Looking in the Wrong Place

The problem is not political rhetoric. Political rhetoric didn’t cause those murders.

We do hear over and over that our political rhetoric is too intense and too inflammatory and “toxic.” That’s true. Without minimizing the inhumanity of some of this rhetoric, when has political rhetoric not been exaggerated? When I was a kid, because I was listening to exaggerated rhetoric, I thought the world was going to fall apart if a Catholic — his name was John F. Kennedy — became President of this (apparently only Protestant Christian) nation. It didn’t.

I’ve read a bit about this political rhetoric issue, and often the observations begin to look into the Old Testament prophets with their highly passionate, and hardly measured, rhetoric. I read that Thomas Jefferson was certain orthodox faith would be gone with a few years and even offered a few harsh judgments himself. Thomas Paine and (eventual) President Adams had more than their share of verbal fisticuffs. From Michael Moore to Glen Beck — extremism in political rhetoric is part of our country’s approach. In fact, the whole world is filled with political rhetoric like this.

But the columnists and opinionators keep saying the same thing: things are getting out of hand, the rhetoric is too ramped up, and this will be our country’s undoing.What we need is more even-handed statements. I agree but that’s now what caused this tragedy nor is it the solution.

So I decided to read and compare the NYTimes with the National Review. The NYTimes article by a Mr. Matt Bai opinionated that our problem was the rhetoric — and I was set then for a good example of measured rhetoric and judgment, but what he did was point relentlessly at the Right. More of the same. So I read National Review and, lo and behold, Jonah Goldberg opinionated about the opportunism (more of the same) and then, rather surprisingly, said he had nothing to say and offered his thoughts and prayers until we know more. Which is better than what Andrew Sullivan did, which was to publish — about as soon as he could have — the map of Sarah Palin’s targets. I thought it was shameful what Sullivan did, but what he didn’t do was observe that one of Anderson Cooper’s columns spoke about Rahm Emanuel in the political cross hairs. Which illustrates the whole problem:

The problem, my friends, is not the rhetoric of the columnists, or the politicians, or the bloggers. Well, yes, it is. There is too much nonsense and inflammatory rhetoric. I am committed to working even harder at civil discourse. But heated political rhetoric is not new — it’s the nature of the game and one can see it even in Thomas Paine’s classic Common Sense? Political rhetoric is not what caused the tragedy.

The problem is that human beings are cracked. What happened in broad daylight, in broad premeditated daylight, in Tucson was sickening to the stomach and destructive of the human spirit. But that didn’t happen because he was a right winger or left winger — and a case has been made for both. And it didn’t happen because the Left or the Right had gotten inside that young man’s head and spoiled it.

This tragedy happened because Jared Lee Loughner was disturbed and he was free in our society and he had a gun and he used it. All murderers are disturbed. Jared Loughner, on his own, bought a gun — we could make tighter gun laws (and I’m for that). Jared Loughner exhibited strange and disturbing behaviors in a college — we could make more laws about how to deal with troubled students. (I’ve had a few myself but a school’s intuition in these matters is rarely clear.) Jared Loughner probably listened to inflammatory political rhetoric — we could make some laws that would curtail free speech. Jared Loughner was told he need to see a therapist — we could make some laws that make people see therapists. … we could, we could, we could.

But our approach is to find the source so we can blame it and solve it instead of admitting the reality: our world, my friends, is not perfect; it is broken; we live among cracked people who are free to roam in ways that can harm others; we can’t make enough laws to prevent disturbed people from doing despicable things. We can’t, we can’t, we can’t. We can’t protect the world from disturbed people unless we change the world dramatically.

Poor old Abel didn’t wake up — I’m referring here to Genesis 4 — that day and think “Cain just might get mad enough to kill me so I’ll make some laws and get Adam Dad and Eve Mom to enforce the rules.” Nope, Abel did what he was supposed to and Cain killed him for it.

There are not enough laws on the books to transform humans from cracked to transformed.

To be sure, we can work for laws that will make it harder to murder and will make it impossible for murders to repeat their actions. We could work for laws that are more alert to disturbed people. And we should work for justice — with all we’ve got. We need to protect our public servants.

But the problem, Mr and Mrs Pundit, is not the Right or the Left. The problem is You and Me. Let’s quit the blame and look inside.

The problem is right where Solzhenitsyn said it was: the line between good and evil runs through the heart of each of us. In each of us lies the capacity to become Cain.

I shall not today refuse to do things because someone might stand up in some chaotic moment and out of some wildness decide to mow me down. I shall today do what I always do.

Yes because of Cain and Tucson, many of us will probably look over the shoulder a few times.