More and more as time goes by, it seems evident that there is a competition among a certain class of politician to say something memorable even thought it is profoundly stupid. Maybe, it is the need for clickbait, something to wake up your supporters so they will click, read and maybe even cough up so dough?

The latest example: https://www.yahoo.com/news/michigan-gop-congressman-suggests-using-015528159.html

Tim Walberg, a Republican Representative from Michigan, suggests with all seriousness that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza “should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” Asked to comment, he suggested that he was merely referring to the need to get this conflict with quickly. I think I will do him the honor of respecting his words and seeing the clear implication of his desire to see massive casualties. Armchair warriors at safe distances from conflicts are often quite savage in their opinions.

And I understand that if he had said “There is a bitter war going on in Israel. We should pray for a quick end to the conflict and hope and work toward justice for both sides,” he probably wouldn’t have made the news cycle. Not that there is any real danger of him saying something like that. You see when asked about our food aid to the suffering Palestinians, he said this, “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid.”

Being a fierce verbal warrior in a town hall in Dundee Village in Michigan gives one a certain distance from bomb craters and corpses. It is easy to be complacent and cruel with other people’s lives. And he is both. Nuclear weapons are a last resort and a very cruel and not a very targeted killer. It kills the earthworms, the grass as well as vaporizing, cauterizing and fragmenting human beings.

I maintain that eloquence should return to American discourse and the bombastic lunacy of verbal violence on those we dislike discarded. We should be trying to end the conflict and save as many people as possible. That is what decent ladies and gentlemen do.

Let’s do decency even if it doesn’t draw the much attention to us.