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The Murder of Dr. Tiller, a Foreshadowing
For those who would like to think today's murder in church of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, is an isolated incident, here's the horrifying news: You are wrong. The pattern is clear and frightening.
In March 1993, three months into the administration of our first pro-choice president, Bill Clinton, abortion provider Dr. David Gunn was murdered in Pensacola, Florida. That was the beginning of what would become a five-fold increase in violence against abortion providers throughout the Clinton years.
Today's assassination of Dr. George Tiller comes 5 months into the term of our second pro-choice president. For anyone who would like to believe that this is a statistical anomaly, a coincidence that doesn't portend anything, again, you are wrong.
During the entire Bush administration, from 2000-2008 there were no murders.
During the Clinton era, between 1994-2000 there were 6 abortion providers and clinic staff murdered, and 17 attempted murders of abortion providers. There were 12 bombings or arsons during the Clinton years.
During the Bush administration, not only were there no murders, there were no attempted murders. There was one clinic bombing during the Bush years.
One can only conclude that like terrorist sleeper cells, these extremists have now been set in motion. Indeed the evidence is already there. The chatter, the threats, the hate-filled rhetoric are abundant.
In the last year of the Bush administration there were 396 harassing calls to abortion clinics. In just the first four months of the Obama administration that number has jumped to 1401.
And so the execution of Tiller, 67, is not only tragic but ominous. He was born into an era when being an abortion provider meant saving women's lives. And the cold-blooded murder in church and in front of his wife of this stalwart defender of women rights and beloved physician, comes as a message for others, as well as tragic deja vu.
Battered women are at greatest danger of being killed by their abusers when they are most strong -- that is, when they muster the courage to leave. The same phenomenon may be true in the abusive political abortion debate. The pro-choice movement, specifically our abortion providers, are in the greatest danger of violence when we take power. When the anti-abortion movement loses power, their most extreme elements appear to move to the fore and take control. The murder of Dr. Tiller suggests that violence against abortion providers may be far more linked to the power, or lack thereof, anti-abortion groups have politically than to laws designed to increase penalties against such acts.
History has another disturbing lesson for us. The escalation of anti-abortion rhetoric plays a direct role in instigating violence. When anti-abortion groups ratchet up the rhetoric, they know exactly what they're doing and the results it will have. Even if they maintain deniability, as Operation Rescue recently did saying, in effect, we wanted Tiller gone, but didn't want him murdered, they have inflamed the rhetoric. And suddenly people Like Dr. Tiller's murderer become inspired.
Eleanor Bader, author of Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism, in an article in March for RHRealityCheck.org about clinics bracing for an uptick in violence after the election of Obama wrote, "immediately after Obama's election, Douglas Johnson, Legislative Director of the National Right to Life Committee, called him a "hardcore pro-abortion president." The American Life League dubbed him "one of the most radical pro-abortion politicians ever," and Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life warned that Obama will "force Americans to pay for the killing of innocents." Americans United for Life, the Family Research Council and Operation Save America quickly joined the chorus."
Bader interviewed clinic staff -- many seeing a direct relationship between the pro-choice victory in November and increased aggression against them and their patients. Claire Keyes, of Allegheny Reproductive Health in Pittsburgh, explained:
Right after the election we saw a small upsurge in anti-abortion activity. But since the inauguration, things have gotten measurably worse. There's been an increase in picketing by students from Franciscan University in Ohio. On Saturdays there are 60-plus protesters and there's been an increase in screaming and aggression. We don't have a parking lot so people park on the street. The antis have surrounded cars, trapping the women inside, and in several cases the antis jumped into vehicles and touched or grabbed at them. The police were called but so far they don't seem to be responding appropriately.
Bader also quotes Elizabeth Barnes, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Women's Center, who explained, "When the pendulum swung in the direction of protecting women's rights, we expected something. The way the antis are reacting has changed, they're taking more liberties, pressing the boundaries of legal, civil protest."
Many in the pro-choice movement believed that the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) law, passed in 1994 in response to Gunn's murder, was responsible for reigning in violence against abortion providers. Clearly that is not the case. Based on statistics on violence against abortion providers compiled by the National Abortion Federation, even after the passage of FACE in 1994, there was still considerable violence and threats against clinic personnel, including six murders. As appears clear, the pro-choice movement has looked through rose-colored glasses, assuming or hoping that legalities can restrain terrorists.
In fact, it didn't abate after FACE, as we've seen. It was not until a comforting anti-abortion president did they calm down and stop the murder, bombing and harassment spree.
As we are witnessing now, Bush policies resulted in a surge in abortions. That has failed to inspire introspection from anti-abortion groups. That Clinton presided over the most dramatic decline in abortion rates in the recorded history of our country left them unmoved. That Obama has assigned his senior-most staff to the task of finding ways to reduce the need for abortion has not protected clinics nor providers nor Obama. Holder and his Justice Department should take note of the chatter and move aggressively against this form of domestic terrorism. The hate-filled rhetoric against Obama from the anti-abortion movement is at unprecedented levels, even for this reflexively inflammatory group. They refer to him as the "Most Pro-Abortion President Ever" ignoring the fact that he is the first to extend an olive branch in hopes that together we can make abortion more rare.
Anti-abortion groups will put out carefully worded press statements condemning the murder of Dr. Tiller, as became routine for them during the Clinton years. But unless the rhetoric they choose from now on becomes careful too -- they may be the enablers of murder and terror.
98 Comments so far
Show All"One can only conclude that like terrorist sleeper cells, these extremists have now been set in motion."
I think the author of this piece worded this for a reason. And it seems like a good reason for extraordinary rendition to be used to find out where other such terrorist sleeper cells are. After all, the right should support that, given that they're all for torture.
I say this with tongue in cheek - I don't support extraordinary rendition nor do I support torture. However, I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that right wing neocon religious fanatics are capable of terror, same as al-Qaeda, and they should be tried as terrorists.
Do conservatives still think all terrorists should be stripped of rights and shipped to a prison out of the country? I bet their tune will change once it happens to their own.
Funny you should mention al-Qaeda. I'm sure one group of men applauding this murder are fundamentalist Muslims. Seems the anti-abortionists and our 'enemies' in the muslim world have a lot in common.
Our enemies "in the muslim world" are the same as our enemies in the Christian world and our enemies in the Jewish world. Our enemies are not the religions, but the fundamentalist extremists. Extremism of any stripe, color, or ideology is the enemy of reason and justice. And extremists need leaders. It is the demagogue leaders of these groups that we must focus on...in a non-extremist way, of course.
Ted--
You nailed it.
Rainborowe
I have to disagree, Ted. I think our enemies are none other than the religions. I was baptized into a Southern Baptist church when I was 11, and I swallowed it all. Luckily, I was able to grow up, escape, and start reading about the atrocities that have been committed for thousands of years (and counting) by--not religious fundamentalists necessarily--but by the religious mainstream. After a while, it's like WTF . . .
There is some validity to your words, however, I think it behooves us to notice the differences between fanatics and mere groups of people. Certainly, some groups of people (religions) do things collectively that are harmful to others, so do things that are not harmful. I don't see a way around this other than witnessing what has been done and exposing it.
I believe the vast majority of people in any group want simply to live within their belief system and let others live within theirs. Whether their leaders do or not is another story. I guess this is what differentiates it for me: Peaceful groups do not have demagogic leaders exhorting them to take over other ideologies. One a group follows a demagogue, they become fanatics.
Finally, I am not a religious person. I see religion as a wedge, but also realize that some religions are respectful of others. I also know that within certain respectful religions there can be factions (sects, cults) that contain fanatics following a demagogic leader.
It's a sticky issue and one I have a hard time coming down fully on one side or the other about. I guess it depends on the actions of a religion or a group. How does that saying go? Oh yeah, "I can't hear your words for your actions are speaking louder." Or something to that effect.
Sioux Rose
TED M: Right on! Well-said.
The "pro-choice", "reproductive rights" as well as the "pro life","anti-abortion" communities never look more ridiculous than in their response to such an event as this.
Christian anti-abortion activists should know that murdering abortion doctors is not "pro-life" for reasons that ought not to need elaboration for any adult human being.
Know also that murdering abortion providers is just as unpardonable and condemned as you imagine the "services" such people provide are in the sight of the God who says "thou shallt not murder".
Progressives beware! You are smart enough to know that just because the President says "we don't torture" doesn't mean that what happened in Abu Ghraib, Bahgram AFB, and Guantanamo was not torture.
It's the same with abortion--it kills and destroys human life, no matter how much the SCOTUS might wish it were not so or that it was too difficult to determine at this time.
Such reasoning is worthy of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, and John Yoo--is that with whom you want to keep company?
Poet
There is a difference, Poet. And it comes down to this: At what point is life viable? 8 weeks? 4 weeks? 2 weeks? Conception? The sperm and the egg? The twinkle in Dad's eye? And who gets to say? Me? You? The preacher man? Any man?
Sort that out to all of our satisfaction and you can decide. Until then, it's up to the woman, her conscience, and her doctor.
I don't like abortion as a form of contraception, and we should be able to manage that, but legislating abortion is not right.
Your logic is identical to that of the last administration concerning when agressive interrogation becones torture. You have elevated every woman and her health care provider to the level of Addington, Yoo, Bybee, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and the rest of those amoral Straussian monsters--this is a dubious promotion to say the least.
Poet
No, Poet. You are forgetting that there are at least two lives involved in a pregnancy and often more in the shape of existing children. Should their lives or well-being be sacrificed to the preservation of a blastocyst? Or should the life of the mother be sacrificed to deliver a momentarily alive but severely deformed fetus doomed to exist hooked up to machines but never consciously to "live?"
The US has a rate of "unexpected" (either unwanted or unplanned) pregnancies to "women" who are actually children, far higher than that of any country in Western Europe. The reasons are that our school-boards balk at sex education, our girls are maturing at a very early age thanks to the hormones the farmers inject into their animals to make them grow faster, fatter and produce more milk; and a "welfare" policy that requires dependent children for eligiblity. The truth is that making abortion "safe, legal and rare" has been done in other countries but our country isn't prepared to spend the money to do it.
Rainborowe
No, Poet. You are forgetting that there are at least two lives involved in a pregnancy and often more in the shape of existing children. Should their lives or well-being be sacrificed to the preservation of a blastocyst? Or should the life of the mother be sacrificed to deliver a momentarily alive but severely deformed fetus doomed to exist hooked up to machines but never consciously to "live?"
The US has a rate of "unexpected" (either unwanted or unplanned) pregnancies to "women" who are actually children, far higher than that of any country in Western Europe. The reasons are that our school-boards balk at sex education, our girls are maturing at a very early age thanks to the hormones the farmers inject into their animals to make them grow faster, fatter and produce more milk; and a "welfare" policy that requires dependent children for eligiblity. The truth is that making abortion "safe, legal and rare" has been done in other countries but our country isn't prepared to spend the money to do it. In fact our country doesn't have a national health service which could do it.
Rainborowe
Sorry--hit edit (I think) to add a line and it came out as a new post.
Rainborowe
Hasn't anyone ever read the actual language of Roe v Wade? It would seem that everyone assumes that Roe v Wade gave the public unlimited access to abortions. Not so.
From the NYT the day Roe v Wade was decided (also the day LBJ died) they printed an article about what Roe v Wade entailed.
The SCOTUS addressed the states: No state can prohibit an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. States can decide what they will during the second trimester (my interpretation- I find the wording fuzzy). States cannot PERMIT third trimester abortions except if the mothers life or health are endangered or if the fetus is not viable.
This good doctor who was assasinated by zealots was in the business of saving lives - those of the mothers.
If you want to go to the Bible, in the old testament one story went: If two men are fighting and one should accidently kill the others wife, who is pregnant, he shall be killed. But if she only looses the baby, he should pay a fine. While I do not agree with the morality here, given that it was an accident, the clear sense is that the living are more valuable than the unborn.
"Your logic is identical to that of the last administration concerning when agressive interrogation becones torture."
Not at all.
I am presenting the case for determining at which point life is viable. Adults (tortured or not) constitute viable life, the unborn is a gray area. You are setting up your judgment and that of certain segments of society as the arbiters of the viability of life and I am disagreeing. Until society can come to some agreement (and I don't believe it ever will), abortion should be a choice of individuals.
I don't like abortion used as contraception, and it shouldn't be. If those who purport to care about reducing abortions would pay attention to family planning and contraception (a proactive stance) instead of denying funding for them and legislating women's wombs (a reactive stance), then maybe we could get somewhere in this country. They won't, so we won't.
The problem is that contraception costs money and usually isn't available for poor women or teenagers. Have you priced the cost of a doctor visit recently? Especially if you don't have health insurance? All you upper-middle-class guys just don't have a clue as to how the other half lives.
You are the reason feminists say that if men got pregnant abortion would be a sacrament.
Rainborowe
Sioux Rose
POET: I think you are being extreme here. First of all, nature tends to abort fetuses, too. Not every conception is intended to grow into "the one." Do you think that demanding a woman give birth under traumatized circumstances exalts the wonder of life? Do you think a woman suffering depression (like those several mothers who killed their own babies, each one from a fundamentalist background) will do other than harm that child even if it lives to be a full grown adult?
I remember one time I believe I conceived in a relationship with a man I would NOT have wanted to be bound to for the rest of my life. A child would create such a lasting bond. I went to get a massage, told my massage therapist that I thought I had conceived and she worked my mid-section with INTENT. I was biking home and I felt this burning sensation. I am convinced it dislodged the tiny speck of a fertilized egg and saved me from an abortion. In your view was that "against the will" of some right to life God?
IF and when we have a society that welcomes children, that supports BOTH parents in a quality of life, stops "legal" torture, and "legal" killing of inmates, and "legal" but illegal aggressive war, then perhaps we can talk about something remotely akin to "right to life."
Again I find myself in wholehearted agreement with you SR. And one thing that pisses me off mightily is the eagerness with which the medical establishment has embarked upon saving fetuses that once upon a time would have been naturally aborted. Such "babies" are known to have a lifetime of ill-health--intellectual and physical--and medical intervention ahead of them, none of which their parents are likely to be able to pay for.
Rainborowe
The so-called "pro life" movement is not what it says it is. It is primarily an american taliban-like extreme religious cult bent on keeping women subjugated and forcing their extreme religious views on everyone. They are not pro life, they are anti choice. All this has been said a thousand times...how they tend to be pro death penalty, anti sex education, pro torture, pro war, etc.
We are talking about people who abdicate their ability to think for themselves and instead rely on preachers to tell them how to think, based on a book which has been written and rewritten for 1500 years by politicians, kings, and the vatican gang.
Religious extremists, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, are currently engaged in murder around the world, from Iran to Kansas, Afghanistan to Gaza. This is what must no longer be tolerated. People have been killing in the name of their religion for millennia and that is insane, literally.
Pretty much. I am against religious extremism in all forms, which is why even though I am Jewish I joined my campus' Freethinkers organization, subscribed to Americans United newsletters, etc. There is enough hate in the world without using a religious legitimacy to provide justification for it.
Yay, ZMAN!
Some of the greatest reformers and humanists were Jewish freethinkers! I'm a Christian freethinker, myself, and strive to follow that tradition that set up the Welfare State in the UK and Germany and other countries after WW2. I also get AU newsletters although I wish they wouldn't bother and just use my subscription to fight their lawsuits.
Excellent points. If the anti-choice was really pro-life, they'd praise Clinton for reducing the number of abortions. They'd support sex education because the data supports it. That they don't only exposes their underlying religious agenda. I think Jesus would be ashamed.
Sioux Rose
BARUCHZED: I am 100% with you on every word you just posted. Many thanks.
Pro choice is the least understood concept for women. Pro lifers consider Pro choice to mean Pro Abortion, which is not the case. Abortion is the last resort for many women for many reasons, non of them to do with anyone else's beliefs. I find it interesting that the people who oppose abortion the most are the same ones who do not approve of helping that new baby in any way, no help for the mother and certainly no help for the baby with health care, early day care, food programs or education. They oppose good solid sex education in favor of antiquated methods which are riduculous considering that raging hormones are a part of the maturing process and difficult to control. But, reason and common sense are not part of the agenda of radical thinkers in their own arrested or repressed sexual development.
Why is it that the Department of Homeland Security does not monitor and investigate the groups from which the pro-life terrorists are drawn?
Always the same story: we have got these huge, bloated bureaucracies and institutions that are allegedly there to protect the citizenry, but on 9/11, the military was nowhere to be found, and with regard to these homegrown terrorists (there have been eight pro-life murders since 1977), nothing is being done (the report on the pro-life terrorists produced by Homeland Security was withdrawn from its Web site under right-wing pressure).
Because DHS was created during a conservative administration, and pretty much all of our governments have been conservative for the last few decades. You think they'll investigate their own?
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act signed into law in Nov 27, 2006 defines people who use economic sabotage (property damage) as "Terrorists". even though no persons have been killed by animal activists. (Apparently frighetning people is defined as "terrorism" if they are highly paid and respected individuals involved in animal abuse).
Abortion "activists" who have murdered people in their form of activism/terrorism are not defined by law as "terrorists".
The US Government has decided that civil disobedience and sabbotage which interferes with business (except abortion clinics of course) are "acts of terrorism" but for some reason MURDER is just an "individual act" (even though it is clearly used to terrorise people) if it is motivated by Christian fanaticism.
Sioux Rose
REVENGE GIRL: Interesting post.
I believe there is a deep-seated misogyny in our culture. It began when religion allotted MALE attributes to "God," and gave women second-class status. I believe the Catholic Church actually debated whether women had souls! And there's such a homo-erotic nature to the whole priest-celibacy thing. It's gotten so twisted that we see thousands of cases of priests abusing children, and how about the very word NUN to connote, NONE, a construct that constitutes NOTHING in the way of power among the all-male elites that run that institution which has wielded enormous influence over European history (and thus our own roots).
When I recently read Robert Jensen's book on pornography it was clear that in the same way Hollywood creates worse and worse crash scenes and horrific delineations of violence to keep upping the ante on the audience's appetite for these things, asimilar depraved strategy is at work in pornography. That millions of men fill their psyches with these destructive images has to influence how they view women. I saw the analogy with the way pornographic "moves" were used in the recent torture scandals. It would seem that insidious forces are intent upon eroding what's left of the human conscience along with that which allows for empathy, decency, compassion, and the faintest capacity to CONNECT to other in a caring, meaningful way.
The right wing does not like women, and HATES women with power. A woman stuck with 6 kids in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant provides no challenge. When men feel their power slip away they want to feel they have power over at least someone. This is legendary in 3rd world countries. Poor men, colonized by a foreign power essentially, take out their frustrations on their women. Birth control means a woman CAN leave. The fewer children the easier to set up a home elsewhere. In a sense, without birth control women remain the property of their fathers or husbands. Let us not forget WE only got the vote about 100 years ago, and only could own property in the past 200 years or so. Birth control gave us the key to the lock on our own bodies (and biology), and the BASTARDS want to take it back, and then deploy the ghastly Mars-rules hubris to say it's GOD'S will. And they will be first to resist paying child support for those same ill-conceived children when the female finally finds the way OUT of unhappy bondage.
Yeah, this is about sexual attitudes linked to religious LIES that goes WAY WAY back. And I think the mass religious repression of healthy, spontaneous, joyous sex has a lot to do with the way porn PUNISHES women and makes them into the projection of something dark or only being worthy of being dirty bio-hazard garbage receptables.
I have only 2 friends in good marriages. One of them said when observing what she's seen me go through, along with her sister and other attractive, intelligent women who manage our own lives well, "Society is not producing a healthy male." So true. Perhaps you guys in this forum prove the exception (?)
Sioux Rose,
You are so right! I also noticed the similarity between the Torture photos, porn, and S&M. This is the mind set of the people who do this for a living - if one can imagine that. I deal with the negative images of women by not owning a television.
Homeland Security is there for window dressing, not much else.
A Federal "agency" that would advocate having duct tape on hand to seal your windows to protect yourself from a terrorist nuclear attack is mindbogglingly bogus.
I've said it before and will repeat it again that life is not until the first breath and it is always so convenient of the prolifers to quote from the Bible.Thou shalt not kill/murder and claim Jesus as master and savior who said love God with all your heart and soul and your neighbor as yourself and love your enemies and God said vengence is mine and that no help needed from any human for as anyone can see humans cant even help themselves.Until that first breath there is no soul.Tony
And the more marginalized these extremely self righteous and intolerant groups become-- the more violent and terroristic they will be. Bill O"reily and other right wing radio talk show hosts have been inciting to violence and campaigning for "someting to be done." for a while now. Yesterday they got their wish. We should demand apologies from them for their incitement. Read the story in Salon, "O'Reilly didn't tell anyone to do anything violent, but he did put Tiller in the public eye, and help make him the focus of a movement with a history of violence against exactly these kinds of targets (including Tiller himself, who had already been shot). In those circumstances, flinging around words like "blood on their hands," "pardon," "country club" and "judgment day" was sensationally irresponsible." To say the least-- but fat chance we will get a retraction.
Sioux Rose
TAMMONS: I am going to "play God" for a moment and tell you how I picture the karma of Bill O'Reilly playing out. In the after life he is going to sit at a faux pulpit and for many many years (an eternity) he will be forced to look into the prism of this world (in the manner that the 3 ghosts took Scrooge back to observe his life and actions) and ALL the lives his words helped to break apart. For his pro-war (with Iraq) chants, he will, on the soul level move through every Iraqi town to witness the homes burned, the children shot or blown away with all manner of bomb material. He will hear the cries of the mothers who held the broken babies in their arms, the cries of the young would-be lovers seeing their beloved gone in a blink. He will see the sewers run over into the water supply, feel the oppressive heat of late afternoon in a the desert without electricity/air conditioning. ALL that he helped to make possible that led to so much brutality to so many, he will be forced to view over and over again. It will be the hell that was of his own making. That will be the fruit of his afterlife experience.
Disturbing:
www.ArmyOfGod.com
As I said the other day, the terrorists are already here and have been for decades.
Isn't it amazing how all extremist religious cults are absolutely OBSESSED with SEX??? Could it be that extreme repression manifests itself in this manner? And why would anyone want to live under repression? Perhaps to absolve themselves of responsibiity for their own actions?
Bingo! Read John Deans book Conservatives Without Conscience.
I would if I could read... maybe it'll come out on a CD and I can give it a try, since I come from a family of conservatives WITH a conscience... also called 'enlightened self-interest' - which is what I believe the Founders also embraced (and why they are often misunderstood).
Sioux Rose
ARMY: Good observation. It's not just absolving themselves of responsibility. Some are latently homosexual and can't live with that "sin." Others had lousy sexual partners and don't get much pleasure from sex. The elites realize that sex IS a huge source of empowerment and does what it can to break the bonds between men and women to make sure that such levels of ecstasy never are allowed or humanity would outgrow its need for pseudo-parent figures, church fathers and such, and bring a rapid end to that institution. I always joke that the Catholics get the sex guilt, and the Jews get the money guilt. Here's what I hear, "You couldn't wait for that to go on sale? You had to buy it now?" We've all been conditioned by our families of origin, and I think MUCH of life is a recovery process, one way or another.
smipypr
Wasn't it Henry II who asked, "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Four knights looking for peerage happened along and answered the question, knocking off Beckett, right in his own church. Some problem about Beckett taking his job seriously. That old church-state bugaboo.
Our enemies are indeed the religions. It is religion which gives rise to a kind of perfect faith, which then feeds sometimes murderous certainty. Those saps, patsies, rubes, nutballs, or however else you care to describe the 19 suckers who flew the planes, had perfect faith, and were absolutely certain they would wake up in the Koranic equivalent of Las Vegas for murdering the infidels. Each of the three religions cited in previous posts have their ugly little dark sides, and each have their own bands of hot-tempered saps, just waiting for a revelation.
The good news is, the 9/11 dipsticks were all well-educated, well adapted to a fairly secular life, and had suffered little, if any, oppression while in the US. What they did suffer through, was likely a weekly harangue in their local mosques. These homilies are recited throughout any religious service, and lo and behold, someone in the congregation may suddenly flash on the desire to act in the name of their god or demigod. Bingo. Headlines, tsks tsks, and calls for both religious tolerance and gun control. The bad news is, demographically speaking, our home-grown terrorists have suffered long and hard in schools that encourage ignorance, isolationism, and uncritical thought.
Reason, religion, and tolerance are mutually exclusive.
smipypr June 1st, 2009 12:29 pm sez:
"Reason, religion, and tolerance are mutually exclusive."
The way this sentence is formulated, it states that not only are reason and religion mutually exclusive, as well as religion and tolerance, but also that reason and tolerance are mutually exclusive.
Is that what you meant to say?
Reason and tolerance can certainly be mutually exclusive. The whole bit about 'tolerance' is part of the problem - tolerating psychopaths and allowing them to operate with impunity flies in the face of reason. Yet those who claim 'reason' and 'logic' as their tenets are often the first to defend 'tolerance' - no matter how much harm comes from such foolishness. To tolerate the intolerant ideologue is to tolerate evil - absolute evil, that left to run amok, will destroy the very society that protects its rights. There are limits to everything - including 'tolerance' and 'free speech' - and few people today understand where the line must be drawn if humanity is to survive at all...
Sioux Rose
ARMYBRAT: Excellent! By the way, the other day your definition of a conservative happened to fit many of my beliefs about conserving resources and trying to act in a manner that reflects the "Golden Rule." A sane society makes law to curb the worst trespasses, while ours calls freedom the right (increasingly) to do harm. It is so disturbing to see the rabid, wonton destruction of nature along with how many human bodies routinely get eaten away by toxic habits like cigarette tar and nicotine, or faux food fillers, or bogus chemical drug cocktails passing for medication today? I think I'd take the voo doo priest over half of these if push came to shove.
This article is all too correct. Given their history, the militant anti-abortion crowd will be encouraged by Dr. Tiller's murder and increase their violence against clinics and providers. The police and the feds will once again trot out the "lone gunman" theory and do nothing to root out the likes of Randall Terry, a veteran anti-abortion activist who founded Operation Rescue and whose protests have often targeted Tiller, called the slain doctor ''a mass murderer,'' adding: ''He was an evil man -- his hands were covered with blood.'' [AP article]
I agree with the NOW Press Release:
> Dr. Tiller's slaying is the most recent in a string of murders in the service of the anti-abortion cause, and >hundreds of people have been injured or threatened because they provide legal abortion services. >Bringing the killers to justice is not enough - the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland >Security must root out and prosecute as domestic terrorists and violent racketeers the criminal enterprise >that has organized and funded criminal acts for decades. We call on the new attorney general Eric Holder >and head of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to treat these murders in the same way they would treat >politically-motivated domestic terrorism of any other kind and put the full resources of their two >departments behind that effort.
Obama's statement and the NYTimes article is the same old lack of real outrage:
> President Barack Obama said he was ''shocked and outraged'' by the murder. ''However profound our >differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts >of violence,'' he said.
Is Obama going to do more than issue the stock phrase? I doubt it.
For those who are squeamish about prosecuting the anti-abortion groups as domestic terrorists, please remember that the feds do not hesitate to use these laws to prosecute those they consider "eco-terrorists."
As to the man arrested for Dr. Tiller's murder, here is what the AP reported:
>Someone named Scott Roeder, then 38, was charged in Topeka, Kan., in 1996 with criminal use of >explosives for having bomb components in his car trunk and sentenced to 24 months of probation. >However, his conviction was overturned on appeal the next year after a higher court said evidence >against Roeder was seized by law enforcement officers during an illegal search of his car.
>At the time, police said the FBI had identified Roeder as a member of the anti-government Freemen >group, an organization that kept the FBI at bay in Jordan, Mont., for almost three months in 1995-96.
>Someone posting to the Web site of Operation Rescue in May 2007 used the name ''Scott Roeder'' in >response to a scheduled vigil to ''pray for an end to George R. Tiller's late-term abortion business.''
>''Bleass everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death >camp,'' the posting read. ''Sometime soon, would it be feasible to organize as many people as possible to >attend Tillers church (inside, not just outside) to have much more of a presence and possibly ask >questions of the Pastor, Deacons, Elders and members while there? Doesn't seem like it would hurt >anything but bring more attention to Tiller.''
Compared to what the feds do to "eco-terrorists" and other protesters, it seems that for the right-wing crazies who use anti-abortion as their excuse, they get a walk in the park. Once again, when women's rights are the issue, the government looks the other way at all kinds of violence, including the harassment of clinics and murder of providers. Enough already! It is time for the young women and sympathetic men to get as active as we did in the 60s and 70s and demand an end to violence against women and against abortion providers
.
You make some great points.
We need to remember that the so-called "eco-terrorists" have only destroyed PROPERTY, and never killed anyone (as far as I can remember). Yet, they have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and are serving long jail sentences.
Woman-hatred is alive and well.
That the "pro-life" crowd can consistently get away with repeated acts of harassment and violence- over a sustained period of time is perfect proof of that.
I cannot imagine pulling up to my ob/gyn's office and being pounced on by 60 "pro-lifers" who are trying to jump into my car- screaming all the while.
The trauma that they are subjecting women to is horrible to contemplate.
Sex education, a relaxed attitude about birth control (of all kinds) would help reduce the need for abortions, but of course, we know it's about more than that.
Power over women.
What did we ever do to deserve such hatred? I really wish I understood that part!!
How is it that SO many men feel encouraged to act with such venom against women?
We women (and male allies) sure have our work cut out for us.
I don't understand these "Right to Life" groups......they are almost all against birth control of any kind...sex before marriage....?????? What do they expect poor humans to do? Abstinence is totally unreasonable and unattainable. Looks as if homosexual sex is all that's left! Oh, wait.........they don't like that either. Must we become an asexual nation to please all the nutjobs? Or spew children irresponsibly to the detriment of reasonable lives and the future of the planet? Yet another affirmation for the banning of religion--the thing that has caused most unnessary wars and deaths throughout history.
We live in an Orwellian age. The "right to life" people, in fact, hate life itself, and the very means of creating it, other than a very narrow set of circumstances in which they figure you can have sex.
If the millions of dollars spent on abstinence education had been spent on serious, scientific sexual education and birth control was a given, even for young adults, there would be far less unwanted pregnancies and less need for abortions. But, that makes sense. Offering a purity contract to young people is like asking the banking industry to regulate themselves. Looks good, sounds good and noble and because of human nature doesn't work.
I'm don't know why I'm smarter than the rest of you, but I am. When I read -
"Our enemies are indeed the religions. It is religion which gives rise to a kind of perfect faith, which then feeds sometimes murderous certainty."
I realize that the writer does not have an inkling of its incredible irony. Simply cannot see it. I'll point it out, and the writer, and most of the posters on this thread, I think, still will not see it.
Here it is - the abortion doctor, and the supporters of abortion, also operate with a 'murderous certainty'. They don't kill one or two, they kill hundreds of thousands (I don't know the numbers). I don't follow this issue, but I heard on Democracy Now an excerpt from Bill O'Reilly, offered as an example of idiocy no doubt, and O'Reilly noted that Dr. Tiller would perform a late term abortion, killing a fetus that was viable outside the womb, without specifying any medical reason, and in the rebuttal the good Dr. Tiller was quoted, saying he felt the mother was able to make the correct decision. Talk about murderous certainty.
Now, do you at least have an inkling of the irony?