Of course not. But this is the kind of nonsense we get when people shamelessly piggyback on a tragedy to score political or culture war points. We also get this kind of analysis when someone is paid to analyze events on cue but has nothing of substance to say regarding something terrible and complex.
I understand Huckabee is trying to make a larger point about the culture, rather than drawing a direct line from the ACA's contraceptive mandate-- which does not mandate taxpayer funding of abortion pills, by the way-- to the Newtown massacre.
Still, this is what happens when a tragedy occurs:
Watch Mike Huckabee's statement here:
I understand Huckabee is trying to make a larger point about the culture, rather than drawing a direct line from the ACA's contraceptive mandate-- which does not mandate taxpayer funding of abortion pills, by the way-- to the Newtown massacre.
Still, this is what happens when a tragedy occurs:
- We extrapolate from an isolated event and determine that it encapsulates, or is the ultimate representation of, something about our society that must be addressed. It is possible, however, that an event is sui generis and cannot then serve as a platform for useful long-term policy reform.
- We reduce the cause of a tragedy-- which may ultimately be an unexplainable, horrible, mysterious confluence of a dozen different macro- and micro-level variables-- to a single variable, such as guns, treatment of mental health, school security, violent video games, or, in this case, taxpayer-funded abortion pills and tolerance of homosexuality.
- We take our already-existing beliefs regarding what is wrong with society and how to fix it, and see the tragedy as a validation of those beliefs, and therefore a validation of our already-existing policy proposals.
We should not under-react to events. In addition to our normal and proper human response-- grief-- something that Barack Obama, in my opinion, has done very well as president-- we should heed societal signals to act and look for trends and how they fit into the larger fabric of society and its governance.
We should not also overreact to events. Overreacting to events is a recipe for bad policy-making, especially if the events to which we are reacting cause a kind of myopia, where we forget to consider policy options in light of larger historical, cultural, and social contexts.
So far, the best writing I've read reacting to the Newtown massacre have been two columns from The New York Times, one by Ross Douthat, which addresses the mystery of human evil, and one by Nicholas D. Kristof, which offers very sensible and concrete proposals for regulating guns and ammunition.
Links:
Column in The New York Times by Ross Douthat (December 15, 2012): The Loss of the Innocents
Column in The New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof (December 15, 2012): Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?
Article about Huckabee's statement in The Raw Story (December 16, 2012): Huckabee attacks 'tax-funded abortion pills' in Newtown monologue
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