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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

I Can't Read...

...the stories about the 9 year old girl who was shot in Arizona.  I just can't do it.  It's not for lack of intellectual curiosity or desire to stay informed, as I have both in abundance.  It's because the notion that someone snuffed out the life of a true innocent, a little girl who did nothing other than want to see her Congresswoman, is just horrifying in ways that I find distressing (at best) and nightmarish (at worst).  Being a father will do that to you.

I don't know if this has been floating in my head for a while, but I was talking to a good friend yesterday about hate.  Why do some people engage in hateful things?  Why are some people just knowingly cruel?  Why do something when you know that the main, targeted result will be someone else's pain?  I know, we all need to do difficult things in life, we all need to have difficult conversations with others.  We all cause some degree of pain for others.  That's the "contact sport" element of life.  But that's not what I'm talking about at this moment.  You don't bring a gun to a Congressional meet-n-greet without the notion in your head of causing pain.  It's so very alien.  I simply can't process that kind of feeling.

I'm not going to engage in a "talk radio is responsible" kind of argument.  Not going to do it.  Others, smarter (and dumber) than I can and will do that kind of stuff, and that's okay with me.  All I'll say is this:  maybe it's time to stop throwing the hate bombs, stop the finger pointing, and simply start changing behavior.  Compromise isn't a bad word, but vilifying someone simply because they disagree with you on some matter of political discourse IS BAD.

Enough on this.

Rest in peace Christina Green.

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