Toxic

Five people were killed in Tucson Satuday; can you namethem?  John Roll, Gabe Zimmerman, DorwinStoddard, Dorothy Murray, Phyllis Sheck, Christine Greene.  May God comfort their families, and may therest of us have the human decency to leave our politics out of their grief.

The oldest was 79, the youngest only 9 – one pastor, onejudge, one Congressional staffer, two in their twilight years and one whoselife was just dawning.  I suspect thatthe five life stories are fascinating, and the sixth would surely have been.  14 others were wounded, but we know thecondition of only one – Congresswoman Giffords, on whose behalf the nation’sprayers were offered and apparently answered.  48 hours after the senseless shooting in Arizona, we know verylittle about these 19 other victims, and only sketchy information about the manwho struck them down.   

But we know exactly what tens of thousands of politicos andbloggers think of the tea party, Sarah Palin, talk radio, communism, atheists,right and left wing rhetoric, guns, free speech,  Republicans, Democrats, conservatives,libertarians, conspiracy theorists, the need for new prohibitions galore, andthe precise motivation of a mentally disturbed person they have never met.

Their need to seize center-stage and co-opt a horrificpersonal tragedy to advance their own careers and ideologies is what is toxicin this country, not the phrases or symbols by which ideas are conveyed to the 310million Americans who did not shootanyone on Saturday.  It took less than anhour for the mindless chattering class to chatter mindlessly.

The narcissism and callousness it takes to climb on top of 20  shattered bodies to reach the microphone first is sickening – that is the toxicity that afflicts ournation, not the choice of phrases or symbols used to communicate with 310million Americans who did not killanyone on Saturday.  

A senseless act, by definition, can not be understood inrational cause-and-effect terms.  Onlyone person knows what deviant impulse led him to slaughter numbers of people,and the rest of us are recklessly projecting our own fears into his head.  We may never know how that brain was moldedover 22 years to become capable of such inhumanity; it most certainly did notget that way from one map on one web page, or anything that any of the victimsmay of may not have done to provoke the violence that was visited upon them. 19of 20 were not public figures.  

A shameless act, by definition, is one in which a lack ofshame is displayed.  Stepping on thegrief of 20 families and the sympathies of a nation to draw the spotlight backonto partisan sparring is as shameless as I can imagine.  It does nothing to bring comfort to thefamilies; it only deepens the stress they must certainly be coping with, and injectsthe very toxicity it purports to decry.

These are days to respect the privacy and loss of thefamilies, and to withhold opinions until they can be informed by facts andevidence.  My condolences to the victimsand their families, including the family of the man accused of the crime – theymust be devastated, too.  May God comfortthem all in their time of greatest need.

        

“MomentOf Clarity” is a weekly commentary by Libertarian writer and speaker TimNerenz, Ph.D.  Visit Tim’s website www.timnerenz.comto find your moment and order his new book, “Tooth Fairy Government.”