One has to wonder what voice inspired a reputed white supremacist to enter Washington’s Holocaust Memorial Museum and open fire.

One wonders what voice egged on an American Muslim convert when he killed a Army recruiter outside an Arkansas recruiting office.

Do you think we’ll ever know what voices led a gunman to desecrate a holy place of worship in Wichita, Kan., by killing a doctor? Maybe it was the voices who had taunted his victim as “Tiller the baby killer.”

As with temperatures, it seems that tempers fueled by hate are boiling all over in our nation.

Sadly, alarmingly, it’s not just happening in isolation.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the number of U.S. hate groups has risen 54 percent since 2000. The report says that much of the growth is fueled by Hispanic immigration.

More recently, the report added, recruitment has gotten a boost with the election of the nation’s first black president and with economic hard times.

It is not hard to conclude that both radical left rhetoric and the ultraconservative shock-and-awe on television, radio and the Internet are contributors to this angry spirit.

Those who purvey such influences bear a moral responsibility as to how their rhetoric plays out in violence and recrimination in our land.

If we are to be great as a nation again, we must encourage one another to greatness by providing an environment that doesn’t reward such provocative influences.

Wise old Solomon once wrote: “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit — you choose.”

God has given us all the free will to choose whether we will bring life with our words or poison this great land we cherish with this shock-and-awe rhetoric.

We who love this great nation must do our part to calm boiling tempers.

Every American should feel a personal and moral responsibility to help his or her fellow man weather today’s economic storm and other causes of tension.

One way to do so is to denounce angry, hurtful things we say about government leaders and marginalized people among us.

King Solomon said: “Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing.”

Just as we can tear down each other, each of us has the power to bring healing to our nation.

It’s time for the wise to rise up and speak wisdom into the minds of people at such a crucial time in our nation’s history.

It’s time for everyone to tone down the rhetoric so that ours can once again become the greatest nation on the world.

Joe Carbajal of Waco is the pastor of Mighty Wind Worship Center.