To the editor:

It might be time for all of us, average citizen and politician alike, to take a pause. The recent pipe bomb events bring to light that there might be sick people in this country who feel violence is the answer to our political issues.

Being violent or using violence to further your agenda or to attempt to prevent another’s is never acceptable. Thinking back over the past few years, I see the growing trend of the use of aggression to protest, on both side of the divide.

I blame a lot of our elected officials for propagating this conflict-filled environment. Instead of trying to make compromise, there is stubborn dogma. Instead of accepting that others might have valid and progressive ideals, there is resistance and contradictory rhetoric.

We, the public, see this divided conflict daily, even hourly, via all forms of media. It seeps into our daily lives and affects our own perception of right and wrong, good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable. Many politicians do nothing to mitigate this, only fan the flames of this dissention. Are they that disconnected from us? Whose agenda are they representing?

Some studies have shown that when people are exposed to violence over a long period of time, they become desensitized to violence. Are we there now? Maybe politicians should look inward and ask themselves, “what image am I projecting? “Are we a civilized nation or not, and what is their responsibility?

We should be demanding our leadership to be civil and to turn down the antagonistic stances they assume. It will go a long way in reducing our own conversations to more civilized tones.

Art Arway

St. James City