In life, I am sometimes astounded by the sheer and utter stupidity of people. More often than not the stupidity comes from elected officials empowered to make decisions impacting our every day lives. However we elect those individuals - sometimes to multiple terms - so what does that say about us. Probably at the end of the day we're all a little stupid, a little crazy, and most importantly a little gay ... but I digress.

Most of you might have heard the news piece about Jared Lee Loughner - a fanatical, disenchanted citizen - and his rampage that resulted in the deaths of 6 individuals - including a 9 year old girl and federal Judge John Roll - and 18 seriously injured including Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giifford - who suffered a point blank head shot and is battling for her life at the moment. Here is the full article here. The focus of constant debate and conversation centers on how could this happen? What could have provoked someone to do this? The 2010 election was chalk full of nasty rhetoric, scathing accusations, and invariably each candidate would blame their opponent - and their party for that matter - for the complete and utter destruction of these United States. One political debate between Jack Conway and Rand Paul featured Conway accusing Paul of being a member of a secret society that tied a woman up, forced her to smoke pot, and then dunked her into a lake. However, some Americans once again refuse to wake the hell up. A CBS poll released today related that a majority of Americans - 57% compared to 32% - felt that the divisive rhetoric of the 2010 campaigns had nothing to do with the incidents that occurred on Saturday. Oh blow me; that is largest piece of crap I have ever had. There is no doubt, at least in my mind, that the rhetoric had a SIGNIFICANT impact.

For example, last year former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin proudly displayed a map of the United States with "cross hairs" on 20 Congressional Representatives - including Rep. Gabrielle Gifford. The tagline for the image is "we've diagnosed the problem, help us prescribe the solution". Now, many have contended that there is no relation between the map and Laughner's actions. I might not be a political think-tank or pundit, BUT DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE A PROBLEM WITH THIS. A woman - who mind you could have been our current Vice President - feels that Democrats who disagree with Republicans are "the problem" and that we as Americans need to come up with a "solution". The disturbing language creates an "us vs. them" mentality reinforcing the archaic adage of "if you are not with you are against us". 

This problem is not solely reserved to the inadequet two party system of government in our country. Studies have demonstrated that when majority populations pass discriminatory measures against a minority population - such in the case of gay marriage - members of that majority feel empowered and justified in their hatred of this group. An individual feels that they can gay bash someone, call someone an ethnic slur, or sexully harass their employees because their government, family, country, church, etc has told them it is ok to think that way.  In this way the individual is absolved from any and all guilt because a "higher power" has affirmed their behavior or way of thinking.

Another prime example is when the Assistant District Attorney vehementally blasted a University of Michigan gay student on his blog citing that he was a Nazi with an extremist agenda and a terrorist to the University. How can it even be remotely acceptable for this elected public figure to verbally abuse and harass this student? The Assistant D.A. was so obsessed with this student that he stalked/videotapped the student from his house. We need to wake the fuck up and take ownership over the words, thoughts, actions, and intentions that we set out into the Universe instead of trying to find ways to scaepgoat other people and work to absolve ourselves for any guilt.