But that doesn't stop me.
I may have mentioned before that I run a department at my place of employ. One of the perquisites of this vaunted position is that when stuff happens on a weekend, I get to fill in as muscle and tissue on our otherwise skeleton crew. This basically means that from about 5 p.m. Saturday until 5 p.m. Sunday, I was immersed in the news out of Arizona, reading file after file about what it meant for various pieces of legislation, what it meant for Congress, what it meant for ... well, just about everyone except, you know, the people who actually suffered in the event.
And the theme that kept coming back, over and over -- we should not be surprised that this wackjob opened fire in a grocery store parking lot. Why not? Well, because of the inflamed level of political rhetoric.
Of course. How foolish of me not to realize.
Because, see, to me that's about as silly as blaming his parents for bad genetics. Or blaming Giffords for not voting the way he thought she should. Or blaming that 9-year-old girl for being in a bad place at a bad time.
Don't get me wrong, I do think political discourse has reached some ridiculous extremes. I think the anonymity of the Internet isn't always a good thing. Second only to religion, politics is a case where it is really sickening to read what people will post when they aren't worried about the consequences.
And I suppose if there is a way to make some good come of this horrific event, this is as acceptable an avenue as any. I'm a big fan of anything that goads our generally savage natures into being a little more civilized and polite. I think we all -- and I do mean all: politicians, my colleagues in the media, and most of all the Great Unwashed Commenting Public -- would get a lot farther in getting things done if we could just say, "Hm. You know, from where I'm sitting that argument doesn't really hang together, and here is why, let's figure out how to fix it," than when we do things like, say, compare our opponents to Hitler, or throw bricks through their windows, or start talking about how such and such a policy is the worst thing since forever and we are all going to die.
But that's sort of the point. Most people don't throw bricks. Most people don't buy a Glock and rip into a crowd of bystanders. In a face-to-face exchange, only those brimming with vitriol who have zero interest in results bother to bring up Hitler.
My husband is fond of saying that we don't write highway laws based solely on the way Gary Busey rides a motorcycle. I'm pretty sure we should not rewrite our mores based solely on the way Jared Loughner might have interpreted something someone said some time.
Everything I've read about Loughner pretty much tells me that he was every bit as likely to have looked at his bowl of Cheerios that morning and seen dozens of cross hair symbols floating in the milk.
Or, you know, maybe the neighbor's dog gave him a gentle nudge toward the Safeway.
So if you are one of those people who thinks that this shooting never would have happened if Sarah Palin had just left those dang cross hairs off her campaign site, I'm sorry, you are simply part of the problem, looking for a way to advance your own agenda on the back of a terrible situation.
If you are one of the people who thinks this is what Giffords gets for voting against Pelosi as minority leader, I find you genuinely disturbing.
But if you are someone who thinks this was a terrible thing and that perhaps the blame lies somewhere other than Mean Words, that perhaps we should be trying to figure out how this looly got himself a gun and that we should maybe be a little more cognizent of the general mental state of those around us, well, you're the person I want next to me on the bus.
If you are a rational human being, one of the Rest of Us, someone who thinks the Internet is awesome as long as you don't read any of the comments under the news stories, who always -- always, no matter what is going on -- wants to see this country trying harder to do better than it already is, who chooses to believe that most people in public office aren't in it as some kind of malicious plot to bring down the other side, who cares about your family and who aches when things like this happen, you are the person I want to know. You are the person I want to vote for.
