The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords has unleashed a storm of emotion from which I am not exempt. Having lived in Tucson for 29 years, I’m familiar with the scene of the crime, the medical center, and the friendliness of the community. I had helped elect Giffords to her first term.
Tucson always seemed like a pocket of sanity in an otherwise reactionary state. Our Republicans were reasonable, not like the nutjobs up in Mesa. So after I’d moved upstate to Prescott and began reading about teabaggers staging protests in the Old Pueblo and vandalizing the congresswoman’s office, I was a bit startled by the lack of civility.
But I’m just as startled by my own lack of civility in one regard. Because I have to wonder if the victim had been Clarence Thomas or Sarah Palin whether I would have cheered. In that scenario, I might have said to myself, “They had it coming, those who live by the sword (or by an advocacy of blanket gun rights) die by the sword.” It might have seemed like some kind of justice. But then Gabby Giffords supported gun rights, too.
We live in a sick society. Westboro Baptist is sufficient proof. Unfortunately, as long as I’m willing to imagine a gunsight on a wingnut, I’m no less sick than anyone.
Now the Right is coming down hard on Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for suggesting that conservative talk radio/TV bears much of the responsibility for keeping people in a state of agitation and planting suggestions that armed violence is an acceptable means of redress. They insist that Dupnik has unnecessarily politicized the incident. That reaction was to be expected. But it is not defensible.
I continue to believe, as I have stated before in this blog, that the Right is guilty of too much black-and-white thinking. Health care reform equals socialism. Any form of gun control necessarily leads to disarming citizens. If you’re not with us in the war on terror, you’re against us. Now it seems that anyone calling for civility in political discourse wants to curtail freedom of speech.
I’ve tried my best to be amused, but now it’s hard not to be disgusted. And while this tragedy forces me to recognize my own flaws, there’s no question in my mind about who in this sick society is sicker.
Tucson always seemed like a pocket of sanity in an otherwise reactionary state. Our Republicans were reasonable, not like the nutjobs up in Mesa. So after I’d moved upstate to Prescott and began reading about teabaggers staging protests in the Old Pueblo and vandalizing the congresswoman’s office, I was a bit startled by the lack of civility.
But I’m just as startled by my own lack of civility in one regard. Because I have to wonder if the victim had been Clarence Thomas or Sarah Palin whether I would have cheered. In that scenario, I might have said to myself, “They had it coming, those who live by the sword (or by an advocacy of blanket gun rights) die by the sword.” It might have seemed like some kind of justice. But then Gabby Giffords supported gun rights, too.
We live in a sick society. Westboro Baptist is sufficient proof. Unfortunately, as long as I’m willing to imagine a gunsight on a wingnut, I’m no less sick than anyone.
Now the Right is coming down hard on Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for suggesting that conservative talk radio/TV bears much of the responsibility for keeping people in a state of agitation and planting suggestions that armed violence is an acceptable means of redress. They insist that Dupnik has unnecessarily politicized the incident. That reaction was to be expected. But it is not defensible.
I continue to believe, as I have stated before in this blog, that the Right is guilty of too much black-and-white thinking. Health care reform equals socialism. Any form of gun control necessarily leads to disarming citizens. If you’re not with us in the war on terror, you’re against us. Now it seems that anyone calling for civility in political discourse wants to curtail freedom of speech.
I’ve tried my best to be amused, but now it’s hard not to be disgusted. And while this tragedy forces me to recognize my own flaws, there’s no question in my mind about who in this sick society is sicker.
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