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The Tragic Is Not Always Political

Thank you, Jeff Jacoby, for writing this column protesting how every tragic event in our public life is seized on by culture-war vultures as ammunition. Excerpt: One of the lessons a life of opinion-writing had imparted to him, [the recently departed columnist Bill] Raspberry observed in 2006, was that “it is entirely possible for you to […]

Thank you, Jeff Jacoby, for writing this column protesting how every tragic event in our public life is seized on by culture-war vultures as ammunition. Excerpt:

One of the lessons a life of opinion-writing had imparted to him, [the recently departed columnist Bill] Raspberry observed in 2006, was that “it is entirely possible for you to disagree with me without being, on that account, either a scoundrel or a fool.”

But that’s a lesson Americans find it harder than ever to grasp. What Raspberry called “the open warfare that now passes as political debate” has grown ubiquitous. Every development must be given a politicized, partisan spin, preferably with an assumption of the other side’s bad faith. News cannot break without being instantly deployed as a weapon in the culture war. Forest fires break out, and partisans start sniping over climate change. An oil spill befouls the Gulf Coast, and the talking heads swiftly hurl recriminations about government regulation.

Sally Ride’s death. And Aurora, of course. Jacoby:

Yet when human sorrow becomes just another reason to impugn the politics of those we disagree with, how are we a better or healthier society?

 

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