Saturday’s shootings in Arizona are certainly troubling, but not surprising. I’ve run into several people who apparently don’t realize that some of the biggest voices screaming from the fringe don’t worry at all about what they say, and even less about how they are heard.
But not realizing that three of those big names are little more than charlatans (or grifters) isn’t reserved for the mentally ill or poorly educated. Spewing hateful rhetoric and misinformation has high entertainment value and is very profitable. Why dial it back?
There is a ready audience of people who read narrowly and think even more narrowly. Is it the fault of a talk show host when listeners don’t understand that they stir the pot of hate with a pack of lies, distortions, provocative slurs, and violent rhetoric? Couple all that with a meager understanding of the U.S. Constitution … in its entirety … and one has an explosive and polarized climate.
Ms. Palin and Messrs. Beck and Limbaugh certainly can’t be blamed for the shootings in Tuscon. But they can be blamed for using their voice to help create and maintain a political soil so toxic that distorted thinking finds much nourishment. They differ little from others who radicalize the easily influenced.
The rest of us see what they have to say for what it is.
As I reflect on all that is going on in our government, I’m trying to make sense of why only one party is on the playing field trying to get something done while the other party jeers from the stands. Perhaps things can be explained:
If you don’t believe that such a person as Obama could/should ever reside in The White House, why would you want to help him be successful?
If your party controlled congress for 12 years (and The White House for 8 years) and nothing was done other than screw up the country’s foreign policy and economic health, why wouldn’t you be upset if the mess couldn’t be straightened out in year?
If a major piece of legislation (prescription drug plan) was completely unfunded and locked in a deficit-building entitlement for our children and grandchildren to pay for, doesn’t the party who introduced and passed such legislation have every right to block new legislation that is really needed and helps people? Especially if it reduces the deficit?
If you have a government health care plan for you and your family, isn’t it obvious that such an opportunity would be disastrous for the rest of the country? Wouldn’t that be socialism?
If your party successfully nominated and elected for two terms as president a candidate who was completely uniformed and could barely voice a coherent thought, wouldn’t such a candidate seem attractive again? Maybe the tea party folks are onto something.
If your party had a vice president who made little sense and was guilty of numerous wrong-headed, unpatriotic decisions and policies, shouldn’t he be the main critic of someone who actually thinks things through before acting?
If your party in congress has no ideas to help solve an ever-growing fiscal crisis, doesn’t it make sense to stand in the way of those who have ideas and are trying to respond to that crisis?
If your party’s administration fostered the rampant growth of terrorists world-wide through reckless and thoughtless foreign policy, shouldn’t the next administration who tries to be part of the global community through healing divisions and international cooperation be labeled as “soft” on terror?
I’m just asking …
2009 draws to a close, on to the next decade!
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Does anyone wonder why two bumbling terrorists used the same m.o.? If our attention can be drawn elsewhere so easily, what else might be going on? We always seem to be protecting against the last attack. This most recent guy looks like another decoy, a setup. But body scanners it will be. Liquids, box cutters, shoes, are now joined by a peek into our undies.
I would put my money, instead, on luggage or an external airline attack such as a heat-seeking missile on takeoff or a radicalized pilot on a private jet causing a mid-air collision.
It is an interesting strategy, however: keep us looking where the threat won’t be.
Speaking of threats and decoys, isn’t that Sarah Palin something to behold? It still scares me that she and McCain could be sitting in Washington. Sure Obama could be doing a better job, but boy am I glad he’s in the White House when there was no apparent alternative.
Torture!
Should there be a commission? A special prosecutor? A nonpartisan investigation? Congressional hearings?
Torture? Our country is really talking about torture and the involvement and authorization of those uppermost in our nation’s leadership?
How quickly we become diverted into the “how” rather than the “what” or the “why.” The whole thing is absurd.
Why did we feel we had to scrap our values and trample on the Constitution when attacked on our soil? Was there no time for a sober breath, quiet reflection? Or did someone have a bone in his or her craw all along, and this was the chance to flex some young people’s (some other people’s) muscle and show the world. Show them what? That we can’t take a punch?
I’m not an historian, but I do wonder if any other country has become so easily and quickly unhinged when attacked. I do wonder if any country in history has ever had such a disproportionate and misdirected response, the virtual destruction of an uninvolved sovereign nation, the displacement of millions, the deaths of hundreds of thousands. And for what?
I thought I was done ranting on this. It’s most bizarre.
In a dim light... 