There are no lessons
After a tragedy like what we experienced at Ft. Hood last week, our immediate instinct is to explain why it happened, even before we know exactly what happened. We learned the alleged gunman's name was Arabic, and immediately the hue and cry was predictable. "Well, there you go. He's a terrorist on a jihad against the United States". What a crock. We don't know that at all. In fact, we don't know anything yet. Talking heads are speculating based solely on tidbits of innuendo and rumor, but all we're sure of today is that soldiers are dead and wounded, attacked on a sprawling military base, seemingly by one of their own. As for the rest of it, only time will tell. Eventually, we hope we'll get answers as to what happened, but we might never know why. Even if we do, the why won't guarantee there won't be another tragedy somewhere else.
Much as we'd like them to, these shootings tend not to translate into a helpful moral. There isn't a bigger meaning beyond the obvious: someone was ill, deranged or seeking to exorcise their own personal demons, they gained access to deadly weapons (usually guns - we'll have the gun debate another time) and innocent victims paid the price for being in the wrong place at the wrong moment on the wrong day. There's your lesson, from massacres at Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas (nearby Ft. Hood) in 1991, on the Long Island Railroad in 1993, at Columbine High School in 1999, to a series of massacres at other schools and workplaces. There was a shooting in Orlando the day after Ft. Hood, and that appears to have been carried out by a man who had been laid off years ago and maintained a grudge against his ex-employer. Tomorrow night, the state of Virginia will execute John Allen Muhammad for masterminding the DC Sniper shootings which killed 10 people and critically injured three more in October of 2002. All of these shootings led to tears, funerals and recriminations, but not one led to bigger lessons, except "don't kill people". The shooter's age, color and faith didn't lead to answers, and didn't prevent subsequent tragedies from happening.
The shooter at Ft. Hood was a Muslim, but our worst domestic terrorists weren't. Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City) and Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) weren't Muslim. They were just angry. Eric Rudolph planted the bomb that killed a woman at the Atlanta Olympics. He wasn't Muslim, either. We jump to irrational, hateful conclusions in the absence of facts because it's comfortable to have a reason for the unexplainable. Even if religion played a role, so what? There are millions upon millions of peaceful, law-abiding men and women of the Muslim faith who shouldn't be painted with the same brush as this one man, just because he reads the Koran. Being in the Army played a role too, didn't it? Let's indict the entire Department of Defense for his crime. That's equally helpful.
There's a frustrating pattern developing of looking for arguments to create divisions. Elections, health care debates, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and countless other wedge points have been seized on by the fringes (can you say Tea Party?) . In New York's 23rd Congressional District, a Democrat was elected to a seat in Congress that he frankly had no business winning. It's a solidly Republican district, not represented by a Democrat in a hundred years. Congressman-elect Bill Owens was the recipient of a bizarre gift. The GOP was happier to oust a moderate Republican (DeeDee Scozzafava) in favor of an ultraconservative candidate (Doug Hoffman) who proved to be unelectable. What is instructive to note is who backed Hoffman while he crashed and burned what should have been a slam dunk win: Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. In NY23, loyalty and litmus tests took precedence over sensibility and pragmatism. In other words, fear and paranoia became the priority over creating consensus and comity. Listening to Birthers, Tenthers and Tea Party nuts won't further the conversation, it will just make your ears hurt.
The mass murderer doesn't teach us many lessons, except not to be a mass murderer. Every time, the attacker is irrational and prefers to create chaos. It's The Dark Knight's Joker. In the end, all they want is to watch the world burn. Likewise, pointing to the fringe and learning anything valuable from it is a waste of time. They're not interested in progress. Don't look for reason where it doesn't exist. Sometimes all you can do is mourn.
Labels: Ft. Hood, Right Wing, shootings, Tea Party











