I think that this is an opportunity to examine our 'civility'. Yes, this guy who did violence was clearly a nut case, but it is to our credit that we Americans also are searching our souls.
I am heartened that so many of us are taking the high road. Hard to put into this equation the remarks of Rush Limbaugh, but still..Sarah Palin is not to blame. An ordinary person could make a bad judgment, and she did. So have all of us. We need to get over the finger pointing and the smarmy blaming and lies we saw so much of in the mid term elections.
We need to hug more and be less judgmental and stop characterizing what we don't like with a word or slogan. "Job killing!", "He's a jerk!" "She's an idiot!" This stuff is neither kind nor helpful in our private or public dialog. It's respectful to all to try and say what we really mean.
I am accused of being a Pollyanna and a Sally Sunshine, but so be it. And wouldn't it be grand if this moment in our time could really make a difference, though at such a price?
That little nine year old girl- she could have been my grandchild-was the iconic thing for me. How can one bear it? It's devastating.
We are a people who believe in the rule of law. Our Constitution is revered. We understand that our nature is still pretty raw and territorial, but in no way do we ever want our country to devolve into chaos as so many others around the world do. It's a hard way to go and from time to time in our history we have had to do a lot of soul searching, but we have always some how made it work.
As a people we are so crabby and disparate. This is our strength, and also the hardest thing about this amazing country. I want to live forever to see how it all turns out.
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