Sunday, January 9, 2011

Time to tone it down

Why does it take a tragedy like what happened yesterday in Arizona to make us realize that there has been too much mudslinging and polarization in the past few years? We need to tone it down. We are all entitled to our own opinions and to talk about them and discuss them and allow others to disagree. We are not entitled to make targets out of others in any manner.

In addition to the shooting in Tucson yesterday which left a politician and others injured and caused 6 deaths including a child, six middle school girls in Nevada are in trouble for targeting teachers on Facebook. One girl posted and five others responded. They were all arrested. These girls have learned behavior from what they have seen take place around them.

What I don't understand is why this is an acceptable behavior. Sarah Palin, before the elections, posted a target list with cross hairs on Facebook that said 'don't retreat, reload'. I don't care about your politics - as I said everyone is entitled to their own opinion - and your opinion of Ms. Palin, but I fail to see how this is an acceptable behavior.

I have always thought the US was a good place to live. We can have an election without it resulting in a political coup, riots, or a revolution. I am trying to live my relatively quiet life with out a lot of stress and distress from the outside - as I have enough of that from my own life. The time is now to tone things down and not focus on what others are doing that you don't like, but what is an acceptable way to live with our differences.

2 comments:

WhiteStone said...

I agree. For all our claim to be a civilized society, we are often NOT civil.

Cynthia said...

Thank you for this, Caroline.

Let us hope we will soon turn a corner to a place where calmer and more moderate voices drown out the extremists. My heart goes out to all the families involved. Such a sad day.

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