The Blame Game

Why did he shoot the congresswoman? Why did little Christina have to die? We wanna know why. We want to know why those terrorists flew those airplanes into those buildings. We want to know why McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma federal building. We want to know why Bob broke his arm on the job.

Oh, wait, that doesn't quite fit, does it? Well, yes, it does. You see, why we want to know why is telling. Take the Tucson shooting. We want to know why Jared Loughner bought a gun, walked into a friendly "meet and greet" with Rep. Giffords, and started shooting. We have our answers, of course. It's the evil conservatives spouting harsh rhetoric. No, no, it was those target symbols on Palin's map. Well, don't be silly, it's clearly the right wing whackos who are opposed to abortion! What? What kind of idiot are you?! It was the whole tea party thing! Actually, it's the gun lobby and their stupid Second Amendment. Naw! It was just that he was clinically insane.

Okay, maybe we don't have an answer. But we want one and we'll fill in the blanks as we see fit. You see, what we want are answers to the tragedies we see. They can be terrorists or mad gunmen or on-the-job injuries, but we want answers. That way, you see, we can forget about it. We can set up a system to handle whatever we decided the problem was and we can fix it because if we do that we will have a better world. So outlaw free speech because those horrid Becks and Limbaughs of this world are inciting to violence. Put the Palins of this world in jail so they can't push anyone else over the edge. Please don't tell me he was crazy, though, because that one's a little tougher. Well, okay, so we lock up the crazies and that should solve the problem.

Because what we want is "a better world". And what we seek is "an easy answer". If we can nail down a simple problem, we can solve it because we believe that we can solve all our problems eventually and utopia is just around the corner. The simple fact that the heart of man is evil is not an acceptable answer. "You're pointing fingers at me?" We want solutions that are outside of us. Tell me that those rotten conservatives are warmongering idiots. We can arrest them. Tell me that those evil liberals are subversive traitors. We can vote them out. Tell me that his brain chemistry malfunctioned. We can medicate him. But don't tell me that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. That's not a problem we can solve. That would simply mean that the worst of us -- the Christians -- are right and the only solution is Christ. And the suggestion would then be that we will not be able to solve the problems of our world and create a utopia!

Yes, that's right.

So ... who are we going to blame and what are we going to do about it when we do?