My American followers might get a kick out of this one, or not

from the Op/Ed pages of today's paper

There was also this under the title A Party of One.

Immediately after the shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and six others Saturday outside a Tucson supermarket, President Barack Obama said that "A senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society."

Neither does the ironic knee-jerk ideological finger-pointing that was ignited in the aftermath, with the Tea Party targeted for instant condemnation, even though there was never any indication that the alleged killer, Jared Loughner, had a connection to the political movement, or that anyone in the party knew who he was.

The tragedy that unfolded in Tucson was not about partisanship or ideology, and should not be draped in a political mantle of any colour or stripe. It was about the alleged actions of a 22-year-old individual, who, judging from information about his thought patterns and background, gleaned from his social media pages, a former classmate and other sources, appears to be mentally unstable, and who was able to easily acquire a gun. Loughner ranted about mind control and brainwashing, and talked of inventing a new American currency. His politics are indiscernible from his reading material; he expressed admiration for tracts as diverse as the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, George Orwell's writings, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

The simple fact is that any society is going to contain its share of mentally unhinged individuals, and in the U.S., guns are readily accessible, and Loughner purchased one legally.

Gifford herself told The Associated Press in October that the public meetings she holds sometimes attract, "You know, the crazies on all sides, the people who come out, the planet Earth people."

That said, however, some of the incendiary political rhetoric that's been tossed out recently is disturbing.

On her Facebook page, when she listed 20 Democrats to defeat for their views on reforming health care (Giffords was among them), Sarah Palin shamefully marked their districts on a map with the crosshairs of a gun. Several have since received death threats, and suffered vandalism to their homes and offices. Last March, Palin used gun terminology when she urged "common sense conservatives and lovers of America: don't retreat, instead reload."

Normal people realize that Palin is not inciting violence, but merely using colourful language to get her point across. Nor, in a democracy, would anyone want to quash her free-speech right to do so. Still, in the wake of Saturday's shooting -- Palin was among the first to express her condolences to the families of Giffords and the other victims -- politicians should be giving sober second thought to toning down their rhetoric to the level of more civil discourse.

Aberrant, criminal behaviour knows no party lines and crosses the spectrum of ideology without stopping to favour one side or the other, left or right, blue state or red state, Republican, Democrat, or Tea Partier, for that matter. If there is any party that should be held responsible for the shootings, it is a party of one -- the shooter himself.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/party/4089792/story.html#ixzz1AkVvaGGT
 
 
My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of all involved.