Death in Arizona

Last Saturday afternoon I was putting the finishing touches on that week’s blog when the first fragments of a news story came over the Internet. There had been a shooting in an Arizona shopping mall. Several people had been killed – perhaps a US Representative among them.

Over the next several hours, the pieces began to fall in place. The shooter was Jared Loughner, a 22-year-old, described as a loner by the few people who knew him. At an event called "Congress on Your Corner" sponsored by Representative Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords, an ordinary Saturday had brought together ordinary people, most of whom did not know each other. Loughner had indiscriminately wounded 14 of them, including the Congresswoman – his apparent target. But six had been killed incidentally, among them a 9-year-old-girl, who wanted to meet a real politician, and US District Judge John M. Roll, a friend of Giffords, who had just attended Catholic mass and decided on the spur of the moment to stop by. Other than a Giffords aide who was killed, the other killed and wounded had chosen to visit the event and were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yet, within two hours of the shooting, Paul Krugman of the New York Times felt compelled to launch a demagogic conspiracy theory by posting these words on his newspaper website:

“A Democratic Congresswoman has been shot in the head; another dozen were also shot.

“We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous 'crosshairs' list.”

The image of Jared Loughner began to fill in. Here was a paranoid, delusional anti-Semitic racist whose YouTube rants about Adolph Hitler and Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto were entwined with the occult and an obsession with how the government used grammar to control people’s minds. He was an abuser of alcohol and marijuana with reading interests that included Animal Farm, Peter Pan, and To Kill a Mockingbird, and he had a preoccupation with gold standard currency. After a 2007 encounter with Giffords, in which Loughner had asked her a question and was apparently put down by her answer, he had stalked her and threatened her on at least one occasion.

Loughner had been thrown out of a local community college where as a student he frequently disrupted classes. He behaved bizarrely around fellow students, frightening most of them. One of his college classmates was so concerned with his imbalance that she sat by the classroom door so she could make a fast exit if he became erratic and dangerous. A former high school classmate remembers him as a left-wing kook, yet what is now known makes it doubtful that his disordered thoughts were capable of holding a coherent political ideology on the left or right. The videos and writings he left behind reveal a man losing control of his mind.

As the picture of Jared Loughner began to emerge, Krugman could have admitted that he had gotten ahead of the story, and he should have retracted his earlier comments. Instead he published another screed on Sunday under the headline “A Climate of Hate,” in which he wrote this curious logic:

“It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.

“Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness — but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.”

I’ve underlined the word “but” to make this point. In the two statements, Krugman says something that is essentially factual followed by the word “but” and a denial of its relevance. Why then state the fact at all? Why not just come right out and state an unfounded and outrageously slanderous opinion that ties a violent act to a political ideology with which Krugman disagrees?

Christianne Amanpour, whose “This Week” program on ABC is plumbing new depths in the ratings, made a similar scurrilous connection by saying, “…But in fact the suspect in custody, 22 year old Jared Loughner, has no known ties to the tea party or any conservative group.” What if I were to say, “… but in fact Christianne Amanpour is not known to have committed tax fraud.” Aren’t I implying that there is smoke but the fire has yet to be discovered?

Not to miss his 15 minutes of fame, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik postured before the national television cameras with his psychoanalysis of the shooting. Blaming “the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,” Dupnik called Arizona “the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry” – evidently because it believes in enforcing immigration laws. Last spring he got an extra 15 minutes of fame by announcing that he would refuse to enforce the new Arizona immigration law and using flamboyant statements he accused immigration enforcement supporters of being racists.

When interviewing him, Fox reporter Meghyn Kelly forced Dupnik to admit that he had absolutely no evidence as to any connection between the allegedly vitriolic political rhetoric and the shooting. "It's just my opinion period," he had to admit, "I don't have that information yet" when pressed as to whether he had evidence to make the connection."

Krugman, Amanpour, and Dupnik weren’t the only ones trying to make a connection where there wasn’t one. Many of the mainstream media blamed the pre-election rhetoric of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin for inflaming the passions of the kook class. Palin was especially singled out for having put bull’s eyes on a map of targeted districts she wanted to win over to the Republican candidate in those races. Giffords’ was one such district. However, there have been no shootings of the other Democrat candidates who won in districts on Palin’s bull’s eye map.

Not to be outdone when there’s blame to be heaped, Hillary Clinton, who is in the Middle East this week, piled on with this bit of moral equivalence: "We have extremists in our country," Clinton said. "A wonderful and incredibly brave young woman Congress member was just shot by extremists in our country. We have the same kinds of problems [as citizens of Middle Eastern countries]” Was “just shot by extremists”? You mean like more than one?

Apart from the revulsion that a US Secretary of State should be standing up for the values of her country rather than joining its critics, (we already have a President who does a pretty good job of that) Clinton was suggesting to her audience in Dubai that there's no real difference between a lone psychopath who shoots a Congresswoman and others in Tucson, and the scourge of Islamic terrorism around the world. Terror groups are led by perfectly sane leaders who believe they are acting out a religious mandate by killing innocent people (maybe that’s a form of insanity) but otherwise they and their followers are little different than organized criminals. The Tucson shooter, on the other hand, is a nut case who probably should have been institutionalized and on medication – hardly an extremist as Clinton claimed.

Undoubtedly Congress will now spend the next several weeks on hearings for gun control, high capacity ammo clips, a reinstatement of the “Fairness Doctrine,” security for Congress that will rival the President’s, and criminalizing the placement of a bull’s eye on maps of Congressional districts. Not a scintilla of thought will be given to the constitutionality of these proposals. And after they have been milked for all their political content, Congress will hopefully get back to the People’s business, dealing with out of control spending and the economy.

So, what is to be learned from this tragedy and the opéra bouffe parading in the disguise of objective reporting?

The first lesson learned is there is nothing we can learn from this about guns, public security, or politics in general as long as we want to live in a free and democratic society. Lunatics strike without plan or expectation in the same way that tires go flat and lightning strikes. To suggest that anything can be done to prevent setting off a ticking human time bomb in an open society is absurd. Where would we start? Banning Peter Pan? How about Animal Farm? Or maybe we should expunge all historic references to Hitler?

Every time I go out in public, I see what I consider to be weird behavior. If the elimination of weirdness is the way to make society safer, a lot of people are going to be under surveillance – maybe you and me! I’m reminded of a statement by the 19th century utopian reformer, Robert Owen, who said to his business partner, "All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer."

There will always be more than a few Timothy McVeighs, Sirhan Sirhans, and Lee Harvey Oswalds with screwy grievances, and in a democratic society, they can act on those grievances. Of course we could overreact and create another government agency like the “grasp and gape” TSA. But anyone dedicated to cause trouble will find a way to penetrate the level of security that free citizens are willing to tolerate, and I for one am opposed to giving up more of my freedom because of the actions of a few nut cases. We are already bordering on being a police state in some instances.

Moreover, any call to cool "inflammatory" speech is a call to police all speech. In his rambling, incoherent interview after the shooting, Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) called for the reinstatement of the FCC “Fairness Doctrine,” which is little more than the suppression of the free speech rights of a talk radio ideology that has a more popular following than its opponents’. How about we cool down Florida Democrat Alan Grayson who condemned his opponent in the recent election as a “religious fanatic” and called him “Taliban Dan Webster” He also said Republicans wanted old people to die quickly. Is that the kind of “climate of hate” speech that should be regulated? However, there isn’t anyone, least of all in government, whom I would trust with that power. Smart people aren’t taken in by demagogues. And troubled people listen to their own inner voices, not those of others.

Look for the Arizona shooting to resurrect the old canard that guns kill people. This will be followed by calls to restrict gun sales and ammo clip capacity. But as we’ve heard gun rights advocates say ad nauseam for years, guns don’t kill people; people kill people. I’m good with keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Define dangerous.

The second lesson learned is don’t expect to find dots to be connected in this tragedy as so many are trying to do. People are looking for motives in a senseless act of violence. Because it is senseless, it has no cause. Who is to blame for tragedy? Jared Loughner. The fact that others saw troubling things in his behavior does not make them culpable for what he did. Even his parents say they are surprised that he was capable of this unspeakable act.

If not who is to blame for this, then what is to blame? I’ve already addressed this. What is to blame is our culture. It is free, open, and tolerant. The spirit of America doesn’t permit people to be seized or monitored simply because they are creepy.

The third lesson learned: there is evil in this world. I saw one face of it when Loughner’s shave-headed mug shot appeared smirking on my television Monday night. Violence of his type is usually random, not thoughtful. Loughner obviously is a mentally disturbed person who targeted Congresswoman Giffords because she was prominent in his mind. The others who were killed and wounded were tragically there when it happened.

Because I know there is evil in this world and because I believe it can strike randomly and without warning, I am always acutely aware of my surroundings when I am in public, and I’ve encouraged my children and wife to be likewise.

I have had two threats on my life, one anonymously and the other from someone I knew. In the latter case, I complained to the police and FBI and was told they could do nothing until the threat “materialized.”

A number of years ago a man just released from a mental hospital shot up the food court of a local shopping mall, killing one and wounding four. I had just been in that food court.

Because of my experiences and instances like the Arizona shooting I dislike being in crowds. I avoid public gatherings, like political rallies, that might attract an unstable person with a grievance. When I am in a crowd of people, I pay attention to everyone, especially watching facial expressions and body language. If I see a hint that something is out of the ordinary, I get out of that place quickly. If I’m in a restaurant, I sit so I can see who comes in the front door. When I go into an unfamiliar building, I look for ways to get out if necessary.

Because we live in an open society, we should be watchful – always.

There are two books I recommend that will make us all more alert to our surroundings and therefore safer: The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why and The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence.

A little paranoia could save your life.