Thoughts & prayers just don't cut it

A Minnesota State Representative has been shot and killed. So has her husband. A Minnesota State Senator has been shot, but not killed. So has his wife. And a shocked America offers up its thoughts and prayers, which seems to be the best that a shocked America can do.

Looking back over the years of mass killings and targeted assassinations, thoughts and prayers don’t seem to have a very effective track record except for the possibility of Divine intervention in the case of President Trump, who otherwise seems to be noticeably subdued in the sharing of his thoughts and prayers.

Congressional leadership has been right up there in the thoughts and prayers department, but then they have also been generous in offering programs that make it harder for people to get medical insurance and harder for children to get food to eat. Let’s have some more thoughts and prayers then.

More than any other group, the rich need our thoughts and prayers so that they might gain insight to see how truly well off they are and to stop asking for even more.

I have had it with hypocrisy. Either we care about people or we don’t. I am sick of politicians who say they care about people but then make it harder for people to live a full life because they can’t see their way clear to “add to the deficit” by providing public benefits to those in need.

However, they can see their way very clear to add to the deficit by giving billionaires a huge tax break.

I would rather have a politician say, “cowboy up, help yourself because I sure as hell won’t,” than to offer them rewards down the road. Or, as it used to be put, “pie in the sky, by and by.”

We are asked to hold beliefs that have to be protected at all costs and to condemn those who disagree with us.

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” says the NRA and they are absolutely correct. But the people who do the shooting and the killing are encouraged by the loud mouths who make good money – very good money – by fomenting hate against people who hold different opinions. Or religious beliefs. Or skin color. Or anything else as long as it’s different from us.

I expect there are those reading this who figure that I buy the liberal line hook, line and sinker. You could say that, or you could say that I buy the Jesus line as in “love thy neighbor” [Mark 12:31].

You can think whatever you want, but here is what I think. I think that happy, healthy people do not kill other people. By that I mean that when people do not have to worry about dying from some disease for which they cannot afford treatment, or don’t have to worry about how they are going to feed their kids, they become stable citizens. That’s when the public help that they receive benefits the rest of us.

I do not care how many guns there are in America, nor do I care how many people own guns as long as the people who continuously tell us what people to hate, fear and disparage shut up.

The Minnesota legislators were good people and they and their families did not deserve their fate. Neither did the rest of the good people of America.

Montana Viewpoint has appeared in weekly and online newspapers across Montana for more than 30 years. Jim Elliott served 16 years in the Montana Legislature as a state representative and state senator. He lives on his ranch in Trout Creek.