Tomorrow’s civics experiment

Published January 24, 2011 5:00am ET



When President Obama delivers the State of the Union tomorrow night, the Congressmen that will be in attendance will not be sitting on the traditional party wings. Instead, they will be mixed together to show their “unity” in an attempt to tone down the “violent rhetoric” some say was a cause for the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Giffords.

If the purpose of this gesture is to try and reduce violence, then we can conduct a fairly easy experiment and see if one year from now violence in this country has disappeared. If a well-meaning game of musical chairs can’t dissuade mentally disturbed people from attempted murder, then I cannot imagine what would.

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