Rhetoric and Social Responsibility

I should preface this post by stating that I don't really know a whole lot about politics.  I'm not a political activist and I don't consider myself to be exceptionally well informed about political issues. In fact, I spend significantly more time reading fiction than I do reading the newspaper; however, I am deeply troubled by the shootings that occurred yesterday at a political rally in Arizona.  For me, this event reveals a disturbing fissure in American political culture.

I am a liberal.  I believe firmly in free speech.  I also believe in social responsibility, especially among elected officials.  In the hours since an obviously disturbed 22 year old man opened fire on a crowd of people in Arizona and killed at least six of them (two of whom were elderly women and one of whom was a 9 year old girl), many commentators have pointed to the violent and incendiary rhetoric of the Tea Party movement as a possible inspiration for this young man's actions.  I do not feel comfortable accusing Sarah Palin or any of her cohorts of "causing" yesterday's violence in Arizona, but I do feel that the rhetoric employed by the Tea Party movement is disgusting and irresponsible.

As I see it, the role of government should be to protect the most vulnerable members of society.  In a country as wealthy and "developed" as ours, it is sickening that children go hungry and chronically ill people go without medial care.  Yes, I realize I'm talking about socialism.  More importantly, though, I'm talking about basic human compassion.  This sort of compassion seems to be entirely absent from the Tea Party movement, a movement that (as far as I can discern) seeks to perpetuate the alienation of the poor and uneducated in our nation while at the same time exploiting the anger and injustice they feel over said alienation.  Essentially, rather than helping people in need, Tea Partiers draw upon the rage of the disenfranchised to achieve political ends that stand in direct contrast to the interests of the people they purport to represent.  This is disgusting enough by itself, but when elected officials resort to threatening to put other politicians "in the firing line" or posting a "hit list" in which the faces of their political enemies are framed by the sights of a gun, things have, in my opinion, gone too far.  Granted, I sincerely doubt Palin or anyone else intended for these things to be interpreted literally, but even a mother bear of very little brains should be able to figure out that someone somewhere is going to be just angry and deranged enough to do so.  So rhetorical violence becomes actual violence, and a little girl loses her life.