History fascinates me. Human nature often confounds me. As a quiet and peace loving individual I am unable to understand what causes hate and violence. Of course I have become angry at times, but I can’t even begin to imagine thinking that the answer to any problems I face might come in the form of hurting someone. 

I still remember the first time I learned about the cause of World War I and the repercussions of that infamous struggle that should have been the war to end all wars. A strange and tense set of alliances set off a chain reaction when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. The death of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne meant that countries the world over would line up as allies to fight each other for reasons that were not always clear. Even as a young girl looking back on an event that rocked the world I had difficulty understanding how anything was solved by the assassination and the war that followed it. The bloody violence seemed to solve nothing. 

Hindsight makes it easy to see the danger barreling down on humanity. It’s more difficult to see the horrors coming before they happen. So we repeat the mistakes and animosities again and again. Somehow terrible people lurk among us and we tend to ignore their warning behaviors until it is too late. Our lack of due diligence allows evil to breed.

Of course it would be exhausting and perhaps even impossible to be so observant that we would be able to forestall every tragedy. Life and people are far too complex to be able to predict who will cause irreparable harm. In fact if we were to become too cautious we might find ourselves in a dystopian and paranoid world. Our only hope is to be observant on the personal level, to look for signs that an individual is so troubled that he or she is in need of professional intervention. Even then our efforts may be inadequate in quelling violent behaviors. Sometimes we simply have to remove the most violent from our midst. 

We may believe that for the most part we are helpless and that evil and destruction are simply an inevitable part of being human. Studying our human history would make such an assumption seem reasonable when one of the earliest accountings from the Bible speaks of Cain murdering his brother, Abel. Still, we would be wrong to feel that there is nothing we can do to quell the horrors that we see happening all around the world. Perhaps we are contributing to the problem by ignoring the measures that we might take to make things better. 

Yesterday I wrote about our need to seriously and unselfishly discuss the rising tide of violence in our country with a willingness to make sacrifices to protect each other from the growing fears of becoming victims of murderous anger. Ironically, in the interim one of our presidential candidates was saved from what appears to be a botched assassination attempt. Looking at the story of the man who seemed intent on using bullets rather than the ballot to rid our nation of Donald Trump provides us with insights into how we might stop such individuals before they get as far as hiding in the brush with intent to kill. 

The signs that this man was a threat to society have been out in the open for quite some time. He has a long and detailed rap sheet that points to someone who seriously cannot control his urges to harm others. Why he remained free to purchase and own guns is a huge question. Why he only got slapped on the hand with his mounting tendencies toward violence is disturbing. His behavior was strange enough that a reporter for The New York Times found him wrote a story about him in which his dangerous nature was clearly in view and yet it was ignored. All of which points to total failure in both our justice and mental health systems. 

Then we have the dangerous rhetoric, misinformation and outright lies of our political landscape. When renowned doctors are threatened for using their expertise to guide us through epidemics we should all be concerned. When innocent groups are being targeted with lies that endanger their safety we should insist that the perpetrators of the racist commentaries be publicly scolded by all of us. We have people in our midst who are blatantly fanning the fires of anger, ginning up the darkest of emotions. We look the other way and proclaim that it’s just the way it is, then grow horrified when some crazed soul acts on the taunts. 

We can do better than this but instead we take the bait and hurl insults at each other. We cling to conspiracy theories instead of doing some research to find out the truth. We allow a man who would lead us to post that he hates Taylor Swift without demanding that such a comment should never be made public because it most certainly unfairly endangers her life. 

We have washed our hands in innocence of all the furor that seems to happen so quickly that one terrible event bleeds into another. Still, we do have the power to make the changes that we need but only if we are willing to be calm, truthful and ready to move beyond the dark mistakes of the past. We don’t have to fight to get things done. We can work together, give and take, respect each other and learn to live in peace with each other. The ugly and violent way of living that has become so commonplace must stop now. It is up to each of us to demand more…period, end of story, full stop!