The attempted assassination of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has left America with egg all over its face. For the country is now faced with international ridicule and outrage at what more enlightened people and civilizations consider Neanderthal behaviour. Problems aren’t solved through violence but debate and reason. In America, however, where the right to carry guns in public seems to matter more to more people than solving the economic crisis, unemployment or health care, one would have to be blind not to see that American society has set itself on a path towards violence.

The two political opposite camps in the US have started blaming each other for the tragedy in Arizona. Left-wingers are pointing their fingers at the right, especially the Tea Party and Sarah Palin, while the right says that Democrats have created a climate of fear and hopelessness. Neither is quite correct. No one side must shoulder the blame exclusively. Whatever the current mood in America, it’s the product of what both the left and the right have wrought, particularly over the last two years.

Violent language, or language intended to incite violence, can be found in the media and blogosphere of the left and the right. Nancy Pelosi, while in opposition during the Bush years, once famously riled up her Democratic troops and instructed them to be “disruptive”. Meanwhile, when you have talking heads on radio or TV like Glenn Beck who resort to “Biblical” language and warn of the “end of days” – inserting religious language or themes into politics is always a recipe for disaster, not unlike in countries ruled by Islamist fundamentalists – you’re simply asking for trouble. Feeble minds, when hearing such incessant talk, can easily be persuaded that the end is nigh and then end up doing really “silly” things out of desperation and a sense that all hope is lost.

This is exactly where both Democrats and Republicans have managed to push the country: they’ve made it very clear that the proper political or democratic process is not the way to solve problems anymore. Everything now is “personal” (even a Democrat running in the last midterms took up a shotgun and fired it at his own President’s health-care plan in a televised campaign ad).

There’s definitely something to be said in favour of keeping a gun at home to defend it against intruders (if they are killed or injured by the home owner, they have only themselves to blame and no one else), but the more recent trend so ubiquitous in TV images from the US showing Americans with semiautomatic rifles slung over their shoulders as they stroll through city streets is less evocative of defence than of a hunt and outright “try and come and get me” provocation.

With their country still at the bottom of the abyss, Americans’ nerves are frayed. They feel under constant attack – from Islamists, illegal immigrants and their own politicians. Good leaders would do everything in their power to instil hope and optimism, instead of constantly talking the country down. Again, Glenn Beck and his typical style of acting all “depressed”, accompanied by his trademark huffing, puffing, sighing and the occasional shedding of tears won’t turn normal people into murderous maniacs, but any unstable individual can and will be swayed by such portrayals. This is not to imply that Beck incites violence or murder. No, not at all, but his overall message of despond can and will trigger the weirdest thoughts and emotions in unstable individuals, which can range from turning to drugs or alcohol all the way to suicide and even murder.

The situation in the US is, indeed, grim, and won’t let up any time soon. All the more reason, therefore, for everyone, from the President on down, to start talking to Americans in more positive, optimistic and uplifting terms. Whether one believes in Big Government or no government at all, that there must be at least a minimum form of government is a fact of life. Remove government entirely, and you’ll create a world ruled by the law of the jungle – a jungle populated by Jared Lee Loughner and his gun-toting ilk. Government may be a necessary evil, but it’s necessary all the same. The sooner Americans’ belief in government, and that problems or disagreements are best addressed through the “official channels”, is restored, the sooner America will be able to return to a more “normal” way of doing things, that is, they’ll be able to rejoin what is commonly known as “Western civilization”.