If I poop in the creek upstream from your house, and your family comes down with typhoid, it doesn't require a DNA match to prove that pooping in the creek is a bad idea which exposes others to unnecessary risk.
"But I (he/she) have a constitutional right to poop in the creek," you protest. You may well be right. You also bear the moral responsibility for those who are harmed by your exercise of that right, even if you had no specific intent to harm them.
The moral: we bear some of the stain of the shit we spread.
This comment - in a blog post about Sarah Palin and Jared Loughner, is probably the best analogy I've seen for why toxic political talk is toxic. And why the events last Saturday in Tucson illustrate the need for a change of heart in America.
There are several standard arguments I've heard from those who are unwilling to accept responsibility for their impact on our toxic culture.
- "This kid is clearly insane, and we can't be held responsible for insane people's actions."
- "Using violent rhetoric is just part of the game of political campaigns."
- "This is an isolated incident, totally unrelated to what right-wing media personalities say on the air."
All of these arguments miss the point, in ways that the "Poop in the Creek" analogy illustrates. Of course, there is no direct correlation or causation between what Rush or Beck or Palin or Hannity or O'Reilly or Savage or Angle or West or anyone says, and what Jared Loughner did. There are, however, important ideological connections between those who say, "Government is the problem," or, "Government is the enemy," and the anger of Loughner toward what he perceived as government attempts at mind-control. When you stop believing that government of, by, and for the people is a realistic possibility, it's a natural response to board up the doors and stockpile ammunition.
Those most responsible for saying, "Government is not the solution. Government is the enemy," are currently the Tea Party. But the Tea Party is certainly not the first group to decry the lack of representative government or the problems with our corporate-sponsored media. Populist outrage toward Washington DC exists on both the left and the right. A government that is willing to pass massive deficit-increasing tax cuts for those with the highest incomes, when 60% of Americans support raising taxes on the wealthy, is a government that is not doing the will of the people. A government that fights for the privacy of its own spies but violates the Fourth Amendment with warrantless wiretaps and electronic surveillance is not doing what it is supposed to do. A government that continues to put our nation into debt slavery to foreign powers is a government that is not doing the will of a society that wants to be free. Groups like Public Citizen, Common Cause, and others have been decrying the influence of corporate lobbyists and anonymous outside attack groups, and President Obama himself argued vociferously against the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. We may be a nation of laws, but flawed and finite human beings must enforce and interpret the laws. That's the reality.
Here, in my mind, is what I find poisonous. I believe it is poisonous and toxic to argue that all government officials are corrupt, or that participatory democracy is an illusion. What Jared Loughner came to believe, and what is the essence of his in-sanity, is that he had special access to the truth and that others were being duped. Loughner's insanity, it appears from his words and his actions, is a form of elitism that leads to extraordinary isolation and a willingness to dehumanize others. From that perspective, it's only a short path to believing that you have a right to shoot and kill those elected public servants with whom you disagree.
So to me, "pooping in the creek" is what happens when we poison our minds with the belief that our actions have no impact on others. "Pooping in the creek" is believing that it's ok to declare others "dead to me" because you feel rejected by them. (And BoyBlue, I know you've learned and taught a lesson - burning bridges is not usually a good negotiating tactic.) We contribute to a toxic political culture when we are willing to dehumanize our enemies. We "poop in the creek" when we threaten our fellow citizens instead of simply setting boundaries to take care of ourselves.
Ironically, it was at Cottonwood in Tucson that I participated in a retreat week that helped define healthy relationships and healthy boundaries for me. I will share a simple lesson on healthy interpersonal boundaries that has profound implications for how we engage in political dialogue:
What I value, I protect. What you value, I respect.
If we could simply understand that our actions have consequences, and that boundary violations are destructive, I think we would go a long way toward healing our nation and changing our politics.
It's just that we're so used to unhealthy relationships - especially in politics - that we tend to mistrust them when they exist.
There is a foundation for interpersonal relationships that goes beyond the "liberal-conservative" ideologically-driven food fight that we see on cable news shows. For Americans, there is an identity and a story we share in common, which exists independently from our political party, religious affiliation, race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, shoe size, etc. What President Obama has recognized and called us to protect and respect is that all of us share a common humanity that is more significant than our divisions suggest.
The reason I made the move, in 2008, from being a Bush voter in 2000 to writing diaries on Daily Kos is that fundamentally, I believe the Democratic Party does a far superior job (especially in Tennessee) of valuing diversity, protecting individuality, and respecting personhood from conception to grave. That, to me, is what it truly means to be "pro-life", and it's why I fight for healthcare as a universal right and why I fight for the civil rights of the LGBT community and the reproductive freedom of women to make decisions with their doctor and without the heavy hand of government interference.
It is easy to dehumanize Jared Loughner and dismiss him as a crazed psychopath. But I actually believe that's the wrong approach. Loughner is a violent criminal and he has committed a despicable act. But rather than distance myself from him, I choose today to reflect on my own violent impulses and my own willingness to say, "You're dead to me," to those fellow human beings who irritate me.
I look forward to hearing from our President tomorrow as he speaks to us from Tucson. I anticipate that his words will bring our nation together at a crisis in our history, and help to clean up the creek even though he's not the one responsible for pooping in it.