Assasination of Dr Tiller

[Lord Mhoram]

Interesting point. Yes, I'm talking primarily about politics as the workings of power in society, not merely Democrats vs. Republicans (though it is that too, for all the same reasons coincidentally). Maybe the definition of politics at use here is what is confusing us.

[Zarathustra]

That's an example if the irresponsible rhetoric that got Tillman killed.

Let me be clear. MY [edit] RHETORIC DIDN’T GET TILLMAN [edit] KILLED. MY [edit] RHETORIC ISN’T AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT GOT TILLMAN [edit] KILLED. A [edit] BULLET GOT HIM KILLED.

Please don’t EVER tell me that my words are an example of what gets people killed. [edit] That's an accusation I will not stand. And it's pretty [edit] low of you to make.

I am sick of you implying that my views are "examples" of what gets people killed, or examples of what racists say while they're trying to discriminate (see the SCOTUS thread). Please just debate the points without resorting to implications that my words incite terrorism or racism, [edit].

Ok, now that we’re clear on that . . . it’s irresponsible to tell the truth? What do you call a viable late term fetus? Look at all the words we have for the early stages (words used to dehumanize humans and excuse killing them). Zygote. Embryo. Fetus. At what point does it become a baby, to you? Calling a viable late term fetus a baby isn’t “irresponsbile.” It’s irresponsible to ignore that this is a viable human being, and kill it.

I think that anyone who inspires people to commit terrorism in the name of a political issue should absolutely change their ways and conduct their political agenda in a less harmful way. There it is, in black and white. You don't have to believe, you can now know.

How exactly should the prolife movement express its beliefs differently? If I believe killing viable fetuses is killing babies, how am I supposed to express this in a way that doesn’t outrage those who agree with me? I think killing babies is wrong. I think the physical location of the baby doesn’t change that. If this outrages people, it’s not my fault. It’s because killing babies is WRONG.

Blaming free speech acts for terrorist acts is illogical. There are always going to be a certain number of people who are nuts. We don’t get rid of video games because some kid is “inspired” to copy them. We don’t get rid of rock music because some loser is “inspired” to kill himself. And we don’t tell people they must “absolutely change their ways and conduct their political agenda in a less harmful way” simply because some nut went off the deep end. You ARE blaming free speech acts for this man’s actions. Typical of the left, you are having difficulty assigning responsibility for an action. This man was to blame for his own actions. Not the prolife movement. And his actions are no excuse to insist that an entire movement conducts itself differently. That’s your excuse to try to shut up the opposition. I think what you’re doing here is despicable.

But, you know, who cares. You got "Wayfriend thinks voicing opinions is terrorism" out there. That's what counts.

Wayfriend, you’re calling for waterboarding. You’re equating free speech acts with shouting fire in a crowded theater. You’re blaming the prolife movement for this guy’s terrorism. You don’t need me to get “wayfriend thinks voicing opinions is terrorism” out there. You’re doing it all by yourself. The only way your mock indignation at my post could make any sense is if you think shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is a harmless free speech act. But we both know it isn’t. Yet you still equate the two. And then you act indignant when someone interprets this as you saying the prolife movement’s rhetoric is dangerous?? If it’s not dangerous, and doesn’t cause terrorism, then why should they “absolutely change their ways and conduct their political agenda in a less harmful way”?? If it’s not terrorism, then why do you want to waterboard them?

[Edited by Malik23 for profanity and anger.]

[benzss]

Interesting point. Yes, I'm talking primarily about politics as the workings of power in society, not merely Democrats vs. Republicans (though it is that too, for all the same reasons coincidentally). Maybe the definition of politics at use here is what is confusing us.

Perhaps, but on its own it'd be an interesting discussion! But anyway...

Blaming free speech acts for terrorist acts is illogical. There are always going to be a certain number of people who are nuts. We don’t get rid of video games because some kid is “inspired” to copy them. We don’t get rid of rock music because some loser is “inspired” to kill himself. And we don’t tell people they must “absolutely change their ways and conduct their political agenda in a less harmful way” simply because some nut went off the deep end. You ARE blaming free speech acts for this man’s actions. Typical of the left, you are having difficulty assigning responsibility for an action. This man was to blame for his own actions. Not the prolife movement. And his actions are no excuse to insist that an entire movement conducts itself differently. That’s your excuse to try to shut up the opposition. I think what you’re doing here is despicable.

Quite right, really.

And I'm a little confused about why the word 'terrorist' is being bandied around as if it's lost its meaning... oh wait, it already has.

[Zarathustra]

Sorry about my language and losing my temper, everyone. I get a little upset when people imply that I'm indirectly complicit in murder simply because I express my opinion.

Mods edit my post how you see fit, I won't bitch. But maybe we need to add "don't accuse your opponent's views of causing death" to the Tank guidelines.

I believe abortion is murder. But I'd never accuse any of you of causing murder for voicing your pro-choice opinions. I think that kind of accusation is below Tank standards.

[Lord Mhoram]

Malik,

Typical of the left, you are having difficulty assigning responsibility for an action. This man was to blame for his own actions. Not the prolife movement. And his actions are no excuse to insist that an entire movement conducts itself differently.

This is, I think, undue. Condemnation of the murderer is universal and nobody removes from him his responsibility for his actions. In contextualizing the event, wayfriend is not "having difficulty assigning responsibility for an action." There's a crucial difference, namely that by explaining event nothing happens to culpability.

[wayfriend]

Please don’t EVER tell me that my words are an example of what gets people killed. [edit] That's an accusation I will not stand. And it's pretty [edit] low of you to make.

Sorry you read into it an accusation that wasn't there. In no way, shape or form, did I say that Tillman's killer listens to you, Malik, and then went out and did your bidding. I can't even give you the benefit of the doubt here -- nothing I said came even close to that. Your anger mocks itself.

But, you know, who cares. You got "Wayfriend blames me for Tillers death" out there on the board. That's what counts. Right?

For the record, I never said, nor ever would, that any single person's statements incites this kind of violence. No, it's the effect of being bombarded with a message from many dirrections, all unified into a single purpose.

When people make a concerted effort to inspire hatred, they are in part to blame for the hatred inspired.

But if I say your words are an example, is it, as you have asked, "irresponsible to tell the truth"?

Tiller was a baby killer. That's how he made his money.

The truth is you have boiled down Tiller's actions to a damning sound bite, removed all context from it, especially and including the fact that what he did was legal in this country. You took a human who has an opinion you disagreed with and who broke no laws, and turned him into a personified crime. You did everything up to, but not including, claiming he deserved to die for what he did. That's demonization at work.

When that's repeated often enough, people believe it. When they believe it, they act on it.

Ok, now that we’re clear on that . . . it’s irresponsible to tell the truth?

You didn't tell the truth. You committed lies of omission. There's more to the matter than "Tiller kills babies".

How exactly should the prolife movement express its beliefs differently?

Don't demonize people who disagree with you, for one thing.

Wayfriend, you’re calling for waterboarding. You’re equating free speech acts with shouting fire in a crowded theater. You’re blaming the prolife movement for this guy’s terrorism. You don’t need me to get “wayfriend thinks voicing opinions is terrorism” out there. You’re doing it all by yourself.

You're backfilling. I have said all of those things incite terrorism. I did not say that they *are* terrorism. This line of refute relies on people not understanding the distinction and it is therefore without any merit except as incendiary comments.

Ironic, as we are discussing the power of overuse of incendiary comments.

And then you act indignant when someone interprets this as you saying the prolife movement’s rhetoric is dangerous??

Nope. If you had said that, I would have agreed with you. But you said "people voicing their opinions is systematic domestic terrorism", and that's nothing I will admit to claiming or believing, and it's a completely different crime.

[Rawedge Rim]

I posted this in another thread, probably the wrong thread. I am quoting it to save time, then I'll continue.

So "Tiller the Baby Killer" was gunned down by a ... *cough* ... "pro-life" activist.

Six such murders during the Clinton years. None during the Bush administration. Obama is inaugurated, and we're back in business.

Can there be any doubt that such "right-wing extremism" is induced by the fear that a pro-abortion administration is going to crank up the baby killing? (Before you say no, think about the bullet shortage.)

So lets monger the fear. It's harmless.

... Or, rather, no one can blame you for what happens. Close enough.

When Will Right Wing Violence Be Terrorism?

No kidding everyone is backing away from this and refuting any claims of a relationship to this terrorist.

But this is the natural result of sustained demonization over a period of years. The people who go out of there way to rile up the masses and induce unthinking hatred in others are among those we need to blame. They're the ones backing the way the hardest at the moment. They'll get off unsinged; they know how to motivate others to do the dirty work without leaving a concrete trail.

They are yelling "Tiller the Baby Killer" in a crowded theatre. They deserve to feel the consequences of their actions.

One organization has reported that there is an insufficient number of abortion climics because people fear being harmed by anti-abortion protesters.

That is nothing less than systemic domestic terrorism.

Where is the waterboarding now?

So we go from one whacko to a national conspiracy to commit terrorist acts against abortion providers. Evidence please.

[Cybrweez]

Malik,

Typical of the left, you are having difficulty assigning responsibility for an action. This man was to blame for his own actions. Not the prolife movement. And his actions are no excuse to insist that an entire movement conducts itself differently.

This is, I think, undue. Condemnation of the murderer is universal and nobody removes from him his responsibility for his actions. In contextualizing the event, wayfriend is not "having difficulty assigning responsibility for an action." There's a crucial difference, namely that by explaining event nothing happens to culpability.

LM, what does this mean then:

That's an example if the irresponsible rhetoric that got Tillman killed.

I have to say, can't blame malik for reading this as saying, a certain type of rhetoric got Tillman killed. Because, that's what it says. Right there. In english. Typed out.

[Rawedge Rim]

Malik,

LM, just because an issue has been politicized by society doesn't mean that every action performed by individuals pertaining to that issue is itself a political act.

I think the political ubiquity of abortion in the United States puts the onus upon you in this argument to prove to me that Tiller's murder was apolitical. Furthermore, violence is almost always political, as has been argued at length by most political theorists. For example, a standard text on the subject of violence as political can posit uncontroversially, "According to modern political thought, violence is the ultima ratio of politics. The basic subject of modern politics, in the sense of the foundational understanding of what politics is ultimately all about, is consequently violence" (link).

This guy transcended the realm of politics to the realm of action.

I would put it a different way, as I already have above: Tiller's actions were the logical conclusion of the pro-choice position. That's almost a condemnation, you'll notice, rendering your subtle accusations that I agreed with the man irrelevant. But it's also, I think, a fact.

He found that politics no longer worked, in his view, so he stepped outside of the realm of politics to the realm of direct action.

This is a curious statement. It assumes that the political is an abstract and metaphysical entity. It's not. Politics is action.

benzss,

Again, like violence, ethics is inseparable from politics. Ethics (not morality) is not metaphysical, it is forged in practice. When I say I am against injustice, I'm making a vague statement that might (unfairly in my opinion, but still might) be construed as purely abstract. When I say I am against abortion, I'm talking about something in the real world, in society. Therefore, politics applies.

Seems to me you wish us to prove a negative, which is virtually impossible. There is no way to prove that Tillmans death could not have been at least a little political.

Question is, was this murder the work of an individual, or was this a conspiracy to committ a murder. I have read nothing to indicate that this wasn't someone who decided on his own that he could no longer abide a world where he and Tillman both occupied it.

[Lord Mhoram]

I don't think this is part of a conspiracy or even a broader trend of violence. I think it was principally a political event and should be analyzed thus.

[Cail]

I don't think this is part of a conspiracy or even a broader trend of violence. I think it was principally a political event and should be analyzed thus.

Half right. There's no conspiracy, but it's questionable what the murderer's motives were. If it was nothing more than an effort to stop Tillman from performing late term abortions, then there's really nothing political about it.

[Lord Mhoram]

He certainly wanted Tiller to stop performing late-term abortions; but there has to be a motivation for that motivation. His history as a pro-life activist is a good indication of what those motivations are.

[wayfriend]

That's an example if the irresponsible rhetoric that got Tillman killed.

I have to say, can't blame malik for reading this as saying, a certain type of rhetoric got Tillman killed. Because, that's what it says. Right there. In english. Typed out.

I agree. That's what it says, that's what I meant to say.

And I explained why above. Context which is, alas, again, left out of the discussion.

I would, however, criticize Malik for claiming I blamed him personally for Tiller's death.

[Cail]

He certainly wanted Tiller to stop performing late-term abortions; but there has to be a motivation for that motivation. His history as a pro-life activist is a good indication of what those motivations are.

So you admit that you're guessing? I'd prefer that we wait for the nutbag to make a statement before we start making definitive statements about his motives.

[Zarathustra]

The main reason for describing this murder as "political" is to link it to a specific political group (conservatives). It is being done subtlely by Lord Mhoram, and overtly by Wayfriend. It is political opportunism, using this death as a chance for the Left to point fingers at the Right due to the actions of one man.

Cail is right: if this was purely political--rather than an attempt to save lives--then this guy would have murdered people who held the pro-choice opinion, rather than the person who was actually killing babies. The fact that he distinguished between these two cases shows that even if there is an unavoidable political componant to this matter, he made a distinction between rhetoric and killing.

It's ironic that the murderer in question is able to make this distinction, while many of us are not. As crazy as he was, HE was able to distinguish voicing political opinions from killing people. He realized that simply voicing the pro-choice opinion wasn't the problem (as shown by his refraining from killing people for their opinions), but instead the problem was the actual killing.

Now, if only the Left could learn this distinction, too.

[Seven Words]

The main reason for describing this murder as "political" is to link it to a specific political group (conservatives). It is being done subtlely by Lord Mhoram, and overtly by Wayfriend. It is political opportunism, using this death as a chance for the Left to point fingers at the Right due to the actions of one man.

Cail is right: if this was purely political--rather than an attempt to save lives--then this guy would have murdered people who held the pro-choice opinion, rather than the person who was actually killing babies. The fact that he distinguished between these two cases shows that even if there is an unavoidable political componant to this matter, he made a distinction between rhetoric and killing.

It's ironic that the murderer in question is able to make this distinction, while many of us are not. As crazy as he was, HE was able to distinguish voicing political opinions from killing people. He realized that simply voicing the pro-choice opinion wasn't the problem (as shown by his refraining from killing people for their opinions), but instead the problem was the actual killing.

Now, if only the Left could learn this distinction, too.

Why shouldn't it be linked to Conservatives? Everything I've heard indicates his political beliefs are wholly aligned with the Conservative side of the spectrum. Do I think ALL conservatives are like this idiot? Of course not. But a lot of conservative rhetoric in the media (which may or may not be accurately reflective of what most conservatives feel...I tend to think it's not) encourages what he did. The left has it's fair share of lunatics too. Since most of them think guns are inherently evil (as I said, they are IDIOTS), they tend not to kill people. Ruin their lives, yes.

[wayfriend]

Saying that rhetoric leads to violence doesn't blur any distinction - no one's claiming that the rhetoric *is* the violence. Or even is the proximal cause of the violence. Only that it contributes to the urge to do violence.

It is highly unlikely that Scott Roeder would have considered this crime if he did not believe that he was surrounded by like-thinking people who would secretly applaud his actions.

The suspect in the fatal shooting of late-term abortion doctor George Tiller in Kansas was an occasional contributor to a Des Moines-based newsletter that believes that killing abortion providers is justifiable homicide.

Des Moines resident and anti-abortion activist Dave Leach publishes the newsletter, called “Prayer & Action News,” which describes itself as “a trumpet call for the Armies of God to assemble.” In an interview with The Washington Post, Leach said not only has he published the writings of alleged gunman Scott Roeder in the past, but he visited him in Kansas several years ago on his way back from speaking with Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon in prison. Shannon was convicted in 1993 of shooting Tiller outside his clinic. She later confessed to setting fires at abortion clinics in Oregon, California, Idaho and Nevada.

In an interview with the Iowa Independent, Leach said calling “killing a killer a crime is too simplistic.”

“Indeed, ‘taking the law into your own hands,’ as the idiom goes, is morally, legally, and spiritually dangerous territory,” he said. “But to say it is never right or legal is ignorance of our own laws. Every state has some version of the Necessity Defense, which says if you break a law to save a life, it’s not a crime. Taking dozens of lives by the cruelest devices, from burning to death in acid, to dismemberment, to Dr. Tiller’s scissors in a baby’s brain, as a single day’s work for any abortionist.”

Leach said when human law conflicts with God’s Laws, “we ought to obey God rather than man.”[link]

[Cail]

I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone in the mainstream media who encourages what Roeder did, and it's patently insulting to try to link this lunatic to a particular ideology, especially when everyone who leans even remotely conservatively here has denounced what he did.

[Seven Words]

I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone in the mainstream media who encourages what Roeder did, and it's patently insulting to try to link this lunatic to a particular ideology, especially when everyone who leans even remotely conservatively here has denounced what he did.

Maybe I was unclear, or other responses were being typed at the time mine was....There are a lot of conservative "voices", for want of a better term, who encourage killing abortionists. A majority? No. A large minority? No. But there are more than a few. I didn't think anyone on here who identifies as conservative would approve of his actions. Understand his motivations, yes, but not approve of his actions.

[Lord Mhoram]

There's no stronger political statement than a violent one. Look at 9/11. I imagine it's plausible that this lunatic thought he was actually "saving lives" (how noble of him). That doesn't change the fact that his attack on this prominent abortion doctor was also an attack on that doctor's legal right to have done so and was a consequence of the murderer's radical political beliefs. A reasoned analysis would conclude that this was an ideological action.