Gabrielle Giffords’s brother in law, a commanding officer at the International Space station, seems to think so:
Hours earlier, the nation observed a moment of silence for the victims of the rampage, from the South Lawn of the White House and the steps of the U.S. Capitol to legislature beyond Arizona and the International Space Station.
There, Giffords’ brother-in-law, Scott, the commanding officer, spoke over the radio. Flight controllers in Houston fell silent.
“As I look out the window, I see a very beautiful planet that seems very inviting and peaceful,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is not.”
“These days, we are constantly reminded of the unspeakable acts of violence and damage we can inflict upon one another, not just with our actions, but also with our irresponsible words,” he said.
I understand the man is grief-stricken, but I would think that as an officer he might have better control over himself. What evidence is there that “words” — whether irresponsible or not — inflicted “unspeakable acts of violence and damage” on anyone? The only evidence I can see is in the insane mind of the shooter — who seems to have had serious issues with what he called “grammar.”
So what is going on here? Are we to simply agree with his diseased mind and conclude that “words” drove him to murder?
If we do, then “we” become as crazy as he is.
Comments
6 responses to “Did words kill people?”
Well… I sympathize on the grammar thing a bit, but then I’ve been hanging around alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe since long before Google existed.
/sarcasm off.
Seriously. The man is schizophrenic (yeah, I know I’m diagnosing without a license again – but I’ve known several – and any of them could have done just what he did. For no sane reason.
Someone saying “Good morning” to him could have set him off. Should we have the whole society take a vow of silence?
There are times when words can incite. The demagogue on a podium working the crowd into a frenzy is an example. A deranged minister outside a funeral service calling the dead soldier a “fagot who deserved to die” in front of a grieving father is another. There are degrees of provocation. But trying to blame the actions of a mentally sick man on little more than run of the mill campaign speeches is out of line.
This is an attempt to shut down free speech. Unfortunately it has been foreshadowed by the imposition of speech codes on college campuses. They were allowed to get away with that, and this is the next step.
I’m very possessive of my its.
It appears that several in the Giffords clan is much taken by the leftist drive to not waste this perfectly good crisis.
Billy Beck has something pertinent to say about words.
Words and ideas have no power to force action. The hearer of the words, or the thinker of the ideas, is the one who chooses to act. When we say words incite action, what we really mean is that people heard the words, found them persuasive, and either chose to act or lacked the moral courage to refrain from acting. Asserting that words can cause people to physically harm others is just as (il)logical as asserting that guns do the same.
Words don’t kill people; people kill people.