I'm shamelessly borrowing the FoxNews tagline for the events that occurred in Tucson over the weekend. I will make the occasional foray into politics on this blog, and this will be no exception. When I awoke Sunday morning in Jakarta and began reading articles on the attempted murder of Rep. Giffords my first thought was: "Damn conservative radio". While Congress debates whether this event is a result of the tone of national debate or the act of a deranged lunatic, you can count me among those who say: Both!
It is this fact that so many groups have failed to understand over the years. The tone of debate is what triggers the deranged lunatics to feel justified in their actions. The fervent "defenders of life" who assassinate abortion doctors and bomb clinics do so because, thanks to the highly charged rhetoric of the Pro-Life movement, they feel their actions are justified. When gays are beaten and dragged to their death behind a truck, it's because a religious zealot somewhere convinced them that gays are not human. So when a right-wing fringe lunatic attempts to kill a Democrat, we should not be surprised.
Yes, the person involved is deranged. Anyone who believes killing another person is the correct resolution is deranged. The question is - what drove him to it? There will be an abundance of factors, obviously. He probably had an inadequate relationship with his parents. He likely suffered from bullying or other trauma as a child. A weak person with weak psychological fortitude who wants to fit in and will do something outlandish to demonstrate worthiness.
Analyzing what little facts are available to the general public at this point, I believe what pushed him over the edge are conservative personalities like Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. These bombastic fools who are capable of pointing out everything that is wrong but have no solutions of their own are the scourge of our society. They do not foster or encourage dialogue - which is the claim they hide behind. Quite the opposite. They foster hate. They foster sanctimony. They encourage standing firm on misguided principles despite a preponderance of counter-evidence.
In 2010, we showed the political establishment, with our vote, that we would no longer stand for politics as usual. In 2011, I think it is long past overdue that we show the media establishment, we are no longer willing to stand for biased, hate-filled dialogue on citizen owned airwaves. This is not a question of Free Speech, it is a question of Capitalism. Let's demonstrate that our demand is for something other than what they are supplying. Turn off your radio. Turn off your TV. It is preferable to have NO information than misinformation.
Monday, January 10, 2011
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2 comments:
Good stuff, Brian. I wrote my blog piece for Monday before reading your thoughts, but we're on similar paths.
My thing right now is that we, the people, have to start acting like we, the people. We have to turn a deaf ear to anyone who doesn't want to be productive and work together to find our way to a better future.
"Mad as hell" is good only for about 20 seconds. Then we have to look in the mirror, ask how we're going to contribute, and then, turn off the naysayers and pitch in to do what we can.
That's a pretty strong assumption that the deranged idiots who use murder as an alternative even watch political talk shows. America needs Fox news to offset the anti-Christian and biased news broadcast on CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
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