Murder is bad. Why is this controversial?
We resolve policy debates in this country with public discourse, elections and legislation, not assassinating people.
Two young men in their teens, one still in high school, have lost their father. They will not have their father present for their weddings. They will never be able to have their children sit on grandpa's lap or feel the joy of watching grandpa hold his grandchildren for the first time. One of them will not have his father present at his high school graduation, and neither will be have their father present at their college graduations. They are watching deranged people cheer the man who murdered their father, while they grieve the loss. He was only fifty years old.
People are frustrated with the health care system. That does not mean you are allowed to randomly pick a health insurance CEO, stalk him, and viciously murder him by shooting him in the back. Whatever the policy debates are surrounding health care, assassinating a man and depriving teenage boys of their father and a woman of her husband is never acceptable. We resolve policy debates in this country with public discourse, elections and legislation, not assassinating people. If you want to preserve "our democracy," then you cannot express any sympathy for assassins and terrorists.
Roman Catholic priest James Martin wrote in America Magazine that celebrating murder is wrong. One of the more stupid responses to this was that the Roman Catholic Church is a poor judge of morality. Beyond proving that the people who make this "argument" are not nearly intelligent enough to actually address the arguments that Martin presented, religions throughout all of human history have had teachings against murder. You do not need to be Catholic to understand the value of human life and how the rule of law protects all of us from random acts of violence.
Now is not the time to have a "conversation" about health insurance reform. We have been passing legislation and having policy debates about this for generations. Now is the time for our leaders to universally condemn violence, terrorism and murder. We should have no tolerance for leaders who use the word "but." There should be no leader who says "murder is bad, BUT..." This is a test of our national character, and we are failing. We should be deeply shamed by that failure.