As the numbness wears off and we see the families and friends of the victims and the pictures of the dead, it becomes more apparent to me just how sad this tragedy is. The little girl's parents and brother were interviewed on TV. How they kept their composure, I don't know. But having lived through many sudden losses I can only think they are still reeling from their sudden loss.
Obama gave a speech at the memorial yesterday. I was impressed by the way he took the losses and used them to send the message we need to stop the infighting. Palin is an easy target now. Her willingness in the recent past to be portrayed as a gun-toting mama, the rifle cross-hairs on democrats on her website, Gabby Gifford included, and her seemingly self-focused video she published prior to the memorial, all made her the poster child for how not to get along with your neighbor. To his credit, Obama stayed as far away from blaming her as he could.
But she is such an integral part of the recent movement to take up arms against your neighbor it is doubtful many didn't think of her when Obama told us to see the world in the eyes of Christina Green, the 9 year-old killed in the shooting. In my eyes they became polar opposites.
But the message that we all need to see the world through the eyes of the child seemed so appropriate, especially in the wake of yet another horrific event.
Social pressure, resistance to change, demands of conformity and the consequences of that failure all put an enormous pressure on those who don't fit the neat and orderly world of the small minded and often ruthless conformist. The social resistance to allow people to be themselves, to encourage diversity, creates a pressure cooker within society. Eventually something gives.
I'm not saying this pushed Loughner (the Tuscon assailant) to commit this crime but it seems to have at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois and other incidents of mass killings. Yet the stalwart defenders of these rigid rules of conformity, the ones who might encourage their kid to mock the geek, the gay or the otherwise different, stand firm in their right to demand the world run the way they want.
They decry "special" rights yet say they deserve rights others don't. Their ideals are the right way, the only way to live life. And when they campaign door to door to demonize the abortion clinic with pamphlets depicting pictures of bloodied babies and faces of the neighbors who work there, they deny any responsibility when the doctor is killed in cold blood or when the people working at the clinic no longer feel safe in the neighborhood they raised their children in.
"It's just one deranged person who went off the edge," they say. "We had nothing to do with it." Sure.
What they refuse to accept is when they stir up people's emotions there's a pyramid effect. The stable people at the bottom get worked up and they in turn stir the somewhat less stable people above them and up it goes. If the fuel to the emotional fire continues to be added, eventually the very unstable people at the top crack and something bad happens.
What they steadfastly refuse to accept or believe is how much better this world would be if we preached acceptance over conformity, that being different is okay.
Imagine our politicians, the news media, et al getting together and all sending the message of acceptance. Then maybe we could focus on important things rather than fighting amongst ourselves and ruining the lives of those caught in the crossfire.
