Archive: Opinions

The tragic shooting outside a supermarket in Tuscan Arizona where six people were killed and thirteen wounded, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a clear sign of our nation's volatility. With economic uncertainty affecting millions of Americans and a political divide that widens with each day, individuals are influenced by what they hear and by who utters those words.

The words we use possess real power. At its best, public discourse provides an open and honest forum where the individual can be heard. A variety of ideas and a difference of opinions can expand our understanding and reveal hidden truths about many facets of our lives. The words we choose can unite a group of people or even a country to take up a cause or follow a plan of action for the common good.

When heated rhetoric and emotionally charged speech replaces reason and civil public debate, anarchy reigns. Individuals resort to violence, families are divided, and nations threaten other nations with war.

The blame for such a decline in civility and public discourse can be found among those in public office, especially at the state and national level. Speeches from the House and Senate Floor have divided the United States into a self determined camp of evil versus good. Those who agree with a particular speaker are considered patriotic and in the right while those who may disagree with a certain point of view or have an alternative approach to some issue are labeled as "the enemy."

Some politicians have taken steps beyond acceptable behavior. A certain political website featured cross-hairs from a gun focused on states where their candidate and like minded voters where to "take out" an incumbent currently in office. In Florida, an individual running against an incumbent Congresswoman actually wrote her initials above a target and then fired at the target with a weapon. In both instances, the direct reference is frighteningly clear and can only lead to a terrible outcome. Eventually, someone is going to get hurt.

Others have resorted to verbal assaults. Politicians on both sides of the aisle constantly employ charged language to attack opponents. A certain member of Congress is compared to "Hitler, Stalin or Lenin." Others are portrayed as "The American Taliban" when they do not accept a particular piece of legislation.

Commentators on television and radio have fueled the fire of incivility. With their daily barrage of incendiary words, their inflammatory speeches, and outrageous and inaccurate interpretation of history, they pave the way for some individuals to follow through with their "call to arms." When repeated often enough, those who live on the fringes will act in unexpected and dangerous ways. The latter half of the 20th century bears witness to this with the assassinations of President John Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy.

We are responsible for the words we choose, and we cannot blame others for taking action when we paved the path for their intentions.

Many laughed when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President George Bush during a news conference in Baghdad. We should not be surprised that if we allow insults, verbal threats and objects to be thrown at an elected official, it would only be a matter of time before someone might use a more lethal means to express outrage over an individual's political beliefs or policies.

Regardless of anyone's opinion of an elected official, he or she is voted into office by the people. The fact that this crime occurred at a Town Hall style meeting, where Congresswoman Giffords was addressing the needs and concerns of her constituents, signifies a real threat to our way of life, the right of free speech and the right of public assembly, in ways more onerous than the terrorist attacks of 9-11.

It is my sincere hope that the language and attitudes in of those in elected office as well as individuals in all political parties will return to a more civil manner of discourse. I hope websites with cross hairs focused on individual electoral districts and calls for "Second Amendment Solutions" will be viewed as unpatriotic and condemned by all. Perhaps the tragic deaths of six individuals including a federal judge and nine year old girl will steer us back to the work that all of us ought to strive for as outlined in the preamble to our Constitution, "To form more perfect union." And that is to the point.

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