigns they used in the last election cycle trying to regain control of the various levels of government from the Democrats. But, before Liberals and Democrats go wagging their fingers at Republicans saying, “I told you this would happen,” they should be reminded that they did much of the same type of campaigning. The current center of blame is Sarah Palin, and an ad that was posted on her website, since removed, showing a map of the United States with the location of twenty Democratic politicians shown with the cross hairs from a telescopic sight superimposed over each of the locations. The implication then and up to the moment Giffords and the others were shot was that they were targeted by Palin and her supports, and they were going to be taken out. Palin and other Conservatives often use phrases like, “We’re going to take our country back.” Take our country back from whom? Democrats and Liberals? Aren’t they Americans?
Palin isn’t the only one to use the gun image as a threat to her opponents. During his election campaign for the Senate from West Virginia, Democrat Joe Manchin used the gun image. In one campaign ad, at the end of his speech, he is shown shooting a piece of paper, saying, “I’ll take dead aim at the cap and trade bill.” The implication was that Manchin was gun friendly, and that he would oppose the President on this issue.
The problem with those who use violence, threats of violence or implications of violence in their ads or arguments is that there are some people on the fringes of society without the capacity to filter out the nonsense and get to the real message in the ads. Palin’s ad says to these people that Democrats, and those left of center need to be taken out of office, and the only way to do that is by violent means. Manchin’s ad says very graphically that it is OK to do whatever it takes, including killing, to achieve one’s political goals. Characteristically, neither Palin nor Manchin would repudiate their ads or the influence they might have on the deranged. Palin’s spokespeople (she isn’t talking) contend that the cross hairs are from a surveyor’s transit, not the telescopic sight of a rifle, but they weren’t saying that when Congresswomen Gifford complained about it to the press during the election campaign. Manchin said of his ad, “Cap and trade is dead on arrival,” another reference to death. The Tea Party, Conservatives and Republicans immediately disavowed any approval of the shooting, as they should have.
The further left and right from center one moves politically, the greater the political paranoia. Leftists fear the federal government is a right wing police state trying to suppress the rights granted to them by the Constitution through the use of the Supreme Court, Republican Presidents, and Republican held Congresses. Those on the extreme right fear the federal government is a left wing police state trying to suppress the rights granted to them by the Constitution (they are always waving their personal copies of the Constitution in the face of anyone they suspect is not of their ilk, and in fact, Republicans had the Constitution read in the House as their first order of business after all members were sworn in) through the use of liberal laws that raise taxes that take money from the wealthy and pay for social welfare programs for the poor. They call this “redistribution of wealth” and accuse Democrats and Liberals of being Socialists and Communists (dirty words designed to inflame) and Robin Hoods (because they’re merry men?).
Mr. Loughner has already been described as being schizophrenic with paranoid tendencies. If this diagnosis holds up, this means that he may hear voices that no one else hears, and these voices may insult him and magnify latent fears, commanding him to do unspeakable things. I’m not trying to lay the ground work for his legal defense; I’m only trying to explain that while the vast majority of people will not act violently on their political anger, political disappointment, or political frustrations, and while the vast majority of people will ignore outrageous ads and messages or search for the real messages in these ads, there are a few people who these ads and messages will affect negatively, and for a politician to deny his/her role in the consequences of their ad is unethical.
There has to be a better way for the message to be given without inflaming the nuts out there. In the words of Rodney King, “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?”
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