January 10th, 2011

Dear Sofia,

Yesterday we heard/read about a shooting in Arizona. A 22-year-old activist decided that, instead of participating in the world like a reasonable person does, he would shoot to kill his district's congresswoman. He didn't agree with the way she was doing her job in government. It was very sad that, in addition to that woman who was killed, so were several other people; the shooting took place at an outdoor meeting in a public place. Included in the casualties was a nine-year-old girl. She was just a child and now she has been killed.

The reactions in the "news" media have been typical as of late: they all suppose that the shooter was an "anti-government" / "hateful" / loosely-related-to-the-tea-party person. Forgetting, or deliberately putting out of mind as it were, that "anti-government" is not synonymous with "politically conservative." Nor has the tea party movement ever been linked to violence of any kind. Not even yelling and screaming at a rally, nada. They aren't anti-government, they're anti wasteful, bloated government.

But when citizens exercise their constitutional right to protest against their government running out of control, they're called domestic terrorists these days! While all along people like the Arizona murderer, who was exercising not his rights but his personal inclinations, get somehow validated posthumously because they're, essentially, useful idiots.

Oh, how dare I insinuate that the "news" media ignored the facts of the crime so they could use him as an example of how "dangerous incendiary media figures like Sarah Palin" are inciting people to violence against government figures! By the way, did you know that I didn't quote that line "dangerous...?" I put it in quotes because I assumed someone had written that! So I googled it... and got 102,000 results with "incendiary" and "Sarah Palin" together. The first one came from a so-called writer on the Huffington Post. Go figure, huh?

I am so appalled at the media treatment of this crime. I'm angry and righteously so, for the families of the murdered. To every writer who reported from the anti-government angle, you should be ashamed of yourself.