Dare to stop playing the blame game

There has been much talk and speculation by the news media on who Jared Loughner is. What/who fueld him? Many thought he must republican or a tea partier because he went after a democrat. He must be fueled by talk show hosts and right wingers because why would a person in America be able to think for themselves and commit such attrocities without influence?

Why indeed? Why do people, such as those that comment on news boards write? Because we believe in the freedom of speech. The freedom of speech is supposed to be the freedom to write or voice your opinion in a constructive manner, to make your voice "heard" among the people and the government. It was not meant to be violent.

Martin Luther King Jr. knew how to capture people's attention and to exercise his freedom of speech without being violent. He was in his own way, a pioneer of such thoughts and actions. He marched. Even though violence found him because people were against him, he believed in a better world and was not going to play the blame game, "But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."

It is most possibly one of the human races worst curses - blame. It's been tried and pursued since the beginning of time - since Cain and Abel. When I was a student in college I did a report on the psycology of the blame game, in my instance the Columbine shooters. The human race has a primal instinct to want to blame someone for bad things. In the case of Columbine it was the shooter's parents. You can follow this "blame game" any way you want to. Blame is why wars have started and never ended, why revenge killing is heard of. And if the one to lay the blame with is gone, the human race searches for someone else to blame, because certainly there must have been influences.

It is so hard to accept that a person can think for themselves. It is hard to understand when something bad happens that maybe that one, just ONE, person is responsible for their own actions. If a person molests a child, we automatically look at their childhood, their parents, their life, and assume that is the only way that a molester could do that. Unfortunately, we are wrong.

We, the human race, need to get past this primal feeling of blame and realize that the tragedy in Tuscon is to lay on the shoulders of Jared Loughner, and Jared Loughner alone. As the saying goes, "Guns don't kill people, crazy people with guns, kill people."

So I would like to end with a challenge from Glenn Beck. Hate him, like him, I don't care, this is my freedom of speech after all. But he issued a challenge to Americans, and I believe in it. So I am accepting the challenge and posting it here for all of you to decide for yourselves:

I challenge all Americans, left or right, regardless if you're a politician, pundit, painter, priest, parishioner, poet or porn star to agree with all of the following.

*I denounce violence, regardless of ideological motivation.

*I denounce anyone, from the Left, the Right or middle, who believes physical violence is the answer to whatever they feel is wrong with our country.

*I denounce those who wish to tear down our system and rebuild it in their own image, whatever that image may be.

*I denounce those from the Left, the Right or middle, who call for riots and violence as an opportunity to bring down and reconstruct our system.

*I denounce violent threats and calls for the destruction of our system -- regardless of their underlying ideology -- whether they come from the Hutaree Militia or Frances Fox Piven.

*I hold those responsible for the violence, responsible for the violence. I denounce those who attempt to blame political opponents for the acts of madmen.

*I denounce those from the Left, the Right or middle that sees violence as a viable alternative to our long established system of change made within the constraints of our constitutional Republic.

I will stand with anyone willing to sign that pledge. Today I make a personal choice. I urge leaders of both sides and all walks of life to join me as all Americans joined hands on 9.12.2001.

http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/01/10/glen...