Some Thoughts on the Anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, an event precipitated by one man's delusional hatred of the government.

Granted, people like Timothy McVeigh have always been around: ones who mistakenly see cause for concern where there is none; ones who see evil in good; ones who detest the most powerful people because they, themselves, are the least powerful people. But, thank God, 99.999999999 percent of U.S. citizens have absolutely no desire to blow up a building.

But some have a desire to severely disrupt the government and politics as they currently stand.

In recent years, a phenomenon in our society has been growing: bringing down the biggest of the big. And this phenomenon has almost reached National Pastime status.

The media and public took every chance it could to skewer Tiger Woods after his admission that he was involved with a dozen-or-so mistresses; TMZ tracks (some say stalks) famous celebrities to catch them pumping gas while talking on a cellphone or leaving Wal-Mart with a box of donuts; even the most popular magazines like People hunt for dirt on the wealthy, famous, semi-famous, barely famous, or anybody with one ounce of public recognition.

The same happens in politics: The Swiftboaters created a manipulative, downright false ad attacking John Kerry's contributions to the Vietnam War; The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and people like Keith Olbermann jumped at every opportunity to lambast George Bush, and now FOX News is doing the same to President Barack Obama.

With so many media outlets obviously taking political sides, they have greatly influenced people who watch their shows. A huge problem is that news networks like MSNBC and FOX News no longer care about objectivity; they only care about supporting one side and demolishing the other.

These constant attacks have created a pretty negative perception of politics as a whole. When people watch television and all they see are stories relating to politicians screwing up by attending a lesbian bondage club or striking backroom deals with businesses in exchange for votes or campaign contributions, people have reason to become more wary of what politicians say. Because conservatively- or liberally-oriented news stations have made it their objective to destroy the other side, they're always running those negative stories.

In a recent column by Kathleen Parker, she received a reader comment that said (I'm paraphrasing) what America needs, in so many words, is people who will fight with arms if necessary to protect the Constitution. Problem is, that commentator only wishes to protect his version of the Constitutiona version that is powerfully skewed to suit his warped ideology.

The Tea Party is following this same approach: using whatever evidence they can, no matter how trivial or slippery, to support the notion that the government is corrupt and responsible for removing more and more rights from Americans.

But the Tea Partiers aren't the only ones who feel that way. Many people are becoming wary of the government, but not just because they disagree with Barack Obama. They're spurred on by pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann, who only focus on the negative stories emerging from the other side.

Everyone taking one side of the political aisle and never even opening their minds to other viewpoints is causing the rift to widenand the hate to rise even more.

Don't get me wrongI don't see anyone bombing anything or even hurting anyone (apart from hurting feelings with big signs and a few insults), but as the old saying goes, It only takes one.

I really hope the hate starts dissipating. Both Democrats and Republicans have good ideas; one side is not the sole source of intelligence in politics. Some of our greatest leaders have been Democrats, and some of our greatest leaders have been Republicans.

Yes, there's reason to distrust them, but there are plenty of reasons to believe in them, too.

Timothy McVeigh didn't believe in them, and he chose to demonstrate his distrust in the most destructive, atrocious way imaginable. If the hate continues boiling, and people get more fed up with the current system, and television, radio, and newspaper personalities keep contributing to the growing disdain for one side over the other by speaking only with hatethen that 0.0000000000001 percent could show his faceand it won't be smiling.