Events in Tucson...Xfahctor finally speaks

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Now that I have had a week to watch, examine and reflect, I felt it was time to put my thoughts down in words. No, this does not mean I have any interest in returning to politics, it is just that this was a monumentally important event that involves far more than just political implications. First, there is something that still has not been cleared up for many people. Despite not having any evidence that empirically....or even remotely proves this act of derangement was the result of decided political motivations, the libelous accusations continue. Before anyone tries to put up what they have been calling "evidence" again, no, you do not in fact have evidence. All I have seen is conjecture, assertion and extrapolation. None of those are evidence. I have seen an embarrassing plethora of profoundly flawed reasoning and willful intellectual dishonesty. And all in the name of satisfying a rabid need to appear morally superior in your political ideology and berate "the other side". Nor is it required that Palin, Beck, tv or radio news channels, any tea party group or political party prove they didn't inspire Loughner. When one is accused of a crime, the burden of proof falls on the accuser. The one being accused does not have to prove their innocence, the accuser must prove the guilt of the accused. And saying "you can't prove they didn't inspire him" does not equal evidence. With that out of the way, the lesson of this event is not a need to address uncivil political discourse, that is something that should be done every day anyways. Nor is it that we need to start limiting more freedoms in the name of security. A law banning targets on faces would not have stopped Loughner. A law not allowing guns near politicians would not have stopped loughner....any more than an already existing law against murder stopped him. Did we learn nothing from the Patriot Act? Did we learn nothing from the last 10 years at all? Nor do I feel we need to start rounding up the mentally ill. Though mental illness was the major factor, I think it is a dangerous road to go down to start pulling people off the street because of suspected mental illness. While we should indeed have a greater social and medical awareness, let us not turn this in to a police matter and give law enforcement broad power to lock people up and intrude on civil liberties over it. So, what is the lesson in all of this? It has occurred to me that most have not stepped back far enough and seen through their fog of politics enough...on either side...and looked at the broader picture enough to see the actual lesson. If anything the lesson of the event itself can be found in an age old piece of wisdom that has existed as long as the universe itself......"Sh1t happens". The real lessons though, come in the atmosphere and events that followed the shooting. As traumatic as the event itself was and as tragic as the deaths were, what ensued afterwords was far more a long reaching tragedy for us as a nation. We all feel the sorrow of young Ms. Green's parents and the families of the others who were lost. But in the long run these will be largly personal tragedies. Congresswomen Giffords has suffered a devastating injury, but in the large scheme of things will recover and our legislative process will not have suffered badly for it. What I learned came beginning seconds after the event and this is where everyone should be looking now for their lessons. I remain convinced however that most will not.