When I lived in Knoxville we had the regular meetings of the Knoxville Area Peace Coalition at the Unitarian Universalist Church that was the site of a recent shooting. Hearing the pastor speak at a peace rally and meeting some of the members back then are why I decided to attend several Unitarian services. I keep thinking how strange it is that he brought his shotgun to kill in a place that truly valued peace.
News reports say the shooter wrote a letter stating he planned the attack because he hates liberals and blames them for his problems. I'm thinking a lot of things about this but I want to wait a few days for more news to come out before I write much.
I keep thinking about the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh was a devotee of Ronald Reagan and he listened to the constant drumbeat of conservatives who demonized government bureaucrats and big government as the source of all problems in the world. Not many pointed this out but I noticed elected Republicans like Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich tone down their anti-bureaucrat rhetoric after the bombing. Every press conference or public statement they made after the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress had a complaint about "big government." After the bombing they at least had the decency to tone things down and stop turning civil servants into the enemy.
Now the hate-radio movement blames liberals for all the world's problems and, just like Tim McVeigh, the Knoxville shooter took them seriously. I wonder if the hate mongers on conservative radio will take two seconds to think about the consequences of their drumbeat of anger, conspiracy theories, and hate they direct at liberals? Will they think about toning it down?
Do they at least have the decency that Dole and Gingrich had to think about the environment they create with their inflammatory rhetoric? I doubt it. They're too busy pointing the finger of blame and hate at others to spend one second thinking about their own actions. You can't have an entire movement based on anger, fear, hate, and scapegoating others without these things happening.