Cooperation and Respect

It has been a couple days now and the initial shock is over for me regarding the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, though I still cry on occasion when I think of it.  I still pray for Gabrielle and those affected.  I believe Rep. Giffords to be one of the most reasonable, fully engaged with her constituents congresspeople to grace those halls in many years.  I see this incident more as a way to potentially bring about some restraint on our political leaders in their divisive rhetoric.  The direction of the national media in particular to try to put cause and effect of hate mongering speech with Jared Loughner’s actions, however is missing the point.  Below is my thoughts that I have sent to Diane Sawyer as well as one of our local media stations.  You will not find me speaking on such things often, but this is something I felt compelled to do

I would like to ask that people stop focusing on if fear mongering rhetoric caused Jared Loughner to want to kill Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.  These people are missing the point, whether or not political rhetoric was an influence with him, people are expressing their fear that hate and fear speech is degrading to society and will call the weak minded and unstable people out to do the actions the ‘leaders’ speak of.  There is a great NEED to become a more civilized society, where disagreements can be discussed with respect and solved with some meeting of the minds.  We are all someone’s loved one, we all feel, most participate, and all struggle with something.  Cooperation and respect are the keys needed if this country has a future.