Remonstration of a Tragedy

As almost everyone in the United States and beyond likely knows, Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot by Jared Loughner during a public event in Tuscon, Arizona. Much has been made of this incident, as liberal and conservative pundits have placed blame on each other for the occurrence. Conservative pundits have portrayed Loughner as a liberal tool, and Liberal pundits have painted him as a man influenced by rhetoric spouted by those such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. I won't blame either side for the tragedy.

I will blame both sides, however, for politicizing an event that should not be politicized. I will blame them both for acting in such a way to incite the tempers of both reasonable and unreasonable people alike.
Some may say that America has entered an age of unreasonable and irresponsible politics, where the effort to gain and control power, whether it is government power or media power, has become more important than ensuring quality of life or stable relations with other countries. I do agree with that to some extent, though much of what we see and hear as major opinions usually only constitutes a small, extreme minority. It is the failure of our news system that allows for these extreme positions to garner any kind of attention, as news is (and has become) a profit-driven enterprise, where ratings are what matters rather than quality. If a pundit's rhetoric is acerbic and sure to insult others, run it- viewership will increase. If a story, such as if a Florida pastor (whose congregation was constituted of a minuscule amount of people) threatens to burn a Qu'ran to protest Islam even though his church represents the extreme fringe of all civilized debate, run it- not only that, over-analyze it.
American politics, to some or many, has seemingly become a competition in superior morals, whereby one side continually tries to display the faults of the other. I don't disagree.

I usually have to stop myself from writing things such as this, as it makes me question why the hell I'm majoring in political science. It's a strange feeling, hating something so passionately that will, more likely than not, be an inevitable career choice.

So, I suppose my main message here is that focus of the tragedy should be on the man himself rather than any larger influence, unless it is found to be the case. I decided to watch some of Loughner's videos on Youtube, and honestly, they were incoherent and made very little sense. His grammar is terrible and his reasoning is logically flawed, so more likely than not, the man is to blame.

Members of both parties are culpable for so much else, but on this issue, let's all agree that no one is to blame but Loughner.

That's all for now,
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