Violence

I am looking for answers to the Whys of the Gabby Giffords assassination attempt this morning, as many of us are. I want to know why this woman's life was ruined, why our Democracy could have been threatened in this way, and why innocent people - including a federal judge and a small child - were killed and injured.

I am thinking about hateful and violent rhetoric. I am thinking about the easy availability of ridiculous firearms in the United States, especially in Arizona. I am thinking of our collective inability to recognize and address mental illness and instability. I am thinking of our need to increase security for our Congresspersons. All of these factors undoubtedly played a part in our newest national tragedy.

The factor that most haunts me this morning, though, is that violence is our society's answer to violence. In our collective unconsciousness (or consciousness, really, I suppose), we see someone get hurt and we want to answer by hurting the hurter. Whether it's by invading a country which we believe has produced terrorists, whether it's with what some call "preemptive war", or whether it's by executing a convicted murderer, we seek retribution. In doing so, we condone violence as the answer to violence.

There's a fine line here - we have the right, after all, to defend ourselves. If a nation attacks us, as Japan attacked our territory in 1941, then of course we have the right to prevent further attacks. While some liberal colleagues may disagree with me, I believe we had a right to enter Afghanistan in 2001 and root out terrorist enclaves (that's not what we actually did, but that's a whole other blog entry). We certainly have a right to protect ourselves against known criminals, but we can do so by separating them from society. In extreme cases, it probably makes sense to lock people up and throw away the key. But while retribution is certainly a natural human response, retribution is also a primitive response - one that can do more harm than good and can be tempered with a society's decision that retribution is an unacceptable answer to violence.

I am not a pacifist. I do not believe all problems can be solved without shedding blood, although I wish to G-d every day they could be. I believe, however, that most violence does not require more violence. So this morning, while I am thinking that vitriol does play a part in our nation's relatively violent temperament, I am more convinced that it's the violence itself that begets violence. It's not violent video games or violent song lyrics or violent movies that hurt us - those are just stories. I am wondering if it is the real live violence that we, as a nation, condone through our actions that makes us a violent society.