In the aftermath of yesterday's tragic shooting rampage in Arizona, many in the media and politics have attempted to blame the incident on heated tea party rhetoric, specifically Sarah Palin, who several months ago posted this map of Congressional districts in the "cross hairs," including that of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. They claim that even if no harm is intended, fiery language has inspired mentally unstable individuals to take drastic actions such as we saw yesterday.
First of all, the notion that the tea party, Sarah Palin, or any other mainstream commentator had a role in this specific incident ought to be summarily dismissed. As has been widely reported, the suspect has listed as among his favorite books The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kempf, hardly tea party classics. His You Tube profile features a video of a flag burning. Clearly this individual is not a conservative. He's a psychopath. Those who are trying to pin this event on the conservative movement are deceiving the American people and ought to be ashamed of themselves for trying to turn a national tragedy into a divisive political issue.
That said, it raises a larger question which ought to be addressed. The primary message of those who are trying to make an issue out of this is that heated rhetoric leads to events such as this. I'm not so sure that is the case, and even if it is, classifying strong language as "dangerous" language is dangerous in of itself. Allow me to explain.
Advocates of this position claim to argue not for silencing beliefs but instead for them to be "toned down." The problem is that this misses the full scope of what an opinion is. An opinion isn't just your view on something but how strongly you believe it. For example, lets consider two opinions one might have. The first is that steak is the best dinner choice. The second is that breaking into his house and raping his wife and children is wrong.
Assuming this individual is normal, the second opinion will be a whole lot more important than the first. He will be much more upset if the stranger violates his family than if he doesn't get his steak. If he were arguing for these respective beliefs, you would expect him to use much stronger language when expressing his view on the second. Yet those who believe that all rhetoric ought to be 'toned down' miss this entirely. They assume that opinions are a just a preference among a number of choices without considering the strength of the preference.
To ask individuals to not express their opinions strongly is to deny them the opportunity to fully express their mind. To be clear, I don't agree with certain Tea Party members who claim that Obama is a socialist or that he is destroying the country or whatever the complaint of the day may be. But assuming they actually hold such beliefs, I can't ask them not to say it or to transform "Barack Obama is a socialist" into "I disagree with President Obama's desire to raise the marginal income tax on the wealthiest Americans and use that money for social programs." Or for my friends on the far left, I can't ask you to change, "George Bush is a war criminal" into "It is possible that some of President Bush's policies with respect to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may not fully comply with various international statutes and UN Declarations." If you hold that belief so strongly, it is your right to express it strongly. I can disagree with it, and disagree with how strongly you present it, but I can't force you not to say it.
To be clear, I don't believe that individuals bear no responsibility for how others react to their statements. Statements such as "Members of congress should be shot down" or "George Bush should die" are clearly inappropriate and could result in a reasonable person hearing them and believing violence is the right thing to do. However, that must be the standard: a reasonable person. Some seem to be suggesting that any speech that might provoke an unreasonable person ought to be frowned upon. This is flawed on its face: by definition, it is impossible to predict the behavior of a person who is irrational. So the only solution would be to "tone down" our rhetoric into a sea of monotony, where individuals are not free to express their strong opinions in a way that lets others understand how deeply they feel them.
The events of yesterday were tragic and certainly should inspire some self reflection. But it would be even more tragic if this event forced Americans to suppress their truly held opinions.
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