Which Do You Want? Open Political Discourse or Militarized Congress Members?

Posted by Michael Bryan

Trent Humphries, the self-proclaimed founder of the Tucson Tea Party and blogger, claimed that the CD8 Shooting was the fault of Gabby Giffords herself for appearing at a district event without any security, even though she had concerns about possible violence. To blame Giffords for the monstrous crime against her strikes me as churlish, of course, but also, when considered carefully, a potential undesirable sea-change in our democratic culture.

Contrast Giffords' normal modus operandi of rolling to events with constituents armed only with a quick wit and few staffers, with that of Humphries' favored candidate Jesse Kelly, who would roll into even his own party's rallies with a goon squad of security heavies. Which of these do you want to be the future of our democratic culture? The openness and civility of Giffords, or the paranoiac and paramilitary style of Kelly?

There seems little doubt that the security procedures of Congressmembers' contacts with the public will need to be re-examined in the wake of the CD8 shooting spree. I hope that these changes are more well-considered than our security arrangements in the wake of 9/11 have been. Rather than take an approach that diminishes everyone's freedom and harms everyone, as was done to our air travel system in response to 9/11, I hope lawmakers, recognizing just how infrequent such incidents actually are, look more broadly for policy solutions that enhance everyone's security: reasonable restrictions on assault weapons, better-enforced restrictions on access to firearms to the potentially dangerous, better mental healthcare response to people in crisis, and yes, perhaps some level of increased security for our public figures. We must do better as a democratic culture, as well, by lessening the violent and eliminationist trends in our political discourse, which tends to legitimate violence in the minds of the disturbed.

Undoubtedly, members of Congress will certainly have to take into consideration that psychotic political assassins may now include them in their deluded persecution complexes, but I don't think that the Kelly model of hauling around private or volunteer heavies every moment they are in public to intimidate or interrogate members of the public adds to real security. That is the paranoiac response to terrorism, and this country hardly needs more paranoia in the face of terrorist threats.

The better response to this newly-apparent threat to our freedom to assemble and petition our government is to address the public policy problems of gun control and mental health that underlie Loughner's monstrous actions, and to be responsible enough as a culture to lessen the rhetoric of delegitimization and demonization of our political opponents that can give validation to the violent fantasies of the unhinged. Surely, the alternative of our Congress members appearing only with armed escorts to scan and search their constituents before speaking with them is not a consummation to be wished.