Three highly visible “hate” murders of Americans by
Americans in the last ten days…
1. Dr. George Tiller, who performed late abortions, shot
while attending church by an extremist anti-abortionist;
2. Pvt. William A. Long, a soldier, shot while on a
recruiting assignment at a Little Rock mall by a man who’d converted to Islam
as a teenager and who claimed to be angered by the killing of Muslim civilians in Iraq
and Afghanistan, and
3. Stephen T. Johns, a security guard, shot while on duty at
the Holocaust Museum by a self-professed white supremacist with a long record of violent tendencies.
I will not, out of respect for those killed, promote the
murderers by mentioning their names here.
Mainstream media commentators on the Left such as Keith
Olbermann, Paul Krugman and Judith Warner have used the murders of Dr. Tiller
and Mr. Johns as just the latest examples of how right-wing media commentators –
most specifically Rush Limbaugh and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck –
can incite the kind of hatred that leads to violence.
But little mention by these same commentators
has been made about what precipitated Pvt. Long’s murder. Of course, the right wing media would have us
believe that Pvt. Long’s murderer was driven by a perceived “hate America first”
bias they claim is being spouted by MSNBC and The New York Times.
If only either explanation were that simple. Rather, I would argue that while the media can
play a supporting role in the kind of hatred and anger that leads to murderous violence, it is not the primary driver. Intolerance of anyone or any opinion
different than our own is the driver – and we are all, on the right and the
left, guilty of it. The media – in an
effort to drive ratings – merely fans the intolerance, until someone believes
the time is ripe for killing.
As I see it, each of the three murdered men are symbols of
ideas that some people find intolerable.
In his murderer’s mind, Dr. Tiller symbolizes abortion; Mr. Johns’
murderer was attacking a museum about the Holocaust which he considers a myth
and Jewish conspiracy; and in the mind of Pvt. Long’s murderer, the US military
symbolizes the killing of Muslim innocents.
Now, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t hold strong opinions on these three
issues: abortion, the Holocaust and killing Muslim civilians. But I also don’t know an American who would
deliberately pick up a gun and kill another American over these issues. If I did, I like to think I would report them
to the proper authorities.
There is no question in my mind that intolerance, and
violence fueled by intolerance done by Americans against Americans, is on the
rise in this country. The Government issued a warning about this trend last April. Now, media commentators
certainly do loudly underscore that intolerance. But so do poorly enforced gun
control laws filled with loopholes that allow mentally unstable people to get
their hands on lethal weapons. And so do
any of us who don’t call media commentators to account on their biases, lies and
hate-filled speech. It's time we started focusing on the news and the facts, rather than blowhard commentators. (This is why you'll find me listening to NPR and watching the News Hour on PBS - they're about as down-the-middle, fact-driven media as you can possibly find. And their audience is split 50/50 on either side of the aisle.)
But, regardless of the commentator, if we just stand idly
by, nodding at whichever talking head spouts intolerance that we happen to
agree with, then we are part of the problem too; we're making it killing time.
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