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Tragedy in Arizona

It has taken me three-plus days to digest and understand what has happened in the state of Arizona. And if you don’t know what I am talking about, or haven’t paid close attention to the national news, I envy you.

The loss of life, of any life, to a hail of bullets delivered by a madman plain and simple is indescribable. The shooting of a lawmaker, a judge, a bystander, a child can in no way be justified.

And yet here we are. The death of the innocent painted in blood with the broad brush of intolerance and insanity.

For the past few days pundits and news anchors, bloggers and columnists, as well as everyone else have been struggling to come to terms with this newest bloodshed foisted upon the national landscape. A congresswoman is gunned down in broad daylight and those who work with her or attend the doomed gathering become victims and heroes.

Neither an enviable position to be in.

Can we blame someone’s mental state on someone else's political views? As much as I would like to, I can not. Because rational people don’t finish an argument in gun play. They just don’t. As a nation we should rise above such action. Retaliate with words, whether in patience or anger, but it end it there.

Unfortunately, not everyone is rational. But don’t make the mistake of lumping the mentally ill with those who are, in essence, deranged. It’s not fair to the mentally ill.

The political scene is quite toxic right now. A war of words is engaged between factors from the left, center and the right. There is quite a bit of posturing over the already passed health care bill and animosity toward the president from all sides. Discourse is becoming very heated.

Words have power. Add firearms to the mix and suddenly words become deadly. In a country of over 300 million people and a cherished Bill of Rights, statistically it’s going to happen.

But who is to blame? The right? The left? One deranged person with a gun who can’t tell the difference between (mostly) civil discourse and blatant intolerance? We may never know the whole truth. Nor can we pick and choose half-truths a la carte to satisfy a rush to judgement.

Still, in honor of those injured or killed, in thanks to the brave and heroic, maybe, just maybe, we could dial down the flaming rhetoric. If just for a short while. Even if it wasn’t the cause, there can be effect. Perhaps choosing better symbols to prove, or make, a point for example. At least pretend to listen, even consider, an opposing view before outright belittling it.

The political horizon is fraught with pitfalls. The environment is beyond toxic and it needs to be cleaned up. That toxicity in itself may not kill, but it certainly can poison an already sick mind. Maybe push him or her over the edge into violent insanity. Maybe not.

We can’t know what will trigger the next horrific incident. And there will be one. There always is. What will be the motivating factor? An idea, a thought, a word spit out in anger and hate? Prejudice? Just plain crazy in an all too crazy world?

What is annoying to most may be that which sets off an already deranged or deluded mind into doing the unthinkable. As a nation we can slow that process down, but we will probably never stop it.

But in the name of Abraham Lincoln, Harvey Milk, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and now Gabrielle Giffords, Judge John Roll, Christina Taylor Green, Gabe Zimmerman, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwin Stoddard, and Dorothy Morris, we can, and should, try.