Just A Guy With A Gun

Friend John from Oklahoma expresses his thoughts about today's events in Tucson:

I just finished watching the news conference from Tucson. It's really starting to seem familiar. A bit less than 15 years ago we had a similar example of an angry and disturbed individual expressing his rage through violence here in Oklahoma. The pattern is the same: a prolonged period of political warfare with hate-filled, vitriolic rhetoric which climaxes in an act of obscene violence. The only real differences are that this time the body count is lower and the perpetrator of the crime is more mentally disturbed than an unhinged ideologue as was the man who set off his bomb here.

It seems to me that the last 50 years or so have been dominated by a series of events of this sort, events that have shaped the course of history to an appalling degree. And I just have to wonder what the future holds for a system that is controlled by such events.

We all think that we elect presidents by popular vote or even by the electoral college but has that really been the case during our lifetimes? Think about it. Who elected Lyndon Johnson? The voters did in 1964--but he was put in office by a lone gunman in Dallas. Who elected Nixon? A psychotic gunman in Los Angeles. Who guaranteed Nixon's reelection? A schizophrenic gunman in Maryland. Who guaranteed the election or Reagan? A disturbed and fiery fundamentalist leader in Iran. Who did so much to raise Reagan to legendary status? A delusional rich kid with a gun in Washington D.C. And who guaranteed the reelection of Clinton? An angry decorated veteran--decorated for shooting Iraqi soldiers who were trying to surrender--who decided he could lead a new American revolution by bombing a building full of innocent people. One can argue the validity of some of these observations, of course, but in general that has been the course of recent American history. How did we arrive at a point where the will of the voters, the power of the military, the good works of the huge majority of decent people and the economic power of our nation have been rendered subservient the the criminal acts of a handful of individuals who are obviously disturbed? I don't have any answers. But I just wonder about the future of a system that allows itself to be driven by such events.

Well put. There are obvious beneficiaries to violence and there are advantages to reducing the incentives.

So, Congresswoman Gifford was in Sarah Palin's "crosshairs". I wonder if Sarah Palin would appreciate being in the "crosshairs" of someone's minions. As always, the swaggering bullies of the GOP may have overreached.

I lived in Tucson from 1980 to 1988. It's strange seeing University of Arizona in the news today (to whose hospital the victims were taken). I never spent time that I recall at the Ina & Oracle Safeway - most of my trips in Tucson were east-west rather than north-south, and I usually didn't go that way (except maybe on hiking trips) - but it's not far from old stomping grounds. And they were having a press conference this evening at the Westward Look Resort. I spent many happy evenings there....

Watching Jared Loughner's videos, it appears he has an illogical person's intense interest in logic.

Evil times in Arizona....