Enough is enough: No more nasty vitriol

Christina Green, 9, had just elected

to her school’s student council. She wanted to attend Penn State

and help the less fortunate.

John Roll, 63, was a longtime Federal Court judge, who had started

his judicial career as a bailiff in Pima County, Ariz.

Dorwin Stoddard, 76, was pastor at Mount Avenue Church. When a

gunman opened fire Saturday at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’

congressional town hall in Tucson, Ariz., he shielded his wife with

his body to protect her from the gunfire. Stoddard died at the

scene but his wife, Mary, is expected to recover from her

injuries.

Gabe Zimmerman, 30, Giffords’ director of community outreach, had

recently become engaged.

Phyllis Schneck, 79, was a snowbird who spent the summers in her

native New Jersey and winters in Tucson.

Dorothy Morris, 76, was a retired secretary and homemaker who had

married her high school sweetheart.

They were all killed when alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened

fire at a “Congress on the corner” event held by the Democratic

congresswoman to stay in touch with the people she served.

Another dozen people, including Rep. Giffords, were injured.

I don’t know if the increasingly nasty and vitriolic comments

littering talk radio, the Internet and every form of media, social

or otherwise, had any role in the shooting. What I do know is this

level of “communication” is senseless and stupid.

We all want the same things in life: shelter, food, love and

safety. How we get there or the paths we think the country should

travel may differ but the end goals are the same.

What happened to the ability to have reasonable conversations?

Since when did someone having a different opinion make them a

terrible person? Why the need to belittle someone whose views

aren’t a cookie-cutter version of your own?

We’re not 2 years old and

wailing-around-the-room-because-we-didn’t-get-our-way tantrums

don’t look good on anyone.

Enough with the name-calling. Enough with the mindless rhetoric.

Enough with the hatred.

Enough.

Disagree? Yes. That’s normal and healthy. The current level of

animosity and snipping? That is not. And it needs to stop

now.

Caroline Lobsinger is the managing editor of the Daily Bee.