In the wake of the Arizona shooting, much political hay has been made as person after person has sought to point the finger of blame somewhere. Before the shooter had been identified, commentators and political operatives ran to their keyboards, mics, and cameras to start boldly stating why the tragedy happened. In a relative instant, talking heads and self-appointed pundits let loose a barrage of accusations every bit as careless, misdirected, and irresponsible and Jared Loughner’s bullets.
Specifically, a great to-do has been made of a map, supposedly flush with cross-hairs, released by Sarah Palin’s political action committee. Palin-haters jumped at the opportunity to indict a person they already despise for inciting a shooter to fulfill her supposed secret desire of violence against those with whom she differs politically. Though the Palin camp has credibly demonstrated that the “cross-hairs” in question are, in fact, surveyor’s marks (right at home on a map), there are those who—some out of their own ignorance—refuse to relent because deep in their hearts they want Sarah Palin to be a murderous wretch; it makes her so much more defeat-able.
The counter for this idiocy, thus far, has been to point out that Democrat campaigns and committees have released maps with bulls-eyes on them and that politicians, especially President Obama, have used language referencing knives, guns, fighting, etc. This has served to illustrate something that needs to be said expressly.
There’s a sick irony in that those who want to blame harsh political conversation for the Arizona shooting have done nothing but converse harshly and politically.
And I say this as one not opposed to political debate. It’s politics. It gets rowdy sometimes. That’s the nature of the beast. What I find unfathomable is that those who are most “offended” by the harshness of someone, say Sarah Palin, are the most offensive in their uninformed and malicious finger pointing and false accusations.
The bottom line is that in language, even political language, words mean things, and often they mean more than what they say. I deal with this in the spiritual realm, where I often encounter persons who miss the point of Scripture because they overemphasize the “literal” words on the page. The Bible is literature of varying genres, and as such it should be interpreted as literature. That means that sometimes we take what we see literally. That also means that sometimes we take what we see metaphorically. Our language, including charts or maps, is full of idioms and symbols that must be taken as such—comprehending what they mean rather than what they say. It really isn’t all that hard.
No sane, honest person believes that Sarah Palin wants anyone to take up guns against Congresspersons, even if those map symbols are cross-hairs (if they truly did, they would have moved heaven and earth to secure the other Congresspersons “targeted” by Palin). No sane, honest person believes that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wants anyone to take up bows and arrows against Congresspersons, even though their map had bulls-eyes on it. No sane, honest person believes that Barack Obama wants anyone to bring a gun to a knife fight. All this just as no sane, honest person believes they might step in a poodle when it’s “raining cats and dogs.”
We understand that language is full of idioms. We understand that what people mean often goes far beyond what they say. In short, we’re adults. Let’s start acting like it. The hypocrisy and feigned “shock” by those who can’t wait to say something shocking themselves are not lost on me.
No, folks, a lone and apparently mentally disturbed gunman perpetrated this evil. He bears the responsibility for it and will stand before his God and his government to give account. May God have mercy on his soul.
