No more intolerance, or lots more?

Considering yesterday's events in Tuscon, Matt Bai writes:

[S]crubbing ... the Internet couldn’t erase all evidence of the rhetorical recklessness that permeates our political moment. The question is whether Saturday’s shooting marks the logical end point of such a moment — or rather the beginning of a terrifying new one.

Modern America has endured such moments before. The intense ideological clashes of the 1960s, which centered on Communism and civil rights and Vietnam, were marked by a series of assassinations that changed the course of American history, carried out against a televised backdrop of urban riots and self-immolating war protesters. During the culture wars of the 1990s, fought over issues like gun rights and abortion, right-wing extremists killed 168 people in Oklahoma City and terrorized hundreds of others in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park and at abortion clinics in the South.

What’s different about this moment is the emergence of a political culture — on blogs and Twitter and cable television — that so loudly and readily reinforces the dark visions of political extremists, often for profit or political gain. It wasn’t clear Saturday whether the alleged shooter in Tucson was motivated by any real political philosophy or by voices in his head, or perhaps by both. But it’s hard not to think he was at least partly influenced by a debate that often seems to conflate philosophical disagreement with some kind of political Armageddon.

Posted by Torey Lightcap on January 9, 2011 8:45 AM | |
Comments (2)

It makes me sick to my soul, but this is exactly the kind of thing I blogged about just four days ago at Rick's Green Grass – "Keepers of the Heart Know Words Become Bullets"

Rick - please sign your last name next time. ~ed.

Posted by Rick+ [TypeKey Profile Page] | January 9, 2011 9:11 AM

LOTS more...
Yesterday I sat in a lecture on pastoral care taught by an esteemed priest and listened to him respond to questions about how to assist seriously disturbed parishioners. "Of course" these should be 'referred' out to appropriate professions. As I listened to descriptions of the young man who shot all these individuals, I knew in my bones he had a major mental illness. My next thought was where were the psychiatric professionals for this obviously distraught man? He likely had no health insurance nor did his parents or there was a huge deductible for care. How are we to be the shephards in our communities, how are we to search for that lost lamb?Major mental illnesses are diseases of young people.It is very likely that parish priests and those in community ministries will continue to see those who can't access care otherwise. Yes there are those who will be fearful that in any public gathering they are at risk.. but what about the brittle fear of the young paranoid?Those in ministry are called to know the local NAMI group; to know if there is mental health clinician with the local police department; to know if your youth can names the signs of psychosis and how to intervene to reach out to parents of children with mental illness. Lord have mercy.


Posted by donna Ebersold [TypeKey Profile Page] | January 9, 2011 12:55 PM

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