Mourning in America

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"We leave people alone in America, to a fault. We walk past rambling, dazed homeless people every day, if we live in big cities, avoiding their gaze rather than seeking to intervene. And even when we try to stop people whose behavior seems to pose a danger to themselves or others, it's hard to do anything about it, as Loughner's professors at Pima Community College discovered.

"Look at the moon–faced grin of the alleged shooter as he appeared in court for arraignment Monday. It's a haunting photo, not least because we have seen faces like that before — people who are severely disturbed but on the streets in this era of 'de–institutionalization.' "

David Ignatius
Washington Post

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Bob Greene of CNN asks an intriguing question.

It isn't a question for which there is an easy or even semi–satisfying answer. However, if you watched the memorial service in Arizona last night, it is unavoidable.

Technically speaking, I suppose, Greene asked two questions. Frankly, though, they asked the same thing, just expressed it in different ways.

"Why does it always seem to take something like this to move us, however briefly, toward civility and mutual understanding?" Greene asked. "Why is it usually in the worst of times that we step back, lower our voices and look for our common humanity?"

Why does it always seem to take a tragedy — in Tucson, in Oklahoma City, in Kent, Ohio — to bring Americans together?

(Speaking of Kent, it is ironic that a man who survived the shooting on the Kent campus 40 years ago was in Tucson Saturday.)

I will always remember the days immediately following the September 11 attacks. Airplanes had been grounded so there was no activity in the skies. Here on earth, I noticed appreciably more civility between people. I saw more simple acts of courtesy than I had ever seen before.

Here in Dallas, where, ordinarily, someone will cut you off on the road as soon as look at you (and, in most cases, probably wouldn't think twice about it if you wound up in a ditch or a collision because of their recklessness), drivers looked out for one another. They were more patient with each other.

I saw people holding doors for one another. I saw people drop things and apparent strangers picked them up and returned them to their rightful owners.

Matter of fact, I don't think I heard another car horn for two or three days after the terrorist attacks. I haven't seen any statistics so I could be all wrong, but I'd be willing to wager that car accidents were way down in those two or three days. People actually seemed to be looking out for each other.

But the shock wore off and, before long, we were back to doing the things we normally do.

It's our default position, I suppose. It isn't uniquely American, perhaps, just more noticeable here because everything we do (at least in theory) is out in the open.

Maybe it's because of the way this nation began. We are angry and suspicious, fiercely protective of our rights against the things (both real and perceived) that we believe threaten their existence.

Americans have always held strong views about things. Sometimes those views have come into conflict, and when something terrible like the shootings in Tucson occur, we assume the worst, that the enemies of democracy (our personal vision of it, anyway) are at work.

The really odd part about it, I think, is that the shooter, Jared Loughner, really doesn't seem to have had a political agenda. The community college he once attended has described him as " 'creepy,' 'very hostile,' 'suspicious,' an individual with a 'dark personality.' "

I have not heard anyone at the community college speak of his political views. No one seems to have noticed what they were.

Maybe that's part of the problem. No one noticed.

David Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post, wonders "why nobody stopped this often incoherent, irrational young man on his long path to the rampage in Tucson."

It isn't as easy as it may sound. Ignatius observes that "even when we try to stop people whose behavior seems to pose a danger to themselves or others, it's hard to do anything about it, as Loughner's professors at Pima Community College discovered."

And Ignatius makes a valid point about the current discussion of the civility of our political discourse.

"That's good," he writes, "but we should expand the definition of 'civil.' A civil society isn't just about less screaming on cable TV. It also has an ethic of community, so that people try, as best they can, to look out for one another.

"There's a coarsening, uncivil effect when we watch homeless people ranting and mumbling, freezing in the cold — and cross the street, assuming that it's somebody else's business. It takes something out of us, individually and as a country."

I've heard a lot of talk in my life about "united we stand." But, until our society decides that mental health issues deserve as much attention as we have been giving to other health issues in the last couple of years, I fear we are destined for more of these moments.

More mourning in America.

No Easy Answers

It is only natural, I guess, that a lot of people — whether they are qualified to do so — are trying to pinpoint a reason for Saturday's shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a judge and more than a dozen other people in Tucson, Ariz.

Because the congresswoman is a Democrat — and because her assailant apparently holds some extremist views — it is being assumed by many on the left that this is the inevitable product of the rhetoric of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.

Jonathan Martin writes in Politico that the Tucson tragedy is a turning point for Palin. Whether she truly bears any responsibility for what happened, I think it should be the sort of event that makes us all stop and think about the things we say and do overtly — or covertly in the online world where anonymity is often assumed but rarely a reality.

I have no doubt that Palin and the Tea Party have contributed a lot to the atmosphere of intolerance. But those on the left should not be smug. Their responses to this event come across as knee–jerk to me — and likely to make things worse.

Paul Krugman of the New York Times, for example, wrote on his blog that Giffords, a centrist, was targeted because she is "a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona" in November's midterms.

Then, in case you missed the point, he was more direct in Sunday's column: "Where's that toxic rhetoric coming from?" he asked. "[I]t's coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It's hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be 'armed and dangerous' without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P."

Actress Jane Fonda leaped into the fray with an ill–advised tweet that, among other things, misidentified Giffords as a progressive (as I said, she is a centrist) and pointed the finger at Palin.

I disagree with Palin on most issues. In all honesty, I try not to listen to her any more than I have to — but, to be fair, I don't recall her issuing a fatwa that called for the execution of Democratic office–holders.

That's the kind of news that would have been hard to avoid — particularly since, in the interest of candor, I must admit that many in the broadcast media (and, sadly, it is broadcasting from which most people do get their news and information) have already shown their bias against her.

I didn't even detect a coded message to that effect from Palin. I mean, I suppose one could apply any sort of definition one wishes to anything that Palin — or anyone else, for that matter — says in public.

But if Palin said anything that could be even loosely interpreted that way, it went straight over my head — and I like to think I'm a reasonably sharp person.

Anyway, my impression, from what I have seen and heard in the last 48 hours, is that the gunman, Jared Loughner (and, by the way, I looked at his Facebook page briefly before someone took it down), is a nut job. There must be a more technical term for it, but I don't know what it is.

His views often seem contradictory, even apolitical. In some ways, I guess, he could be said to be something of a centrist himself, neither right nor left, really, although, as I said, he does hold some extremist views, but there is no consistency. Some are extreme right, some are extreme left.

And he does appear to loathe Giffords. Perhaps the reason for that can be determined at some point.

My experience is that the reasons for these acts are seldom obvious. Thirty years ago, for example, a man shot Ronald Reagan and several others outside a Washington hotel. His reason for doing so? He was infatuated with a movie actress.

Nearly 40 years ago, a man shot George Wallace and several others in a parking lot. The man was motivated by a desire for fame, not by politics, even though Wallace was a notorious segregationist.

The assassinations of the 1960s were shrouded in mystery. Even if they were the acts of lone gunmen, enough questions remain unanswered for them to continue to be the focus of conspiracy theories.

But even if those assassinations were the results of conspiracies, the "lone nut" notion was made plausible by the presence of an actual, verifiable loner who could have been responsible, even if he really wasn't.

If one can presume that the things Loughner wrote about himself in his online postings were true, both sides can find ample evidence for blaming the other side, from the books he claimed to be his favorites to the statements he posted that gave glimpses into a sick and troubled mind.

If there is one thing I have learned from observing these episodes in my life, it is that you can seldom, if ever, identify these people ahead of time. The Arizona Republic, for instance, reports that Loughner was rejected for military service and kicked out of community college.

The military won't discuss the reasons for his rejection, citing the Privacy Act. The Republic mentions "multiple run–ins" with the police at the community college and hints at bizarre behavior.

He "was described by friends and former classmates as a loner," writes Robert Anglen for the Republic, "prone to dressing in black regalia of boots, trench coat and baggy pants even on the hottest days."

I have been hearing about "lone nuts" all my life. Many (not all) have, in fact, appeared to be crazy and to have acted alone. That hasn't prevented conspiracy theories from popping up.

Some have been more credible than others, but the one that emerged within hours of Giffords' shooting, of an older man who was mentioned as a person of interest, turned out to be the cab driver who drove Loughner to the store where the shootings took place.

Apparently, he followed Loughner into the store because he hadn't paid his fare.

There have always been eccentrics among us, but it has only been with the benefit of hindsight that we have been able to distinguish between eccentric behavior and threatening behavior.

I suspect that the people who look for someone to blame have deluded themselves. They believe there are simple answers to complex questions. And there is nothing more complex, more mystifying than the workings and the dysfunctions of the human brain.

It will be awhile before we have any answers about how much damage was inflicted on Giffords. It may also be awhile before we have any answers about why Loughner did this.

I suspect it will take much longer before our society figures out what to do about all this.

There are no easy answers.