Many questions, few answers left in Tucson’s wake
What is government if words have no meaning?
That
was the question Jared Lee Loughner posed to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in
their first meeting. In their second meeting, he shot her in the head.
The
round-the-clock media circus has taken a swipe at every minute detail
of Loughner's life in an attempt to understand his motivations for
killing six and wounding 14 others in the attempted assassination of a congresswoman.
Unfortunately,
the 24-hour-a-day speculation-based coverage of every non-development
and irrelevant insight into the life of the accused has taken center-stage in a nation-wide theater production that continues to say a lot
but reveal almost nothing.
Loughner
has remained silent. The 250 federal officials tasked with
investigating the horrific shooting have failed to deliver a motive. And
so the media is left chasing its tail in an attempt to assemble a
puzzle that has no pieces.
We know he's male. We know he's white. We know he was kicked out of community college for saying weird shit. Based on the videos he posted on YouTube,
we know he has a severe distrust of the government, a fascination with
the gold standard, and an obsession with currencies, new languages, and
grammar.
Are we to believe, as some have claimed,
that Loughner was so disgruntled about Giffords' failure to adequately
answer the "what is government" question that he decided to try and
assassinate her? Was his passion for the gold standard so strong that it
drove him to murder, that he thought Giffords was an inadequate leader
because she hadn't created her own language, or that his plot to kill
the Arizona Democrat was retribution for her not electing him as her
campaign treasurer, where he would be in charge of creating a new
currency?
Maybe.
Or
maybe Loughner had a girlfriend in the Farmtown game on Facebook who
dumped him because his land wasn't well kept, and in a fit of rage he
took a semi-automatic pistol to a political event. Maybe he read a
violent comic book or played violent video games. Maybe he wasn't
breastfed as a baby. Maybe he didn't eat his Wheaties. These aren't the
actual hypotheses the media have concocted to fill news pages and clog up
the airwaves, but they're just as useful in understanding Loughner's
motive.
The
truth is, we still know almost nothing about his real motivations, and
the media's continuous attempts to make sense of his gibberish have
become vexing.
I'm
not one to delve too deeply into conspiracies theories (mainly because
any good conspiracy is unprovable and therefore a gargantuan waste of
time), but as the media begin their second week of continuous coverage
of this tragedy, my hopes for an explanation – other than insanity – are
dwindling.
It's
entirely possible that nothing will ever be revealed that adequately
explains this tragedy, that there will never be closure for the families
who lost loved ones and the victims who are left wondering, "Why me?"
Such
an unsatisfying and unresolved ending to the Tucson tragedy wouldn't be
unprecedented. The many unanswered questions surrounding the
assassination of JFK, the Oklahoma City bombing, and 9/11 – even Roswell,
the alleged plot to kill Princess Diana, and the moon landing "hoax" –
continue to plague many Americans who struggle with the frustration of
the unknown with every anniversary.
It's
unlikely that even Loughner himself could provide us with a satisfying
answer to the nonsensical question he posed to Giffords, or to the
shooting itself. In tragedy, there is no satisfaction.
But it would be better than nothing, which is what we have now.
(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)
Labels: Arizona shooting, conspiracy theories, crime, Gabrielle Giffords, political violence
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