We live in a free and open society, and I doubt many of us would give that up in return for the efficiency of a dictatorship. 

Our freedom lets us say, write and do pretty much anything in reason and go where we want. It also generally allows us to abuse our freedom before it's taken away. It leaves us generally unable to prevent events like Saturday's act of violence outside Tucson. Those who say this is a consequence of free speech are confusing correlation with cause and effect.  In fact, free speech and Saturday's shooting are both consequences of our free and open society.

We need to keep that in mind when we decide how to react to a horrible incident.

 

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