The Words We Say

>>I thought what I wanted was fiscal responsibility, greater state than federal power, and less government over all?<<

I actually don't disagree with the base concepts. I'd be happier if the government had less to do. It's frustrating that we're not doing a good job of meeting needs at a lower, more effective level.

>>What if this is what the shooting was supposed to do? Turn us against each other? Why are people taking the bait? I am very disappointed and disheartened.<<

It reminds me very much of the 9/11 attack, which missed the White House but scored a direct hit on the American way of life. We've done more damage to ourselves than any outsider ever could. And I think people are taking the bait ... because they are trained to do that. The overall media input encourages people to jump to conclusions without examining the facts first.

If someone flips out and shoots people, I'll look at the early reports and start making some educated guesses. But the targeting of a Democrat and the gunsights on Palin's website are 'soft' input, not hard. There's also that conservative judge you mentioned. Do we know who he was aiming for? Possibly not; since one victim was a child, the shooter was presumably spraying lead at random during at least part of his raid. So that makes it harder to pin down what happened and why.

I suspect that one reason people connect "shooter" with "conservative dialog" is that by and large conservatives like guns and liberals don't. (Remember I'm counterchanged on this point.) Another is that, while the hostile language is all but ubiquitous, the language advocating violence is more often coming from conservatives. It's rarely possible to pin down a one-to-one connection and say "This message caused this act of violence." (Comic books and roleplaying games don't cause people to shoot each other, although they are sometimes fingered as a cause.) What we have is an overall culture that condones and encourages verbal abuse and incivility. Well, those things typically lead to the dehumanization of others, and to more physical types of violence; we can hardly be surprised that people who are taught violence and not taught rationality or emotional control are more likely to flip out and kill each other.

The middle of the bell curve is always going to represent what you teach and what you reward. There will necessarily be some variation, and it will go in both directions. When the middle is full of verbal hostility and a lack of fellow-feel, then one low curve is going to hold your pacifists and the other is going to hold people who go postal -- and the hump will be leaning toward the latter.

If we want a peaceable society full of citizens who work out their problems in ways that rarely involve guns or lawsuits, then we have to teach people to respect each other, discuss issues factually, disagree without being disagreeable, manage their own emotions, take responsibility for their actions, and generally behave like adults. Sadly that doesn't seem to be a popular line of education.