As many people have recently reminded us, back in March of last year Sarah Palin used rifle sites on a map to identify freshman Democratic Congress members who had voted for President Obama’s health care bill, “targeting” them as political opponents to mobilize against in the 2010 elections. One of those new Representatives was Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. And of course, Rep. Giffords was shot in the head on Saturday at a small political event at a supermarket in Tucson. Federal Judge John Roll and five other people, including a child, were killed.
Many are now criticizing Palin very harshly for having frequently used the language and imagery of violence to symbolically make her points over the last couple of years, claiming that Saturday’s very real violence is a case of chickens coming home to roost; that she is partially to blame for helping contribute to a climate of hatred and extremism, and for helping to make violence an acceptable part of American political discourse in the 21st century.
For her part, former Governor Palin has had the good graces to offer condolences and prayers to the Giffords family. And I think that more or less settles it. After all, words and pictures aren’t important, they don’t have much affect on society, and they really don’t motivate people to act. Words are just words, pictures are just pictures, and we shouldn’t make too much of them.
That’s why I know former Governor Palin won’t mind at all when I say that I think someone should shoot her presidential aspirations in the head. It’s nothing personal; I’m sure she’s a wonderful person, but I just don’t think she’d be a very good president for a variety of reasons, and so it would probably be in America’s best interests if someone, no one in particular, took a high powered rifle, sited her presidential aspirations through a scope, and shot them right between the eyes from a distance of about 200 yards.
After all, that’s only a metaphor. Just like when Palin metaphorically committed political suicide in her adopted home state of Alaska by jumping out the window of her governorship halfway through her first term so that she could cash in on her newfound national fame and become a television celebrity. It’s not like she actually popped a bunch of pills, drank a quart of Russian vodka, went to the ledge, took a swan dive, and splattered herself on a Juneau sidewalk; she only metaphorically killed her own gubernatorial obligations two years early. Indeed, we know her Alaskan political suicide was just a metaphor because Palin is adamantly opposed to euthanasia. Indeed, she opposed the Obama health care plan because it will create death panels that kill babies. She was kind enough to point that out in 2009 when she said:
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
Oh, and she adamantly opposes abortion. Even in cases of rape. Even if it were own daughter who had been raped. Her daughter was fourteen years old when she said that.
Now wait, is that an actual raping of her fourteen year old daughter or a metaphorical one? I’m getting a little confused here.
Anyway, the point is that people like Sarah Palin and myself love life, and we certainly cannot be held responsible under any circumstances for creating a hostile environment and promoting hatred simply because some nut job takes our metaphors literally. If I say that I think someone should drive a car bomb into her political career, it doesn’t mean I think someone should literally drive a car bomb into Sarah Palin.
Someone should drive a car bomb into her political career.
Wait, that’s a problematic metaphor. First off all, it suggests that there will be innocent victims as a result of the blast, much like the people who were indiscriminately shot and killed at that supermarket in Tucson. I should probably be more precise, if nothing else, to clarify my sentiments.
Someone should strangle Sarah Palin’s political career, just come up from behind it, put a rope around its neck, and forcefully choke the life out of it until its legs stop kicking and its lips turn blue.
Yeah, that’s better.
Good. I feel like we’ve all really learned something today.