I don’t get how everyone could get the lessons from this Tucson tragedy so wrong. What this country needs now, more than ever, is more vitriol, not less. Harsh rhetoric is the only way we can learn from this senseless act. We need to ram home to people what really happened here. By raising our voices, and reddening our faces.
If we start to pussy-foot around the issues that led us to this societal place all we’re going to end up with is some smelly feet. And no real change. What we need to do is identify and attack the factors that motivated this young man to act in such a way, and we need to yell at them. Loudly. And point our fingers.
This is a time to turn up the volume, not hit the mute button. This is a time to vituperate, not recuperate. This is the time to take a teachable moment, and shout out the bullet points at the top of our lungs. If we let the actions of one psychopathic young man silence us, what does that say about us as a society? People, this is a time to scream.
The worst thing we could do right now is take our discourse down a notch. These are hostile times and must be met with hostility. For if we remain calm and measured, then we are primed to be caught off-guard. Yet, if we stay angry, we stay alert. So I encourage you all to maintain this acrimonious atmosphere in which we live, so as to not slip up on the icy slope of moderation.
We are not a country that works well without extremes. We refuse to play to the middle, unless it’s soccer. That’s what makes us Americans. We always strive to be the best. And our bombast is our greatest strength towards achieving that goal. If we didn’t hoot or holler at a higher level, we’d just be like everyone else. Composed and reasonable.
It is our contempt for each other that fuels our progress. If we stopped spewing hate at one another and instead held hands and sang Kumbaya, tell me what, exactly would be getting done? Nothing, except for the gayest display since the Canadian Olympics opening ceremony. And I’m not ready to turn my back on our country and become our neighbors to the North.
If we want to prevent future acts of random, real violence amongst our citizens, we need to increase our acts of staged, advertised violence amongst our pundits. We need the televised, political dialogue to be so destructive that it will actually desensitize people and thus render actual acts of insanity obsolete. Let this be a call of action to our political punditry: Please, take it up a level.
For it is up to you, news media, to protect us from these nutcases out there by finding them first and giving them their own shows. These lunatics can’t hide in the shadows anymore. They must be signed to lucrative endorsement contracts. For if we let them fester and go unheard, we’ve now seen what can happen. But if we give them an airing and a listen then they can become stars. And as we all know, celebrities never kill anyone.
The hardest lessons we ever learn are the ones that emerge from a tragedy. The fact that someone has to suffer for our enlightenment is extremely tough to come to grips with. But, it is still more important to learn these lessons, then to let these lives lost go to waste. So, let’s all try to honor the memory of the victims of Tucson, Arizona by vowing to step back and begin anew. With a renewed sense of resentment and bitterness. With a louder, more spirited hatred. And with a prolonged look in the mirror, to make sure we look good for the camera, and are ready to point a powdered finger at someone else to blame.
