Moral Myopia, by Rosicky Jones

In general, we all seek explanations.  The snowy road is the reason I crashed into the tree.  Maybe.  There is definite correlation between snowy conditions and a heightened accident rate – but cause is a tricky thing to pin down.  Maybe the cause was the driver’s failure to alter his driving habits on account of the snow, and not the fault of the snow.

Kids who come from a two-parent household academically outperform kids who come from one-parent households (on average).  So it is easy to conclude that a two-parent household causes good grades, even though that is not the case.  A two-parent household and good grades show a correlation, but not cause, because independent of other factors a two-parent household does not raise an IQ level.  A two-parent household may lead to other factors that, in turn, lead to higher grades.

I bring this up because of the tragedies in Arizona this weekend.  I read about it on Saturday and was transfixed.  I had plans to go out and wanted to walk away from the TV, but I couldn’t.  I thought that the political environment caused it.  I thought that all the rhetoric from the right was to blame.  Then I remembered Palin’s crosshair map and tried to get on her site, but couldn’t.  Luckily some politico I follow on Twitter tweeted it. I blamed her and the right’s “2^nd amendment remedies” call to action.  I have since calmed down and think that my Saturday night rhetoric falls to close to the rhetoric that created this caustic environment.

I agree with the right. Their rhetoric did not cause the tragedy.  I do not agree that we should not “politicize” this tragedy.  By definition a political assassination attempt is Political.  And by definition, this assassination Correlates with the right’s insinuation of violent solutions.  There should have been more backlash from the right when Palin put up her map, or when she Tweeted “Don’t retreat, instead – RELOAD,” or when Sharron Angle called for “Second Amendment remedies,” or when the tea partiers did anything.  Republicans should not stand for that shit; there should have been backlash from the constituents or from the heads of the party.

The example that I wish we had followed, that I wish the right had followed, was the way sports fans dealt with Kellen Winslow II.  I am not sure how many times athletics provides us lessons on how to navigate politics – but this is one of those cases.  Kellen popped off at the mouth following a Miami loss to Tennessee:

“It’s war,” Winslow said Saturday, his voice raised in the locker room. “They’re out there to kill you, so I’m out there to kill them. We don’t care about anybody but this U. They’re going after my legs. I’m going to come right back at them. I’m a fuckin soldier.”

There was fan uproar, media uproar, he was publicly castigated, and he was painted as an immature child who knew little of the strengths of his words or of the actual soldiers at war.  His words were disrespectful and demeaning and he was shamed into an apology.  Shamed into an apology.  Shamed not only by unsupportive fans and media, but also by the very establishment that plastered his face on their media guide – The U.  At the time I thought it was overkill to throw an athlete’s immature tirade through such an unforgiving filter.  But I was wrong.  It’s too bad that politics doesn’t hold the same values.  It is too bad that we ask more responsibility of a hotheaded college athlete than we ask of our leadership.

The right has fanned the flames with violent rhetoric and celebrates their moral myopia.  It’s a bit awkward typing this out, but the right’s leaders could learn from Kellen II, and their constituents could stand to learn from sports fans.  Passion and anger and calls to action are great in politics and should be employed to make change – but when lines are crossed we have to make examples of the transgressors.

Causation… probably not, but correlation, unfortunately, yes.

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