Derek Dressler: Killing pundits is killing our nation

What can be said that hasn’t already?

Political violence has no place in ordered society. It is a hallmark of this nation — since its forebears’ earliest thoughts — that the most powerful tool in politics was the pen, not the sword.

In 1787, James Madison wrote of political violence as being a symptom of “factionalism and social instability.” Indeed, even our founding was not a violent initiation.

From the Olive Branch Petition to the Declaration of Independence, our nation’s most damning words have sparked insurrection against only a nation, not an individual. Modern partisan individual attacks are ubiquitously condemned, if not for their atrocious and despicable nature, because they are antithetical to the very premise of opposition in a civil society.

Lest we forget the power of words when they spark death — so misguided are those who use rifles to solve conflicts and bullets to silence zealots that our national consciousness becomes numb and apathetic to a most pervasive social disease.

I am as outraged by Charlie Kirk’s assassination as I hope the next person is, but I am more enraged by the prevalence and endorsement of force and violence being used to address problems of tongue and pen. Whether through hostile employment of government agencies or private individuals using violence and hostility to detest a dissenting opinion, the necessity for education and effectuation of civil discourse and debate has never been more relevant.

It’s this acceptance of violence that’s the heart of the problem — that we vilify when we should condemn and that we act when we should speak and write. From Jan. 6 to this most recent vile act, we somehow have become OK with violence as an institutional metric for change.

I don’t think it’s a partisan or generational problem but the slow progression of a uniquely contemporary American disease. It’s important, too, to remember that for better or for worse, our domestic consciousness is a trickle-down pipeline of how the rest of the word begins to act.

This is a time for American heroes like no other. The necessity to evince the value of words, thoughts and deeds in civil forms of protest and assembly as benchmarks for change is no longer optional.

Every generation has a moment to decide what they stand for: tempered tenacity, a respect for and obedience to civility, and a rebellion against political violence must be ours. It is indeed the zeitgeist of the American identity.

Just as Benjamin Franklin believed that “Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom” and Thomas Paine argued that “the right to speak and think was essential for the protection of all other rights,” we too must become mature to the idea of opposition in temperance and of civil discourse even when the most hateful and controversial rhetoric is spewed.

Indeed, we must remember that civil society can only remain civil so long as its people do.

Derek Dressler is an American political scientist studying political science and legal studies at the University of Pittsburgh.