A few thoughts on the unpleasantness in Tuscon.
Libel
First of all, the initial attempts to draw a connection between conservative commentators and politicians and the shooting were not only ridiculous, but, in hindsight, transparently disingenuous. Not only was there no such connection, there was no way for those attempting to make one to know whether one existed or not. The only reasons they could have claimed, implied, or speculated that one did exist were that they were committed to the notion that such a connection must exist, or that they found it politically useful to attempt to persuade others of that notion. Pathetic and wicked.
Hypocrisy
Secondly, it’s pretty silly for the left to condemn commentary from the right on the basis that it could be an incitement to violence; the left spent almost the whole of the Bush 43 presidency attacking in the strongest possible language any prominent conservative who came into view. There’s a reason that the right coined the phrase “Bush Derangement Syndrome” (a/k/a “Palin Derangement Syndrone”) to describe the behavior of some on the left. Lefty commentary even ran to widely-non-condemned assassination fantasies.
Civility
Thirdly, the left’s hue and cry seems to have moved on from “conservatives have blood on their hands” to “we must move towards a new civility and bipartisan comity”. Now, I realize that liberals think conservatives are stupid, but do they really think that we’re this stupid? You don’t have to be Mr. Memory to cast your mind back to the misty past of 3 weeks ago, when the rule was maximal liberalism, party-line votes, damn-the-voters-and-full-speed-ahead on anything the outsized Democrat majority government could ram through in its dying days. Now that Democrat majorities have been reduced in the Senate and obliterated in the House, conservatives are supposed to play nice? That’s pretty rich from the party of “I won” (circa 2009).
Freedom
Finally, I see that the usual suspects are once again attempting to use a high-profile crime to restrict the freedom of law-abiding citizens in respect to firearms. Ever notice how the problem (as diagnosed by the governing class) is always too much freedom, too little government? FWIW, despite scary-talk about the use of a “semi-automatic weapon” in the shooting, the pistol used was in no important respect much advanced from the Colt M1911, the centenary of which we now approach.
It’s an imperfect world, and bad people will do bad things. The best reaction to this eternal state of affairs is to create a society in which the individual can protect himself from bad people — especially the bad people with government jobs, who have, historically, been the greatest dangers to their countrymen, whether through economic idiocy or outright murder. The best protections are afforded by firearms, property rights, and strict constitutional limits on the scope of government power.
