So, Where Do We Go From Here?

A pretty open question in this day and age that could probably be asked fairly regularly. But I'm asking it on the evening of June 14, 2017. We woke up this morning to reports of shots being fired at a GOP Congressional baseball team practice in the suburbs of Alexandria, Virginia. As the day went on we heard about the extent of injuries to Congressmen, aides and Capital Police. We heard from the President, the Speaker of the House, the Minority Leader, witnesses, participants, team managers, the police, the FBI, etc. We saw tapes, we listened to the same interviews over and over. Eventually we heard the name of the shooter. Then we saw his picture as more and more information came out about who he was and where he lived. His political beliefs and frustrations became known and were out there for everyone to react to. Then we heard that he didn't survive the attack and law enforcements response.

Many are in shock about all of this, but should we be? I'd suggest that we should have seen this coming and probably many of us did. The political rhetoric, the anger and the disrespect that we see every day was cetainly going to lead to something. Civility disappeared before, during and after the Presidential election this past year and few seemed to care. It became acceptable to attack people based on religious beliefs, ethnicity, wealth, poverty and political affiliation. The disrespect and plain, lousy treatment crossed every political spectrum, left, right, center and more.

As terrible as today's event was, I can't help but believe that Congress and people in government are reacting to this tragedy in a somewhat disengenuous way. There are terrible acts of violence happening in neighborhoods across the country. There are horrific acts of violence that our government participates in on a daily basis in countries around the world. There are acts of violence without weapons that take place by the withholding of food and clean water.

So, where do we go from here? My own belief is that we all have to look in the mirror. We have to think about what part we've played and why we felt it was necessary? We have to figure out how we can all help break down walls, leave our tribes and talk to people who don't agree with us. We have to really spend time talking about how to respect differences. We also have to understand that violence doesn't just come from guns, missiles or fists. Violence comes from words, attitudes and simple body language. There will be more violence and more incidents but we have to try to do what we can about it. Lets try to do this together.