The road from Tucson

Where does the road from Tucson lead us? In the aftermath of Saturday's horrific shooting and the rancor and healing that has followed, perhaps our country does, as Sheriff Dupnik suggested, have some soul searching to do.

In an op-ed piece today, Paul Krugman, a brilliant economist whose economic advice should be taken more seriously, suggests that America is on a path of split moralities. In his view, despite President Obama's inspirational speech on Wednesday, there is little we can do to reconcile ourselves with people who hold opposing views because liberals and conservatives just have completely opposite views on morality and that's that.

I disagree. At the end of the day, this is America and we are all Americans. What we all want is for America to remain great and become greater. President Obama talked a lot about dialogue, and certainly that has been a hot topic since the shooting as people have commented on the shooter's motivation (which may never be determined). There has been perhaps unwarranted criticism from the left and uber-defensiveness from the right, but on Wednesday the president stepped above it all and called for real dialogue.

I will admit to my fair share of Republican bashing, although I've never wished for anything worse than for Glenn Beck to stub his toe, but I also believe in a civil discourse and a bipartisan attempt to improve America. For all the semi-nasty things I've said about Republicans, anyone who reads this blog (does anyone read this blog?) will know that I think they do have good ideas.

America is a nation that needs leadership and new ideas. If we're going to make real progress it's going to take bipartisan agreement and spirited discourse on important issues, like how to transition to an economy that relies on and produces the technology for alternative energy while remaining competitive during that transition. What about immigration? America needs to secure it's borders, but we also need to attract the best and brightest without making it seem like America is a nation of xenophobes.

There is room for debate on how best to achieve these aims, but there is no denying that both sides have some good ideas about how to go about doing what needs to be done. Furthermore, while there is a need for civil rhetoric, there's no need to end impassioned debate and I will continue to call Republicans hypocrites when they behave as such.

It should be obvious to everyone that Democrats and Republicans aren't going to start hugging it out when they resume legislative business, and there will still be plenty of posturing and negativity from both sides. But I'd like to think that the road from Tucson will at least lead us to place where our disagreements force us to cooperate, calculate and compromise and not to a place where we let our emotions take hold of our senses and say something potentially harmful.