Rhetoric

I don't blame heated rhetoric for what happened in Tucson. Whether the shooter was politically motivated or not, it was his fault and he was wrong taking this far. But I do note that everyone immediately is thinking that it was politically related and it seems clear the heated rhetoric is wrong. I like what George Packer wrote in The New Yorker, It Doesn't Matter Wy He Did It. I have seen a few people seem to miss the point.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) was on Meet the Press this morning and said "We have to think about our word choices carefully, that's true. But we also have to realize that someone who is unhinged, someone who is mentally unstable...we don't know, the slightest thing could set them off. But we do have to make sure that among our responsibility is to be civil to each other. I've been engaged in heated debates many times with colleagues who I don't agree with on the issues, but you have to be a human being who recognizes and has respect for one another when you leave that room. We fight and debate in an arena but you have to leave that intensity in the arena and respect one another as Americans and human beings."

Maybe politicians shouldn't go into arenas. Maybe they should respect each other while debating and not just afterwards. Maybe TV shouldn't set up debate as arenas. This is what Jon Stewart was saying about Crossfire. His comments got Crossfire cancelled but the media still sets up every story as a conflict between two sides who never come to agreement.

Just before, David Gregory asked "I mention the tea party in this context because...not to assign any blame, but because of some of the views about the role of government. Because you mention how divisive health care reform is Congressman Cleaver (D-MO). It becomes so divisive because it's a question of what government should be doing, what government shouldn't be doing. Whether government is doing something to you or something for you. How do you avoid the debate becoming this fundamental and this divisive when those are the issues at stake.

I think it's more about framing all the issues as simple two sided sound bites. Can we really boil down something as complicated as our healthcare system as whether the government is doing something to or for us? Well we can, but I say we shouldn't. In an age of 24 hour news coverage we have more time than ever to discuss things at length and rationally and not debase ourselves into talking about death panels. I think it's clear that one party is more responsible for this and needs to be called out for it and made to change.

I note that SarahPAC removed the infamous crosshairs graphic from their website pretty immediately after the shooting. Then an aide denied there was anything wrong with it or that it even included gunsights. Nope, no contrition there.

As is usual, the shooting has already brought up the gun control debate. Arizona has some of the laxest gun laws.

"Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Fox News Sunday today that the mass shootings in Arizona yesterday are "unrelated" to Arizona's gun laws: "The weapons don't kill people, it's the individual that kills people." Paul said that though Arizona is only one of three states that allows people to carry concealed weapons without a permit, "I don't think that that plays into this at all. Really, I think they're unrelated." He also said that "from a medical point of view, there's a lot to suggest paranoid schizophrenia. That this man was a really sick individual.""

I'm fine with people having guns, I just think it should be regulated as much as driving is. Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't let paranoid schizophrenics buy and carry conceal handguns. The governor is a friend of Giffords, maybe she'll reconsider the law the signed in April.