I could’ve sworn I spent a long time posting a comment in response to this last night, but it appears to have vanished into the void. I don’t really have the energy to re-create it right now. Maybe later.

Got stuck in my spam filter for some reason. I liberated it this morning.

I’m not saying nobody should ever talk about what happened in Blacksburg, just that I think it’s incredibly inappropriate to start saying things like “This just goes to show that…” mere hours after the event. If nothing else, I would say that we still don’t have enough information to say anything sensible about what happened, let alone what the implications are for anybody’s pre-existing political beliefs.

I also don’t have a problem with thoughtful tributes and expressions of sympathy– those are wholly appropriate, and in fact, I’d be happy to see more of that. I think Timothy Burke put it very well:

“Is it so hard to let the dead lie in peace for a few days, to reflect quietly and somberly on the horror and pain of it? Do we have to domesticate every event into the simple-mindedness of single-cause arguments, master the meaninglessness that sometimes comes with being human with the jabber of the punditocracy? Can’t we just reach out collectively to put a quiet hand on the shoulder of those who have lost friends, family and colleagues?”

There will have to be policy arguments at some point, of course, and those will inevitably involve a fair amount of jabber. I’m not asking for a complete ban on ever discussing these issues, just for a few days of calm.

A week doesn’t seem like too much to ask. If nothing else, it allows time for the facts to come out, reducing the chances of saying something absolutely idiotic from sheer ignorance.

If you want to know what I think this means for public policy, ask me on Monday.