Cringing in the Aftermath

Today's print column

I received a mild rebuke via e-mail Monday morning.

A reader politely took issue with my use of “hired guns” Sunday to describe lobbyists hired by the City of Cedar Rapids. She's very troubled by Iowa's new, wide-open gun laws and was rattled, like many of us, by Saturday's horrific mass shooting in Arizona.

She acknowledged that I wrote the column before Saturday's tragedy. Still, I made her cringe. Understandable.

I cringed over the weekend, also. I read Twitter tweets and blog posts by folks who were certain, before we even knew the accused assailant's name, that right-wing rhetoric was to blame. I admit it was my first thought, also.

On second thought, we really didn't know why this happened. It might be wise to wait and see.

But society is no longer wired for second thoughts. It's knee-jerks delivered at blazing digital speed. Facts are no match for instant outrage.

Free speech, even stupid, disgraceful free speech, did not kill anyone Saturday. A man with a head filled, apparently, with disjointed, dark conspiracies is accused of pulling the trigger. Yet again, mental illness and a gun yield horror. If our government wants to dig into that, fine with me.

But our government should resist all efforts to legally compel a more cautious brand of political speech. Bills being mulled limiting the use of threatening symbols or words should be shelved.

Clearly, we should stop spewing vindictive garbage at one another, mostly because so much of it is wrong, hyperbolic, and makes it tougher to govern the country. That was true before Saturday. If this tragedy, regardless of its cause, prompts we the people to re-evaluate our politics, good for us. But we don't need legislative overreaction.

We still have voices to challenge vitriol. We have a ballot box. Sharron Angle and her “Second Amendment remedies” did not win a Senate seat. Sarah Palin isn't vice president of “real America” or any America. U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, who accused health reform critics of wanting us to “die quickly,” is gone. U.S. Rep. Steve King, Iowa's rhetorical flamethrower, just talked himself out of chairing a House immigration panel.

We also don't need more barriers between us and our leaders. There's a lot of understandable talk about tighter security and limited access. That would be a mistake. If violence is somehow encouraged by turning public officials into dehumanized caricatures, limiting personal engagement is not the answer.

In Iowa, we have truly remarkable access to our leaders, even would-be presidents. The thought of losing that should make us all cringe.

Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@sourcemedia.net