Can we wait to pontificate until the blood is cleaned?
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all agree that . . . . No, scratch that, sincewe can’t all agree on anything. And “nice” is prettymuch off the tablewhen it comes to discussing matters of national import. “Vile” ismuch more apt, and I can’t see howthe free- fire zone of contempt can be called a “discussion.”
So I’ll just toss this concept out there, a single idea hocked from the frontal lobes and spat into the enormous bruise green whirling cyclone that isMedia 2017.
Wouldn’t it be, ah, useful, if we could all at least consider that the period— say the first three days— immediately after the mass shootingswhich increasingly mar and define our country is not the ideal time to chewonmatters of public policy?
Because really, what good does it do?
The drawback of that is once such shootings happen every day— we’re almost there now — then it’ll never be appropriate to debate each other rationally about our political problems. Which is sort ofwhere we are nowanyway, though in the immediate after- echo of a bloodlettingwe are even less capable of civil discourse than we usually are, which is really saying something. The news hits. There is a moment of stupid shock, gazing dumbly atwhatever carnage has just occurred. And then the howl is raised again. Everybody talking, nobody listening.
Extremistswho live to hate a particular group feel extra vindicated that their mean little biases have just been proved once again. On the opposite end of the spectrum, dewy dreamerswho hope for impossible standards ofwarm political brotherhood announce that nowis the momentwhen Americanswho heretofore have been unmoved by endless mass slaughter will suddenly be jarred into unity. Theywarble a fewstrains of “Kumbaya” joined by hyper- partisans figuring theymight aswell make some placating noises before they goback to the fray. C’mon. The shooting of a congressman and four others at a baseball diamond in Alexandria, Virginia, wasn’t even the bloodiest shooting that took place in theUnited States that day, Wednesday, June 14. That would be the three people killed at aUPS facility in San Francisco, plus the shooter, who killed himself. But that barely registered because it could be dismissed asworkplace violence, which for some reason doesn’t count. I suppose because it has scant rhetorical utility.
Not so for James T. Hodgkinson, of Belleville, who shot up a congressional baseball practice. An indignant Democrat, thus confirmation aplenty for people already aghast at the idea of their party being criticized. Readers rushed to share their insights.
“Your hate filled- columns spawned this tragedy you scum,” James Stricker wrote. “You have blood on your hands. Get out ofmy newspaper.”
“Direct result of media writers such as yourself,” wrote Bill Garrett. “Constant denigrating.”
“One of your guys, a lifelong Democrat tries to gun down Republicans,” wrote Gregg Soligo.
Some felt they had me cornered, and chuckled, almost gleeful, demanding I admit defeat now. Iwas tempted to write back. “Shooting? What shooting? Oh, youmean today’s clumsy false- flag operation by the Trump administration, obviously intended to distract the public from his crimes.”
But the irony of replying with an echo of Alex Jones’ SandyHook conspiracy lunacy would be lost. Anyone with enough perception to grasp the satirewouldn’t hold their opinions in the first place.
Had I replied, Iwould have said that I’malready on record explaining, time and again, that the irrational acts of one disturbed individual do not indict an entire group just because you don’t like them. AMuslim blowing himself up does not prove the blood- thirstiness of Islam, nor does a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter undercut Democrats, nor do Republican extremistswho go on rampages tar the GOP. None ofmy right- wing readers demanded I react to that Oregon manwho stabbed two good samaritans to death after they tried to stop his anti- Muslim rant. That could be easily shrugged off.
Still, readerswere tapping theirwatch faces. “Waiting, waiting, waiting,” wrote one. Yourwait is over.
Extremists who live to hate a particular group feel extra vindicated that their mean little biases have just been proved once again.