TIME TO TONE DOWN THE RHETORIC

Jan 13, 2011 17:03

I’ve been thinking about this a lot these past few days, and I need to state what I believe.

No, Sarah Palin didn’t cause the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Giffords. The gunman is apparently a very mentally disturbed person, and we may never know what exactly motivated him to take aim and fire on her and others in the crowd assembled to hear her speak. Anyone who claims there’s a straightforward line of responsibility here is wrong. But so is anyone who claims the opposite, that there is no culpability in hate speech and violent suggestions of ways to deal with one’s opponents.

The incident raises another - and to my mind, more dangerous - issue, and that is the rising incivility and hatred in public discourse in this nation. To me it’s no defense to say the Left was guilty of much the same thing back in the ‘70s. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now. In a democracy, in the 21st century, it should never be acceptable to demonize one’s opponent. The charge of treason against an opponent is a serious matter and should never be made lightly, and certainly not just because the opponent says or does something we don’t happen to agree with.

I’ve been told I don’t understand American history, that politics has always been brutish (if that’s true, it’s not something to be proud of) and that there have always been political assassinations and assassination attempts. But when did it become acceptable to bring guns to political gatherings, place crosshairs over our opponents’ names, talk of  “Second Amendment Rights” as a way to overturn results from the ballot box that we may not like? Some say these are just subtle illustrations to get points across, not incitements to tear down and murder. Some like to blame the English language for being full of violent metaphors, as if we have no choice in the words that come out of our mouths.

Perhaps Jared Loughner was unaware of what Sarah Palin and other Tea Party members were saying. He doesn’t strike me as a person capable of understanding subtlety in any case, let alone innuendo and nuance. But can we really deny that a climate of brutality and violence has no effect whatsoever on what happens under it? That children brought up to a steady drumbeat of such hatred are not affected by it in any way - and yes, I’ll agree to spread the blame to gangsta rap, violent movies and computer games. There’s enough of it to go around!

I’ve read the suggestion that many of the Muslim terrorists who wage war against us are simply poor and uneducated people, easily swayed by Al-Qaeda’s rhetoric to do their unspeakable deeds, and perhaps this is so. We need to recognize that the same thing can happen here, for we are no more immune to political propaganda than followers of Islam. Words are powerful tools. If this were not true, why would the world of business spend such fortunes on advertising its products to us if not because they believe their slogans can influence us? We must never forget that words inflamed otherwise civilized German people to turn a blind eye to the atrocities Hitler committed in their name, or the hate radio that poured over the Kigali airwaves in the days leading up to the Rwandan massacre. It is so much easier to kill our fellow human beings once we’ve demonized them!

No greater lie was ever taught to us as children than: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Today, more than ever, with the 24 hour news cycle, the internet, and the ready availability of high-power weapons and ammunition for them, we must be on guard against this growing menace.

We must stop making excuses and pointing fingers. The President said it best: let’s try to build our society to be what our children - in their innocence - imagine it to be. The alternative is too terrible to consider

politics, in-the-news

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