Using Tragedy as Pretext for Tyranny

     

Political organizations and advocacy groups around the country are curtailing or canceling their planned activities and advertisements in the wake of the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six people at an event in Tucson, Arizona, last Saturday.

Various outlets are reporting that the political atmosphere is inhospitable to such overt political behavior and unseemly in light of the events in Tucson.

For example, in North Dakota, the Iowa-based political action committee American Future Fund, has shelved the series of ads it produced critical of Democratic Senator Kent Conrad. The group indicated that it was taking this tack “out of respect to what’s going on in Arizona.”

A piece published online by Roll Call reports:

Party committees are withholding e-mail campaigns going after Members [of the House of Representatives]. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee postponed political events, fundraisers, and e-mails related to the health care repeal bill that had been slated for a vote this week.

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The National Republican Congressional Committee also is in a holding period, waiting on its work related to the repeal measure until legislative business resumes.

In a similar vein, an article published Monday in the Washington Post presented a tableau intended to lead readers to the conclusion that any political advertising would manifest a deplorable lack of decorum in the post-Tucson world. While the language used by the author is typical of the wink and nod double-speak that is the patois of the mainstream media, the underlying message is clear.

There is no conclusive connection between the motives of the alleged Tucson shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, and the inflamed political discourse that has become the norm in recent years. He may prove to be a deranged loner and nothing more. Still, the terrible events have brought a renewed and healthy focus on the culture of politics in this country. In the short term at least, everyone has pulled back to pause and reflect.

That paragraph is laden with weighted interlinear commentary. The so-called “inflamed political discourse” of which the author writes is hardly new. Hammer and tongs political combat has been commonplace since the birth of our republic. To imply that perhaps the tragedy of Tucson will alter this, or should alter this, is historically naïve and a distasteful appropriation of the deaths of six people in order to add flourish to the author’s journalistic style.

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January 14, 2011