Feeling Remiss

It's been a week since my last post (sounds like a classic Catholic confession...) and I am actually experiencing guilt for not posting. The week has been so unremarkable that I considered just writing about my jerkey recipe. As I sat writing, my mind went to last Saturday's bizarre events not far away.

I shy away from organized politics, though try to keep informed and vote at each opportunity, but I am horrified about the crazy guy who shot my district's Congresswoman, a child,and four other citizens exercising their first amendment rights. I am even more horrified by both sides of the national political debate using this as an occasion to push their agendas for censorship and causes du jour, some of them climbing their soapboxes less than 24 hours after the smoke cleared.

The evidence is increasing that the assailant was mentally ill, possibly an undiagnosed schizophrenic. His actions seem to have little to do with the ongoing political debate. They possibly had more to do with his reading of some books now considered political classics in some circles. Let us not ban free-speech, change the Bill of Right, nor burn the books he read (or may have thought about reading) as a result of a tragedy caused by one mad man.

It seems we must tolerate the small fraction of foreign religious or other fanatics without concern or be branded with many broad unflattering adjectives, but not so with our home-grown crazies. I'm certainly not advocating any departure from allowing our justice system to handle the matter and determine the young man's fate. I do advocate that cooler heads should prevail when it comes to twisting the event to cast unwarranted blame on any political ideology (left or right) or justify unrelated infringements upon the Bill of Rights for the rest of us.