When an apparently crazed man goes and kills the object of his political or religious obsession, what conclusions should we draw about the those who agree, at least partially, with his political views, but not his violent methods.
Should we assume that many such people are complicit? Should we accuse them of having blood on their hands? Should we suggest that their speech ought to be limited?
Should trying to empathize with why they would do such a thing subject the person broaching the topic to suggestions that he secretly is ok with the violence?
Is this an appropriate comment in such a situation: "Just a
heads up to X readers of this blog. You need to get the
fringe elements of your demographic to stop shooting at the rest of us.
If they don't, there's gonna be hell to pay."
So what about that shooting of an Army Recruiter? Does it implicate Muslims who don't strongly enough denounce him?
I would say no. But the logic of quite a bit of the talk around Tiller's murder would suggest, 'yes'
Um. Actually, I was gonna appreciate russell for keeping the focus on terrorism and assassination, which few of us were doing.
Did you interpret his comment as a threat? I don’t think it was meant that way.
I’m unconvinced at the equivalencies being drawn, even if there are apparent parallels between the crimes.
Is the defining feature of the shooter really his Islamic faith? In this context, for the parallel, I thought the defining feature was his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (opposition possibly motivated by, but distinct from, his faith). And as such, I suppose it could be said that he constitutes the terrorist fringe of the anti-war movement.
Except.
Except that I’m not aware that he has ties to the broader anti-war movement.
Except that I’m not aware that there’s a very big terrorist fringe of the anti-war movement (I know offhand of this incident and two in which recruitment offices were wrecked).
Except that the rest of the anti-war movement has in fact been quite strenuous in denouncing violence, and has even limited its nonviolent but intrusive harassment to far, far less than the anti-abortion movement has done.
There was a federal case a year or so ago about a website functioning as a hitlist of abortion providers, complete with personal information and with changes to the list celebrating the murder of one of the people on it. There have been numerous assaults on people visiting clinics that offer abortion – indeed, the only first amendment limitation that I’m aware of simply kept protestors out of reach to avoid repetition of these frequent events. There is a very significant terrorist fringe to the anti-abortion movement, of a kind I don’t know that we’ve seen since the tree-spikers of the 80’s (widely denounced by mainstream environmentalists, and superceded by tree-sitters because the moral force of nonviolence was seen as greater).
Long comment shorter, to the extent that your post isn’t entirely strawmen then the expectations being raised are no higher than those that liberals’ movements are already asking themselves to meet.
I think the situations are broadly analogous, though of course the details are very different. The problem I think has to do with “political correctness” and the unearned respect it gives to the “very personal and sacred beliefs” of others.
Once a large swath of discourse has been short-circuited because critical discussion of religion is taboo, then we lose a valuable tool for an open society to deal with its social problems. If we can’t discuss the roots of those problems (fundamentalism and the immoral character of large parts of dominant religious texts like Christianity and Islam), then we in effect shelter the extremists.
There is a special place of immunity that religion occupies, especially dominant religions like Christianity and Islam, that enables them to simultaneously claim themselves to be sources of morality while shielding their own immoral monsters who routinely and predictably cause pain and suffering.
Once we are forbidden to criticize questionable ideas like “Ensoulment occurs at conception” or that “Islam is a peaceful religion and the Koran a peaceful text”, we’ve already lost the battle and ceded a comfort zone for these religions to hide their black sheep. And they don’t have to face larger societal censure.
In short, I do think that silence implicates the silent. They should defend their religions publicly instead of cowardly hiding its excesses behind a wall of societal taboo. Furthermore, they should denounce or attempt to reform their black sheep. To do otherwise is to be complicit in the excesses of their religion.
My opinion is that those that have been ambiguous or have openly used language that could reasonably be construed as justifying violence should be called to denounce the violence committed ‘for their cause’. Since to my knowledge no mainline Muslim organization in the US has called for violence against army recruiters, I see no reason for an apology from that side. If personally called on it (by someone respectable, i.e. not Malkin, Hannity etc.) they may go on the record as condemning it but I don’t see an obligation. In the case of the Tiller murder I see ample evidence of incitement and the ‘denouncing’ by leading anti-choicers adds insult to injury*.
Personally, if some close relative of Tiller would meet Bill O’Reilly in the streets and beat the crap out of him (without causing fatal injuries), I’d see difficulties not to applaud. What BillO does might be legal under US law but that does not change my view that he is scum that the media should be ashamed of.
*and I believe that a lot (if mot most)of ‘pro-life’ people are as shocked and embarrrassed about the murder and the praise-disguised-as-denouncement as the ‘pro-choicers’ are.
Btw, I am not convinced that Bill O’Reilly even believes in the hatred he has spread about Tiller (which would make him even more despicable than the OR head in my view).
“Except that the rest of the anti-war movement has in fact been quite strenuous in denouncing violence, and has even limited its nonviolent but intrusive harassment to far, far less than the anti-abortion movement has done.”
The anti-war movement hasn’t been around in this form for 30 years. And I’m not so sure you can be so quick to dismiss ‘Muslim’ in the analogy either. Reread publius, he isn’t very careful about limiting to ‘extremist pro-life’ at all.
So what about that shooting of an Army Recruiter? Does it implicate Muslims who don’t strongly enough denounce him?
Are you deliberately confusing a religion with a political movement?
Pro-lifers claim – often – that Christianity justifies their belief that doctors who perform abortions are killing babies. Yet I don’t think a single person on this blog has yet asserted that the pro-life murder of Doctor Tiller implicates all Christians who don’t strongly enough denounce this murder.
Doctor Tiller is the eighth person to be murdered by the pro-life movement in pursuit of its goal to disrupt the political and social consensus on abortion in the US. If you care, you can read the names of the other people murdered by pro-lifers on my blog. Or elsewhere. Pro-lifers have murdered, attempted murder, sent bomb threats, death threats, and anthrax threats, committed arson attacks, and violently harassed clinic staff and patients on their way into or out of the clinic.
This does not correspond to the efforts of the anti-war movement, and claiming that it does is a load of crap. (Oh. I see what you’re trying to do is to hark back to the anti-war movement at the time of the Weather Underground: wow, doesn’t it make you embarrassed to have to try such a weak argument?)
Incidentally, people who go around saying that of course Doctor Tiller was a baby killer but they don’t condone his murder, or who were in the habit of claiming that late-term abortions are infanticides, are in as weak a moral position to claim they have no connection with his murder, as a member of the KKK who asserted that he believed in segregation and stopping blacks from getting uppity, but he didn’t condone lynching.
White preachers who denounced “miscegenation” from their pulpits to a congregation that they knew included people who would go out on a lynching spree, might be protected by law because violent speech is still free speech, but if they didn’t accept their share of responsibility for the lynchings, they were moral cowards as well as racists.
There are social norms surrounding political speech that effectively limit the kinds of things that are said in the US, even if those norms are not encoded in law.
You can’t go on a major TV network and call Jews “Christ-killers”.
But you can go on a major TV network and call abortion providers “baby-killers”.
That’s the state of affairs that needs to change.
My only question is not why those who believe abortion is murder aren’t dissociating themselves from a killing. It’s why people who claim to believe that there is a literal holocaust of the unborn going on are not all taking up arms against this vile and murderous campaign.
Mass murder and the most most of them do is wave placards and occasionally vote Republican? You might as well be law abiding Germans in 1943 for all the good most of you guys are doing. Or for all when push comes to shove you guys seem to actually care. Shouting that abortion is murder appears to (except in very few cases) simply be a way for you guys to try to feel superior – by opposing infanticide (and then doing almost SFA about it and in many cases other than actively encouraging it by banning condoms – the equivalent of passing zoning laws to ban Jews while you knew that there was a Holocaust in progress).
So here’s to the shooter. A hero of the anti-abortion movement. And one of the very few who seems to have taken the rhetoric seriously.
But – following from the point in your first paragraph, what you see as unreasonable calls to denounce the murderer – I would think that denouncing the murderer is so politic and so obvious it hardly needs calling for.
What I would think showed a greater effort to remove yourself from the terrorist wing of the pro-life movement would be a committment by you that you will never again refer to abortions as infanticide, nor to imply that having an abortion is equivalent to killing a baby, nor to allow such claims to be made or inferred in your presence.
There are people who think abortion is wrong who do not use such language. That language is used to justify the violence, both lethal and non-lethal, that has so far killed eight people and caused many more to live in fear of being killed because they work for health clinics.
From one of our first discussions about abortion, I remember making the point that there is a difference between a nun who stands by a clinic quietly praying, and a protester who howls “Baby killer” at a woman going in. The nun may be offending Jesus Christ by using her prayers as a means of public political protest, but that’s between her and her conscience: the howling protester is deliberately trying to put a patient in fear.
If the cases are meant to be parallel, then what’s the equivalent here of Operation Rescue?
As near as I can tell, no one’s demanding apologies from Christians generally, or from leaders of Christian churches.
“As near as I can tell, no one’s demanding apologies from Christians generally, or from leaders of Christian churches. “
No, they’re just telling them to shut the hell up, so that only the pro-choice side will be heard in public, and will win by default.
Look, I think the full blown pro-life position is flat out nuts. What do you expect? I’m an atheist, and it’s fundamentally a religious position. OTOH, the full blown pro-choice position, demanding a right to elective abortion right up to the moment the cord is cut, is about equally nuts.
The nuts extreme of the pro-life movement has considerably more sway in this country, that’s true. That’s because the Supreme court radicalized pro-lifers by imposing something close to the extreme pro-choice position by judicial fiat.
If tomorrow the Supreme court flipped, and issued a mirror image to the Roe v Wade ruling, (Declaring the fetus at all stages to be a 14th amendment person, say.) the US counterparts to Jes would be screaming “Woman killer!”, and it would be the outliers on the other side that were wacking people.
These things happen when the courts decide to take a side in a complex social issue, and apply a ten ton weight instead of a thumb to the scale.
No, they’re just telling [leaders of Christian churches] to shut the hell up
Who is telling the Rev. Lowell Michelson to shut the hell up, Brett? Cite please.
the US counterparts to Jes would be screaming “Woman killer!”, and it would be the outliers on the other side that were wacking people.
Who in El Salvador is “wacking people”, Brett? That’s your example ready for you of a country in which the law bans all abortion, even where continuing a pregnancy will kill the woman involved. Doctors are only allowed to remove ectopic fetuses after the developing fetus has ruptured the Fallopian tube, for example.
If you want to claim that in El Salvador the nutty pro-choicers are “wacking” people, cite.
If tomorrow the Supreme court flipped, and issued a mirror image to the Roe v Wade ruling, (Declaring the fetus at all stages to be a 14th amendment person, say.) the US counterparts to Jes would be screaming “Woman killer!”, and it would be the outliers on the other side that were wacking people.
Just like after the Dred Scott decision, black Americans and extreme abolitionists began murdering slaveowners. Right?
That’s because the Supreme court radicalized pro-lifers by imposing something close to the extreme pro-choice position by judicial fiat.
I keep hearing this, but there have been plenty of court cases since Roe, and what you call the extreme pro-choice position isn’t actually the law of the land. Tiller was one of three guys in the country who performed late-term abortions, and even he would only do them in the case of medical necessity. (Seriously.)
The rest of the hypothetical I don’t see much of a need to address. It doesn’t make sense to justify existing extremist anti-abortion murder by postulating that it’s conceptually possible that someone else could be just as extreme given the opportunity.
Who’s proposed to limit anyone’s speech?
Responding to speech is not limiting it. It is more speech. Calling someone’s speech inflammatory is not censoring them. Arguing that such speech has potential consequences is neither censorship nor dishonesty. (How many segments did Bill O’Reilly run about “Tiller the Baby Killer” after the first attempt to murder Tiller? It was reasonable to believe that Tiller might be in danger, because someone had already tried to shoot him dead.
Should O’Reilly be punished, or have his speech restricted? Of course not. Should he have his moral authority thrown into doubt? Absolutely.
As for the Muslim question: yes, I condemn Islamists. Not Muslims in general, but the strand of militant ideology that views this violence as comprehensible, just as I condemn the sect of “Christians” who encourage violence like this, rather than Christians generally. People in mosques who say, “Of course I don’t agree with bin Laden, but he has a point …” are part of the bloodshed. The blood on their hands might just be spatter, but it’s there.
One of the aspects of the Tiller case that was most troubling was the twenty year campaign of personal, focused demonization and harassment that he endured. That campaign included death threats, assassination attempts, routine participation in public threats by mainstream members of the pro-life movement, and the ongoing stalking of anyone associated with Tiller.
And Sunday, someone who took the movement’s words seriously killed him. In his church, while he was ushering.
That, to me, is the most troubling aspect. Imagine that this particular army recruiter had been the focus of Muslim anger since the early 1980s. Imagine that a generation of American Muslims had grown up being told by their parents that he was literally like Hitler. Imagine they were told that every day he continued to work, hundreds of innocent children would die directly due to his actions.
Imagine that in any discussion of the morality of war, said recruiter was used as a quick and easy shorthand for “Raping and pillaging, and violation of the Geneva convention.” Imagine his office received regular threats, that anyone assigned to work with him was stalked and harassed. Imagine his office had been bombed. Imagine that he had been shot twice simply for going to work.
Now imagine that water cooler conversation among average liberals included the words, “It was definitely terrible. But, you know… kids in that city can sleep safer tonight, because he’s not recruiting.” Or, perhaps, “It was terrible, but the unpleasant truth is that he was a monster.”
Now imagine that his murder was followed by press releases from CAIR, saying “We condemn this senseless murder — but it is also important to note that recruiters are responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent victims of war, and war must be stopped.”
Now you’ve got a bit of what Tiller’s life and death were like.
I spent the eighties and nineties in the pro-life movement. Tiller’s death was an inevitability. We worked hard to make it so. If there were anything I could undo about my past, that would be it.
what conclusions should we draw about the those who agree, at least partially, with his political views, but not his violent methods.
are those people defending, contextualizing, rationalizing, and trying to explain-away his methods (as many people really are doing with Tiller’s killer) ?
if so, they are complicit.
Should trying to empathize with why they would do such a thing subject the person broaching the topic to suggestions that he secretly is ok with the violence?
according to Republicanism, 2001-2008: absolutely, yes. it signals that the person “objectively pro-terrorist”.
Does anyone think that the tactics routinely practiced by antichoice protestors outside clinics would be toleraated for more than 60 seconds outside a recruitment office?
The fact of the matter is, Operation Rescue and its ilk practice tactics of physical intimidation, which they try to shelter under the 1st Amendment.
Have opponents of the Iraq and Afghan wars, Muslim or not, been picketing for years outside the recruiting station? Have they been harassing men and women who go in and out? Have they gone to the homes of the soldiers doing the recruiting and held up large, graphic images of Iraqi and Afghan children burned and with limbs blown off?
Have they been denouncing the recruiters, reinforced by repeated commentary from national television personalities, saying that what the recruiters are doing is mass murder and like something out of Nazi Germany?
Have they been gluing the locks of the recruiting station? Firebombing it? Cutting the wires to the security system?
Has the district attorney been trying to gin up lawsuits to put the recruiting station out of business?
No?
Then there’s not a whole hell of a lot of parallels between the situations.
I’d note this, which I said on another blog yesterday before anyone brought up the recruiting station shooting in Little Rock:
Think the assassin in Wichita will be charged with anything but the murder of George Tiller?
reporters (and some supposedly high-minded bloggers) are still shy about calling it “terrorism”, even though it absolutely meets the legal definition, as well as the plain-sense definition.
go! go! liberal media!
When an act of violence like what was perpetrated against this recruiter is in any way a real threat to the rights of others to pursue their chosen freedom of speech and action (recruiting for the army), then we’d have something even marginally analogous.
What Hilzoy is talking about is the fact that this was terrorism—extremely close to, but still somewhat different than the Taliban killing women who wear western style clothing in Afghanistan. Different because the violence of that movement is more broadly and directly ingrained and ordained, and Operation Rescue isn’t arming and plotting similar murders, but similar because this campaign will lead to the suppression of people’s legal rights (to practice, but more importantly to seek this service) out of fear for their lives.
Killing the recruiting officer was an act of evil, tragic in a thousand different ways, but it is not an act of terrorism. For it to be terrorism there must be the likelihood of more than a single act—and people must fear doing something, not merely feel hatred and condemn the killer. What possibility is there, could there be, that people’s rights to recruit or be recruited have been attacked in the slightest.
On the other hand, harassment isn’t a protected free speech right. And when you couple violence like this with continued harassment, there is a justifiable reason to limiting where people can express those rights. If there were muslim groups picketing recruiting offices today, shouting about how these recruiters were “killers” and would face God’s judgment, trying to convince would-be soldiers that they shouldn’t go in, it would be perfectly rationale to see that picketing as harassment and not protected speech.
And we’d do that in response to guys who want to learn how to use guns (and probably already do) and who might want to go and fight violent “foreigners” anyway.
To think that young women, already dealing with an emotionally difficult situation, would deserve less is really not a serious argument, much less this general analogy that bears no resemblance to what Hilzoy is recommending.
Does anyone think that the tactics routinely practiced by antichoice protestors outside clinics would be toleraated for more than 60 seconds outside a recruitment office?
Surely you are aware that recruitment offices have been shot up, bombed, and are routinely vandalized. Protesters block entrances and intimidate those who might want to enter. Recruiters are literally run off campuses in fear of physical harm… Protest signs include such gems as “We support the troops – when they shoot their officers”. A long running protest to block the entrance to the Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley had the blessing of the city council.
And to clarify one point, the soldiers shot were not even recruiters. They were fresh from training, assigned to help out there while awaiting orders to their units. Did you happen to notice a same day press release from the WH condemning the killing? Me neither.
Both Christians and Islamists who condone violence in the name of religion should be condemned for every act of violence in the name of religion.
Bill O’reilly does have blood on his hand for the murder of Dr. Tiller.
If he called Jews “Christ killers” or Italians “Christian killers” the outrage would be instantaneous.
Abortion is legal. Murder is not.
Surely you are aware that recruitment offices have been shot up, bombed, and are routinely vandalized. Protesters block entrances and intimidate those who might want to enter. Recruiters are literally run off campuses in fear of physical harm… Protest signs include such gems as “We support the troops – when they shoot their officers”. A long running protest to block the entrance to the Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley had the blessing of the city council.
I think your example does an excellent job of proving the opposite point. Why is there no similar outrage? Why don’t we see these two evens are analogous? Please.
Can you seriously try to compare a longstanding campaign against the Berkeley recruiting office to the harassment faced by these clinics? We’re talking about the murder of one of only a few people who even offers these procedures. And since you don’t even have to GO to a recruitment office to exercise your right to join the army (and could easily be transported by the government to another, if absolutely necessary), this would merely be about safe working conditions for those inside, which also isn’t even remotely comparable.
This is an exercise in rhetoric more than logic. If you use the same words, you create the sense of similarity. There just is no comparison.
OTOH, the full blown pro-choice position, demanding a right to elective abortion right up to the moment the cord is cut, is about equally nuts.
This position barely exists, and has zero political traction. I’m intensely pro-choice – have been a clinic escort, etc – but I’ve never met anyone who holds that position. I might have seen some of them online.
I do, completely, think that the anti-choice movement is responsible for Tiller’s death. They’ve used the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that Francis Schaeffer describes, pointed fingers at individual people including Tiller, made analogies to Nazi Germany, and harassed, stalked, and threatened clinic workers – all suggesting that Tiller should be stopped by whatever means necessary. Hilzoy has documented that on this blog. So it’s not about hosting a denounce-a-thon, and its disingenuous to claim that’s what anyone is arguing. I appreciate Schaeffer’s apology, but mostly because he got out of the movement and is no longer doing things to promote the murder of abortion providers. Operation Rescue’s behavior won’t change, so any apology is just so much hot air. The responsibility is still theirs – and they knew that this was a real possibility, because it’s happened before, but changed not one tactic.
It’s just as disingenuous to argue that FACE enforcement is about limiting free speech. Have you ever been a clinic escort? People try pretty hard to intimidate any woman walking into the clinic (though in my experience, the Catholics are better – they say mass, don’t shout anything harassing, and don’t try to intervene in any particular person’s movements). The harassment which, again, hilzoy has recorded ON THIS BLOG is not speech. It’s intimidation. And I don’t think it’s legitimate to use the 1st Amendment to protect intimidating tactics against people who perform legal medical procedures.
The anti-war movement has never used stalking and harassment as major tactics. Islam is a major world religion, and is far too diverse to be called to account for the behavior of a single Muslim (ditto with Christianity – please note that I’m not holding Christians responsible for Tiller’s death). The analogies – they’re bogus. Anti-choice folks who don’t want to be associated with violence and harassment need to think long and hard about how, exactly, they build a movement that doesn’t give aid and comfort to terrorists – because the movement, as it exists, is very good at doing just that.
You’re quoting me, dude.
For the last several years, at least, violent rhetoric has been commonplace on the right. Extremely so.
And not just among weird fringe nutcases muttering to themselves in the back room. Front and center, by some of the most prominent folks who claim the conservative mantle. People who have crafted very successful public careers as spokespeople for American conservatism.
Those people don’t speak for me, aren’t the public face of any point of view I advocate or espouse. Plus, I have a pretty thick skin. So the violent, bullying rhetoric that has become commonplace is neither here nor there to me.
Not my problem.
It becomes my problem when people whose general point of view I share become actual targets of actual violence.
So, yeah, personally, I think it’s time for the speech to be dialed back a bit. I think it’s time for folks who say things like “when the ATF agents enter your home, shoot for head”, or “we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity”, or “we need to execute people like John Walker Lindh in order to physically intimidate liberals”, or who describe political and social differences between people in this country as a “holy war” to no longer be rewarded with radio shows, television shows, invitations to important conservative conventions, book contracts, etc.
You can include links from this blog to the website of magazines published by guys like, frex, Patrick Buchanan in that list if you like. The man is a bullying fascistic thug, and neither he nor his publications deserve the support or encouragement of being linked to by this blog. My two cents.
Violent, bullying rhetoric has been not only tolerated, but encouraged and rewarded on the right for at least the last thirty years. If it bugs you that I respond by saying “Y’all better knock that shit off”, you need to grow a thicker skin.
And, y’all need to knock that shit off. Because rhetoric is spawning reality.
Who’s stocking up on guns and ammo? It ain’t people like me.
Who’s claiming that Obama is going to round up everyone’s kids and send them to liberal re-education camps? It ain’t people like me.
Who is buying these fascistic thugs’ books, listening to their radio shows, watching them on the TV, inviting them to their political conventions, voting them into office, and generally lavishly rewarding them for spewing their violent crap?
It ain’t people like me.
If the cap fits you gotta wear it. If you don’t like it, do something about it.
But don’t come bitching at me if I take exception to people being gunned down in the street after listening to thirty years of the kind of violent, aggressive, fascistic bullshit that is the normal daily product of the American conservative movement.
Settle your own hash.
And yeah, I have no problem with the Islamic community making it very clear, not just with rhetoric but with concrete action, that they don’t support violence.
And by “concrete action” I’m not talking about restricting speech, or beating people up, or shooting anyone. We lefties and liberals don’t roll that way. Not these days anyway.
I’m talking about NOT SUPPORTING PEOPLE THAT ESPOUSE VIOLENCE. Don’t hire them as imams, don’t buy their books, don’t give them access to your public platforms. Don’t support them.
It ain’t that hard.
If what I’m saying bugs you, too bad. It’s not my problem, and I’m gonna make a point of not letting it become my problem.
If you’re a conservative, it’s your problem. Violent fascistic nutjobs are speaking for you, at very high volume, with little or no apparent moderation from others in your community.
You can change that. I’d say it’s a very good idea if you do so.
Thanks –
“Should O’Reilly be punished, or have his speech restricted? Of course not. Should he have his moral authority thrown into doubt? Absolutely.”
Wait — Bill O’Reilly has moral authority?
Should we assume that many such people are complicit?
Well, probably not all such people, and the assumption alone is not grounds for arrest, let alone conviction. But did you know that when Eric Rudolph was arrested after five years as a fugitive mostly if not entirely in Appalachia he was clean-shaven, even with a trimmed mustache, and wearing new sneakers?
Of course, maybe he scavenged them from the trash; indeed, he was arrested while Dumpster diving. Or maybe he spent five years as a petty thief, shoplifting or breaking into peoples’ houses.
Maybe. You never know. But then, considering that a t-shirt supporting him sold well and songs were written encouraging him, maybe he had help. Maybe he had fans. People who would have been, to use your word, complicit in sheltering a terrorist.
Again, maybe it was just one or two families in a rural area who actually, materially helped Rudolph, and all the people who bought the t-shirts and the songs would have turned him over to the police in a second. Do you believe that, though? It seems unlikely to me.
Did you happen to notice a same day press release from the WH condemning the killing? Me neither.
Well of course not, because it’s obvious to everyone with a brain that the administration condemns it. On the other hand, millions of people say they agree with Roeder, even though they apparently fail to live up to their standards and/or follow the beliefs to the logical conclusion. While the current administration has earned the presumption that they don’t agree with Roeder – Obama gets accused from the left of being too willing to compromise with the other side, but I don’t see too many people actually accusing him of being on the other side – pointing out to Roeder’s fellow travelers that they are wrong seems a worthy goal.
Schroder is a lone wacko. Period. He is no more a terrorist than the West Virginia University killer or the Columbine killers.He bears about the same relationship to Operation Rescue as Lee Harvey Oswald did to the Soviet Communist Party. Only those deep in conspiracy nut land blame the death of President Kennedy on the Communist Party these days.
It’s time for all those who called Tiller’s murder an act of terrorism to start walking back their overheated rhetoric.
If Tiller is a victim of anything, he is a victim of America’s crazy gun laws that lets every paranoid schizophrenic get a gun any time he wants. We should focus on THAT.
Plus, it’s been said, but Sebastian’s syllogism is both inaccurate and offensive:
George Tiller’s murder : the pro-life movement
::
William Long’s murder : all of Islam
I was gonna say something, but Jeff Eaton said it better than I would have.
This Althousian ‘I’m just posing some questions here’ thing is as disngenuous as the questions are fatuous. I’ll focus on one:
“Should trying to empathize with why they would do such a thing subject the person broaching the topic to suggestions that he secretly is ok with the violence?”
The commentary on this blog and in the comments largely focused on Megan Mcardle’s effort to have it both ways: to issue a pro forma denunciation of the violence while also offering a moral justification for it. Witness this for instance:
“We accept that when the law is powerless, people are entitled to kill in order to prevent other murders–had Tiller whipped out a gun at an elementary school, we would now be applauding his murderer’s actions. In this case, the law was powerless because the law supported late-term abortions. Moreover, that law had been ruled outside the normal political process by the Supreme Court. If you think that someone is committing hundreds of gruesome murders a year, and that the law cannot touch him, what is the moral action? To shrug? Is that what you think of ordinary Germans who ignored Nazi crimes? Is it really much of an excuse to say that, well, most of your neighbors didn’t seem to mind, so you concluded it must be all right? We are not morally required to obey an unjust law. In fact, when the death of innocents is involved, we are required to defy it.” [ed. note: Interesting that Mcardle seems to think that laws prohibing murder are “unjust” laws that “we are required to defy”; maybe she’s a real libertarian after all]
McGlib was not taken to the cleaners here because she’s a “pro-lifer” who has not sufficiently denounced Tiller’s murder. She was systematically dismantled because of the moral and logical atrocity quoted above. So, my dear namesake, if you meant to be talking about the drubbing that Mcardle received ’round here, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Indeed, you’re not even in the right forest.
If you weren’t talking about the main focus of discussion here (which would be odd, frankly), why not make some specific arguments rather than throwing around these Althousian questions? Such questions are not enlightening; they appear designed to avoid actually engaging the issue and arguing specifics as well as giving you plausible deniability if anyone tries to argue with the implications that you are clearly trying to draw. Really, leave that to Althouse.
Recruiters are literally run off campuses in fear of physical harm…
I followed the link included in this shocking assertion of OCSteve’s to the documentary evidence, and folks, he has a point. Military recruiters take their lives in their hands every time they visit a college campus, knowing that even their bulletproof vests might not be enough. The antiwar movement has a very long history, clear up to the present day, of violence and intimidation against the military and its would-be recruits all across the country. Why, an entire cadre of antiwar activists relocated to Wichita, just to harass and intimidate one particular military recruiter where he lived.
And when you consider the “chilling effect” the Arkansas shooting will have on those who run recruiting stations and people seeking to join the military, and the fact that the shooter had the phone number of the local Code Pink coordinator on him, it does seem reprehensible that the antiwar movement hasn’t stepped up to denounce the killing while reiterating that military recruiters are murderous monsters.
Meanwhile, the antiwar Muslim is getting charged with murder and terrorism, since his target was members of the military rather than a civilian physician in a church. Which just makes the equivalence even stronger.
to OCSteve’s examples: just note that the people who condone, justify, rationalize and actually do those things are not the leading lights of liberalism. shutting down recruitment centers isn’t part of the Democratic party platform. i really have no idea who these people are, where they organize, how i could get in touch with them, etc.. in other words, the people who harass recruitment officers really are far outside the mainstream of American lefty politics.
on the other hand, there is always a network TV camera ready to broadcast whatever Randall Terry wants to say that day. conservative magazines are full of people who support abortion protests. the protests themselves are full of Christian priests who seem to have no problem encouraging the ongoing violence against clinic employees. leading voices in the GOP support anti-abortion protests. “pro-choice Republican” is almost an oxymoron these days.
in other words: one group of people is so fringe that most people don’t even know they exist. the other group is proudly represented by conservatives at every level.
OCSteve: Surely you are aware that…
…and OCSteve once again demonstrates his gullibility in the face of right-wing propaganda.
Honestly, OCSteve, doesn’t it ever occur to you to go check what you read in the right-wing blogosphere from a more reliable source? Or even just, you know, to think about what conforms nicely to your prejudices?
I’m very sorry that Private William Long has been killed: his family and friends are suffering just as much as the family and friends of Doctor George Tiller. There are differences to how Doctor Tiller was treated by the media before he was killed and afterwards, to how Private Long was treated – will be treated: one of the most significant differences is that there had been no nationwide hate campaign specifically directed against Private Long for his work, and there are no widespread claims in the blogosphere or elsewhere, that while Long’s death is not condoned by the anti-war movement, he was doing evil in his daily work and the people who might have been recruited to the army can now rest easy. These claims would be appalling if they were being made – but they are not. For George Tiller, despite his grieving family and friends and former patients, they are being made.
President Obama’s failure to make a statement about Private Long’s death probably corresponds to President Bush’s failure to make a statement about the death of any of the firefighters, police officers, or priests, who were killed in New York on September 11, but who did not die as a result of the WTC attack.
I’m really glad russell weighed in on pulling up his quote. I’ve been trying to write somthing to get at the problematic nature of pulling a quote from him, a person who has been unfailingly polite and thoughtful, and taking that quote to somehow represent if not the totality, the large portion of his feelings as well as the majority of the commentariat on this blog, but it always seemed to morph into some hi octane fuel to get the blaze going. But he clearly has a thicker skin than I do, so, what Russell said.
However, a smaller point, I thought that there was a line, albeit hazy, about pulling up quotes from commenters and highlighting them in isolation to make points. Needless to say, that is my own view, and you are welcome to ignore it, but I believe that it is not a very good policy.
For one, Steve: there’s an enormous difference in size and scale of the two movements: anti-military-recruiting actions (vs., frex, university policy disputes) have pretty much amounted to about, what? A dozen or so occasions of vandalism/harrassment since the start of thr Iraq War? I know cretins like Michelle Malkin have been trying, for years, to gin up outrage at this “leftwing terror”; but the cases aren’t similar. At all. When anti-military radical activism grows to the point where it is comparable in scope to the nationwide network (often church-related) of fanatical anti-abortion obsessives stalking doctors, picketing clinics, maintaining online deathlists, posting bloodthirsty threads on hundreds of blogs – IOW, anti-military activity on a scale not seen even at the height of Vietnam – then you might have some cause to claim some sort of equivalency between the two “movements”, Until then? Not so much.
BTW, I am aware that there is a large network of “jihadi” organizations with numerous websites accessible to violent-minded Muslims to egg on any particular rages they might want to stoke: but in terms of the US, and its population, we are still looking at a vastly smaller audience (and pool of potential violent nuts).
This is ultimately all a result of fundamentalism of belief combined with fanaticism of conviction. Even secular war protesters who blow stuff up and kill people are described by this combination. In order to do such horrible things you have to have an unambiguous, unnuanced (and usually ignorant and wrong) view of what is right and wrong as well as the zealotry to carry it out.
I lay the blame at the foot of any organization or ideology that requires unquestioned faith of any sort. This sort of sickness becomes especially bad when that faith is placed in one source, whether that source is an individual (God, Allay, Stalin, or the Pope, etc.) or a text (Bible, Koran, etc). Once you check your skepticism at the door, you’ve opened a path for any number of things that simple reflection would tell you is wrong.
It’s time for all those who called Tiller’s murder an act of terrorism to start walking back their overheated rhetoric.
Why do you keep on saying things that are not true? Are you compelled to pontificate about subjects on which you resolutely remain ignorant, or are you congizant of your error but believe that misrepresenting the facts is more likely to win the argument?
Most of the debate so far has been about to what degree Roeder can be considered representative of the anti-abortion movement. I feel and others feel that he is representative to at least a somewhat substantial degree (forgive me if that sounds wishy-washy) and the movement is at least somewhat complicit. Sebastian apparently disagrees, although either I didn’t understand his argument or I don’t think it holds water. Fine, fair enough.
And then you try to argue that not only does Roeder have nothing to do with the anti-abortion movement (or at least, Operation Rescue, although your specificity seems like setting up a strawman), but he has nothing to do with even terrorism? That’s obviously false. Terrorism, even under the more narrow definitions, is the threat or actual use of high-profile but low-intensity lethal force against civilians to achieve a political end. Please explain how that doesn’t describe Roeder.
Cyrus: Why do you keep on saying things that are not true?
Because he’s a troll. *shrug*
I agree with your views, Sebastian.
“He bears about the same relationship to Operation Rescue as Lee Harvey Oswald did to the Soviet Communist Party. Only those deep in conspiracy nut land blame the death of President Kennedy on the Communist Party these days.”
Not “Communist Party” but maybe you should read the recently declassified CIA documents that demonstarte Oswald’s ties to the Soviets. I recommend Legacy of Ashes by Time Weiner.
“It’s time for all those who called Tiller’s murder an act of terrorism to start walking back their overheated rhetoric.”
But that’s exactly what it is. Textbook definition.
It’s time for all those who called Tiller’s murder an act of terrorism to start walking back their overheated rhetoric.
take it up with Congress. it’s terrorism as defined by the laws of the US.
So, basically, this post can be summed up as, “Here are two unlike things which I am forcing to try to be alike. Now, don’t all you lie-berals feel like a bunch of hypocrites?”
“Does anyone think that the tactics routinely practiced by antichoice protestors outside clinics would be toleraated for more than 60 seconds outside a recruitment office?”
This sounds like a joke. I live in San Diego. About 2 miles from a recruitment center. Where there were protests. Including nasty-sloganeering posterboards, harrassment of people going in, and screaming of murderer (not much praying I’ll admit). It was tolerated for months, not just 60 seconds. And so far as I know there was absolutely no legal action taken against them at any time. Also no special speech zones, unlike those proposed in abortion protest cases.
“If you’re a conservative, it’s your problem. Violent fascistic nutjobs are speaking for you, at very high volume, with little or no apparent moderation from others in your community.”
Russel, maybe I’m crazy, but I would swear that you weren’t thrilled with people who said almost the EXACT same thing to Muslims. Whose fascistic nutjobs have done 3 orders of magnitude more in the way of killing in the United States than pro-life nutjobs. But in THAT case, it was important for us to remember that most Muslims are moderate. That the nutjobs, while louder, don’t actually speak for the majority. That lack of instant denunciation isn’t complicty, Etc., etc. etc.
And that is right.
In both cases.
“However, a smaller point, I thought that there was a line, albeit hazy, about pulling up quotes from commenters and highlighting them in isolation to make points.”
I actually didn’t have a problem with Sebastian pulling my quote. Even in its full original context, it is arguably not clear where I was going with statements like “you need to get the fringe elements of your demographic to…” or “there’s gonna be hell to pay”. And, am I accusing all conservatives of having the blood of Tiller on their hands?
So, allow me to clarify.
I do not think that all conservatives have the blood of Tiller on their hands. Tiller’s blood is on the hands of the man who shot him, and possibly on the hands of folks who either directly supported the assassination in his efforts, or knew what was afoot and did nothing.
That’s likely a pretty small community.
What I am calling for is for an end to the kind of violent, bullying, fascistic rhetoric that has been as common as the air we breathe in the conservative community for at least a generation.
Not through legal repression, but through the withdrawal of support on the part of folks who our verbal bullies claim to speak for. Stop listening to their radio shows, stop watching them on the TV. Respond, publicly and visibly, as a conservative, to their public statements and make it extremely clear that they do not speak for you.
I gave the example of the link to the TAC website. TAC is probably the conservative publication I most enjoy reading. The folks who write there are almost uniformly thoughtful and articulate. It’s also published by Patrick Buchanan, who I consider to be openly fascist.
Is it overkill to not link to the TAC site because it’s Buchanan’s publication? Maybe, maybe not. What does a “zero tolerance for bullying rhetoric” look like? How would the folks who write for TAC respond if a blog like ObWi chose to remove the link because of Buchanan’s statements?
Note that removing a link is not suppressing anyone’s free speech, it’s a gesture of NOT SUPPORTING that speech.
I want it to no longer be acceptable for conservative (or any) public figures to traffic in violent and bullying rhetoric.
Not illegal. Unacceptable. We’ve had enough.
Rights incur responsibilities. It’s naive to traffic in language like “kill them”, “hit them with 2x4s”, “physically intimidate them”, and then say that you bear no responsibility whatsoever when people are killed, beaten with 2x4s, or physically intimidated.
I’m calling for reasonable conservatives to extend zero tolerance for violent rhetoric. I call for the same from liberals, however our task there is easier. Not claiming any moral high ground there, it just is.
I’ll start with myself. No more calls for kicking Dick Cheney in the nuts from me.
Thanks
“Russel, maybe I’m crazy, but I would swear that you weren’t thrilled with people who said almost the EXACT same thing to Muslims.”
Is anywhere here saying these things to Christians, as Christians?
von: I agree with your views, Sebastian.
What, you see an equivalence between being a Muslim and being a pro-lifer?
“Russel, maybe I’m crazy, but I would swear that you weren’t thrilled with people who said almost the EXACT same thing to Muslims. “
I don’t know, I’d have to go back and look at what I said.
Also, I think context is important. At a time when people were openly calling for herding Muslims into camps, I may have leaned more in the direction of cutting the majority of Muslims some slack rather than not.
But, I’d have to go back and look at what I said to really answer your question.
For the record, I would wholeheartedly support and encourage the Muslim community to do the same things I’m calling on conservatives to do. Present a strong public voice disavowing violent rhetoric, and offer zero support for folks who traffic in it.
Thanks
No. No, they’re not.
A clever post of course — but I disagree that the situations are similar (much less equivalent).
My point was that in interpreting the scope of restrictions you should consider historical patterns, etc. (i.e., the real world). For instance, cross burning hasn’t occurred in a vacuum. To call it “speech” is to willfully ignore its sordid history. Same deal with violence against abortion providers.
That said, if there were some sustained pattern of violence against military recruiters, then I think it makes perfect sense to interpret the First to allow greater restrictions for protesters surrounding these offices.
But until then, the protest is speech.
Sebastian: “I live in San Diego. About 2 miles from a recruitment center. Where there were protests. Including nasty-sloganeering posterboards, harrassment of people going in, and screaming of murderer (not much praying I’ll admit). It was tolerated for months, not just 60 seconds. And so far as I know there was absolutely no legal action taken against them at any time. Also no special speech zones, unlike those proposed in abortion protest cases.”
And these were all Muslims, right? Months of all these screaming, nasty protesting Muslims, right there 2 miles away from you in San Military Heaven Diego? Why didn’t you just say so in your post?
Publius,
What about protests against military recruiters that, while still speech, in context with related violence can lead to an infringement on people’s ability to conduct legal actions.
In my example, I’d say that anti-recruiting people who show up at recruiting offices and shout some of the things that Sebastian says he’s heard. I would suspect we’d consider this, in the context of a violent act, to be worthy of restriction. (What about a bunch of teenagers standing outside a school in trench coats after Columbine, holding signs that say, “Klebold is my hero.” and shouting about how these students will all go to hell.)*
But even if that group did show up at the recruiting office, that still wouldn’t make the original shooting a functional act of terrorism in the way that Tiller’s murder clearly is.
So, wouldn’t the context suggest that these kinds of restrictions would be reasonable?
*I’m know these details about the Columbine shooters are myths, but that’s completely beside the point for both the intent and effect of the protests.
“My point was that in interpreting the scope of restrictions you should consider historical patterns, etc. (i.e., the real world). For instance, cross burning hasn’t occurred in a vacuum. To call it “speech” is to willfully ignore its sordid history. Same deal with violence against abortion providers.”
And my point remains that you aren’t very consistent with what you are willing to take in to account. In the past you have correctly diagnosed the overreaction in civil rights which took place in response to the murder of 3,000 and attempted murder of then of thousands in New York. You correctly note that, for example authorizing torture isn’t what we need to do as a nation, suppressing the free speech of Muslims (even those who don’t loudly denounce violence) isn’t what we need to do as a nation, and that causing people with distantly similar views to be investigated isn’t what we need to do as a nation.
And yet with one high profile murder, you are already willing to start insinuating the need for evading the 1st amendment. Or, if you will, with 8 murders in 20 years, you are already willing to start insinuating the need for evading the 1st amendment.
And on what basis? Because he fulfills your stereotype of a scary Christian? How can you distinguish that reaction from that of someone who is vaguely afraid of his stereotypes of scary Muslims? Because he posted on a pro-life electronic bulletin board? You’re aware of how Muslim terrorists groups communicate via the internet, right? Because he was a member of the Freeman (which is neither a pro-life organization, nor a Christian organization)? That seems like a stretch considering that your targets are pro-life. Because heated rhetoric can cause mentally ill people to do crazy and bad things? That is at least as true in the Muslim population.
The large groups ought to denounce terrorist violence. And they do, if somewhat more tepidly than we might like. They ought to work against it both internally and externally. But we don’t need to sacrifice any of our basic civic values to fight them. We aren’t in that kind of existential threat situation.
You recognize it with Muslim extremists who have done vastly more damage. Overreacting to 8 deaths in 20 years on this issue isn’t necessary either.
urprisingly, Ellen Goodman seems to have addressed this issue today. The piece is called “The Myth of the Lone Shooter.”
Why, I think I’ll just turn a blind eye & fill the room with lots of words.
“And yet with one high profile murder, you are already willing to start insinuating the need for evading the 1st amendment.”
Who has called for, or even insinuated, this?
I think this question looks substantially different whether you think this is the last accident like this, at least for the proximate future, or whether there is a danger of more violence.
If you presume that Roeder is the last person out there liable to kill an OB/GYN, then perhaps it makes sense to turn the page not assign blame for inflammatory rhetoric. I don’t agree, but then we’re only talking about blame after the fact.
If, on the other hand, you assume that there might be people out there watching TV right now, picking up on the way Dr. Tiller is described even in death, listening intently to the claim that he was a mass murdered, and you think some of those people might eventually act on the rhetoric they hear … well, this is a very different question.
Interestingly:
— Sebastian’s been responding to posts on a pretty regular basis.
— He has taken none of these opportunities to defend his central syllogism:
**”George Tiller’s murder : the pro-life movement
::
“William Long’s murder : all of Islam”
— This point has been raised repeatedly (not just by myself).
Just one brief comment. I want to declare russell one of the most balanced commenters on this or any other blog.
Even when he goes on one of his rants he is unfailingly civil. Well, mostly civil.
“Who has called for, or even insinuated, this”
Publius, four days ago. Which is why the section you quote is directly from my response to him.
Cleek: just note that the people who condone, justify, rationalize and actually do those things are not the leading lights of liberalism. shutting down recruitment centers isn’t part of the Democratic party platform. i really have no idea who these people are, where they organize, how i could get in touch with them, etc.. in other words, the people who harass recruitment officers really are far outside the mainstream of American lefty politics.
I didn’t make any claim any other way – I was responding to the implicit and explicit statements that similar tactics were never used against recruitment centers – when many of the exact same tactics are used. But to your point – is the Berkley city counsel really anathema to the Democratic Party?
JayC: Ditto – I didn’t make the original comparison, I was responding to the statements that similar tactics where not used and would not be tolerated if they were. That’s just not the case. Scope and longevity are obvious differences – but many of the exact same tactics are used, and officially sanctioned by at least one local government.
Well of course not, because it’s obvious to everyone with a brain that the administration condemns it.
How so? Two violent terrorist acts that occur a short time apart. And IMO both are exactly terrorist acts. One calls for a timely and special condemnation from the WH – the other doesn’t even get a mention. Not even condolences to the family, not even yesterday when Obama spoke about the new Army secretary which would seem to provide an opening.
“evading” is a loaded term — and it’s not really about content. i think that’s a key point you’re missing.
there are legitimate public safety concerns in allowing protesters to be within a certain distance of clinics. to the extent being close is “speech,” I think historical realities should inform that. just like i think they should inform putting a burning cross near someone’s house.
Not even condolences to the family
You’ve talked to Private William Long’s family? You know them personally?
Or you’re just using a soldier’s death to advance your partisan political beliefs?
I didn’t make any claim any other way
of course.
that’s why i started out with “just note…”.
But to your point – is the Berkley city counsel really anathema to the Democratic Party?
well, for starters, it did rescinded that order almost immediately after passing it; so even the Berkeley City Council realized how silly the Berkeley City Council was being. if they hadn’t done that i can’t imagine that a single Dem Congressman would’ve hesitated to do everything he/she could to show the country his/her disapproval. Dems really aren’t anti-military, you know?
other than that, i don’t know much about the B.C.C..
@OCSteve: Every one of the elements of the campaign of intimidation and harassment I mentioned has been documented (most in hilzoy’s recent post) as having happened, and all were directed at the Tiller clinic itself. There are similar but less intense campaigns directed against many other abortion providers.
Not only is there not a single link in your collection of assertions about military recruiters, but even if they were all documented (unlikely), they’d be from incidents widely scattered in location and time (mid-1960s). There is nothing today remotely resembling the campaign of intimidation that Operation Rescue directs at abortion providers and women clients focused on military recruiters and potential recruits.
are there any websites showing the faces, names, addresses and daily habits of recruiters ? do they get red X’s when one is killed ?
Court decisions are simply court decisions, until we don’t like them, whereupon we begin attempting to rhetorically stack the deck by referring to a court decision as “judical fiat.”
Brett writes: “The nuts extreme of the pro-life movement has considerably more sway in this country, that’s true. That’s because the Supreme court radicalized pro-lifers by imposing something close to the extreme pro-choice position by judicial fiat.”
Yet I doubt he’d agree with the following: “The nuts extreme of the gun control movement has considerably more sway in this country, that’s true. That’s because the Supreme court radicalized pro-gun-controllers by imposing something close to the extreme pro-gun position by judicial fiat in District of Columbia v. Heller.”
If “Roe” is “judicial fiat,” so is every other Supreme Court case.
Either we should recognize that every single Supreme Court case is “judicial fiat,” or better, we recognize that this is a meaningless term that begs the question, and people should quit trying that trick. It never works, anyway.
there are legitimate public safety concerns in allowing protesters to be within a certain distance of clinics. to the extent being close is “speech,” I think historical realities should inform that. just like i think they should inform putting a burning cross near someone’s house.
exactly. Ditto for harassing and stalking clinic staff, digging through their garbage, and following their cars. These are acts of harassment and intimidation, not speech: they are organized campaigns designed to pressure a single individual to change his or her career, not efforts to communicate a group’s policy position. Not only that, but clinic protesters who get close to clinics have done things like glue the locks, block the doors, and try to disable the security system; they have also shot and bombed clinics. In the face of that real danger, don’t you think it might be legitimate to restrict how close such protesters can get to a clinic, or to someone’s home?
Sebastian, I don’t understand why you can’t make this distinction. No one is suggesting that we legally restrict Randall Terry’s ability to call Tiller a demonic mass murderer – despite the fact that it’s essentially a dehumanizing incitement to violence. Instead, we’re saying that clinics are actually in real, tangible danger from which they cannot be protected without some minor First Amendment infringements.
I also think it’s pretty important to recognize that the effects of this harassment aren’t limited to the 8 murders in 20 years; they include the intimidation which has prevented many ob/gyns from providing abortions, and include the fact that 87% of US counties lack an abortion provider. This limits women’s ability to access a basic, necessary medical procedure, and is a real and substantial consequence. (As is the collateral damage inflicted on women whose fetuses die in utero and have to wait days, bleeding, for surgery that may be the only way to preserve their fertility. I am not exaggerating.) Big consequences for women from this kind of intimidation; small consequences for anti-choice protesters from minor locational restrictions on where they stand. Not a hard question for me.
One calls for a timely and special condemnation from the WH – the other doesn’t even get a mention.
Hey, do me a favor — when we’re down to a total of three Army recruiters in the entire US, because the others have either been killed or harrassed into quitting, you let me know, OK?
I’m going to ask you to really clarify “not really about content” in the context of your post. Because your post reads as if you believe in special restrictions on the specific case of pro-life protestors. You specifically call out a court case that is about that. And not ‘really’ about content doesn’t make me feel great about your formulation.
Are you talking about *wholly* content-neutral rules to be applied to all protestors (specific recent examples should include at least anti-war protestors, anti-globalisation protestors [who by the way have an extensive history of inciting riots], anti-Bush protestors, anti-death penalty protestors, anti-nuclear power protestors, and pro-animal rights protestors)? Or are you talking about special rules to be applied to pro-life protestors?
Also what are your thoughts on the rhetorical closeness between the terrorist acts of Earth Liberation Front (including highly dangerous firebombings in fire-prone areas) and the hyperbolic rhetoric of say GreenPeace?
Publius, four days ago. Which is why the section you quote is directly from my response to him.
And you’re still not responding in any way at all to the queries about why you’re comparing all of Islam to the pro-life movement.
Though on that one, Von says he agrees with you, so I guess if you have the support of a fellow pro-lifer in your attack on Islam, why do you need to respond to anyone else?
So what about that shooting of an Army Recruiter? Does it implicate Muslims who don’t strongly enough denounce him?
If the Muslims who don’t strongly enough denounce him are also ones who helped incite him — as is the case with many of the more vocal forced birthers like Randally Terry — then yes. The question is, do any of these individuals actually exist, let alone, like Terry, have a national forum?
Publius, four days ago. Which is why the section you quote is directly from my response to him.
Nonsense. There is no First Amendment right to threaten, intimidate, extort, or incite crowds to violence. It isn’t “evading the First Amendment” to call these thugs’ tactics what they are and — at the very least in the first two cases, and arguably the second two — are intended to be.
I see by other comments that the apparent linklessness of OCSteve’s assertions about military recruiting centers is only apparent, due to their being stripped out by *&^%$#@ Typepad. So, apologies for the hasty accusation.
My larger point stands, and has been made by other commenters. The guy who shot two soldiers in Little Rock is a classic example of the lone nut. Dr. Tiller’s assassin is part of an active, organized campaign of intimidation, harassment, and vilification amplified in the press.
That’s why Dr. Tiller’s murder (in a church!) is an act of terrorism and the Little Rock shootings are a horrible, sad crime. That’s why Obama made an immediate statement about Tiller and not about the soldiers in Little Rock.
No one, including you, OCSteve, thinks there is a national campaign of intimidation and harassment to stop recruitment, of which the Little Rock shootings were a part.
The pro-life movement has, for decades, explicitly worked to harass and intimidate clinics that provide abortions because they are the weak link of “legal abortion.” If they cannot change the law, they can make it impossible or dangerous to actually exercise those legal rights.
Tiller in particular had been threatened, chased, and shot. His family was targeted for intimidation. He received regular death threats. His employees were stalked and harassed and threatened. His employees’ families were stalked and harassed and threatened. His daily movements were tracked by networks of volunteer stalkers who posted the information online, on websites emblazoned with dripping blood. Groups of pro-lifers relocated to Kansas just to participate in the ongoing campaign.
US presidential candidates publicly called him an inhuman monster. Church members taught their children that he was evil. Television and radio pundits campaigned against him. Radicals called for his murder and mainstream pro-lifers held thoughtful, abstract discussions about the moral implications of murdering abortionists. Was it justified? Probably not… But certainly, it was a question to be grappled with.
For decades.
The groups and individuals conducting this campaign were explicit about their motives: because they could not convince the rest of the nation that a specific medical procedure should be illegal, they would force those who performed the procedure to stop. By intimidating them. And in some cases by threatening them. And in some cases, by killing them.
Tiller’s killing was an act of terrorism. It was an attempt to terrorize a group of people.
If you do not recognize this, I wonder if you’ve ever actually known any pro-life activists.
“I recommend Legacy of Ashes by Time Weiner.”
Not to be confused with Time Warner.
ha
Also, what about the Unabomber?
Crazy man. Not deeply linked to the environmental movement, but operating during a time of radicalization of that movement–including violent action by other members of other groups and long term organized campaigns of harrassment by more mainstream groups (Greenpeace and Earth First I’m looking at you).
Does he count as someone who ought to be analyzed under this rubric? Do environmental groups need to be looked at that way?
“If the Muslims who don’t strongly enough denounce him are also ones who helped incite him ”
Are you playing on stereotypes about who you assume ‘helped incite him’ or do you have some sort of proof?
“And you’re still not responding in any way at all to the queries about why you’re comparing all of Islam to the pro-life movement.”
Jesurgislac, that is because my point is about how people are lifting stereotyped traits from the killers and then broad-brushing them into ridiculous and panicky conclusions. At no point am I saying that Muslims OUGHT to be tarred with the killing. I’m specifically using the example because you shouldn’t look at him and think “typical Muslim” or “typical anti-war protestor”. You shouldn’t use the stereotypes that way. You think I’m using it as an affirmative attack against Muslims because you refuse to engage your stereotyping of pro-lifers.
I hate coming back to echo myself, but it’s also important to note that the pro-life movement had no problem with what was being done to Tiller, his family, his employees and their families — until someone went just a liiiiiiittle too far.
Then it’s all “Oh, goodness! That was wrong. And isn’t it horrible that evil abortionists will try to use this against us?”
Hearing about Tiller’s death reminded me why I left the pro-life movement. Hearing the pro-life movement’s response to his death reminded me why I left God.
“But to your point – is the Berkley city counsel really anathema to the Democratic Party?”
It certainly isn’t mainstream.
“Surely you are aware that recruitment offices have been shot up, bombed, and are routinely vandalized. Protesters block entrances and intimidate those who might want to enter. Recruiters are literally run off campuses in fear of physical harm… Protest signs include such gems as ‘We support the troops – when they shoot their officers’. A long running protest to block the entrance to the Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley had the blessing of the city council.
And to clarify one point, the soldiers shot were not even recruiters.”
It would be helpful to have links to all these incidents, so all of us could work off the same page. I, for one, pretty much don’t know what you’re talking about. Who was shot, when? Where around the country are these protests and bombings taking place? Etc.
Thanks, OCSteve.
“A long running protest to block the entrance to the Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley had the blessing of the city council.”
I don’t know anything about this, but that doesn’t sound very violent. In any case, if they’re blocking legal access, than they should be arrested, and take what comes of civil disobedience. Did the city council prevent that, or what? Links, please?
“Not deeply linked to the environmental movement”
Was he linked at all?
Sebastian: that is because my point is about how people are lifting stereotyped traits from the killers and then broad-brushing them into ridiculous and panicky conclusions.
So, you acknowledge and you see no problem with, equating a global religion to a national political movement? That’s your point?
Are you playing on stereotypes about who you assume ‘helped incite him’ or do you have some sort of proof?
You want proof that pro-lifers incited the murder of George Tiller? What kind of proof?
Are you asking for links to pro-life websites that referred to George Tiller as a baby-killer? If so, how many would you like? I think the maximum per comment is five.
Sebastian: Are you talking about *wholly* content-neutral rules to be applied to all protestors (specific recent examples should include at least anti-war protestors, anti-globalisation protestors [who by the way have an extensive history of inciting riots], anti-Bush protestors, anti-death penalty protestors, anti-nuclear power protestors, and pro-animal rights protestors)? Or are you talking about special rules to be applied to pro-life protestors?
There is at least one major difference between all of those examples and anti-abortion protestors protesting outside abortion clinics, which justifies treating those protestors differently than the ones you mentioned.
“pro-life protestors”
those people are no more pro-life than your average NOW member.
Sebastian, this is the part that just absolutely boggles me. I helped incite him. My friends and family did. My church did. Churches around the country did. Christian leaders in roles of great prominence did. National television personalities did. Writers, newspaper columnists, pastors…
All of these people — me, my friends, my leaders, my loved ones — shouted to the world that George Tiller was a mass murderer, and that to stand by while he killed was to be complicit in murder.
That is not hyperbole. That is literally what we said. And we believed it.
We can’t even claim to be shocked by what happened — people who actually took us seriously have been trying to kill Tiller for longer than most of my co-workers have been alive.
And we kept saying it. Over, and over. Louder, and louder. We held vigils and we wrote pamphlets and we went on television and we shouted on sidewalks and we put up our web sites and we posted his address and we hunted down the people he bought coffee from in the morning and shouted at them.
And then someone killed him.
And now, in the aftermath of his murder, posts about his life, and his compassion, are circulating. These are not attempts to idolize him, or to turn him into a saint — they are attempts to counteract the decades of monstrous propaganda that we created, disseminated, and spread that led directly to his death.
Roeder poured glue into the locks of another clinic a few days before he shot George Tiller in the lobby of his church. He had the Operation Rescue hotline number on the dashboard of his car to be read through the windshield. He had the anti-abortion symbol painted on the side of his car. He contributed to OR website comment section — with suggestions to confront Tiller at his church. He visited the woman who shot Tiller in the arms in prison. He took part in numerous protests at clinics and the meetings at which they were planned and organized.
It’s not a stretch or stringing together coincidental circumstantial evidence to say that Roeder was part of the organized campaign of protest, intimidation, and harassment focused on abortion providers generally and on Dr. Tiller and his clinic specifically.
“I think the maximum per comment is five.”
Four.
Sebastian’s 1:17 comment clarifies a lot:
“I’m specifically using the example because you shouldn’t look at him and think ‘typical Muslim’ or ‘typical anti-war protester’.”
But that seems to confuse the central point these many posts have been trying to make: that Roeder killed Tiller to further a cause and prompted by movement for that cause — in other words, an act of terrorism.
All the policy suggestions made here — an apology by the pro-life movement, more abortion protection, restrictions on the movement’s activity — stems from this analysis.
It makes little sense, in this view, to compare the pro-life movement’s and Islam’s respective relationship with these two killings — as Jesurgislac pointed out, one is a national movement, one is a global religion.
Well of course not, because it’s obvious to everyone with a brain that the administration condemns it.
How so?
Because, um, Obama supports the military and, uh, wants it to stay big? He’s increasing the troop presence in Afghanistan; of course he wants recruiting to continue. His budget increased military spending.
You think I’m using it as an affirmative attack against Muslims because you refuse to engage your stereotyping of pro-lifers.
If you believe that all Muslims around the world are as monolithic, homogenous and coordinated as the adherents of the American “pro-life” movement, then yeah, that does sound like… maybe not an attack, but irresponsible and childish exagerration. A very myopic, “America, fuck yeah” view that almost all the rest of the world is alike. On the other hand, if you don’t believe that, then what’s the point of the comparison? Different things get treated differently based on their differences; this is banal.
(Obviously, the American anti-abortion movement isn’t completely homogenous. But it’s a hell of a lot more so than the second or third most popular religion in the world.)
With regards to the Unabomber — first, I may have been young, but I’m pretty sure everybody at the time agreed he was a terrorist (so if Roeder’s like him, sort of helps the pro-choice argument here).
But second, the rhetoric and world view of the Unabomber was pretty well documented, and it doesn’t seem to mirror that of the eco-vandals at the time.* With Roeder, the case is that the same movement (the rhetoric, worldview, etc.) that motivated harassment (etc.) also motivated the murder.
*I’m pretty sure their big “concern” was animal “rights”.
Does he count as someone who ought to be analyzed under this rubric? Do environmental groups need to be looked at that way?
Did environmental groups spend decades harrassing, BY NAME, the victims of the Unabomer, and picketing their homes and workplaces, etc., etc.? (Don’t answer, as we both know they didn’t.)
When an apparently crazed man goes and kills the object of his political or religious obsession, what conclusions should we draw about the those who agree, at least partially, with his political views, but not his violent methods.
The premise of this post postulates the issue in a false light, and predictably goes off the rails. Correcting the premise helps:
When a faction of a political movement regularly employs violence-laden rhetoric and thuggish tactics, what conclusions can you draw about that faction when one of its adherents acts on that rhetoric and engages in murder?
That the faction needs to be soundly condemned for its ways, and that the attempts to distance itself from the murder smacks of insincerity. Which, by the way, cannot be construed as an argument that they should be silenced (another false premise of this post).
I recognize that there are plenty of non-violent anti-abortionists of sincere belief that do not employ or support “baby-killer” and “holocaust” rhetoric, and this episode does not reflect anything as to them. To make that clear, they should have been condemning the rhetoric of the hard-line faction before the murder occurs. Otherwise, one can be reasonably suspicious of the sincerity of the condemnations of violence.
Late to the thread, but: based on what I know, I do not think that the guy who shot the two soldiers was a terrorist. I do not say this because I don’t think what he did was abhorrent: I mean, I also don’t think that Jeffrey Dahmer was a terrorist, and I’m not sure how much more abhorrent one can get.
It’s not because he’s not connected to an organization: as was noted above, neither was the Unabomber.
It is because I don’t see any evidence, yet, that he was trying to alter people’s behavior through terror. Maybe more info has come out since I last read about this (last night), but as far as I could tell, from the somewhat sketchy coverage, he hated the military, and was lashing out in a horrible way.
I do not support curtailing anyone’s rights to free speech. I do think that if I were in the pro-life movement, I would be asking myself about the connection between my rhetoric and Tiller’s death. But the reason for asking that would not be because I’d be wondering what rights to free speech I should have; it would be because I would be searching my conscience, asking myself whether anything I had done falls into the category of “things one ought to have a right to do, but ought not to do anyways.”
I do not think that there is a similar history of incitement in the anti-war movement, insofar as there is an anti-war movement. And, as was noted above, I don’t think that blaming Muslims, as opposed to people who oppose the war, is the right place to look, any more than “Christians” would be the right group to consider blaming for Tiller’s death.
What matters is not demonstrations. (Think of a group of very polite Quakers demonstrating against something to see why.) It’s incitement to violence.
“I would be searching my conscience, asking myself whether anything I had done falls into the category of “things one ought to have a right to do, but ought not to do anyways.”
“What matters is not demonstrations. (Think of a group of very polite Quakers demonstrating against something to see why.) It’s incitement to violence.”
Thank you.
A question:
Seeing as how the victims in the Arkansas military recruiting center shooting were members of the U.S. armed forces, aren’t they, by definition, ‘not civilians’? Therefore, wouldn’t the shootings be defined as ‘not terrorism’?
This is more than a semantic quibble.
It’s weird to just now get that Sebastian’s analogy was more flawed than previously thought — that while Roeder committed an act that fits just about any reasonable definition of terrorism you can think of, while the murder of William Long seems less and less like terrorism the more I learn/think about it.
Vox Day is a young Paleo-Conservative, and quite popular.
—————————————
Tiller should have been jailed and had his license revoked for the abortion-related midemeanors he blatantly committed; had justice been done then perhaps he would still be alive. Not that I care, as I wouldn’t shed any more tears for dead abortionists than I would for murdered concentration camp guards. And at his church? What sort of church that calls itself Christian allows a totally unrepentant man with the blood of many children on his hands to attend it?
It should be amusing to watch the pro-abortion camp go hysterical with fear over this, as they still hadn’t gotten over the previous round of abortionist shootings that ended over a decade ago. They know at heart that the issue will never be settled; the murder of unborn children will never, ever be acceptable to decent men and women. Abortionists have killed more Americans than every American military foe in history combined, so based on the body count alone, the post-natal termination of an abortionist is more rationally justifiable than the killing of a jihadist in Iraq or Afghanistan.
UPDATE: National Review: “It’s hard to be anything but sick over the news.”
Yeah, it’s really not. And so-called “conservatives” are sick indeed if they can shrug off the death of innocent Iraqis and Afghans as collateral damage, call for military action that spells the certain death of innocent Iranians, and then be genuinely upset over the fittingly violent end of one serial child-killer.
From
Good Riddance
I think the comments are a trip. Apparently, liberal Protestants are the real problem.
“Late to the thread, but: based on what I know, I do not think that the guy who shot the two soldiers was a terrorist. I do not say this because I don’t think what he did was abhorrent: I mean, I also don’t think that Jeffrey Dahmer was a terrorist, and I’m not sure how much more abhorrent one can get.
It’s not because he’s not connected to an organization: as was noted above, neither was the Unabomber.
It is because I don’t see any evidence, yet, that he was trying to alter people’s behavior through terror.”
I’m not sure that the terrorist/not terrorist distinction was super important to the discussion that publius started(except as to your “How Far Does This Go” post, which I took to be sort of a joke/satiric. In my reading of publius, it was the hateful speech/violence-laden rhetoric/demonization that was the problem worth making alterations to the general 1st Amendment rights. Which is why certain Muslim sects could be problematic, as they engage in the same.
If one set of preaching incited killing motivated a pseudo-rational hatred loosely related to politics, and another set of preaching incited killing motivated by a pseudo-rational hatred that was more general, is the second particularly better than the first?
“I’m not sure that the terrorist/not terrorist distinction was super important to the discussion that publius started…”
But it’s the central point — if a terrorist act is the logical result of a movement, at the very least, that movement has to come to terms with whether it will be a party to it!
And the whole point is that condemning the murderer after the fact isn’t enough.
The connection isn’t violence or rhetoric or protests at clinics in general, but Operation Rescue, their targeted campaign against Dr. Tiller, and this man’s involvement in their local circle.
There is absolutely nothing comparable in the case of the murders at the recruiting center. The existence of a protesting group on the other side of the country doesn’t help your case.
I don’t think OR’s rhetoric rises to the level of incitement, but I’m really not seeing how the cases are at all parallel.
In general, folks, I’m finding the use of sarcasm, irony, and rhetorical exaggeration in this discussion is a layer too far. I am having a lot of trouble deciphering what people are *actually* intending to convey. It seems that the widespread use of the phrase “the abortion Holocaust” has caused my sarcasm/irony detector to go offline, at least for the purpose of this discussion.
Specifically, Sebastian, I have no sense of whether you’re rhetorically exaggerating or not when you parallel Tiller’s murder and the recruiter’s. I’d like it if you (or von, or whomever) addressed the points made by Jeff Eaton’s not-at-all-rhetorical points.
Do you, Sebastian, truly think that Tiller’s death was “a single murder”? Do you truly think that it was not incited? Do you truly believe that women and our doctors have not been made afraid — terrorized, even — by harrassment and violence directed at abortion clinics and birth control providers?
dana:
I don’t think OR’s rhetoric rises to the level of incitement
Why not? Is there something about the legal definition of “incitement” that you’re relying on?
Even without Jeff Eaton’s evidence, it seems perfectly obvious to me that OR (and O’Reilly, and probably others) have been trying to get someone to kill Dr. Tiller for *years*. Sarah Robinson has a good, simple round-up of the evidence at Orcinus.
Is anyone here truly surprised that Tiller was killed? Does anyone honestly believe that it was not assassination — murder of a public figure for a political reason?
@Hilzoy
t is because I don’t see any evidence, yet, that he was trying to alter people’s behavior through terror. Maybe more info has come out since I last read about this (last night), but as far as I could tell, from the somewhat sketchy coverage, he hated the military, and was lashing out in a horrible way.
Well where is the evidence that Roeder was trying to alter people’s behavior through terror?I’m sure that he hated abortion doctors and abortion clinics, but I see no evidence that he was intending by his action
The calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.
I think Sebastian is right: either both of these actions are terrorism (in which case the Department of Defense’s definition of terrorism is wrong) or neither are terrorist acts.My take: both acts are despicable and tragic, but they are not terrorism .
I expect I’ll be called a troll, ignorant, bla, bla, bla, but unless there is EVIDENCE that Roeder intended to intimidate the government or society into changing policy , then its not terrorism
This is remarkable. What do you take Roeder’s motivation to be? Whim? What would you take as evidence that someone is on a campaign to discourage abortion?
“I expect I’ll be called a troll, ignorant, bla, bla, bla, but unless there is EVIDENCE that Roeder intended to intimidate the government or society into changing policy , then its not terrorism”
You strangely don’t have the same requirement as regards people who are Uighur and in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan: why is that?
OK stonetools, lets break down DOD’s definition, see how it apply’s to Reoder:
“The (1) calculated use of unlawful violence (2) to inculcate fear, (3) intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies (4) in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”
Well, clearly the shooting counts as “unlawful” violence, so that’s (1).
So, narrowing out the obvious, the remaining questions are:
(1) Did Roeder “calculate” (i.e. intend) his action to (a) “inculcate fear” and (b) “coerce or intimidate society”?
(2) Was it “in pursuit of… religious… goals”?
Roeder has a long history with an organization that sought to achieve certain ends (question 2), and the act furthers these ends through means relating to question 1.
Given this, it would be highly unlikely that these effects were unintentional. I believe this should satisfy any reasonable request for “evidence”.
If it turns out Roeder was NOT in fact the shooter, and it’s a terrible case of mistaken identity, the discussion can begin anew.
Given Roeder’s history, involvement with the prolife movement, and his own public statements on pro-life forums, it’s fair to say that the ‘motivation’ question is answered.
Is anyone here truly surprised that Tiller was killed?
not me. Christian terrorists have been killing people who work at women’s-health clinics for as long as i can remember. there were two in 1998, alone. two different “single murders” in one year. what a coincidence. no common thread at all.
what a coincidence. no common thread at all.
clee-eek, that’s what I’m talking about. Please try to restrain the sarcasm, it means that every sense has to be re-parsed, which is more neuro-cycles than my current brain installation can afford.
every *sentence*, not every sense. See what I mean?
Well , its pretty clear that he intended to kill Dr. Tiller. WHY he intended to kill Dr. Tiller, we just don’t know at this point. The idea that it was in furtherance of a plan to intimidate the government or society to stop abortions is something that you are assuming-you just don’t know this. I know it fits your story, but really-you don’t know.
I’ll remind you all that Roeder was a paranoid schizophrenic. I’ve actually worked with such people. They don’t PLAN much. According to you guys, he woke up on Sunday with a ten point plan to change government policy on abortions by murdering Tiller. That’s not how paranoid schizophrenics think.
Sebastian’s point is well made, I think. On pretty much the same scenario, you conclude that the killer was a lone whacko. You don’t assume that you know what’s in his head. Yet in the Tiller case, you “just know” what a paranoid schizophrenic was thinking. I doubt that even his treating psychiatrist would know why Roeder did what he did. But you guys have it all figured out.
“I expect I’ll be called a troll, ignorant, bla, bla, bla, but unless there is EVIDENCE that Roeder intended to intimidate the government or society into changing policy , then its not terrorism”
I’m kinda hard pressed to imagine what proof of intent to change policy would have to consist of to meet your bar.
But stonetools, how do you know that Roeder was a paranoid schizophrenic? I mean, it fits your story, but really — you just don’t know.
The idea that it was in furtherance of a plan to intimidate the government or society to stop abortions is something that you are assuming-you just don’t know this.
what we know of him is that he was an anti-abortion zealot who talked about it enough to make his friends and family think he talked about it too much. we know he was associated with an anti-government organization (Freemen). we know he was previously arrested for intending to bomb an abortion clinic. we know he was particularly interested in Tiller and called him “Killer” and “Mengele”. we know he had vandalized Tiller’s clinic. we know he attended Tiller’s trial. we know he talked about meeting Tiller at Tiller’s church. we know he was involved with anti-abortion groups in Kansas. we know he frequented on-line anti-abortion groups. we know Tiller was a high-profile target of anti-abortion terrorists because he’d been attacked multiple times before.
but you’re right: that could all be coincidental.
I must respectfully note that you have ignored a day’s worth of discussion, or are being deliberately deceptive. A number of us have explained what difference exists in this scenario. You seem to believe that an active twenty-year campaign of intimidation against a specific man by a national movement of high profile activists does not constitute relevant context for an act of violence.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but it’s hard not to read this statement as an instant of deliberate deceptiveness or downright foolishness.
The stated, explicit purpose of pro-life activism, including the intimidation and harassment of Dr. Tiller, was and is to stop legal abortions from occurring. This is not news. Roeder’s own words confirm he shared these motivations.
You’re asking us to believe that he woke up and — because he’s a craaaaazy dude — went out and killed someone! For reasons none of us can ever know! It could’ve been a mailman! It could’ve been a crossing guard! But by pure chance, it was the man he’d railed against on message boards, the man he’d said “should be brought to justice,” the man his fellow travelers in the pro-life movement have called an inhuman monster for decades…
If only we had a clue what his motives were…
@Nell: Your follow up brings the nuance. Your original, which I was responding to in part:
Have opponents of the Iraq and Afghan wars, Muslim or not, been picketing for years outside the recruiting station?
Yes.
Have they been harassing men and women who go in and out?
Yes.
Have they gone to the homes of the soldiers doing the recruiting and held up large, graphic images of Iraqi and Afghan children burned and with limbs blown off?
Outside the recruiting stations yes, vandalizing them with fake blood, etc. yes. “Gone to their homes”? Not that I am aware of.
Have they been denouncing the recruiters, reinforced by repeated commentary from national television personalities, saying that what the recruiters are doing is mass murder and like something out of Nazi Germany?
Not sure how to respond to this Nell. I know you are and have been current on this stuff. There is no way you missed all this in the last 8 years…
Have they been gluing the locks of the recruiting station? Firebombing it? Cutting the wires to the security system?
Gluing the locks, check. Firebombing, check. Shooting it up, pipe bomb, check. See below.
Cleek: well, for starters, it did rescinded that order almost immediately after passing it; so even the Berkeley City Council realized how silly the Berkeley City Council was being. if they hadn’t done that i can’t imagine that a single Dem Congressman would’ve hesitated to do everything he/she could to show the country his/her disapproval. Dems really aren’t anti-military, you know?
A good point and I actually thought it was still in effect. I researched and you are correct. But there was still at least a passive “non-enforcement” policy that seemed to stay in effect. But you are correct – I retract.
@Nell: Not only is there not a single link in your collection of assertions about military recruiters, but even if they were all documented (unlikely), they’d be from incidents widely scattered in location and time (mid-1960s). There is nothing today remotely resembling the campaign of intimidation that Operation Rescue directs at abortion providers and women clients focused on military recruiters and potential recruits.
I tried Nell, but frankly I don’t know why I bother trying HTML here anymore. It’s stripped out immediately or worse – later after I think it posted OK links disappear – then reappear later again possibly. I have to admit though that I thought this stuff was common knowledge. The pipe bomb in Times Square? Berkley? You honestly were not aware of the specific incidents analogous to the generalities I mentioned?
No one, including you, OCSteve…
No I don’t. I just see two acts of terrorism treated entirely differently. And to me – terrorism is terrorism.
Gary: It would be helpful to have links to all these incidents, so all of us could work off the same page. I, for one, pretty much don’t know what you’re talking about. Who was shot, when? Where around the country are these protests and bombings taking place? Etc.
Come on – you are the definition of a news junky, hell, you are a walking encyclopedia. Are you yanking my chain?
I did not say “shot” – I said recruitment offices have been “shot up”. I can’t find the specific links again as everything is coming up as the current event. But the Times Square pipe bomb? I know you are yanking my chain. I know – little damage. Just “property damage”. Where have we heard that before? Here’s a list:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30236
Don’t like the cite? Argue with the bullet list please… (Your superglue in the locks is here Nell – after trying to set the place on fire, locking people in.)
That is just through the Times Square pipe bombing…
I don’t know anything about this, but that doesn’t sound very violent. In any case, if they’re blocking legal access, than they should be arrested, and take what comes of civil disobedience. Did the city council prevent that, or what?
Now I know you are yanking my chain.
Consarn it, Jeff, you’re doing it too. Step away from the sarcasm, people.
Step away from the sarcasm, people.
not gun happun.
frex
I can’t find the specific links again
Try Wikipedia. If this exists as a specific, monitorable phenomenon over the past 25 years (to correspond roughly with the pro-life movement), Wikieditors will have gathered links.
If what you are recollecting are, in fact, just a bunch of afactual stories from right-wing blogs trying to pretend that there’s a big campaign against the US military, without any data to back them up, then you’ll spend a long, long time trying to find any reliable evidence to back up your claims.
Go for it.
Well, I’m not saying its coincidental. Every fact you cite could be consistent with hatred of Dr Tiller and abortion clinics and still not add up to a plan to influence GOVERNMENT OR SOCIAL policy. I guess I’m waiting for something like what you get from terrorist groups: an actual statement that this was done to change government or social policy.
But I gather you all think this is nitpicking, so I’ll do what is never done on the Internet and concede that I was wrong and there is enough to charge him with terrorism.
And if we are not nitpicking , then Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad is also guilty of terrorism . After all, he had ties to extremist locations, was prompted to murder upon seeing a subversive video, specifically targeted the military and according to police interviews, acted in accordance with political and religious motives.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=7727071
By your definition of terrorism, sounds like he fits the bill-Sebastian’s point. And indeed, he will be charged with terrorism.
I guess I’m waiting for something like what you get from terrorist groups: an actual statement that this was done to change government or social policy.
if his lawyer is any good, we will never see such a statement, because that would pretty much guarantee that he’ll be charged with Domestic Terrorism in addition to premeditated murder.
Have they been denouncing the recruiters, reinforced by repeated commentary from national television personalities, saying that what the recruiters are doing is mass murder and like something out of Nazi Germany?
Not sure how to respond to this Nell. I know you are and have been current on this stuff. There is no way you missed all this in the last 8 years…
I absolutely need a cite concerning national television personalities comparing military recruiters to Nazis and accusing them of being mass murderers. And by “national television personalities,” given the context of what we’re talking about, I’m talking someone like O’Reilly, Hannity, et al.
We can never know for sure what precisely is going on inside the head of a killer. However, we can make good guesses as to how a reasonable person who is similar to Dr Tiller might act upon hearing about his murder. I think a reasonable person who performed third trimester abortions would conclude that she faced a threat to her personal safety far in excess of the average person as long as she continued performing abortions.
By analogy to hate crime laws, I can imagine not-too-bright racists beating a black man and then screaming “that’s what your kind gets for coming here” without actually intending to deter other blacks from entering their neighborhood. Nevertheless, this would still be a hate crime because reasonable black people would conclude that entering that neighborhood was extremely dangerous. The precise state of mind of the attacker matters less than what reasonable people conclude after the attack.
Ok, this is, I presume, the Times Square incident you’re referring to. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/03/improvised-bomb/
I suspect you don’t realize that there are bomb threats and trivial explosions in NYC every day of the year. It’s a very large city.
You’re right, and I apologize. I think the best thing at this point is for me to step out of the discussion. It’s fair to say that I am emotionally involved at this point, and have little patience for the sort of rhetorical coyness that’s being demonstrated.
Thanks for the callout.
“After all, he had ties to extremist locations, was prompted to murder upon seeing a subversive video, specifically targeted the military and according to police interviews, acted in accordance with political and religious motives.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=7727071”
I don’t know how to break it to you, but there’s nothing in your link whatever about “ties to extremist locations” (whatever that means), “subversive video,” or “specifically targeted the military.” What the article does say is that “The shootings were not believed to be part of a broader scheme.”
Perhaps you meant to link to some other article.
“And indeed, he will be charged with terrorism.”
Perhaps you can provide a link to that news.
In any case, if it turns out to be true: so what? Your standard: “I guess I’m waiting for something like what you get from terrorist groups: an actual statement that this was done to change government or social policy.”
“But I gather you all think this is nitpicking….”
Actually, the posting rules forbid my stating what I think of this.
Umm, OCSteve: not to nitpick or anything, but are you aware that authorities in NYC have surmised (with a nontrivial amount of evidence) that the bomb planted at the Times Square Recruiting Center was the work of a sort of bush-league Unabomber, who is suspected in several similar low-yield (but potentially dangerous) bombings in the City – mainly three (??) at various foreign consulates. The best guess is that these were “lone-wacko” incidents, with little or no specific “anti-military” or “anti-war” motivation behind these incidents, beyond general anarchism and liking-to-blow-sh*t-up jackassery.
So pace Michelle Malkin (seriously, Steve: citing Michelle Malkin??) and her apocalyptic hysteria (“laid siege to the US Capitol”?): if you take the 3/08 Times Square bombing off the list, you’re left with just 16 incidents stretching over three years (mostly in ’05), just two of which involved any actions more serious than vandalism (two fires, one of which earned the perp a few years in slam) – oh, and damn few injuries (and zero deaths).
Mark my words: five years from now Tiller’s assassination will be pointed to by the right as evidence that they are persecuted.
Phil: I absolutely need a cite concerning national television personalities comparing military recruiters to Nazis and accusing them of being mass murderers. And by “national television personalities,” given the context of what we’re talking about, I’m talking someone like O’Reilly, Hannity, et al.
Turn on MSNBC any day? Olbermann? Does he count as a “national television personality”? Or are we talking ratings? Fair enough. In my mind I conflated “national television personalities” with “national pundits”. Pundits with national exposure: Air America? HuffPo? Again, Olbermann?
Let’s see, is there a specific Olbermann segment I can find to do with Nazis or “mass murders” that might be controversial? Do you really want me to go through AA archives?
Gary: I suspect you don’t realize that there are bomb threats and trivial explosions in NYC every day of the year. It’s a very large city.
Never lived there, though I worked there and visited quite often for years – No, I don’t recall pipe bombs going off on a regular basis. Do you disagree that the placement was significant? Why try to dismiss this? Genuinely curious…
Do you really want me to go through AA archives?
i’d like you to – only because i’ve never actually heard this stuff in real life. i think KO’s a ridiculous blowhard so i pay him no mind, and i have never once heard AA; but if this is what they talk about, i’d like to know.
i know KO’s called Bush all kinds of names over the years, but i’ve never heard of him going after the military.
“Turn on MSNBC any day” and find people comparing military recruiters to Nazis and calling them mass murderers? What universe is your TV receiving MSNBC from, and does everyone on it have a goatee?
OCSteve: Turn on MSNBC any day?
So, any day, you are claiming, on MSNBC, military recruiters are compared to Nazis?
Let’s see, is there a specific Olbermann segment I can find to do with Nazis or “mass murders” that might be controversial?
You’ll spend a lot of time on right-wing blogs that are trying to claim this, if you google on it. But, hey, if that’s your bag.
This segment references both military recruiters and the Holocaust. *is helpful*
Of course, not in a way that would make your case.
“Mark my words: five years from now Tiller’s assassination will be pointed to by the right as evidence that they are persecuted.”
Jeff, you haven’t been paying attention.
From the McArdle piece from 6/1 that started this whole ObWi discussion:
“Still, I am shocked to see so many liberals today saying that the correct response is, essentially, doubling down…. Bitch slap those bastards until they understand that we’ll never compromise!”
“Using the political system to stomp on radicalized fringes does not seem to be very effective in getting them to eschew violence.”
“Possibly because those fringes have often turned to violence precisely because they feel that the political process has been closed off to them.”
Yes, we liberals and lefties are stomping on the right wing fringe. We’re bitch slapping those bastards.
Some of us are even calling for folks to eschew violent and bullying language. Imagine that.
And all because a guy was shot dead in cold blood while he went to church.
But it’s not their fault! They were forced into it because the political process was closed off to them!
By which they mean, the SCOTUS issued a decision that they didn’t agree with. Even though it makes reasonable concessions to their point of view.
And McArdle’s the moderate, reasonable one.
For “five years” read “today”. Actually, for “five years” read “the last thirty”.
@gary
Hey, cleek didn’t provide ANY links for his assertions, but I guess he is a favorite of yours…. Anywho,
Thomas said Muhammad would be charged with capital murder, plus 16 counts of committing a terroristic act. Thomas said most of those additional counts resulted from the gunfire occurring near other people.
That was a the bottom of the page I posted a link to.
I paraphrased and didn’t link to other articles because there’s not enough time in the day , but in this article
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7730637&page=1
it said:
According to sources, the suspect advised them that he was going to kill as many Army personnel as possible. At the time of the shooting, the subject had approximately 200 rounds of ammunition available, police said.
and
But authorities said he never attempted to hurt anyone at either location, and only directed his hostility to the recruiting site.
This article talked about extremist locations
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7732467&page=1
Another article mentioned the video, but I don’t have time to look it up now.
Anyway, what’s clear is that if the authorities can charge Mohammad with terrorism, they can charge Roeder. I would point out that Mohammad apparently did tell the police he acted from political and religious motives, whereas Roeder hasn’t.This might be quite significant at trial, and cleek is right to say that it would have guaranteed a charge (and conviction) of domestic terrorism. As it is they will likely charge it, but if Roeder takes the stand and says ” I hate Tiller, I hate abortion, but I had no interest in changing government policy, because I think this government, which I hate anyway, is incapable of changing its abortion policy”, then a jury might find reasonable doubt on the terrorism charge, especially when paired with a diminished capacity/ insanity defense. But then all this is kind of inside baseball for criminal lawyers, so I guess you don’t have time for it.
“Let’s see, is there a specific Olbermann segment I can find to do with Nazis or ‘mass murders’ that might be controversial? Do you really want me to go through AA archives?”
I’ve never seen more than a cumulative minute of Keith Olbermann, myself, and I, for one, have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t even, forgive me, know what “AA archives” are, since I presume you’re not talking about Alcoholics Anonymous.
“Never lived there, though I worked there and visited quite often for years – No, I don’t recall pipe bombs going off on a regular basis.”
Whereas I’ve left buildings in NYC due to a bomb threat somewhere over a dozen, but under twenty, times, and at this point I’ve only lived there half my life.
And the number of times some quarter stick of dynamite, or equivalent, has gone off somewhere in the city, well, as I said, that happens weekly; enough that it’s not news unless someone is hurt or some prominent location is evacuated.
And I’ve lived through real bombings, such as being across the street from an one of these, and in the neighorhood for another (respectively, April 3, 1975, and August 3, 1977).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuerzas_Armadas_de_Liberaci%C3%B3n_Nacional_Puertorrique%C3%B1a
“Do you disagree that the placement was significant? Why try to dismiss this?”
Because:
a) of what I write above: trivial bomb scares and trivial explosions are non-news in NYC, and I’ve been through actual bomb campaigns in NYC. Do please read the link, and let me know if you think some pipsqueak enlarged firecracker compares.
b) you’re trying to support the claim that “Surely you are aware that recruitment offices have been shot up, bombed, and are routinely vandalized,” in a comparable way to the history of terrorism against abortion clinics, and the single minor incident you cite in Times Square doesn’t do that.
Helpful link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence.
Plus, of course, nine actual murders “including 5 doctors, 2 clinic employees, a security guard, and a clinic escort.”
And “According to NAF, since 1977 in the United States and Canada, property crimes committed against abortion providers have included 41 bombings, 173 arsons, 91 attempted bombings or arsons, 619 bomb threats, 1630 incidents of trespassing, 1264 incidents of vandalism, and 100 attacks with butyric acid (“stink bombs”).”
So I’m looking for the equivalency here, and not finding it.
Oh, wait, “AA” means “Air America”? Never heard a second of them, sorry.
I don’t listen to talk radio or cable “news” of any sort. Waste of time.
“What universe is your TV receiving MSNBC from, and does everyone on it have a goatee?”
That was only Spock: none of the other folks in the Mirror Universe, either in the original episode, or any of the subsequent series MU episodes, had goatees. I knew everyone wanted to know that.
Hey, cleek didn’t provide ANY links for his assertions, but I guess he is a favorite of yours…. Anywho,
here ya go
“You’re asking us to believe that he woke up and — because he’s a craaaaazy dude — went out and killed someone! For reasons none of us can ever know! It could’ve been a mailman! It could’ve been a crossing guard! But by pure chance, it was the man he’d railed against on message boards, the man he’d said “should be brought to justice,” the man his fellow travelers in the pro-life movement have called an inhuman monster for decades…”
…the man who members of Operation Rescue helped Scott Roeder stalk.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/69361.html
(Background on OR in Wichita – http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6388324/one_mans_god_squad/print )
Jeff:
As you say, a lot of the sarcasm is both a sign of very strong feelings and of a lack of respect for others. I have no problem with the former except when it leads to the latter.
Meanwhile:
Because of the high sarcasm concentrations in the air, I cannot tell if stonetools has changed hir mind about whether Roeder is a terrorist.
I also cannot tell if OCSteve is serious about equating rare protests at recruiting stations with the very common protests at abortion clinics. I also cannot tell if he seriously thinks recruiting-station protests actually frighten potential military recruits. The very fact that most abortion clinics need client escorts should tell him that yes, anti-choice protests are often frightening — one might even say, terrorizing.
“Hey, cleek didn’t provide ANY links for his assertions, but I guess he is a favorite of yours….”
Oh, yeah, he’d certainly testify to that. (Actually, I like cleek perfectly well, but he’s had a variety of harsh words for me at times in the past because of the hard time I’ve given him when I’ve thought he deserved it. So you’re batting your usual level of accuracy.)
“That was a the bottom of the page I posted a link to.”
Nope, still nothing there about “ties to extremist locations” (whatever that means), or “subversive video.”
Nope, still not there.
“I paraphrased and didn’t link to other articles because there’s not enough time in the day”
Ah, very persuasive.
“but in this article”
Nope, none of those phrases, except for “specifically targeted the military”,” are in that article, either.
“Another article mentioned the video, but I don’t have time to look it up now.”
You need to practice this whole “supporting your claims” thing.
“This article talked about extremist locations”
That one you’re correct about, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what they mean by “extremist locations.” What do you think they mean?
“Anyway, what’s clear is that if the authorities can charge Mohammad with terrorism, they can charge Roeder.”
I guess that’s your way of saying that when you wrote that Roeder “is no more a terrorist than the West Virginia University killer or the Columbine killers” and “[i]t’s time for all those who called Tiller’s murder an act of terrorism to start walking back their overheated rhetoric,” you were completely wrong.
Oh, yes, that’s likely to happen. It makes perfect sense to speculate on that.
“But then all this is kind of inside baseball for criminal lawyers, so I guess you don’t have time for it.”
I guess not. Thanks for lending your insight as a criminal lawyer.
Wait, on the second page of this article, the phrase about “subversive activities” is used. So good on you for finding support for that.
OCSteve – With regards to your list, it looks like a lot of that has made it into the Congressional Record since there’s already a bill in committee to specifically protect US military recruiting facilities from the sort of activity that OR regularly uses at women’s health clinics.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.6023:
Anyone here know if similar legislation has been proposed for clinics in the past?
(And of course now I see that, of coruse, Hil has already linked to the 2004 RS profile of Troy Newman. Mea culpa–it’s been a rough week.)
“Vox Day is a young Paleo-Conservative, and quite popular.”
I only just saw this, so I’d like to cheerfully add that “Vox Day” is also a nutjob.
“Every fact you cite could be consistent with hatred of Dr Tiller and abortion clinics and still not add up to a plan to influence GOVERNMENT OR SOCIAL policy.”
Again the DOD definition of terrorism:
“The calculated use of unlawful violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”
As the evidence points to Roeder’s intent being to make late-term abortions harder to get by terrorizing doctors into not performing them (I made this argument at 5:26, and cleek did a better job at 6:25), he was, by definition, seeking to coerce society at large.
In layman’s terms, if doctors are too scared to perform late-term abortions, men like Roeder can effectively enforce their own social policy on society. And at its heart, that’s what terrorism is.
“Anyone here know if similar legislation has been proposed for clinics in the past?”
Yes. And signed into law 15 years ago:
http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/violence/FACE_act.html
Ann wrote about the FACE act in the Prospect this past Monday:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=why_clinic_violence_is_obamas_problem
Since I’m calling people out for sarcasm here, I’ll call out Gary, too. Gary, can the sarcasm. It seems to me quite possible that stonetools *has* changed hir mind, but a constant acid rain of snide will make it impossible to tell.
In case you guys hadn’t noticed, my last nerve is hanging by a thread on this issue. AFAIK I’m the only commenter here who has a uterus and has *used* it, and I am fed up with other people using it for their rhetorical purposes.
I am not being sarcastic.
The debate over the label of terrorism here is silly. Of some possible options, which of the following would be morally worse?
1) You believe murder is being committed on a regular basis by a group of people and you kill one of the them with the belief that it will intimidate the others into stopping their behavior.
2) You believe murder is being committed on a regular basis by a group of people and you kill one of the them as punishment or revenge knowing that it would not intimidate the others or reduce the number of murders the group would commit.
1 is terrorism, 2 is not. I think 2 is worse than 1, other things equal.
This is from the website of hate talk radio personality Hal Turner:
Another Abortion Target Volunteers!
After the killing of abortionist George Tiller, another “doctor” has publicly announced he wishes to take Tiller’s place to continue partial birth abortions!
Physician LeRoy Carhart of Omaha, NE wants to continue providing third-term abortions after the brazen slaying of his friend and colleague George Tiller.
Gee, this is becoming a “target-rich environment!”
I suspect someone has a bullet for this guy too. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Details Here Sphere: Related Content
at 6/03/2009 03:49:00 PM 0 comments
Tonight: What the abortion shooter did wrong; not the shooting, learn how to not get caught!
Tonight at 9:00 PM, “The Hal Turner Show” will talk about the recent killing of an abortionist and what the shooter did wrong. No, not the shooting itself; but rather what he did wrong that got him caught!
We’ll talk at length about how to carry out such an act and significantly reduce the chances of getting caught.
Lets face it; America is in big trouble and only force and violence are going to clean it up. Tonight, we’ll talk about how to use force and violence and not get caught
BTW Hall Turner just got arrested for some statemetnst he made recenntly which were pretty doiirect calls for his lieterners to shoot three specific government officials.
If anyone can provide examples of the equivalent of this sort of thing with military recruiters as the targets, please do.
“This is from the website of hate talk radio personality Hal Turner”
Wonkie, could you please use quotation marks, or blockquoting, or some kind of formatting to make clear where you are quoting and which words are yours? Because I can’t remotely tell which is which, and neither did you even bother to provide a URL to check the source.
Thanks.
Two pertinent segments from tonight’s Maddow:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#31093911
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#31094044
I take it you were quoting from this website: http://turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com/
This is one of the posts: http://turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com/2009/06/another-abortion-target-volunteers.html
The next most recent post says:
This is from james Joyner on Outside the Beltway:
“Nutcases aside, there’s been a loud and bitter debate over abortion going on since at least decision in Roe v. Wade some thirty-six years ago. So, naturally, when an abortionist gets murdered, there’s a ready frame into which to plug stories, sidebars, and commentaries. Columns from 1986 can be dusted off and re-run by changing a few names and throwing in a new quote or three.
By contrast, those who genuinely dislike American soldiers are so far into the lunatic fringe that they’re not part of the public debate. Just about every liberal male politician over the age of 50 — John Kerry, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, George McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Charlie Rangel — served in the military. Hell, so did Jeremiah Wright.”
Sorry–I thought I had supplied quotes after the colon on the first set of cut and paste stuff.
Sebastian: “I would say no.”
Unless, of course, we are talking about the political left and folks like Bill Ayers. Then I’m fairly sure you would say “yes” and most likely have, getting all red faced (pun intended) and insistently demanding that anybody to the left of…well, any member of the Democratic Party get down on their weak liberal do-good knees and beg abjectly for your forgiveness.
So your words are dust. Your analogy worthless. Your sense of outrage simply outrageous. Your morality superficially facile. Your politics apparent…that I’m OK with…the apparent part.
I must admit that I watch Keith Olberman fairly regularly, if intermittently (i.e., I shift over to his show between innings, or at halftime), apparently alone among ObWi regulars.
His rhetoric is generally over-the-top, which sometimes amuses me, but not always. He’s funny, but not as funny as he thinks.
I have never ever heard him say anything that even implies that he considers military recruiters to be Nazis, and therefore appropriate targets for attack. Nothing like it at all. Not even close.
(He’s no fan of the politicians who deploy the US military, or a few of the generals, &c., but I take it we agree that’s a different topic?)
It’s possible he’s made comments along these lines – calling recruiters Nazis – that I’ve missed. If so, I’d appreciate someone pointing them out.
If not, perhaps a withdrawal of this particular slur is in order.
“As the evidence points to Roeder’s intent being to make late-term abortions harder to get by terrorizing doctors into not performing them ”
Do we really have such evidence already or are you just speculating at this point?
I suppose it is quite possible that we will have such evidence at some point in the future, but could you link the evidence you had as of today that shows such a proposition?
I have friends who are very definitely “pro-life”, i.e. against abortion and the death penalty as well as anti-war.
They do not support OR and their ilk for that very reason. They recognize murderous intent when they see it.
Anyone who does support that violent approach has made a choice. It’s entirely possible to act on anti-abortion views by some combination of helping to make contraceptives widely available; promoting effective, age-appropriate sex education for children and teens; supporting effective adoption systems; prayer; public or political advocacy sans murderous rhetoric…
dr ngo,
You are not alone. I watch Olbermann pretty regularly.
Your assessment of him is spot on. He is indeed over the top many times. But not, I would say, in his views. It’s his over-nimble verbal style that grates occasionally. Listening to Olbermann is like watching a unicyclist juggle on a tightrope. Cringe-worthy at times, though not as painful as listening to Chris Matthews, which is more like watching a drunk attempt the can-can on ice.
Whatever his faults, however, Olbermann gets my thanks for his part in Rachel Maddow having her own show. Have you watched her at all?
–TP
Sebastian: Do we really have such evidence already or are you just speculating at this point?
Operation Rescue are now claiming that Roedor was not a member: but there’s this (which I found in a single google on Roedor’s name, and which you too could have found had you been interested in discovering facts about Roedor, rather than just hastening to try to defend the pro-life movement) cite:
Yeah. Who knew?
Roedor was affiliated with a group whose objective was to shut down Doctor Tiller’s clinic. I concede the possibility that this may all have been elaborate cover on Roedor’s part, and he really has some other motivation for murdering Doctor Tiller: or that this is a case of mistaken identity.
I’ve read the suggestion, which I don’t know how seriously to take, that Roedor’s defense team intend to adopt the “Twinkie Defense” which got Dan White off the hook – the claim that Roedor was in a deranged state of mind due to listening to too much pro-life rhetoric about how George Tiller killed babies.
AFAIK I’m the only commenter here who has a uterus and has *used* it.
I have as well. Which is why all this ‘women are going to wake up one day after 7 or 8 months and suddenly decide to have a termination’ is particularly maddening. Even a month of having a critter bounce around inside you gives you a long time to reflect about things. If you get 7 or 8 months into a pregnancy, you don’t change your mind on what you’re doing without some new and life-changing factor.
“Which is why all this ‘women are going to wake up one day after 7 or 8 months and suddenly decide to have a termination’ is particularly maddening.”
I’m sure it is, but it’s not “women”, it’s “Some small fraction of women”.
My point here, and I’m sticking to it, is that arguments of the form “X doesn’t happen, you’d have to be mad to do it!” fail on the basis that some people are mad.
Sebastian: Do we really have such evidence already or are you just speculating at this point?
Um, coming from you, and given your constant statements vis a vis late term abortions, this goes beyond rich and into completely absurd.
Consarn it, Jeff, you’re doing it too. Step away from the sarcasm, people.
Does it strike anyone else as just a bit overweening for Dr. Science to insist that every commenter here should rein in their writing/humor styles because she’s having difficulty keeping up?
If I’m reading you correctly, you’re having so much difficulty telling sarcastic comments from sincere ones that you are forced to complain about every sarcastic comment that appears. And oddly, you don’t have any trouble telling them apart to call them out. As for OCSteve, I’ll give you my opinion: he’s not being sarcastic. His position is sufficiently ridiculous that you can’t tell.
Personally, I love sarcasm. I use it often, I appreciate it when it’s done well. I’m usually able to tell when someone is being sarcastic or sincere and obtuse. Since I’ve been reading here for some years, I know that OCSteve’s comments generally falls into the latter category.
When I honestly can’t tell, I attribute it to poor comprehension on my part, or poor writing on the commenter’s part. I don’t blame the existence of sarcasm generally.
I really don’t appreciate people whose humor comprehension/recognition is so impaired they feel the need to insist everybody else conform to their preference or else they’ll leave and won’t we be sorry?
“Does it strike anyone else as just a bit overweening for Dr. Science to insist that every commenter here should rein in their writing/humor styles because she’s having difficulty keeping up?”
Yes.
I’m sympathetic to her nerves, but I also respond better to requests than to commands.
“As the evidence points to Roeder’s intent being to make late-term abortions harder to get by terrorizing doctors into not performing them”
Do we really have such evidence already or are you just speculating at this point?
Um, wow. And to think, halfway up the thread I refrained from comparing Sebastian to stonetools, thinking it would be read as a low blow.
I have serious comment here.
Trying to shoehorn this issue into the legal definitions of terrorism or complicity seems unproductive to me. Instead, I would prefer to ask three questions:
1) Testimonials from individual families, as well as the actual court case results, strongly suggest that Operation Rescue demonized, and Scott Roeder murdered, an essentially good and decent man, who performed late-term abortions when the pregnancy threatened the woman’s health, or the fetus had an illness or injury that at best placed the outcome of the pregnancy in severe doubt. Can those who disagree with that summary produce some facts to back up their disagreement? If you can’t produce the facts, can you acknowledge that Dr. Tiller often acted to spare families anguish, and to spare women serious injury or even death? Does such a man deserve death? Does his community deserve to have their place of worship outraged?
2) Of those who wanted families coerced into bringing children who would inevitably live short and painful lives, how many have backed up their demands for one more record of live birth with an offer to provide whatever support necessary to get the family through the ordeal? How many have families have pledged the equity in their houses? How many congregations have offered up the title deed to their churches?
3) If you truly believe you can demand a woman give up her freedom to choose on a matter that will lead to absolute anguish for herself and her family, would you refuse to defend any freedom anywhere with lethal violence? If so, on what basis do you make the distinction?
I listen to Maddow and Olbermann (daily podcasts*). Neither has ever, as long as I have listened to them, called for violence against anyone. On the contrary, I regularly hear them condemning such calls. If there were any Nazi comparisions at all, then they were targeted specifically at concrete examples of behaviour and in reasonable context.
*I prefer Maddow but the shows are complementary, so I watch both.
“Um, coming from you, and given your constant statements vis a vis late term abortions, this goes beyond rich and into completely absurd.”
Really Phil? There is however evidence of decades long legal battles to supress such evidence of his terrorist activity? I find that surprising.
“As the evidence points to Roeder’s intent being to make late-term abortions harder to get by terrorizing doctors into not performing them ”
Do we really have such evidence already or are you just speculating at this point?
I suppose it is quite possible that we will have such evidence at some point in the future, but could you link the evidence you had as of today that shows such a proposition?
Sebastian, I’ve got to think you’re being deliberately obtuse here. Roeder was a regular protester at Women’s Health, commented on Operation Rescue message boards who described his desire to stop Tiller from performing abortions, had previously vandalized the clinic, and was someone whom others remember (specifically the dude from Prayer and Action News) as believing that murdering abortion providers was justified on the grounds that it would prevent further abortions. And now he murders an abortion provider, and you’re not sure that he means to affect the behavior of other abortion providers? Because he hasn’t made a public statement to that effect after the shooting? And you don’t acknowledge, in any of your posts, the fact that harassment by OR and other anti-abortion groups has already intimidated and frightened abortion providers? I’ve been a clinic escort, and I have to tell you that the security procedures for an abortion clinic are fairly intense. And that’s because people are actually scared of violence committed by anti-abortion zealots.
Also, Brett, when you say, “I’m sure it is, but it’s not ‘women,’ it’s ‘Some small fraction of women,'” do you realize how small a fraction? There are 100 third-trimester abortions per year in the United States – 0.006% of the abortions performed in the US. All of them were performed at 3 clinics. They’re astoundingly expensive and highly regulated, and they are never elective – they preserve women’s lives, health, and fertility, and keep children from being born to a brief life of intense pain. I would hope you could have some sympathy for the women who need them and the doctors who provide them, even if you personally are opposed to abortion.
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02tiller.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,880,00.html
I listen to Maddow and Olbermann (daily podcasts*). Neither has ever, as long as I have listened to them, called for violence against anyone.
Not to mention the fact that they couch their views on foreign policy in explicitly pro-military/”support the troops” terms (to a degree that I, frankly, sometimes find a little excessive). This is, of course, SOP for any left-leaning “mainstream” commentators.
Having long thought of OCSteve as one of the reasonable conservative commenters here, I have to say I’m gobsmacked by his behavior on this thread. The comparison of Olbermann to Operation Rescue and their ilk is equal parts grossly offensive and patently absurd.
“And you don’t acknowledge, in any of your posts, the fact that harassment by OR and other anti-abortion groups has already intimidated and frightened abortion providers?”
But that isn’t relevant to his personal reasons for killing Dr. Tiller. He wasn’t a memeber of Operation Rescue (which is kind of surprising under your theory isn’t it?)
It is not only plausible, but very likely that the main reason he killed Dr. Tiller was that he believed Dr. Tiller was an especially evil man.
And that is part of the problem with trying to tie too much on the intentions of evil acts. It isn’t easy to do with any confidence.
Precisely ascribing his intentions with sketchy evidence is only relevant because you want to be able to use him as a hammer against sterotypically similar people. And to do so you have to overstate the amount of knowledge we have about his motivations at this point.
And in the case of the killing at the recruiter’s office, we know similar things which you have to understate to avoid similar conclusions. (See for example the recent implication that he was also targeting Jewish sites. I’m sure you’ve heard of fiery Muslim rhetoric against Jews. Perhaps even suggesting that the die.)
In neither case do we have any evidence that the men were part of a plot to kill. In both cases we might draw the inference that they had been poisoned against certain targets by religious teachings coupled with fiery rhetoric. Though in neither case can we pin it to any specific inticement.
In neither case do we have any evidence that the men were part of a plot to kill.
there is no requirement anywhere that a terrorist has to be part of a plot.
Doctor Science: AFAIK I’m the only commenter here who has a uterus and has *used* it
Maybe it is time to go take a walk and breath deeply. I’m not sure this is the very best line to insert in a comment demanding a reduction in sarcasm or over-the-top language in general.
FWIW, and I really don’t even want to know what you mean by “*used* it”, you know full well that you are not the only woman commenting on these threads.
It isn’t even remotely clear to me what bearing our personal sexual and reproductive histories have on our right or suitability to comment on the issues surrounding Dr. Tiller’s murder, but it’s crystalline clear that it’s no one else’s business but ours.
But that isn’t relevant to his personal reasons for killing Dr. Tiller. He wasn’t a memeber of Operation Rescue (which is kind of surprising under your theory isn’t it?)
I’m not surprised that Scott Roeder, who by all accounts was not an especially stable person, didn’t specifically have a membership in Operation Rescue. He was clearly someone who was involved in OR’s work, who sought out pro-life organizations and made contact with their members, even if he wasn’t willing to specifically sign on to a particular organization. I’m strongly pro-choice, but I’m not a member of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, or any other organization. Membership in such an organization can mean one of two things: either it’s a mailing list organization like NARAL, where membership means you cut them a check (unsurprising that Roeder didn’t think that was the important part, especially since he describes himself as making $1,100 a month in his public defender application); or it means that you actively participate in the organization’s work, and it’s again unsurprising that Roeder, while he participated in OR’s work regularly, didn’t hold an institutional position. Basically, this is meaningless given his demonstrated participation in pro-life activism.
It is not only plausible, but very likely that the main reason he killed Dr. Tiller was that he believed Dr. Tiller was an especially evil man.
Ok, I see your point. But I continue to disagree with it, because, as Sara Robinson on Orcinus pointed out, this is a kiling that clearly fits within a general M.O. of pro-life murders (hello, oxymoron). Tiller was killed at church, like a previous doctor; he was killed on the 6th anniversary of Eric Rudolph’s capture; and his murder meets the test of instilling fear into a reasonable abortion provider. It also, in fact, is a particularly effective blow: it is likely to actually make it more difficult for women to obtain abortions they need, thus de facto changing social policy.
Precisely ascribing his intentions with sketchy evidence is only relevant because you want to be able to use him as a hammer against sterotypically similar people.
I don’t think you really have any evidence that I’ve been making this claim. I assign responsibility, for sure, to pro-life organizations that demonize and target specific individuals. But it’s not because they’re stereotypically similar. It’s because those organizations and people have been using rhetoric that dehumanizes and targets specific individuals, thus helping convince unstable people that killing them would be a good idea. That’s what makes Tiller’s murder terroristic: it’s in the context of an active campaign by pro-life organizations to scare, intimidate, and harass people who provide abortions, and it dramatizes the logical consequences of that campaign.
Sebastian would do well to stop explaining that Operation Rescue is not necessarily on the Devil’s side, and ask himself why the Devil is on Operation Rescue’s side.
–TP
You know nothing of my motivations, Sebastian. I find your eagerness to ascribe motivations to those of us who disagree with you amusing, considering the topic.
Solipsism is fun, ain’t it?
In any case, this conversation is just another example of the standard operating procedure for right-wing culture warriors when confronted with the real world consequences of their rhetoric. Throw sand, nitpick minutiae, argue about definitions, argue for moral equivalency, object to objections, and play contrarian until everyone is exhausted.
For more than twenty years members of the pro-life movement, from the rank and file to the highly visible and influential national figures, have actively publicly demonized Dr. George Tiller. They have either participated directly or condoned the ongoing harassment and intimidation of the man, his co-workers, his patients, his family, his employees, his employees friends, the businesses he frequents, and the church he attends. They have conducted a public relations campaign unrivaled by proponents of any other issue; I would challenge you to name any other public figure in American life as reviled as Tiller was.
Those same members of the pro-life movement issued public condemnations whenever “serious” laws were broken, like blowing up buildings or shooting Tiller or killing other doctors. But both in private and in public they have always seriously discussed the moral justification for those acts of violence. That dilemma is impossible to escape if you take the rhetoric of ‘Abortion == Murder’ seriously. It is impossible to escape if you take the rhetoric of “George Tiller is a mass murderer who kills children for profit every day” seriously.
I don’t give a rip, to be honest, what solipsistic contortions you and others go through to pretend that Roeder’s motivations are opaque. I don’t care whether you believe that the man holding the gun is such a cipher that the legal definition of ‘terrorism’ is unreachable.
My anger is focused on the community of people who created and sustained the climate in which a man’s murder resulted in a collective, “Well. That’s a relief — babies can rest easy now!”
That’s not a straw man. People I know and work with said it to me. You can argue that my friends, my former co-workers, the leaders of my former church, the people who run organizations I was hired by, the people who write articles that my former fellow-travelers still email to me… You can argue that none of those people are real pro-lifers. That they do not represent the mainstream.
But you know what? I have several Muslim friends, too. I never heard one of them making excuses for killers.
It’s funny how that works.
he was killed on the 6th anniversary of Eric Rudolph’s capture;
I think it’s unfair to assume that that isn’t a coincidence.
it is likely to actually make it more difficult for women to obtain abortions they need, thus de facto changing social policy.
But until he says he wanted to do that, we don’t know. It could have been an accident.
Yes, this is sarcastic, forgive me Doctor, but damn, the
anti-abortion, sorry,anti-pro-choice, sorry, the “reasonable conservatives” here have left plausibility far behind in the dust.Also, Sebastian, I would like to say that I hold no personal animosity towards you. My strong feelings on the issue, as I’ve mentioned before, come from personal direct participation in the kinds of activities that I now condemn. Obviously my experiences are my own, and no one else’s, but I will say that I can speak authoritatively about portions of the “mainstream pro-life movement”.
“Worked for the largest independent church in the midwest,” “Had my magazine funded by the the American Life League,” “Co-hosted the 700 Club,” “Volunteered at crisis pregnancy clinics…” These are my experiences in the pro-life movement. And while there are obviously, clearly, well meaning people who actively do good to help women in need, your statements about the pro-life movement reflect an entirely theoretical knowledge of its members, activity, and tone.
“In any case, this conversation is just another example of the standard operating procedure for right-wing culture warriors when confronted with the real world consequences of their rhetoric. Throw sand, nitpick minutiae, argue about definitions, argue for moral equivalency, object to objections, and play contrarian until everyone is exhausted.”
The problem here is that you aren’t having the argument with me, you’re angry at ‘conservatives’ or ‘right-wing culture warriors’.
I drew an analogy between two murderers. As information is becoming available about the second, the analogy is looking tighter.
My point is not that you can’t be angry at religious groups for planting the seeds of hatred.
My point is that you are being blinded to it in one instance while wholeheartedly embracing it in another. That specifically within the confines of this blog there seemed to be an overreaction with respect to civil rights and free speech.
“But you know what? I have several Muslim friends, too. I never heard one of them making excuses for killers.”
The funny thing about the analogy as it has been looked at in the comments is that I get it hard from contradictory sides, and sometimes from the same commentor.
The analogy isn’t an excuse or justification for the Tiller murder. It can’t be unless I somehow also thought that the recruiter murder was justified–which I clearly don’t.
On the other side, it isn’t a racist/prejudiced attack against Muslims. That wouldn’t make sense in the analogy unless I was arguing for steps to be taken against Operation Rescue et. al.
It is as if you want to attack each half of the analogy separately without ever trying to reconcile it as a whole. I made the analogy. I can’t be using it to excuse Tiller’s murder *or else it makes no sense*.
(Technically you could force it to make sense by suggesting that I want soldiers who go into recruiting stations to be killed, but if you are making that assumption I’d like you to do so explicitly).
No, you misunderstand. My comment about ‘standard right-wing procedure’ specifically related to the spinning, dissembling obtuseness that is evident when someone maintains that we simply can’t say what motivated Roeder.
Such a statement is not, in fact, about Roeder — it’s an assault on the idea of ‘knowability.’ We can’t know anything about anyone else’s internal motivations, really. Since we are not them, even if they tell us what motivates them could be a lie! And we wouldn’t know. All we can do is guess. Given Roeder’s past actions and statements, other explanations for his murder of Tiller require positively ludicrous imaginary leaps.
Whether the recruiter shooting was also a “terrorist attack” is, to me, almost irrelevant. I can certainly imagine it being one. I can also imagine it not being one. But the indignant tone of outrage that everyone didn’t immediately assume that it was similar to Tiller’s situation strikes me as profoundly disingenuous.
Any similarities between the two situations were not immediately apparent because there has not been a decades-long national campaign of hate and intimidation against the recruiter’s office in question. That difference does not mean that the recruiter shooting wasn’t terrorism, or that it wasn’t ideologically motivated, but the devil’s advocate posturing has been rather shocking.
I don’t believe that you are making excuses for Tiller’s murder, Sebastian. I believe that you are turning a blind eye to the fact that the rank and file of the pro-life movement justify and excuse his murder, and have been justifying and excusing similar acts for decades while actively fanning the flames. That’s a subtle difference, and I apologize if I was unclear.
“And while there are obviously, clearly, well meaning people who actively do good to help women in need, your statements about the pro-life movement reflect an entirely theoretical knowledge of its members, activity, and tone.”
Now this is definitely wrong. In San Jose I helped out with some crisis pregnancy centers in the late 1980s in my high school years. (Which were not at all like the trickery ones I heard about later which were operating in NY.) I attended a few of the mostly Catholic-oriented vigils in front of an abortion clinic on 6th Avenue in San Diego in the early 1990s–though again we weren’t stopping people as they came in as I’ve heard happened elsewhere. In both of these experiences I saw a large number of people (mostly women) who were very respectful and prayerful.
I also saw some of the more vicious Phelps-like activities in the late 1990s and early 2000s in San Diego when I was no longer travelling in those circles, and I didn’t like those.
At the time I thought of Operation Rescue with similar feelings that I had toward ACT-UP: that I agreed with many of their concepts but didn’t think their tactics were likely to be generally productive at appealing to the middle range voter that they needed.
Over time ACT-UP has mellowed and Operation Rescue has hardened.
I apologize, then, for assuming that you lacked experience with the movement based on our dramatically, radically different experiences with it.
I will say this, though: many of the people I know who participated in respectful, silent protests also engaged in the demonization of Tiller that I describe. These people were not personally driving to Kansas and throwing bricks at Tiller’s house, but they were sending money to organizations that did, nodding thoughtfully when those people spoke on episodes of Focus on the Family, repeating and forwarding statements about the profound and debauched evils of Tiller and his ilk, and having nuanced water cooler conversations about the “Is it okay to kill Hitler” dilemma of killing to save lives.
Would any of those people have picked up a rifle and taken potshots at a nurse? No, I’m pretty certain they would not have. For centuries, even members of the armed forces hesitated to shoot enemy soldiers during attacks. Their explicit support for, and direct participation in, the ongoing campaign against Tiller did lead directly to the actions of people like Roeder, however.
That’s what I’m saying.
In that sense, I have little patience for hair splitting about the nature of terrorism classification standards in different circumstances.
I have no problem extending the same ‘blood on their hands’ argument to analogous situations, in which a group of people focus demonizing and campaigns of intimidation and violence on someone whose actions they oppose, who is subsequently assassinated. The widespread justification of Tiller’s killer’s actions, and the general “Well, that’s terrible but Tiller can’t kill anyone anymore…” reaction does little to change my views on the matter.
That, in a nutshell, is the problem the pro-life movement ignored and the gay rights movement paid attention to.
Public support for ‘core’ abortion rights has strengthened considerably over the passing decades. The edges of the debate — elective third-trimester abortions, for example — are where most of the ambiguity and discomfort exists nationally. The moral absolutism of ‘Fertilized egg == toddler’ present in the active portions of the pro-life movement means that any compromize on the issue is essentially surrender to murder.
That is problematic, very much so. I don’t know how the pro-life movement can overcome that.
spelling = time/words
Apologies for the unsightly bits scattered throughout my last couple of posts.
On the other side, it isn’t a racist/prejudiced attack against Muslims. That wouldn’t make sense in the analogy unless I was arguing for steps to be taken against Operation Rescue et. al.
Actually, depending on what you mean by “attack”, yes it is. This has been pointed out before, but let’s try one more time.
Your analogy is thus:
A Christian supporter of the anti-abortion movement killing someone who acts in support of abortion implicates all of the anti-abortion movement. :: A Muslim supporter of the anti-war movement killing someone who acts in support of war implicates all of Islam.
I suppose you could argue this is not an attack per se. That’s just about your only hope for making the quoted statement true, and that’s a pretty thin reed. It smacks of implications that Muslims are fundamentally different (and not in a good way) than Christians: if a Muslim performs an act, it’s because they’re Muslim; if a Christian performs an act, we’d better work long and hard to suss out what could possibly have motivated them.
Sebastian: In San Jose I helped out with some crisis pregnancy centers in the late 1980s in my high school years. (Which were not at all like the trickery ones I heard about later which were operating in NY.)
So the San Jose “crisis pregnancy centers” were quite upfront and honest about the fact that they weren’t going to do anything for a pregnant woman but try and talk her out of having an abortion?
NV: It smacks of implications that Muslims are fundamentally different (and not in a good way) than Christians: if a Muslim performs an act, it’s because they’re Muslim; if a Christian performs an act, we’d better work long and hard to suss out what could possibly have motivated them.
Yeah. But as this has been explained to Sebastian several times over so far in this thread, and he’s yet to acknowledge that there’s a problem with it, well…
Jeff:
First, public support for ‘core’ abortion rights is pretty much exactly where it was in 1974. Unlike some other high profile Supreme Court issues that abortion rights are sometimes compared to (inter-racial marriage or segregation for example) public opinion has NOT trended toward what you probably think of as the progressive view over time in the abortion case. Unlike those examples, the opinion of the public on abortion is pretty close to unchanged. (Which is a matter of consternation to both sides, as the opinion of the public on abortion is pretty much nothing like the extreme pro-choice view or the extreme pro-life view.)
Second, I wonder if your previous life with fairly extreme pro-life factions isn’t coloring your view of the options. Indeed, the “fertilized egg=toddler” approach is the most extreme pro-life version which does not allow for any compromise. I even held that view myself in my teen years. But when asked to really examine the belief and challenged on how the development of the fetus actually occurred I saw that it is really more of a continuum of travelling toward full personhood. There is certainly room for discussion/compromise about which abortions are and are not appropriate at which times in that understanding—which seems in fact to be the general moral understanding of the American public.
Nombrilisme Vide:
You are doing exactly what I was complaining about. This interpretation doesn’t make sense because I’m asserting the similarity of the two cases. In one case we appear to have an unbalanced and extremist pro-life Christian and in the other case we appear to have an unbalanced and extremist anti-war Muslim. I’m arguing that you should either treat them both as cases where the fiery rhetoric, intentionally inflammatory religious language and demonization have certain legal or social ramifications, or that neither of them should.
You only get to me attacking Muslims if you interpret me as saying that I believe the two cases ought to be treated differently. I think I’ve been very clear that I think there are a host of important similarities. I tend toward restricting the number of people that I believe are implicated by the murders. I tend to believe that the vast majority of basically pro-life and anti-war people are not implicated. I tend to believe that the vast majority of basically Christian and Muslim people are not implicated. Hell, I tend to believe that the vast majority of basically mentally unbalanced people are not implicated.
Your interpretation only makes sense if you think I am stressing the differences. But I feel fairly sure that I have stressed the similarities throughout this discussion.
“So the San Jose “crisis pregnancy centers” were quite upfront and honest about the fact that they weren’t going to do anything for a pregnant woman but try and talk her out of having an abortion?”
No, I wasn’t involved in the counseling part, I was a teenager. I was involved in the taking meals to preganant women and driving them to the doctor for checkups and helping them get into battered women’s shelters, and delivering diapers and baby food part.
This interpretation doesn’t make sense because I’m asserting the similarity of the two cases.
I get it. You’re asserting similarity. That’s the problem. As I already asked upthread, do you believe that the Muslim community is as uniform as the American pro-life movement? If you do, then that does sound like… maybe not an attack, but irresponsible and childish exaggeration. A very myopic, “America, fuck yeah” view that almost all the rest of the world is alike.
Obviously, the American anti-abortion movement isn’t completely homogenous, as your disagreement with Jeff Eaton shows. But it’s a hell of a lot more so than the second or third most popular religion in the world.
The American pro-life community isn’t particularly uniform, though it is fairly uniform on the inappropriateness of vigilante killings. So yes I believe the Muslim community isn’t particularly uniform either (and it also isn’t super big on vigilante killings).
I used the phrase ‘core abortion rights’ very carefully — I’m not talking about an absolutist pro-choice position, or about any specific edge cases. I’m talking about the percentage of americans who agree that elective abortions should be legal in the first and possibly second trimesters. As past discussions on ObWi have shown, that goalpost is an unacceptable one for the activist camps of both pro-choice and pro-life movements, but public support for it has grown over time.
That’s certainly possible, and I don’t deny that I can only speak authoritatively about my own experiences. That’s one of the reasons that I tend to emphasize “The people I have worked with” and “The people I have known” and “The organizations I worked for” and so on. Claiming universal knowledge of the inner life of every person who calls themselves ‘pro-life’ is silly, but it does not mean that legitimate discussions about the pro-life movement and its aggregate actions are impossible.
I would also note, though, that I would not consider have considered myself an “extreme” pro-lifer. I knew of folks who actively advocated clinic bombing. I spoke with other self-identified pro-lifers locally and nationally, and I did not once find my own views and my own questions about the morality of “direct action” regarded as extreme or out of the ordinary.
This is especially worth noting when all of the public voices of the pro-life movement are essentially united in their demonization of someone.
I think it might be instructive for you to poke around “The Pro Life Movement” today, and see whether your nuanced view is the norm in those circles. I am willing to stake my reputation here and elsewhere on the fact that your help at a protest or a clinic would be welcome, but your views would be regarded as dangerous compromise.
The drivers of the pro-life movement are not concerned citizens troubled at the thought of elective third-trimester abortions of healthy children. Even the protestant side of the pro-life movement is now infused with ‘humanity begins at fertilization’ absolutism. The protestant pro-life movement’s slow but steady merger with the “True Love Waits” style abstinence movement has also been a matter of some interest to me; it’s one of the things that makes cooperation between organizations like Planned Parenthood and the pro-life movement all but impossible.
No, I wasn’t involved in the counseling part, I was a teenager.
Fair enough – so you actually have no idea how tricksy they were being towards the women who walked in the door, because you weren’t there for that part. Okay.
In one case we appear to have an unbalanced and extremist pro-life Christian and in the other case we appear to have an unbalanced and extremist anti-war Muslim. I’m arguing that you should either treat them both as cases where the fiery rhetoric, intentionally inflammatory religious language and demonization have certain legal or social ramifications, or that neither of them should.
But no one was asserting that all Christians – not even all Christians in the US – were associated with Scott Roedor.
OCSteve did make an attempt to claim that the anti-war movement had the same kind of fiery rhetoric, intentionally inflammatory religious language and demonization as the pro-life movement, and that this had led to similar legal and social reactions, but he was unable to prove his point.
Furthermore, your original post still makes the comparison of all Muslims to all pro-lifers: a global religion, to a national political movement.
“Fair enough – so you actually have no idea how tricksy they were being towards the women who walked in the door, because you weren’t there for that part. Okay.”
You quote that I wasn’t there for the counseling part and then ignore the rest. Your statement was: “So the San Jose “crisis pregnancy centers” were quite upfront and honest about the fact that they weren’t going to do anything for a pregnant woman but try and talk her out of having an abortion“.
The part I was there for (taking care of the mother and offering aid after the birth, after she decided not to have an abortion) is the part I was involved in. You seem to think that part didn’t exist.
It was also fairly uniform on the issue of Dr. George Tiller being a monstrous mass murderer who needed to be stopped. Where different sub-groups inside of the movement went from there differed, but there was, as far as I have been able to discern over the last 20 years, no disagreement on that point.
“So the San Jose “crisis pregnancy centers” were quite upfront and honest about the fact that they weren’t going to do anything for a pregnant woman but try and talk her out of having an abortion”.
Well? How many OB/GYN doctors did they have on their staff? What kind of health care did they offer? What if a pregnant woman had diabetes or other complications? What if she were taking tetragenic drugs? What if she had high bloodpressure – what tests did they do to find out if she was a high-risk for hypertensive pulmonary vascular disease, and when would they tell her if they found out she could have intravascular fibrin precipitation, which is only one of many lethal pregnancy complications? How far would they go in pressuring a woman out of having an abortion if everything showed that attempting to carry it to term would be dangerous for her?
How many midwives did they have on their staff?
What effort did they make to ensure that, before she gave birth, she was in her own home, with a job that would enable her to support both herself and her child when she could go back to work?
That’s the side of “crisis pregnancy centers” that I don’t believe exists. You want to tell me different?
Or is this just a distraction from the main point of your post – that you were attacking Muslims in an effort to defend the pro-life movement?
Your “weren’t going to do anything” sure got a lot more complicated.
Doctors on staff? They associated with doctors who would serve as the OB/GYN. That person would deal with high bloodpressure, testing, drug screening, diabetes complications and the like. I believe the doctors were volunteers or paid for by the center.
They were associated with adoption centers for those who wanted them.
For those who ended up not wanting adoption they were associated with job counselors, and offered housing and food support for the first year.
I don’t know more than that, other than that the women I had contact with seemed very happy with it.
“that you were attacking Muslims in an effort to defend the pro-life movement?”
Wow.
Again. I might be defending Muslims in order to defend the pro-life movement. But you have to invert half of my entire argument to make it attacking one group to defend another.
I think what Sebastian is saying is that *if* one condemns the pro-life movement one must condemn Muslims as well, and *if* one excuses Muslims as a group one must excuse pro-lifers as a group as well.
This ignores a number of the arguments that have already been made in the thread (IE, ‘Islam !== Prolife, Islam == Christianity’ and ‘There is no equivalent campaign of hate against military recruiters’) but Sebastian’s statements can’ be construed as ‘Attacking one WHILE defending the other.’
A number of other thread participants have complicated things by taking a different approach than Sebastian’s, but his statements are still in the ‘These two events are equivalent’ category, unless I’ve misunderstood him.
Regarding the issue of ‘crisis pregnancy centers’, I think one of the difficulties is the fact that they are not, in fact ‘medical’ facilities in any way shape or form. They are counseling centers that give advice and connect women with other resources like job counseling, food pantries, churches, and doctors. They do not, in most cases, connect them with abortion providers: a woman who decides, despite their advice, that she wants an abortion, is left to her own devices to find a provider.
For women who regard abortion as an undesirable alternative but the only one they can possible manage given insufficient social and financial resources, this system is a good one: it can get them in touch with church and nonprofit groups that assist them. In other situations, it’s difficult not to see it as a stalling tactic to prevent women from getting an abortion as long as possible.
This is one of the reasons that the pro-life opposition to late term abortions is difficult to discuss in isolation. 48% of women who obtained abortions after the 16th trimester listed “Difficulty of scheduling an abortion earlier” and “Was discouraged from having an abortion” as the primary reasons they waited so long.
The more difficult it is to have an early abortion, the more women have late-term abortions.
Let me correct my earlier statement: “in most cases” should be “In cases that I have observed directly.” The issue of whether “Crisis pregnancy counseling centers” must offer abortion information to women if requested has been an issue of some debate in a number of local controversies.
Sebastian: I don’t know more than that, other than that the women I had contact with seemed very happy with it.
I’m sure that’s true. You were a teenager. I don’t expect a teenage boy to have fully adult awareness of how adult women are feeling; and you’ve always seemed to have the typical pro-life indifference to women having human feelings, in any case (your assertion in a specific discussion about late-term abortion that a suicidal woman ought to be forced through childbirth against her will, your general assertion in a number of discussions that women will in late pregnancy just up and decide to have abortions, etc).
But you have to invert half of my entire argument to make it attacking one group to defend another.
Huh. So you don’t perceive any attack on Muslims in comparing adherants to a global religion to members of a political movement, in order to defend that political movement?
The purpose of your post was to defend the pro-life movement against what you saw as unjust attacks on people who only vilified George Tiller because he performed late-term abortions, or who only made general accusations about late-term abortion being baby-killing, ought not to be associated with someone who took this rhetoric literally and actually murdered the man whom this political movement had vilified.
Your attempted defense was to assert that it’s perfectly reasonable to compare the set of all Muslims with the set of all pro-lifers, and yes: FWIW, I do see that as a racist kind of attack on Muslims. You’re not trying to compare Christians with Muslims: you’re trying to compare a political movement with a religion, as if the religion were the same kind of thing as the political movement.
And although you have had it explained to you in mindnumbing detail exactly what is wrong with this, you have continued to uphold the comparison. So yes; You are attacking Muslims with this post.
But the indignant tone of outrage that everyone didn’t immediately assume that it was similar to Tiller’s situation strikes me as profoundly disingenuous.
Any similarities between the two situations were not immediately apparent because there has not been a decades-long national campaign of hate and intimidation against the recruiter’s office in question.
Yes, this. Also, as has been pointed out by many many people here, the possibly correct analogy is not Roeder:pro-life movement::RecruiterShooter:Islam, but maybe (and I don’t know, because I’m not following the second story), Roeder:pro-life movement::RecruiterShooter:militant Islamists.
In which case, I see two major holes: the one Jeff Eaton pointed out, and the fact that militant Islamists actually have absolutely minimal access to the US political process, unlike pro-lifers. So the guy who shot up the recruitment office and killed the soldier isn’t going to have any real effect, but Roeder is. Pretty sad how terrorism is more effective when you’re white and Christian.
This is one of the reasons that the pro-life opposition to late term abortions is difficult to discuss in isolation. 48% of women who obtained abortions after the 16th trimester listed “Difficulty of scheduling an abortion earlier” and “Was discouraged from having an abortion” as the primary reasons they waited so long.
The more difficult it is to have an early abortion, the more women have late-term abortions.
This is also something I wish moderate pro-lifers were more willing to think about. The Hyde amendment does a lot of work towards pushing poor women into 2nd trimester abortions, by denying them funding for early abortions.
Well, that might not be the case. The effectiveness of terrorism in achieving its goals is one of the reasons that it is so dangerous in democratic societies: it is a terribly, terribly tempting path for impassioned extremists who would not be able to otherwise achieve their goals.
Daniel Larison has written insightfully about the pro-life movement’s essential ineffectiveness in affecting political change that they desire: despite a cumulative 20 years of conservative pro-life presidential power and many years of congressional/senatorial power by nominally pro-life candidates, they have not achieved their core goal of outlawing abortion.
This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons for the religious right’s profound disillusionment with the Republican party and one of the reasons that extremists in the pro-life movement see illegal acts as a legitimate path. This sort of logic was explicitly discussed in Francis Schaeffer’s profoundly influential book A Christian Manifesto, a book I read with profound interest when I was younger. He also co-authored a book specifically about abortion, Whatever Happened To The Human Race? with C. Everett Koop, the former US Surgeon General.
It really is ironic: the pro-life movement has a very loud voice in the American political and social world, but they have not been able to accomplish their goals directly.
@Jeff:
A number of other thread participants have complicated things by taking a different approach than Sebastian’s, but his statements are still in the ‘These two events are equivalent’ category, unless I’ve misunderstood him.
I think this is a fair summery of the position Sebastian has adopted it the comment thread when his analogy was criticized. I think it is a wholly inaccurate summery of the analogy (and implicit criticisms packaged therein) as presented in the post. Which is to say, Sebastian appears to have walked back from the more extreme position he staked out in his post. That’s good. What’s not so good is that he’s disingenuously trying to convince us that his come-lately position was the one he put forth originally. It’s not. He crafted an unbalanced, unwieldy, ad frankly offensive analogy, and is now trying to tell us that we should believe him as to what it says rather than our lying eyes. To wit:
Look at the first paragraph. The weakness (and inappropriateness) of the analogy is very, very apparent. He throws in “or religious” at the start, but then turns around and is back to strictly political at the end. From my point of view, this is a perfectly understandable rhetorical strategy on his part; if he were consistent and argued that we should look at the two cases and only argue that the anti-abortion movement (a political movement) should make an effort to marginalize those elements advocating violent activism within it if we were likewise willing to argue that the anti-war movement (a political movement) should also make an effort to marginalize those elements advocating violent activism within it. The problem with this is that it’s a call to non-action. Proponents of violent anti-war activism are few and far between, and already thoroughly marginalized both within and without the movement. As you pointed out, the same is not at all true for the anti-abortion movement. So rhetorically, his “how dare you call out the anti-abortion movement for failing to marginalize its advocates of violence” is much stronger if he chooses a comparison with something that conventional American wisdom dictates also fails to marginalize advocates of violence. I’d also add that I’m tempted* to see a rhetorical nail being added to this rhetorical club by the fact (or “fact”, rather) that the liberal targets of his analogy hold criticism of Islam to be unthinkable (for reasons of political correctness rather than heterogeneity).
The problem is, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the two things are simply not analogous. The American anti-abortion movement is utterly monolithic when compared, as Sebastian does, to the whole of Islam. It is appropriate to call out the anti-abortion movement in ways that it is not appropriate to call out “Muslims” because the two groupings of people have fundamentally different structures. Sebastian’s analogy is ill-crafted and incapable of illuminating the matter it purports to. If we muddle definitions of group identity to the point where it holds, we end up with a banal proposition with no persuasive force… and we also lose the ability to plug the criticism Sebastian seeks to quell into the first side of the analogy.
*If this supposition earns me a Carnac penalty, I’ll take it without protest.
I think this is a fair summery of the position Sebastian has adopted it the comment thread when his analogy was criticized. I think it is a wholly inaccurate summery of the analogy (and implicit criticisms packaged therein) as presented in the post. Which is to say, Sebastian appears to have walked back from the more extreme position he staked out in his post. That’s good.
Yes, I think that’s fair.
But, Sebastian will not – has not – posted an update to his OP acknowledging that the position he presented no longer represents his views.
This does not altogether surprise me. First, it’s exactly what he did two years ago when the problem was he ran a pro-life story in which his case (“pensioner denied health care because of political views”) was sharply undercut when he had to admit that the pensioner in question wasn’t actually being denied health care, but an appointment at a specific hospital; and that the reason for the denial wasn’t because of the pensioner’s political views but because he’d been convicted of malicious communication with staff at that hospital. By the end of a long thread, Sebastian had acknowledged both of those things were true, which made his OP completely fale: but he never did go back to correct the erroneous position presented in the front-page post.
Where a matter of verifiable fact was concerned, Sebastian would not update his OP, but left it presenting a false pro-lifer claim.
Where a matter of belief (the Muslim religion and the pro-life political movement are not the same kind of thing and it is offensive to Muslims to compare them as if they were) is being presented, in order to defend the pro-life movement, I am even more sure that Sebastian will leave his front-page post as is.
People read front-page posts more than they read discussion threads. Walking back from his original position in the discussion thread, but leaving the front-page post intact, is a pro-life campaign tactic.
What conclusions should we draw?
That you’ll say anything to avoid admitting that you support a terrorist group?
I would say no. But the logic of quite a bit of the talk around Tiller’s murder would suggest, ‘yes’
Oh, absolutely. Almost all of this ‘logic’ is (as is demonstrated in this thread) coming from right-wing attempts to muddy the waters in an attempt to get themselves or their allies off the hook for terrorism. Which leads to:
What Conclusions Should We Draw?
That Sebastian will not make a formal retraction when called on his repeating of mendacious right wing talking points, instead preferring to leave the FPP in all its deceptive glory.
“by nominally pro-life candidates”
Yeah, that “nominally” is pretty much what’s got the pro-lifers going batty, or giving up on politics. If every politician they helped elect who claimed to be pro-life actually had proven to be so once in office, they’d have long since won.
They’ve had it proven to them that, even laying aside the original judicial dictate, this is a subject where politics isn’t going to be permitted to work.
There are increasingly many such subjects, and it’s a real problem for democracy in America.
“this is a subject where politics isn’t going to be permitted to work.”
Personally, I would say that Roe and the subsequent SCOTUS findings, as well as the various state laws currently in place, are actually a pretty accurate reflection of how the US population thinks and feels about abortion.
There are lots of people who are unhappy with the status quo, for various reasons and in various directions. In fact, I’d say the number of folks who think the current situation is just right is most likely vanishingly small.
But what we have now is probably as good a compromise, and a splitting of the various differences, as any political process is likely to produce.
So, I’d say that in this case politics has worked pretty well. It might not be pretty, but it sort of hangs together.
People in this country are different enough from each other that that is about as good as it’s going to get.
Read’em and weep. Or, perhaps, read’em and be happy we’re able to get that far.
My two cents.
If every politician they helped elect who claimed to be pro-life actually had proven to be so once in office, they’d have long since won.
i doubt that.
if the GOP was to ever get really really serious about outlawing abortion, you’d probably find an equal but opposite reaction from (many of) the Dems.
Brett, it’s important to note, I think, that the ‘nominal’ pro-life designator comes because the explicitly desired goal of the pro-life movement (the outlawing of all abortion) is unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans, even Republicans.
The idea that abortion should be legal under some or all circumstances is supported by roughly 80% of the population. Outlawing it entirely, the goal of the pro-life movement, would be a real problem for democracy.
Their cause is complicated by the fact that compromise — the stuff politics is made of — is only acceptable as a short-term tactical wedge. There are no recognizable voices in the national pro-life movement saying, “We would like X, but Y is acceptable.” That’s also one of the reasons that most pro-life concerns about third trimester abortions are difficult to accept as good faith arguments.
It would help if we stopped using the propaganda term “pro-life” because the anti-abortionists aren’t pro-life. For the most part they aren’t even all that anti-abortion since most of them think it should be a choice under some circunmstances. So the designation “pro-life” serves no useful purpose in the discussion except to give some people a false sense of moral superiority.
As a matter of fact, that’s exactly why there are few, if any voices from the anti-choice side articulating compromise positions: a movement that is centered upon the egotism of individuals who like to think of themselves are part of a morally superior crusade aren’t going to be interested in compromise. Or thinking. Or debating. Just posturing.
It would help if we stopped using the propaganda term “pro-life” because the anti-abortionists aren’t pro-life.
I agree their name for themselves is deeply ironic. But it is their name for themselves. So we can say “the pro-life murderer of Doctor George Tiller”; “the pro-life terrorists who firebomb health clinics”: it’s ironic that this is the name they chose for themselves, these violent and angry people who want to control women’s bodies and don’t care who dies, but I am willing to name them by the name they call themselves.
What I am less willing to tolerate is for people who are pro-choice, who in fact believe that women should be able to decide whether to have the baby or terminate the pregnancy, to call themselves “pro-life”. It’s a political movement with an active terrorist wing, which works to ban access to safe legal abortion and contraception for women across the world. If you don’t agree with it as a movement, don’t call yourself by its name.
It really is ironic: the pro-life movement has a very loud voice in the American political and social world, but they have not been able to accomplish their goals directly.
I don’t mean that the pro-life movement has been effective in passing laws to achieve their stated goals, though they have . They haven’t been able to pass more restrictive laws for exactly the reason Brett mentions: a lot of Republican politicians are willing to say they’re pro-life precisely because they’re in no danger of being forced to vote on a wholesale abortion ban. There’s basically no public support for such a ban, and if it became a realistic possibility I bet we’d see a lot fewer politicians describing themselves as categorically opposed to abortion. It’s a freebie signaling device right now.
However. Abortion is less available in the US than it should be. 87% of US counties lack an abortion provider. The extra-legal harassment – the terrorism – has been the most effective aspect of the pro-life movement, and has had the greatest effect on women’s access to abortion. That’s what I mean when I say – partly tongue in cheek – that terrorism is more effective if you’re white and Christian.
(I also DO NOT understand why it is that pro-lifers are in general so unwilling to see that they’re asking a woman not just to stand back and let someone live, but to donate her own body to be its life support for 9 months at considerable risk to her health and life. It seems like a kind of willful blindness to me to continue to call abortion murder as if, without the woman’s active, intense, and continuous intervention, the fetus would have any chance of survival. But that’s a side argument.)
Roeder had more contact with O.R. than just a few comments on the forums.
Yeah, that “nominally” is pretty much what’s got the pro-lifers going batty, or giving up on politics. If every politician they helped elect who claimed to be pro-life actually had proven to be so once in office, they’d have long since won.
Yes. It’s strange that the Pro-Life movement seems utterly unable to field its own candidates who can actually win elections. Instead they just get pandered to and ignored – largely because they are only a small part of America, and any politician with the skill to reach high office knows this (or his handlers do).
This isn’t a failure of democracy. It’s a failure of the intelligence of the Pro-Life movement and a lack of political understanding.
They’ve had it proven to them that, even laying aside the original judicial dictate, this is a subject where politics isn’t going to be permitted to work.
You guys are not willing to compromise with the 80% of the population that supports legal abortions when medically necessary. In a winner-takes-all system that’s going to make giving what you want utterly impossible for any politician who wants to not face a huge backlash. So politicians have two choices: ignore you as actually doing what you want would be political suicide, or throw you a few bones once in a while to prevent you from voting for the other guys.
The problem is not pro-lifers giving up on politics. It’s that the vast majority of pro-lifers never understood that politics was the art of the compromise in the first place.
And yes, you are being used. You are being used because until you learn to compromise anything else is letting a small group of screaming maniacs override the will of the majority of the population. So you can be either ignored or used.
There are increasingly many such subjects, and it’s a real problem for democracy in America.
It is a real problem for democracy in America that there’s a significant and rabid proportion of people who are not prepared to compromise or accept when they have lost this round. And not accept when this round is unwinnable without a whole lot more work.
By way of Rachel Maddow (Friday): Anti-abortion organisation demonstrate on Saturday (also the day of Mr.Tiller’s funeral, although that is a coincidence) in front of abortion clinics etc. with the slogan “The Pill Kills” to ‘inform’ women that by using contraceptives they are committing murder.
The next person who tries to explain that this wasn’t terrorism will have a very difficult task ahead of them.