By: Paul S. Marchand
When the news hit out yesterday’s mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, which left six dead, including United States Chief District Judge John Roll, and 14 injured, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in critical condition at this hour after being shot through the head, my first reaction was the almost invariable one of invoking the Deity.
Oh my God.
My second reaction, equally ineluctable, was to ask who has done this and why.
The immediate temptation under such circumstances is to begin pointing fingers and assigning blame. Certainly, the last 24 hours have seen a veritable feeding frenzy, as commentators, pundits, and others on both sides of the political divide lob verbal broadsides at one another.
At some point, however, we must allow ourselves to be moved, if not by the better angels of our nature, at least by a sense of personal and professional responsibility to step back, putting our emotions aside and seeking truth from facts.
In short, we need to ask some basic questions: what do we know? what do we think? What can we prove?
At the moment, what we know is that six are dead and 14 have been wounded. We know that a suspected shooter is in custody. We know that the suspected shooter has posted a series of rather disjointed commentaries on the Web.
What we think is a more problematic issue. From yesterday’s events, activists, commentators, pundits, and plain old bomb throwers have drawn whatever conclusions suit their own agenda and confirmation bias. About the only conclusion that seems to enjoy broad support across both sides of the aisle is that perhaps we need as a country to take a timeout, to think long and hard about the extent to which the tone of our political dialogue has served to enable extremists who prefer bullets to ballots.
Winston Churchill once famously defined a fanatic as someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. By Winston’s definition, there may be a disturbingly large number of fanatics abroad in the land. Fanaticism is in many ways an infantile disorder; many of us have passed through phases in life in which we have been tempted to treat every difference of opinion as irreconcilable, and every issue as a matter of unalterable principle, but for most of us, the operative word is “phase.”
What separates the fanatic from the well-adjusted person is that the fanatic remains stuck in that infantile phase. The fanatic cannot, or will not, acknowledge the possibility that reasonable minds may differ, even on contentious issues. Moreover, the fanatic, by forever misapplying first principles to trifles, will inevitably convince himself (and most of the great fanatics of history have been men) that not only does he possess truth with a capital T, but that those who disagree with him are in error to such an extent that they cannot be suffered to live.
Fanaticism of that kind, with its stark rejection of any view not absolutely accordant with its own, and with its sense of exclusive custodianship of the Truth (with that capital T), and its concomitant insistence that those with other views are not merely to be silenced, but eliminated, invariably arises in contexts in which disputes and controversies tend to become inflamed.
No one would argue that the downturn in our American economy has left many Americans of all political stripes fearful, fretful, and frustrated. Difficult times have a way of fraying the fabric of civility which is -- or ought to be -- one of the critical components of a successfully functioning democracy. When people are angry and afraid, extremism becomes not merely easy, but tempting.
Thus, when shocking events occur, such as those which transpired in Tucson yesterday, the first and greatest challenge is to take a metaphorical deep breath, to wait before rushing in with theories, allegations, or accusations. As Donald Rumsfeld might have put it, we have very few known knowns at this point. There are far more known unknowns, such as the true motivations of the shooter, or whether he had assistance, or whether there were in fact others involved.
In the days to come, the situation will develop further; more information will presumably become available about the shooter, his motives, whether there are accomplices, and whether yesterday’s events were an isolated occurrence or part of something larger and more ominous. At the moment, however, none of these facts have been developed; the evidence is too thin to justify drawing any significant conclusions, as much as we may be tempted to do so.
In short, we know very little, we think --perhaps-- too much, and at the moment we don’t know what, if anything, we can prove.
Nonetheless, whether yesterday’s shooting was a political act, or merely the random crime of an unbalanced individual, to the extent it may have arisen from the embittered tone of our political dialogue, it should still be a warning to us that when we lose the ability to disagree agreeably, we put our democracy at risk.
So today, let our thoughts and prayers be with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the other 13 who were injured for their recovery, as well for the repose of the souls of Chief District Judge John McCarthy Roll and the other five victims whose lives were so tragically cut short. Tomorrow, and on the days that follow, it will be time again to ask what do we know? What do we think? What can we prove?
For now, however, we should observe a principled and considerate time of silence, leaving off with partisan rhetoric and poisoned comments. A decent respect for the dead and the injured should demand no less of us.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney in Cathedral City, California, where he practices law. He recently completed two terms on the Cathedral City city Council. The views expressed herein are exclusively his own.
NOTE: comments on this post will be much more strictly moderated than might otherwise be the case. Comments containing any personal attack will not be published, nor will comments that, in the view of the author, are intended to shed more heat than light.
Well conceived, well written. Very nice.
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