This is an awesome responsibility that many who have been elevated to national influence sadly either don't recognize or don't fully respect. The Bible tells us that life and death are in the power of the tongue. Since these words are that powerful, it is up to the speaker or writer of those words to know what kind of weapon he or she is ultimately wielding, otherwise utter chaos can result.
This comes all too tragically into focus after Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot point blank in the head one unassuming Saturday morning.
Her last tweet sits on her twitter page like a sad echo, where she issued an invitation for her constituents to come and speak with her in person in front of a Safeway at a busy Tucson strip mall.
"My 1st Congress on Your Corner starts now. Please stop by to let me know what is on your mind or tweet me later."
Hours later she is fighting for her life in a hospital, in critical condition from a gunshot wound to the head.
A gunman, who may or may not have been acting on his own, allegedly opened fire on the crowd gathered at this otherwise peaceful assembly. Eighteen individuals were shot, including Rep. Giffords. Six of those 18 have died, including a nine year old child and a federal judge named John Roll.
From the Youtube videos, which may or may not have been posted by the same Jared Lee Loughner, one gets the idea that he wasn't mentally stable. Obviously anyone who could brutally attack a crowd of strangers in this way is clearly many cards short of a full deck. But these videos indicate the creator's personal philosophy meandered down a crooked path all his own.
It must frustrate those finger-pointers on either side that he doesn't clearly lean either left or right, but instead seems to rocket off in space somewhere with an ideology that ultimately shows this "alleged" shooter is just a very sick, unbalanced individual.
It would be easy to dismiss this tragic crime as another nutcase seeking infamy through a high-profile assassination, which indeed may be his only true motivation for doing the things that he did.
But a devastating tornado doesn't appear out of the clear blue sky. These types of events (and personalities) feed off of a certain atmosphere.
This happened because the political environment in Arizona and in the United States was primed for it to happen. Over the past couple of years especially the clamoring of voices has grown loader, and the subsequent paranoia has risen to a fever pitch, courtesy of our political landscape.
Jared Loughner wasn't the first to make a violent, politically driven statement. And unless things change he won't be the last... OR the most violent.
Whether through violent imagery or rhetoric, we've come to accept angry or fearful hyperbole as a way to get our political points across, and this has been especially true since President Obama took office.
Let's look for a moment at the political atmosphere of Arizona.
In 2010 Sarah Palin, known for her "don't retreat: RELOAD" advice to her "conservative" counterparts, created a map of 20 Democratic House representatives who voted for the health care bill in those states Republicans "carried" in 2008. These representatives "in enemy territory" were marked with distinct crosshairs as those who needed to be removed from office.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords was one of those 20.
She was also one of those 20 who understood the kinds of consequences that kind of subliminal suggestion could render, especially after her office was vandalized and she received threats for supporting Health Care Reform.
Giffords' own opponent in 2010 offered an event in June to help remove her from office, by "getting on target" and shooting a fully automatic M16.
The late judge John Roll also faced violent death threats after presiding over an immigration case in 2009, saying, "We should kill him. He should be dead."
Today he is.
Even an Arizona pastor made headlines by praying against Obama, hoping for his death so that he could go to hell. The next day one of his parishioners showed up at Obama's town hall event sporting a pistol and a assault rifle.
Thankfully nothing happened. Then.
Other US political extremists like Sharron Angle hinted at some Second Amendment Remedies toward a tyrannical government - i.e. one where she didn't win an election.
Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann made the point she wanted her constituents "armed and dangerous" to fight against cap and trade legislation.
This woman has now landed a post on the Intelligence Committee, and will oversee such critical government agencies like the CIA.
In the wake of 9/11 Ann Coulter's foreign policy was to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
And don't even get me started on Glenn Beck.
Suffice it to say, all these media darlings have traded responsibility for sensationalism... and today our violent climate paved the way for an unhinged individual to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting public. That was the match.
That he had easy access to guns like a semi-automatic 9mm Glock pistol was the powder keg.
For those of us who understood how this subtle brainwashing of our society was creating this atmosphere of violence, we faced many critics today who said we "politicized" this tragic event with our own left-wing hatred.
First of all, this was an assassination attempt on a political figure. This was already "politicized." No matter how these same provocative folks want to "tone things back" and "wait for evidence" now, the actions of the shooter were already political in nature. This wasn't some random crime.
Secondly, what you saw was not some knee-jerk reaction of blind hatred. It was righteous indignation that said enough's enough. It should not, and does not have to, come to this.
We pointed out that words, especially incendiary ones, have power. And we have evidence to back up that claim. The road thus far has already been paved with blood and violence as provocateurs like Palin, Beck, et al feed into this insurrectionist mentality for their own personal gain.
Lest we forget Bill O'Reilly took it upon himself to launch a very public personal crusade against "baby-killer" George Tiller, using very visual, violent language to get the biggest bang for his proverbial buck.
In 2009 Dr. George Tiller was assassinated in his own church by a right-wing fanatic.
Bill O'Reilly or Sarah Palin and their ilk may not have fired the gun, or even *truly* wanted anyone dead, but these powerful words and this dangerous climate of "kill em all and let God sort em out" paranoia definitely contributed to the events of today.
"You're just trying to suppress our speech!"
Like I've said before... freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of responsibility of speech. You can say what you like, but at least have the decency to take responsibility for what you say.
There comes a point in time when you have to decide if what you say is worth the consequences, such as a bloodbath that ended the life of a little girl, to even say it at all.
Instead, Palin and her camp are busy scrubbing their hands clean of any accountability, and tried to excuse away the "bullseyes" on her crosshairs map.
This after she had proudly called them what they were on a self-congratulatory tweet in the wake of the Democrats losing the House.
This action in and of itself proves that Palin realizes, albeit too late, that her words really do have power - if only to be used against her. Which, as usual, seems to be her primary concern. I've seen nothing in her character that indicates she'll take any kind of responsibility for the things she said or the climate she's helped to create.
She and those like her are going to bury their rhetoric under insincere condolences and blank, head in the sand denial of any culpability in creating this dangerous atmosphere.
Instead of taking away from this tragedy that there is something she and others like her could do to prevent it from happening again, they will instead try to continue to fight for their right to say, irresponsibly, anything at all.
That is why it is up to us, to you and me, to take discourse to the next level. To recognize the power of these words and refuse to allow them to sink to these inexcusable depths again.
Don't let what happened today be in vain.
Realize the awesome power of words and treat them, always, with the diligent oversight they deserve.
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