Comments on the Tucson Tragedy

From the right, and particularly from Sarah Palin, comes the idea that some liberals are being very unfair by implying that the deranged murderer in the Tucson shootings was motivated by some of the arguments voiced by conservative politicians and commentators, including those on conservative web sites. (See my blog posting of January 10 entitled “Matches and Tinder.) In their eyes, he was a mentally ill person whose actions stemmed solely from his emotional disorder and not one motivated by what conservatives were saying on their web sites and blogs.

Let’s take a closer look at this claim. When the killer decided to go on a shooting spree, he did not do it in a school setting, as occurred at Columbine, at Virginia Tech and at the University of Texas about two decades ago. Although he had been thrown out of a local community college, his wrath was not directed in that direction. He did not turn his weapon on a group of soldiers either, as happened at Fort Hood, even though he had been turned down by the United States Army when he tried to enlist.

No, he directed his attack on his Congressional representative who in his eyes, I believe, represented governmental authority, not precisely, but nevertheless the same kind of authority which turned him down when he tried to enlist and got him expelled from college. But why did he choose to aim his fury in a political direction? Could this have happened because the college and the military, both of which might have been his targets, were not so conspicuously “fair game” in his eyes as was the Congresswoman? After all, had she not been narrowly re-elected in a vicious campaign during which all types of invective and criticism had been thrown at her? Had not Ms.Palin, in supporting her opponent, used the cross hairs of a rifle’s sighting mechanism to indicate that defeating the Congresswoman was a target.

One of the things the Congresswoman supported was health reform legislation. Some opponents of this legislation claim that it takes away individual freedom and puts citizens under the thumb of “tyrannical” government. The killer, whom we have learned even felt that the laws of mathematics and grammar were an infringement of his freedoms, might have chosen the Congresswoman as his target since her support of health care reform was just more of this kind of tyranny, an attack on his individual freedom. You can find this kind of thinking at many of the internet’s right wing sites.

There’s a lot of “ifs” and supposition in my thoughts, but if they are close to correct, conservatives who lie and tell half truths about the health care reform legislation (such as calling it “the job-killing health reform act”) cannot absolve themselves from some measure of guilt in this tragedy, no matter how hard they try. The President, in his quest for a way of working with the Republican controlled House of Representatives, will probably ignore this, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Of course, those who worship before the shrine of the Second Amendment are equally guilty, but that’s a story for another day.