MANILA, Philippines – Words are the medium in which I work, in a career that now spans half a century. But I have never considered them especially dangerous. (I was too young to appreciate Hitler’s verbal manipulation of his people.) Words are my friends. I choose them carefully to try to get across my thoughts each day. Now, I am jolted by the overpowering presence of careless, incendiary rhetoric which is being spewed forth by power-hungry politicians in my native United States. Such indiscriminate, inflammatory words can cause society grave damage and already has. The case of the troubled 22-year-old who killed six people, including a nine-year-old child, wounded another dozen and gravely injured a member of the US Congress in Tucson, Arizona, a few weeks ago, was a sober wake-up call about the power of words for good and evil. When police and FBI surveyed the shooter’s home, they found tracts and books excoriating the government and calling for violent action.

It is still unclear what the shooter’s actual motive was. But he certainly was inspired by all the reckless rhetoric that colors our airwaves and television screens, and on-line. One disgruntled politician, Rick Barber, who lost his seat in a Congressional race, ran a TV ad, calling on his followers to “gather your armies” to attack the Obama administration. Far right polemicist Sarah Palin uses “tyranny” in nearly every speech to describe the administration in Washington, arousing thoughts of the War of Independence against the British. She also sent out a map of the districts where the opposition should be defeated, targeting the districts with the crosshairs of a gunsight. Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele offered to send the former Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi to “the firing line.”

So maybe, the politicians don’t really mean it when they urge their followers to put their opponents “on the firing line” or “in the crosshairs” and label them “domestic enemies.” But such careless use of incendiary language can, and has, caused injury and deaths. Unfortunately, the only way it can be stopped is by the ballot box. There is no law against it.