The Pittsburgh Police Murders

A troubled young man named Richard Poplawski murdered three Pittsburgh police officers with an AK-47 assault rifle when they arrived at his home on a domestic disturbance call last Saturday morning. Poplawski is a neo-Nazi skinhead who frequented and posted on White supremest websites and feared that a violent societal upheaval was imminent, chiefly caused by a Jewish media and economic conspiracy and the election of Barack Obama as the president of the United States.

Shortly after the slayings, many left-wing blogs were reporting (correctly) that Poplawski is a far-right conservative and that one of the triggers that set him off was the meme circulating in the right-wing blogosphere and media that President Obama was going to do everything in his power to take lawfully owned guns away from Poplawski and other Americans like himself. These rumors are of course completely false but this incident demonstrates the danger that callously fanning the flames of this kind of paranoia can produce.

Many have stated that Poplawski is not representative of the right in this country, and they're correct; he no more represents the average conservative than does William Ayers and the Weather Underground represent the average liberal. The vast majority of Americans on either side of the current political divide in this country are good people who want nothing more than to peacefully live out their lives and take care of the ones they love. Troubled men like Poplawski are exceptions to this rule and one would be correct to relegate him and others with similar beliefs to the fringes of society, but sometimes all it takes for these dangerous individuals to act out their paranoid fears and fantasies is an ideological push in the wrong direction and unfortunately it has been quite easy for these people to find that message in the mainstream political media.

Now obviously Poplawski is the only person responsible for the deaths of these three men; they died by his hand and his alone. But let's be honest here: this young man did not create these paranoid delusions or plan these violent acts in a vacuum. The steady drumbeat of right-wing talk radio, bloggers and other media about Obama taking away our guns, about re-education camps and civil indoctrination squads, about the supposed descent of this country into socialist/Marxist chaos, about capitulation to our enemies and secret Muslim conspiracies has had a definite effect on the mentally deficient and morally weak amongst us, and for those who have been spewing this garbage to now throw their hands up as if they were not at least tangentially culpable for creating the atmosphere that helped lead to this tragedy is an act of outright dishonesty and rank cowardice.

Freedom of speech is one of our most cherished and safe-guarded rights as American citizens and I would never suggest that this right be curtailed for any reason. Fascism lies down that road and like so many other rights and privileges in a free society, once the individual relinquishes them to the state it is almost impossible to reattain them. But with all rights and privileges also comes the responsibility to not abuse them or use them to harm other individuals or society as a whole, and the political right in this country has utterly failed on this count. The recent atmosphere of malice and paranoia being cultivated against President Obama and the political left for power/ratings/whatever is only hurting us as a society and denigrating us as a people, and until we recognize that fact and take appropriate steps to alleviate these intolerable levels of hatred we will fail to advance our civilization and more innocent people will almost assuredly die tragically as a result.