When Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was setting out her meet-and-greet table in Tucson on the morning of Jan. 8, ready to hold a “Congress on Your Corner” event, she was practicing her constitutionally protected First Amendment right of people “peaceably to assemble.”
When a 22-year old mentally disturbed man approached her with a firearm at his side and a maximized clip of ammunition at the ready, he was practicing his constitutionally protected Second Amendment right to bear arms.
When, in the weeks and months leading up to the Tucson massacre, angry – and often anonymous – Internet users posted hate-filled messages littered with not-so-subtle threats against lawmakers they disagree with, they were practicing their constitutionally protected First Amendment rights to free speech.
For 99.9 percent of the time, these sometimes countermanding constitutional principles are held in a fragile state of balance – sometimes working together, sometimes in parallel.
In Tucson, that balance was tragically and horrifyingly upended. When constitutional rights clash, most of the time they end up in the legal system to be adjudicated.
Then, there’s Tucson.
Some have been quick to label the incident as “isolated.” That, to us, has a wispy veneer of acceptance that we are not ready to accept.
Does anyone recall that only a few weeks ago, a deranged man entered a public school board meeting in Florida and opened fire on elected officials?
The events that took place in Tucson hit home for a member of the Times-Mirror editorial staff, who has worked many such down-home, constituent-focused congressional events before while serving on Capitol Hill in the 1990s, yet does not recall the level of vitriol then in the body politic as it has manifested itself a decade later in today’s political environment.
The refreshingly candid Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said this weekend that he had “never seen the mood of the country as bad as I’ve seen it this past year.”
We agree.
That may be due to many factors. Such as the arrival of heated and threatening rhetoric that often crosses the line from the likes of MoveOn.org, the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. It may also be due to the explosion of speech on a new medium, called the Internet, which was still in its infancy a bit more than a decade ago.
Ironically, a year ago, the Times-Mirror opined about the state of political rhetoric in America in an editorial that carried the headline, “More talking. Less balking. Please.” While that position still seems right today, it also seems morbidly outdated given last week’s events.
Already, partisan finger pointing is at play across the airwaves and online. The lessons – while still early – of the Tucson massacre have clearly not been learned. And the investigation into the motive of the 22-year-old assailant is still pending. That’s important to keep in mind.
Hate has always been a sinister subterfuge of American politics, as was the case with President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, or that of Sen. Robert Kennedy and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.
More recently, there was the Oklahoma City bombing of a federal building in 1995.
But it is still – objectively speaking – hard to recall a period of such anger and vitriol as characterizes today’s America. It has become a noxious and toxic miasma of vituperation and vengeance. It has been allowed to carry on for too long. It has become acceptable in 2010, where it would be characterized as abominable in 1980.
Would someone like Ronald Reagan have ever allowed such a climate? We think not.
With the help of a massive, untethered 24/7 radio and TV talk show market, and the unbridled expanse of the Internet medium, political discourse has gone from “fully charged” to radioactive - dangerously so.
When Sarah Palin’s campaign organization places cross hair targets over a U.S. map with congressional incumbents she wants to “remove from office,” there’s a spine-chilling subconscious message that is sent to the minds of viewers. Most of us take it for what it is. But for those who cannot process rhetoric from reality, common sense from the nonsensical, its effects can be deadly.
Additionally, Political Wire reported that the Palin- and Tea Party-backed opponent of Giffords last fall held a campaign event where supporters were invited to attend and join the candidate in shooting rounds from a M-16 assault rifle, while imploring them to “take out” Giffords from office. That’s an absolute line crosser for us.
Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, labels this as “eliminationist rhetoric.”
Free speech advocates will rear-up and state – arguably – that the First Amendment is not the assailant here. Yet our congressman, Frank Wolf, told the Times-Mirror just after the Tucson event that “words have consequences, clearly.”
Yes they do. Tragically and ironically, it’s the same line that was uttered by Congresswoman Giffords in March 2009 in a TV interview when she discussed the use of sniper-rifle cross hairs placed over her district on Palin’s map of targeted congressional incumbents.
There are limits to free speech. Hate speech is a crime in many instances. A citizen commits a federal crime if they walk into a movie theater and shout “Fire!” when there is none. Likewise, it’s a federal offense to call or e-mail a bomb threat against a public building.
Beyond timid acceptance of Tucson as yet another “isolated incident,” there are pragmatic and timely measures our federal officials can take to mitigate such events in the future.
One step may be to extend to members of Congress the federal law criminalizing threats to the president, as a deterrent.
Another idea, from the Times-Mirror, would address the permeation of concealed weapons that are easy to get in states like Arizona, even for mentally-incapacitated individuals like Jared Loughner, who did not require a special permit to get his gun.
Why not create a security “bubble” around members of Congress and federal judges that would make it a federal offense to knowingly carry a concealed weapon within 50 yards of a federal lawmaker or judge? If anything, it sends a message. If nothing more, by purpose or accident, it may save a life.
Meanwhile, we pray for the life of Congresswoman Giffords and the other victims fighting for theirs in a hospital in Tucson.
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