The Undead Past

"The past is never dead. It isn't even past." William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.

I recalled Faulkner's words as I listened to commentators observing that "never before" have we had such a level of vitriol in our public discourse. Not exactly.

When H. Rap Brown observed that "violence is as American as cherry pie," he was telling the truth. The list of violent political acts is long. And there is ample evidence that vitriolic public discourse sometimes motivates individuals to violent acts.

Blogger Nate Silver in his New York Times blog "Five Thirty Eight" asserts that political assassinations are rare in this country. He arrives at his conclusion by using what I view as a very restrictive definition of assassination. His calculations are based on killings or attempted killings of elected officials.

A more complete picture should recognize that there are many targeted killings that are political in nature, though the victims were not elected officials. Can there be any doubt that James Earl Ray's killing of the Rev. Martin Luther King was an assassination and that it had a political purpose? Similarly, the 1964 murder of civil Rights workers Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney by sworn law officers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, had a political purpose.

In both cases, I don't see how the acts of the individuals who committed these crimes can be separated from the vitriolic public discourse over integration.

There are many other examples from that era.

The perpetrators of many of these murders plainly believed that they had the support of fellow citizens of their states. They understood and acted on coded messages they were receiving from public officials, political candidates and prominent citizens.

The problem of balancing protection of free speech with protection of public safety has been with us since the beginning of our republic. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. attempted to strike the right balance when he observed that the First Amendment doesn't protect the right of a person to falsely shout "fire!" in a crowded theater with the intent of inducing panic. There has been a lot of such shouting, intended to arouse fear on the part of the public, in recent years. Harold Meyerson's column in today's Washington Post provides a useful summary.

Earlier this week, The New York Times published a worthwhile discussion of related issues. Here's another thoughtful comment.

We don't know if the Tucson killer was aware of what was being said in the public arena about political controversies or whether such utterances influenced him in any way. But we know that such influences have existed in the past.

Political discourse arouses passions. The issues are often very important to individuals, groups and society as a whole. Passion is often a good thing. But we also need rational, dispassionate discourse about problems that need to be solved.

We should all avoid personal invective and demonization of our opponents.