Words and Weapons

My son came home from school today and wanted to have a conversation with me about the events of this weekend in Tucson, AZ.  Obviously, we both agreed that it was reprehensible.   I said it has disturbed me a great deal.  One of our leaders was shot, point blank, in the back of the head, while doing what we asked of her to do.  It was an attempted assassination that caused (among others) a nine year-old girl to part forever from her parents.  One of our leaders lost most of her God-given liberties because someone felt that his liberty to judge her mattered more.  We hear of tragedy similar to this every day.  And murders occur across this land frequently.  Somehow, for me, the context of this event was one that transcended the norm.  It made me feel uncomfortable – almost like I was waiting for something bad to happen or that I was somehow a part of why it could since I am a frequent participant in the national conversation.

I told my son that I was afraid of where our country is, and where it is going.  It seems we are nothing but apart.  We are Left or we are Right, we are black or white, we are patriots or enemies.  We are right, or we are wrong.  There is no middle ground, no compromise, no peaceful discourse.  I told him that this time, right now, is an important time for him to be aware of what is happening around him.  It is time for him to understand where his views are formed.  His grandfathers’ generation lived through the Kent State Shootings, Vietnam and the Civil Rights movements.  My grandfather fought in WWII, and my fathers’ grandfather in WWI.   They all lived through times that shaped their views of the world and of America.  This young man has also shaped his views.  Unfortunately, he was not able to shape them through war and through protest.  He shaped them through old books referenced by new media, new politicians.  He has read that the Tree of Liberty is refreshed by the blood of patriots, that a revolution from time to time isn’t a bad thing.  He has heard that if “they bring a knife to the fight; we are going to bring a gun”.  He has seen targets over maps, and bulls eye images over political faces.

I simply said to him that “words matter”, and words that are said over and over and over, matter a lot because they become the truth to those without a truth of his or her own.

He kept talking (and I was proud) and asked if I heard what the “man who shot those people” said about government and if I agreed with it.  For two reasons, I had no answer.  First, who could agree with anything that this unstable person said or did?  Second, I had no idea what he said.  I read a lot of what he wrote and quite honestly find my 19 month old son rambles with more context that him.  But I checked.  I read a little more and found his quote, and here it is:

                “What’s government if words don’t have meaning?”

I have to say, this is a good one to remember.  Without words, it is nothing.  In fact, words are all we have.  4,400 of them exist in the US Constitution, 1,436 in the Bill of Rights, and another 1,337 in the Declaration of Independence.  We are a country built on words that lead to actions; words that have led to consequences.  Words matter.  They just do.  Without those particular words, we are….who knows…but we aren’t America.

Consider the uproar of the Left about the venomous rhetoric we have all been subject to over the last 24 months, an uproar met with a resounding disgust by the Right as an “attack” on conservatives.  Somehow, it is unacceptable to recognize that the vitriolic atmosphere in the politisphere may have an impact on the reactions and actions of our citizenry.  May I remind you of the real Revolution (not the faux Glenn Beckian revolution) that was fought by angry citizens, or the Civil War fought on the backs of a country listening to its government cite words of war.  Unfortunately, the words of concern over our communications have been taken as attacks.  Apparently, according to Bill O’Reilly, it is reprehensible to even consider the hatred in our language has any consequences.  Someone explain to me the other meanings of “second amendment remedies (Sharon Angle)” or “if ballots don’t work, we’ll use bullets (Joyce Kaufman)”.  I don’t know of any other interpretation than: if we don’t get our way, we will use guns to get it done.  Well, this particular congress member won the ballot but subsequently was made to lose to a bullet.  Read that again, it should make you feel uncomfortable.  This congress member won at the ballot, but subsequently lost to a bullet.  I wonder where the shooter got the idea to rant about politics, find such hate in the political spectrum, isolate a particular politician that did not provide him the answers he wanted, plan to meet that politician again, and kill her.  I wonder if he just had some misfiring synapsis in his head that made him write "My Assassination" and "Giffords" (her name) on an envelope.  I hope those people who wished for such solutions find themselves remorseful and introspective about yesterdays’ events.  I don’t find those people responsible for anything that occurred in AZ, after all they did not pull the trigger or load the guns.  But generally, their words mattered.  The context of those words matters.  The message we send over and over again to our citizenry, and who sends that message, matters.  The left has many examples of the same approach to discourse.  It’s all wrong.  It’s all disgusting.  Was the shooter nuts? Hell yes.  But it’s the nuts amongst us that hear the worst in the message. 

If words do not matter, if a reminder of a particular subject or set of principles, do not matter; then what was the purpose of the reading those 4,400 word in the United States Constitution in front of Congress on January 6, 2011?  I imagine it was because a number of us believe that the words used by this government matter – be it a sacred document of which our nation was borne, or words by elected officials and media pundits about how one side is destroying that document and how close we are to rising up and revolting.

His next question was wonderful: “why is everyone saying their words don’t matter, that it’s just a crazy guy with a gun?”  I said they were half correct, he was crazy.  But he was the one without his own truth.  Those words, those crazy, crazy words, mattered to him a lot.  He was ready to kill for those words.  He was ready to kill those about whom those words were spoken.  He was ready to kill to make sure that someone could never speak any words again.  Ever.  Apparently, words were the weapons that threatened him, so he chose a weapon of his own.