The Hassles of Empathy

The shooting this weekend in Tucson that killed six people and injured at least a dozen more, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, has left me feeling conflicted.

Let me be clear: I’m not conflicted in my reaction to the shooting. I feel sad that people have been injured and killed while simply participating in the political process. I feel scared because I don’t know what this means about our country that participating in a public event with an elected official could result in injury or death.

I also don’t feel conflicted about the vitriol spewed by people in the public eye (I’m thinking of people like Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh, among many, many others these days). Having access to media that delivers one’s words to millions of people carries with it grave responsibility. Words mean something. I would think that people who purport to have such reverence for the Constitution would recognize this and be a little more careful with their own language.

At best, I get 100 views a day on my little blog, and I still feel a huge responsibility to choose my words wisely (given the popularity of the personages I listed above, perhaps this is the reason I only get 100 views a day). I want to choose the words that convey what’s inside me without dismissing other points of view. I hope the people using divisive and violent language are just doing it to gain attention. Because if this is truly what’s inside them, I fear for our country.

The conflict for me comes when I consider the reactions to the tragedy in Tucson.

A little background: I identified myself as a Libertarian in college and into my 20’s. My interest began with a conviction that consensual crimes shouldn’t be crimes at all and gradually mushroomed to include supporting a general hands-off approach by the government. My interest in libertarianism waned when I started to figure out how impractical a lot of the ideas were. I mean, every road a toll road? How does that support liberty? And there was always a little seed of compassion that made it difficult to accept what always seemed like rather mercenary ideas on the part of libertarians. If communities were close and families all loved one another unconditionally, libertarianism could work. But we’re operating in the real world.

While social change is most often begun at a grass roots level, it must be bolstered by the government eventually. I think living in the South and speaking with people who were active in the Civil Rights movement helped me to realize the role that government plays. Our government’s job is not to simply reflect the will of the people. There’s not much difference between that and mob rule. Our government’s job is to protect the rights of the people. The government that libertarians envision is, to my thinking, too hands off to do this effectively.

Back in my college days, I also often quoted Thomas Jefferson’s statement about the tree of liberty needing to be watered by the blood of tyrants and patriots. Revolution, in my mind, seemed inevitable and healthy.

But then I grew up.

Still, though, I can see the other viewpoints about things like gun control. In 2004, members of the Bush Administration (including Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge) floated the idea of postponing the election that November. In my mind, the Patriot Act had overstepped the government’s bounds enough already. The postponement of elections was a make-or-break issue for me. If the election were postponed, I would leave the US. I wasn’t prepared to take up arms, so leaving the country was the option I was prepared to exercise. How could I trust a government that ignored such a basic tenet of the Constitution?

I get the sense that some people feel a similar deep-rooted fear when someone suggests controls on gun ownership. Gun control is their make-or-break issue. From their perspective, the only reason a government would curtail in any way the public’s right to bear arms is if the government wanted to castrate the people in order to impose harsher restrictions without the threat of an armed populace rising up and defending itself. How could they trust a government that ignored such a basic tenet of the Constitution?

I’m still in favor of gun control because I believe it saves lives. I, personally, am willing to accept a waiting period or background check to purchase a weapon if it keeps these weapons out of the hands of people who want to take innocent lives. Gun control isn’t my make-or-break issue, but being able to see it from both sides has me feeling conflicted. (I want to suggest here, though, that if Jared Loughner truly has an untreated mental illness, this shooting is at least as good an argument for health care reform as it is for gun control.)

I also feel conflicted about John McCain’s response to the shooting. He offered a prayer for the souls of those who died and for the recovery of those who were injured. He also described the perpetrator as “a wicked person who has no sense of justice or compassion.” He went on to say:

Whoever did this; whatever their reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country and the human race, and they deserve and will receive the contempt of all decent people and the strongest punishment of the law.

On the one hand, I appreciate the strong stance. I think it’s a good idea to state clearly that this action is not consistent with the values of decent people. But on the other hand, I worry about the shift from compassion and prayers in his statement to the harsh language about contempt and punishment. Sometimes, I’d just like to stick with the compassion piece and ignore the vengeance, at least for a little while. (I’m also not convinced that “punishment” and “justice” are the same thing.)

In a way, the founding of our country was based on compromise between conflicting viewpoints. It wasn’t always pretty, but John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were very close friends despite their wildly divergent views on the role of government. If we’re going to invoke the names of the founders of our country, why don’t we bring this lesson into the present, too?