On Never Learning

You'd think Sarah Palin, or her speech writers, or various and sundry advisors would learn eventually. You'd think, by now, they'd be the most careful people on the planet, reading and re-reading every statement bearing her name. You'd think that, at the very least, they wouldn't let her use a phrase that refers almost exclusively to anti-Semitic fears about Jews murdering children and using their blood in secret rituals.

You'd be wrong. Here's a quote from Palin's reaction, via Facebook, to the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords:

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

 Let's also see what Wikipedia has to say about the concept of blood libel.

Blood libel (also blood accusation) refers to a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.

In general, the libel alleged something like this: a child, normally a boy who had not yet reached puberty, was kidnapped or sometimes bought and taken to a hidden place (the house of a prominent member of the Jewish community, a synagogue, a cellar, etc.) where he would be kept hidden until the time of his death. Preparations for the sacrifice included the gathering of attendees from near and far and constructing or readying the instruments of torture and execution. 

So according to Palin, journalists and pundits shouldn't kidnap prepubescent boys, hide them in a prominent Jewish leader's cellar, then later torture and execute them. I can't speak for everyone in the media, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're probably safe.

Of course I realize that Palin was speaking idiomatically, and my point isn't that she's a crazy woman who actually believes that the media are child murderers. What I do mean to say is that she is clearly incapable of opening her mouth without cramming her foot deep into it. Did I mention that Gabrielle Giffords is Jewish?

Yep.

I don't want to belabor the point of Palin's culpability for the increasingly violent tone of American political debate. But her use of a phrase that is associated almost exclusively with anti-Jewish bigotry is alarming for someone who, as nearly as we can tell, wants to be the leader of our country. It's not that I think Palin is anti-Semitic. As far as I know, there's no reason to believe that. What I do believe is that she's careless and intellectually disinterested to the point that she ostensibly puts no thought into the words she uses to express herself.

If I still haven't made my point, imagine if in Obama's first speech after the shooting, he had called for a jihad against the virulent tone of political discussion that has arisen in the U.S. This wouldn't necessarily be evidence that he's an Islamic extremist, but it would seriously call his judgment into question. Palin's judgment should be similarly questioned, as should the desirability of such a careless person as president.

We Can All Do Better

Yesterday I wrote that the media would soon come out against those who hold the Tea Party responsible for the shooting of a woman that Sarah Palin implied ought to be shot. I was right. CNN's David Gergen has put out a muddled opinion piece suggesting prayer and soul searching, and oh also maybe we should make some changes, but only if we're careful not to identify the source of the problem.

And now we have Gabrielle Giffords, apparently the first female member of Congress who has been shot, courageously fighting for her life. Six others are dead. This is not a moment to point fingers and make accusations. But it is a time to pray for the victims -- and to pledge to each other that we will struggle for a more civil and decent America.

I wonder how many of those on the right who constantly complain about political correctness run amok will call people like Gergen on their absolute refusal to consider that maybe the Tea Party's violent rhetoric could have contributed to Giffords's shooting. Sure, there were at least two Tea Party ads connecting her removal from office with the use of guns, but we just can't go pointing fingers. Let's all close our eyes and pray instead.

Most people reading this have probably had a job where the behavior of one or two co-workers was causing problems for everyone. All too often, the way bosses deal with this problem is to send an e-mail to everyone, or post a notice in the break-room, identifying the problem and suggesting that we all work harder to resolve it. Everyone reads it, those at whom it's actually directed disregard it, and nothing is fixed. That's Gergen's prescription in this case. We all need to be more "civil and decent", even those of us who never stealthily suggested that murder is just another form of voting.

I'm sure those actually responsible for the problem feel well and truly chastised now.

Video Games and the Tea Party

It's vanishingly rare for video games to be discussed in the media without at least one anti-game crank being given a microphone and allowed to rant about the evils of violent games. Those who don't play games are all too often perfectly comfortable to assert a simple cause and effect relationship between games and real-world acts of violence.

That same media has been bending over backwards for a year and a half now to tell us that the Tea Party movement bears no responsibility whatsoever for any of the acts of violence done in its name. When Joe Stack flew an airplane into an office building, leaving behind an anti-tax screed perfectly in line with the Tea Party platform, we were told that it was laughable to suggest that his Tea Party affiliation played a role in his actions. When Sarah Palin released an ad with gun sights superimposed over swing districts, those who showed concern about the implication were dismissed as cranks. When one of Tea Party candidate Rand Paul's advisors stomped on the head of a woman representing MoveOn.org outside a rally, we were told that it was the act of one person, and not representative of the party as a whole.

Now that congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, one of those "targeted" in Palin's gun sight ad has been shot for real, can we finally admit that the Tea Party has ushered in a culture of violence, in which opposition politicians are not just ideological enemies, but targets for assassination?

Consider the wording of the above ad for a Jesse Kelly campaign event, in which supporters are encouraged to "Get on Target for Victory" [sic], and which closes with a line that would become a call for Giffords's assassination with strategic use of the word "by" and the suffix "-ing". If it's not a stretch to say that Grand Theft Auto has directly caused some players to commit crimes in the real world, surely it's also not a stretch to say that a campaign event at which real people are encouraged to fire real automatic weapons played some role in a real assassination attempt.

Of course nobody will say this, nor should they. Human behavior is incredibly complicated, and suggesting that one-to-one causal relationships, such as committing a crime because you played a video game in which crimes are committed or shooting a congresswoman because a candidate used rhetoric that blurred the lines between voting someone out of office and killing them, is ignorant at best. But even I, as staunch a defender of games as I am, think that consuming nothing but violent games could foster an environment in which the impulse to look for non-violent solutions to problems is weakened.

That's why the Tea Party scares me. Its leaders have risen to prominence by stoking the anger of their constituents. Yes, they have argued for a set of political ideas, but they've also encouraged the imagery of violent revolution, such as in Palin's ad, or her tweet reading "don't retreat, reload", or Sharon Angle's suggestion that Tea Party supporters might need to pursue "Second Amendment remedies" if their candidates fail to be elected. If violent games foster a culture of violence, it is ludicrous to go on saying that the Tea Party doesn't.

Sadly, I don't expect this to happen, no matter what we learn about the political ideas of the thug who shot Gabrielle Giffords. The media, in an attempt to preserve its weird notion of "balance" will say that Tea Party candidates can't be held responsible for the actions of deranged individuals, and the more nuanced issue of the group's wink-nudge encouragement of politically motivated violence will be swept under the rug again.