Gabrielle Giffords: Palin's Bullseye

It's all fun and games until a congresswoman gets shot.


Gabrielle Giffords' skull was breached not by a word, but by a bullet. The reason for which the bullet was fired, though, was words, countless words, strewn across our political landscape like hateful, irrational confetti. In the past years our national dialog about politics ceased to be a genuine conversation and degraded into a national shouting match the caliber and competence of which could be outshined by the monosyllabic nonsense uttered at most major sporting events. We've turned politics into a sport, a blood sport, within which each team bunkers within its own ideology and shoots, now literally, at those on "the other side".

It is not hyperbole to maintain that something is wrong, fundamentally wrong, with our culture. In Sharron Angle's 2nd amendment solutions and Sarah Palin's Target Map a problem is obvious and apparent. Jesse Kelly's 'Get On Target for Victory' Event evidenced a hateful, idiotic infection within our political zeitgeist. We've made politics into a war, a conflict, wherein it is commonplace and uneventful to speak of "targeting" one's opponent or "fighting" the other party.

We cannot ignore, nor can we deny the fact of the Tucson shooting. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head. Federal Judge John Roll was killed. A nine-year-old girl, Christina Taylor Greene, is now dead. The reason for which they were shot, the reason for which they are dead, is words. Palin's words. Angle's words. O'Reilly's words. Beck's words. The idea of political violence did not magic itself into the mind of shooter Jared Lee Loughner. It was implanted by those whose words communicate hateful, ill-intentioned violence towards those with whom they disagree.

We have forgotten that we are people, we have forgotten that we are human, and instead we've conceived of ourselves as the passive disembodied observers to a highly-acclaimed cultural B-movie within which pundits and talking heads vie for dominance in a race to King of the Rhetorical Mountain. So when Glenn Beck jokes about poisoning Nancy Palosi, we pay it virtually no mind. It is acceptable, it is commonplace, it is uneventful. It has been that way for years. Television pundits and media personalities can invoke the language of hate, the language of murder, the language of death without fear of retribution because, hey, they're just words; we have freedom of speech. It's simple, harmless, entertainment.

Except that a nine-year-old girl is now fucking dead. So, we probably ought to fix the god damned problem.

It is true that we have a first amendment. It is true that we have a freedom of speech. But sometimes we forget what that amendment and that phrase actually are. We take "freedom of speech" to be an absolute freedom, a permission slip to spout whatever nonsense we like. And we forget that in 1919, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., writing the opinion of a unanimous Supreme Court, put a legal damper on the proverbial stupid:

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

You have the freedom of speech, but you don't get to yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre when there is no fire.

Sharron Angle, Sarah Palin, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and countless others have spent the past years screaming "FIRE!" at the top of their lungs within our crowded political theatre. But there is no fire. Yes, we have a president with whom they disagree. Yes, he enacted particular political steps with which they disagree. But these are hardly world-shattering changes that merit a call to literal arms.

You don't get to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre. Yet, somehow, Angle and Palin were allowed to yell "FIRE!" within our political theatre without incurring any consequence. They could say whatever they liked, and no harm would result. Hey, they're just words. Sharron Angle proposed 2nd Amendment Solutions. Sarah Palin placed a crosshair on the skull of Gabrielle Giffords. These were just words; they were simply political theatre.

Until a shooter found Palin's mark.

The langue used by Palin and Angle today resulted in the death of five human beings. The language used by Palin and Angle placed a hole in the skull of Gabrielle Giffords.

If Angle and Palin are surprised, they are idiots.
If Angle and Palin are happy, they are evil.
And if they deny any link between the shooting and their rhetoric, they are ill-intentioned, malevolent liars.

I'm not in a position to stop the likes of Angle and Palin. I can't do anything to end their campaigns of hate. But there are people in positions of power who understand that it is against the law to scream "FIRE!" when there is no fire. There are persons in power who understand that inciting mass hysteria behooves no one. And there are sure as shit persons in power who understand that as of yesterday, this nonsensical, hateful, violence-inducing language of Angle, Palin, Beck, O'Reilly and a wealth of others ceased to be fun and games.

Because people are now dead.