Personal Responsibility

Why are Democrats, liberals, and progressives claiming that heated political rhetoric was a factor in the massacre in Tucson on Saturday, January 8, 2011? Why are they using the attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords (a fiscal conservative), the killing of six other people, and the wounding of a dozen others to smear conservatives? Why do they choose to place the blame for this uncivil behavior on the Tea Partiers, Sarah Palin, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc. rather than the actual shooter?

I believe that the answer to all these questions hides behind an attempt to stifle free speech and to take away the American right to bear arms. Democrats know that they lost the 2010 election because of free speech - the right given to all Americans to share their ideas and beliefs. This is the reason why the Left wants to control the radio airways, the Internet, the media, etc. They want Americans to receive only the information given out by them. The Left also wants to take away the right to bear arms, and this massacre is a "crisis" that they cannot allow to go to waste.

Democrats have tried to make conservatives responsible for the results of deranged minds for many years. Thanks to Patrick J. Buchanan ("The left's political dirt ball," Jan. 11, 2011) for the following historic reminders.

Even though the era of FDR brought a lot of bad ideas into our government, responsibility for personal behavior was still in tact. For example, ponder the experience of Giuseppe Zangara when he attempted to assassinate FDR and ended up wounding four other people on February 15, 1933, in Miami. The blame for the attempt was not placed on Republicans because it followed a rough election, but it was placed securely upon Zangara and no one else. Zangara was sentenced to 80 years in prison after pleading guilty to the attack, but he was retried for murder after Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago died from his wounds. Zangara was sentenced to die in the electric chair and did so on March 20, 1933 - a little over a month after the attack.

Shifting the blame from the person or people actually responsible for attacks to other people and organizations started about the time that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Liberals charged conservatives for Kennedy's murder because they created the "atmosphere" for an assassination to take place. Even though Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist who had defected from Russia, did the actual shooting, the moral responsibility for the act was heaped upon the city of Dallas and the rising conservative movement.

President Bill Clinton employed the same tactic when he blamed right-wing talk radio for the Oklahoma City bombing. According to Clinton, anti-government rhetoric caused Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Murrah Building. Even though McVeigh's actions caused the explosion that killed 168 people, conservatives were blamed for creating the "atmosphere."

Now we have another deranged individual who apparently acted on his own to perform a heinous act. Even though there is no evidence that Jared Loughner even listened to talk radio or other conservatives, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat, declared after the attack: "I'd just like to say that when you look at unbalanced people, how they are - how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths, about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous." The direction for these comments was later placed directly on talk radio and Fox News.

We all know that heated political rhetoric comes from both conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. Sarah Palin did put a "target" on numerous Democrats (including Giffords) during the election, but Barack Obama made the statement, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we will bring a gun" and called on Hispanics to help him "punish our enemies."

I believe that both Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, need to be more aware of the amount of incivility in our political discourse and better control the vitriol. I strongly believe that we can disagree with each other without becoming disagreeable and hateful. We all need to act like adults and follow the example of the Founders as we work out our differences to make a better and stronger America. Our Founders shared ideas without the need to destroy other people politically, and we can do the same.

I also believe that we need to return to the day of personal responsibility. Each human being, specifically each American, has agency, the freedom and ability to make our own decisions. We are free to make whatever choice we desire, but we are not free to choose the consequences of our choice. Choice and accountability go together. We cannot have one without the other.

It is becoming more and more apparent that we cannot depend upon our leaders to bring more responsibility into the political process. I believe that positive changes will come into our country only as our citizens insist upon them. My faith in the American people was strengthened when I read the results of a CBS poll released on Tuesday, January 11, 2011. The results of the poll show that "the majority of Americans reject the view that heated rhetoric was a factor in the weekend shooting…." The poll showed that "57 percent of respondents said the harsh political tone had nothing to do with the shooting….."

I believe that Americans know that the political rhetoric is too heated and should be cooled down. I also believe that Americans understand that moral responsibility for bad behavior should be put on the person or people who performed the act. I hope that all of us will bring more morality to our political discussions and insist that personal responsibility be applied where it belongs.