Thoughts on Arizona

I was going to post my 2011 resolutions tonight but news events (and a late flight) have made me change plans. I’ll write about my resolutions tomorrow because tonight I want to give my thoughts on the tragedy in Arizona. And it truly is a tragedy, any time that six innocent people are killed and many more wounded for nothing more than wanting to meet their congressperson it is truly a tragedy.

The first thing I want to touch upon is just how tough it is to get reliable information at the beginning of a story like this. I happened to flip on CNN right as the story broke so I was able to watch all the conflicting stories come across including multiple conflicting reports as to whether or not the congressperson was alive or not. It is a bit of a curse of the 24 hour news cycle. At times there is no news and minor stories get played into national issues (anyone heard anything about the New York mosque recently?) but in a breaking story everyone must break the news first and in a case like this the first reports are almost certainly wrong. Everyone is confused in a situation like this and it always takes a little time for the truth to come out.

The second point, which is also pointed at the media and the general public, is how quick people are to assign motive and place blame before any information is known and I speak of this from personal experience. If you check the blog archives on the night of the Virginia Tech shooting I posted my thoughts on the event with the assumption that the shooter was an engineering student who cracked under the pressure of school. While I still stand by what I said that night about the pressures placed on students I was completely and utterly wrong about the motive and I am a little ashamed of my post as a result.

The same case is at play here. Within an hour people were blaming inflammatory political speech and the heated political climate as the reason for the shooting without knowing if the shooter was left wing or right wing or just a maladjusted, mentally unstable young man. Assassination attempts do not have to have political causes. John Hinckley shot Reagan in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster. Until more information is known making wild speculations typically makes the situation worse.

This is not the same as my condoning the current level of political discourse in the country. I pretty much hate it. I dislike the fact that hatred has come into play in politics at a level that I have never seen before. I would love to see things calm down and more rational voices be heard. One can disagree with another’s view without comparing them to Hitler. But at the end of the day I am a free speech advocate and that means I must protect the rights of people to say things that I hate so while I wish people would dial down the rhetoric I will in no way try to force them to do so.

(I also find it moving and symbolic that during the Constitution reading last week Congresswoman Gifford read the first amendment because the fact that we have a first amendment allows us to avoid violent political action being a common occurrence.)

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families. I do hope that we learn something from this tragedy even if it is only getting a greater sense of how precious life is.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Howie Day “Australia”
2) Immaculate Machine “Ones and Zeros”
3) Zachary Richard “The Best of Zachary Richard”
4) Wilco “Sky Blue Sky”
5) Tori Amos “Little Earthquakes”