Probably Just The Moon

My partner watched Casino Jack. I was interested, as my partner is no political junkie.

"It was totally unrealistic! There was this creep named Grover something. What kind of name is Grover?"
"That would be Grover Norquist?"
"I dunno. The only Grover I know of is a Muppet."

This at-least-partly-tongue-in-cheek conversation is my way of getting into the weeds of what happened in Tucson. I think everybody worth listening to agrees that it's horrible. It is admittedly disturbing how many people aren't worth listening to.

There's a lot of "He read this book" and "He sounded like this guy" and "He said this thing" speculation going on on the internets and talk radio and Washington Journal, where of course, even sane people gather to say crazy things in the name of the First Amendment.

Reasonable People are sticking to their "Both sides say awful things" centrism, coupled with the "He was just a nut" Just-Sos.

The media, typically, is running with their "It's time for an ethics panel!" theme.

As Doghouse Riley points out--and if you're wasting your time here and haven't been there yet you probably need more than just a link, but at least there's that--pretty much no one is bothering to ask how a nutjob legally got ahold of a gun, because, you know, it's Arizona, and beyond that, pretty much any of us could get a gun with only a little fudging of the facts, if that.

Hacks of all stripes are industriously exploiting this: I just watched* a public talk radio and TV figure hold up his book on CSPAN and point out that he wrote a book about why we should all stop saying such awful things, followed immediately by the panel host reading an email from a random person asking who shares blame for this and who might find this an opportunity to advance their agendas. He's not the only hack by any means, hell, he isn't even the only hack on this segment, but man was the irony stark.

Anti-government types, whether they are anti-government in general or specifically anti-this-Administration, are attempting to distance themselves from it, because, really, the second most prominent feature of this guy is that he is anti-government. (Probably more the former than the latter, but people who are anti-government do tend to oppose more strongly the party that is painted as Big Government.) I can understand the desperation to distance, because the most prominent feature that can be observed about him is that he's fucking crazy. As a fucking crazy myself, and the type of fucking crazy that is usually fingered when this shit happens, a paranoid schizophrenic, admittedly one of my first thoughts was, Oh, shit, I hope this wasn't one of us. It wasn't my first thought, but it was shamefully not long in coming. So if I were a fan of firearms, or an avowed enemy of government, or if I'd ever said anything bad about this particular Congresswoman, or I knew the guy, or I shared a name with the guy--if there was any other point of commonality between me and a killer, I'd be distancing myself on that grounds too.

So I can sympathize with that impulse, it was one of mine too. I don't think it's going to work, though, not for all of us. Even without the "You'd have to be crazy to do something like this" assumption that we all sort of make, it's reasonably clear the guy is mentally ill. Well, a lot of people are, and this is not the same as "not responsible for their own actions", so I'll just let that sit there for a minute without trying to feel either guilty for or persecuted by the mental stability of a killer, because if nothing else, it's an awfully fucking juvenile reaction and lacks class.

More practically, I think the "First Amendment" vs "Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater" argument has some merit. We believe, as a society, that the messages we broadcast have an impact on people. We recognize certain types of people as more susceptible to these influences, children for example, and yes, the mentally ill. So there's even some merit to the media reaction of navel-gazing editorials proclaiming everybody does it and everybody's to blame. Which is not to say that hacks aren't exploiting that to advance their agendas, sell ad space, or distance themselves from past instances of incivility on their own part.

But beyond that, maybe there's something deeper going on. And this is something I think Doghouse was trying to say, so go back and click on that link and read his take if you haven't already. The non-reptile parts of your brain will thank you for it anyway.

So, maybe this is what happens when we start to regard politics as entertainment, as a spectator sport, as something like pro-wrestling with winners and losers and sponsors and spectators, where everybody knows it isn't real and no one is really affected, where sometimes people just get carried away and do crazy things in the stands.

An awful lot of this stuff is described as "throwing red meat to the crowd", or "pumping up the base", and I often get the impression that no one is expected to take it seriously. In fact, I often get the impression that no one *is* taking it seriously. We're told who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, and the outcome of any election may affect who gets more money and bragging rights, but everyone knows politics isn't *real*.

And let me stop now and address the people with the excuses. I don't know if you're listening to me, but maybe there's some version of cosmic osmosis. I do know people read here, and maybe some of them will find a way to make the point to some of you in ways you'll hear:

Politics is real. That's not just something the Meet The Press version of a soccer hooligan believes. It *is* real. Everything in politics affects real people. Three hours of talk radio ranting about "tax and spend welfare state liberals" isn't just a pep rally, and even if it was, that's bad enough. Because getting people to believe we're none of us responsible for or to one another, getting people to vote as though they believe that, that's not good. It doesn't just mean tax breaks for you and the people who contribute to your campaign or buy your books or listen to your radio show or watch your channel. That money has to come from somewhere. And pretty often, especially with so few things to take the money from anymore, it comes from programs that care for the people among us who most need help. Just as an example, it comes from the sorts of programs that provide care and medication and therapy and concrete help to people who are mentally ill.

So even if you want to pretend that the the hateful talk doesn't influence the mentally ill, even if you want to pretend the shooter was a left winger, even if any of your excuses are remotely valid, I'm still laying this at the door of the people who say these things. Because you spend so much time telling us we're not responsible for or to each other, and when people start to believe that, civilization breaks down.

You can't pretend you're being civil, you can't demand the other side be civil, while you're helping to destroy civilization.


* Okay, it was over twelve hours ago now, but beyond the fact that it can take me hours to write a blog comment, much less a post, I thought it might be a good idea to let this sit and reread it later to make sure I was saying what I actually meant to say, to the best of my ability. By now, of course, it's all been said faster and smarter and better by others, but if you're only blogging for an audience rather than saying what you have to say, you're probably in for a rough road on the statistics alone.