Mental Health Check on America

This weekend, four police officers were shot in Oakland, California. At a traffic stop, a wanted parolee with a long criminal history opened fire, killing one officer and effectively killing another (while technically brain dead, he's only being kept alive pending decisions on organ donation). The suspect fled the scene, and was later found and surrounded, where he killed two more police officers before being shot and killed himself.

At the scene of the first killing, a crowd of about twenty hung around after the dead and wounded were taken away...and "taunted" police officers there. This is allegedly a reaction to a police shooting in Oakland back in January. Anger at this has caused mocking celebration over four police officers dying in a single day.

Everyone's heard of the "Octo-Mom". When news started getting out about this woman, already with many children and on government assistance, had eight more children on purpose, public sentiment started turning quickly against her. She hired a publicist. This publicist quickly dropped her as a client, however, due to the many death threats coming into his office. Yes, death threats.

AIG is all over the news, and the nation is now outraged to find out about the millions in bonuses being paid to management there, using government bailout money. Many of those managers who received the bonuses now have private security stationed outside their homes - guards and dogs. Why? Because they have started receiving death threats to them and their families.

After the controversial passing of Proposition 8 in California, which banned gay marriage in the state, someone created a web page that not only listed the names of all the people who contributed to the campaign to pass this proposition, but provided maps to these people's homes. On a message board where I was posting about this, I expressed concerns that this page - effectively a "hit list" - could be very bad for public sentiment for the movement to repeal this proposition. How would a news story about children of these donors being scared to leave their homes because of angry protesters outside help things...or, heaven forbid, if something happened to one of these kids? The response I got? "**** those kids. They get what they deserve."

Am I the only one that's noticed that America is becoming more and more unbalanced? Notice that the issues above aren't all right wing or left wing issues. There's a mix of both, with reactors being from both ends of the spectrum. I can remember a time when people got fired up over issues and heatedly discussed them and maybe arranged protests or business boycotts. Now, Americans have reached a place where they feel justified, if they're angry about an issue, in calling for the deaths of those involved. Death threats themselves used to be big news. Now, they're just the expected response to just about any sensational news story. There's no longer any concern for keeping the moral high ground. Two wrongs make a right. People not only have no problem with such extreme measures, but feel they're entitled to them.

Maybe I was foolish to believe that the increasing levels of national instability I saw during the far-too-prolonged presidential campaign were going to resolve themselves once the election was over. But the fever is still burning, no longer restricted to issues of politics and war. Every new headline brings the rage, the bloodlust, the calls for people's heads...even on issues that don't even directly involve the enraged. We're increasingly becoming a nation of pitchforks and torches, and with each new scandal, the disturbing trend grows. A mob mentality is permeating every part of our society, and it's become almost a requirement to have a screaming, spittle-spraying opinion on every topic our cable news, message boards and blogs present us.

This disturbs me more and more each day. Reasoning and contemplation are becoming signs of weakness. Scorching email forwards wrapped in bumper-sticker slogans and hearsay are filling inboxes daily. A psychosis is spreading, claiming new victims by the hour. I don't want to live in a nation of witch trials, where tar and feather are the tools of expression. Is it too late to come back from this brink, or are death threats soon to become death sentences, and reactions to them become nods of approval?

America needs a mental health day. And soon.