George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death this morning as he walked into church services.
[….]Tiller has long been a focal point of protest by abortion opponents because his clinic, Women’s Health Care Services at 5701 E. Kellogg, is one of the few in the country where late-term abortions are performed.
Tiller had been shot earlier, but survived. His clinic was vandalized earlier this month.
At what point are we allowed to start worrying about right-wing domestic terrorism?
Update. I’m not usually one for nutpicking, but the Freeper comments on this are unusually appalling. (They’ll probably be taken down but here they are permanently: pdf1;pdf2)
demkat620
Well, you had the Tennessee murders, all the rhetoric we’ve heard from the wingers, gun hoarding and this.
I’ve been worried for a while. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Calming Influence
God damn them. When you escalate the hate rhetoric for so long, and the media treats it as normal, this kind of thing is to be expected. God damn them.
MikeF
Right Wing Terrorists? Are you joking? Rush Limpballs will have whoever did this up on a pedestal in a day or two stating that we can’t prosecute them for following their religious beliefs or else we are worse than the Nazis or the Commies or the Islamofascicommisocialistas.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
And it appears that O’Reilly was one of the people whipping up a fervour over Dr. Tiller. Expect sanctimonious denials Monday.
Little Dreamer
That’s not terrorism, that’s the acts of a militia don’t ya know!
geg6
Fuckers. Mother fucking goddam fucking asshole fucking cocksucking fuckers. Dead ministers, dead cops, and now a dead doctor. Every one of those dead finer human beings than any of the fucking cowards who gunned them down. Sometimes, though I love my country and its Constitution, I fucking hate too many of the people in it. Fuckers.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
Love, Peace, and Mercy. You might want to READ that Bible your profess to follow, and profane by your words and actions.
Bastards, the lot of ’em.
Davis X. Machina
Expect a lot of loose talk about John Brown for a week or so…
Mike P
I now await the conservative media machine claiming that their rhetoric had nothing to do with this. It’s going to be painful.
Calming Influence
I mean, how else do you deal with someone labeled a “baby killer”? How about someone who “hates America”? Someone who “wants the terrorists to win”? Someone who wants Gitmo prisoners to be “released on our streets”? How about “socialists”? “Liberals”?
geg6
Davis X. Machina: Yeah, well John Brown got the death penalty. Personally, I’d like these bastards to get the Gitmo/Abu Ghraib treatment for the rest of their miserable, useless lives.
WereBear
Good luck with their protestations; all that loose talk about waving guns around has goddamn consequences.
Pro-life is a sick joke in this case.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Little Dreamer:
This was my comment the other day in a different thread but the issue was extremist right wing behavior:
As John noted in the previous thread some of the wingnuts have now found the “connection” to the Clenis. This is turning out to be deja vu all over again, no?
demkat620
Christ that freeper thread is pathetic. I just want to know, exactly what do they think will happen if you outlaw abortion?
rikyrah
They are terrorists, plain and simple.
Don’t be afraid to call them what they are.
linda
and no doubt it was a fine, upstanding christianman who pulled the trigger.
wanna bet the doctor was shot in the back?
fucking cowards.
JL
The liberal MSM will spend more time discussing whether or not this will hurt the Sotomayor nomination.
Paddy
6 year anniversary of Eric Rudolph’s capture. Coincidence?
Little Dreamer
That pdf is awful, but, somehow I don’t think the Freepers will remove those comments. I think they are proud of them.
Ash Can
I hate to say it, but if we as a society honestly want to avoid this kind of thing, we MUST crack down on hate speech. Pass laws that clearly define it so as to minimize ideological creep into less inflammatory rhetoric, then prosecute the living shit out of it. Revoke broadcast licenses, shut down publications, close “churches,” put people in jail. Offer rewards for information leading to conviction and prosecution. Other countries don’t put up with incitement. Why should we? Yes, there are risks involved in living in a free and open society. But this is just plain fucking ridiculous.
P.S. If the FBI isn’t ALL THE HELL OVER that Freeper thread, then everyone from the top brass on down to the janitors should be docked pay.
someguy
If this doesn’t serve as a mandate for a serious investigative effort directed at anti-abortion groups and conservative churches, nothing will. They’re the real terrorist threat against this country.
Little Dreamer
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Yes, absolutely.
Martin
And note that he was shot in church, double-bonus points with the man upstairs for doing that I guess. The TVUUC shooter was sentenced and is unrepentant – was joking around during the sentencing. He literally believes he is part of some jihad against liberals.
It’s going to be a long 4 years.
Little Dreamer
@rikyrah:
Your snark meter needs adjusting.
someguy
@ Ash Can
Ditto. As the asshats say.
DougJ
Probably more like something between 12 and 20 years. (It wouldn’t shock me if it’s longer — I don’t see Republicans getting less crazy and I don’t see them wining elections either.)
demkat620
@DougJ: Which is exactly why Huntsman went to China.
This going to take a long time to unwind.
tavella
The right-wing terrorists are back out in force, cheered on and encouraged by the Wurlitzer. Any left-wing talker, no matter how marginal, would have been off the air instantly for encouraging people to shoot ATF officers; anyone who had any contact with them would get the same hysterical denounciations as Ayers drew. Yet Liddy is a treasured pal in the Republican world.
SrirachaHotSauce
@Little Dreamer:
This is depressing. When I was a kid, they ran an abortion doctor out of the neighborhood, right down the street from where we are now, LD. Seventh Avenue, down by the where the Starbucks is now.
It seems like this crap has been going on forever, I am really sick of it.
In fact now that I think of it, there are protests on a clinic just a couple blocks from you, every weekend. For years now.
JL
Operation Rescue released a statement:
“We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller’s family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.”
JoJo
The freepers disgust me. I should have known better than to follow that link to crazy!freeperville.
They currently have a pro-slavery thread up on their site. I would have thought unbelieveable if I hadn’t seen it for myself:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2261654/posts
SrirachaHotSauce
@DougJ:
But wait … won’t Broder and Gregory herd the foolish masses back into Republicanianism?
;)
South of I-10
This fucking sucks. It’s terrorism, and the right wing machine is surely getting cranked up to defend it. Screw them.
Jay C
@JL:
Beat me to it!
I especially liked this little tidbit from OR’s oh-so-pious disclaimer:
Kinda obvious where their heads are at…
JenJen
Just heard this on CNN for the first time. It’s horrifying.
ed
Your modern Republican party. Charming as ever.
demkat620
@JL: Fuck Operation Rescue.
linda
the description of the suspect is 6’2″, 220 lbs, middle-aged white man.
what a surprise.
any guesses on how many divorces he’s had.
reading thru some of those freeper comments is depressing. i envision creeps just like the assassin — angry, divorced middle-aged white men whose real target are the women who avoid them.
omen
are clinic still getting hit with faux anthrax threat letters?
burnspbesq
There are days when it’s not easy to be against the death penalty.
There are days when it’s difficult to say “hate the sin, not the sinner.”
There are days when it is exceedingly easy to wish that someone be put in the Federal Supermax and allowed to slowly lose his mind.
Today is one of those days.
JL
@Jay C: Shocked, yeah right. Operation Rescue cares about fetuses but not much else. Thanks for adding that part.
SrirachaHotSauce
Let’s start a pool .. how long before Rush or a clone states that this is what happens when you elect a pro-abortion president?
My money is on tomorrow morning.
DougJ
No, but they may help put off health care reform for a year or two. And to people without insurance, that’s bad enough. My point with these guys is never that they have any long-term effect, but that in the short-term, they really do help fuck up our society. And I find that disgusting.
burnspbesq
@Jay C:
“Mr. Tiller”
They can’t even show sufficient respect for the man, in death, to address him properly.
Someday, motherfuckers. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
Someday you will stand before God and you will be judged. Wouldn’t want to be you on that day.
Martin
Bullshit. Operation Rescue targeted Tiller. That’s why they moved from California to Witchita. Tillers clinic was ground zero. The chances that he was killed by someone affiliated with Operation Rescue is pretty close to 100%.
South of I-10
Fuck Operation Rescue. I was there when the fuckers descended on the clinic in Baton Rouge. They had tiny infants out in the 100 degree heat of La. In July. Poor little things were sunburned and screaming, but I guess they made a useful prop for their protest. Fuck them.
Cain
@Ash Can:
Hell no. Let them sprout it out in public so the rest of us can beat it down like we should. A law won’t solve it anymore than a law will resolve abortions. But if it is out in public then we have a way to counteract it. We must never let hate speech move into a hidden movement. It is free speech and it’s part of the ugly truth of our country. Let’s not hide it but confront it.
cain
Mayken
@WereBear: “Pro life” has always been a sick joke with this crowd. They are anti sex (outside a narrowly defined acceptable subset of sexual behavior) anti-reproductive health (see point #1) and pro-forced birth of any fetus no matter the circumstance (and then really couldn’t care less about the resulting child, no matter how impoverished or sick or challenged in life) and pro-we’ll-kill-you-soon-as-look-at-you-if you don’t fall in line with our narrow religious view of the world.
Aaaaarrrggghhhh! When will this country wake up? They are killing doctors! In churches!
Sorry, I am a little emotional today.
John Cole
I’d like to hear Ed Morrisey’s deep fucking thoughts about a DHS report warning about this sort of thing.
SrirachaHotSauce
@DougJ:
Yeah, we have been around the bush on this point. We are probably closer to agreement than we have been recently.
One of my main problems with your view is that I find it anti-democratic. It requires one to believe that democracy can’t really work because a few dickheads can fuck it up. I think the distance between us rests mainly on this point. I refuse to believe the dickhead theory (sorry for the label, you can supply your own). I believe that democracy will find its way out of whatever problem set you throw at it, in the fullness of time.
Now that latter phrase is where your “long term and short term” concepts hang out. See, I don’t think that the short term is as important as you do. I once explained this this way: Democracy requires that you allow the people to make mistakes. Without room to be wrong, and figure out that they were wrong, they won’t be able to get to the long term better idea.
What’s really facinating is how all the noise focusses on the short term. Here we are four months into the new Dem hegemony, and already the GOP is blaming us for the economic woes. I mean, that’s just fucking hilarious, isn’t it?
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
I think he’ll do it as the first topic, right at the top of his show.
What do I win?
Ash Can
@demkat620:
Seconded. They’re not pro-life, they’re pro-protest and pro-histrionics. They’re part of the problem. Their co-opting of a religious front is nothing but blasphemy IMO, and I hope their quick announcement raises a red flag to the feds.
demkat620
@John Cole: Yeah, right. I am sure Ed will tell us this happened because Napolitano released that report, not in spite of it.
John Cole
@Ash Can: Bullshit.
Mayken
@JL: Wow! distancing from the “lone nut” came much faster from them that I would have thought. Bastards! “Shocked”, “peaceful” “justice.” My ass!
Alan
It appears O’Reilly helped in making this guy a target. The first video at the link reeks all kinds of stupid. The girl and O’Reilly blame the doctor. Even though it was the girl’s parents that sent her to the clinic.
gbear
Pandagon has a good posting about the Doctor and his work.
All I can say is god damn these pathetic hate-filled creeps.
And condolences and saftety to his family, his co-workers, his supporters and his church.
Martin
Just the opposite. The media should genuinely do their job – have them show clips of O’Reilly calling Tiller a murderer, have them showcase anyone cheerleading this. Show the general public that this isn’t nearly as much a fringe movement as most people would think.
The problem is the media doesn’t want to do their damn job. So, I expect that the only ones that will actually jump on this are Olberman, Maddow, Colbert, and Stewart.
gex
@geg6: +1
While they accuse us of “hating America” they never stop to consider that they are making America a lot less likable.
Mayken
@Ash Can: Yeah, one wonders why the FCC can fine a station like 1/2 a million dollars for one second flash of tit or the incidental use of the F word but out and out hate speech gets you nothing. Our priorities are so bassackwards. There are days I’d move to Europe in a heart beat. My family in Holland always wants us to, especially when this kind of stuff happens (of course, I don’t think they realize just how far away California is from say Tennessee or Kansas.)
tc125231
@Calming Influence:
SrirachaHotSauce
@Little Dreamer:
You win lunch with me. :)
But …. I hope Rush comes right at it. I really do. I think we are witnessing a complete moral, intellectual and finally political meltdown on the right, and I want to see the next act.
This should be fascinating.
tc125231
@rikyrah:
Soylent Green
What Cain said. Let them rant freely. And if the FBI is doing its job and monitoring their rants, it will know who to surveil and who to arrest.
gex
@Ash Can: The entire domestic security apparatus, as well as the DOJ, had been directed to mainly target liberal domestic groups. Don’t know how much of that has been rectified this early in the Obama Administration. Remember, simply positing that maybe extreme right wing groups should be monitored is beyond the pale.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Ash Can: Wrong. Bush and Cheney over reacted to 9/11 and now we are dealing with warrantless wiretaps, torture and a department ominously named Homeland Security. We don’t need the Democrats over reacting to this awful incident. This is when we rely on our system of law enforcement to track down this rat bastard and then the courts can handle the rest. But this whole notion of pre-crime is just to Minority Report for my liberal heart.
So what is hate speech? Is burning an American flag hate speech? I’ll bet you could get quite a few wingers making that argument.
Ash
God, just……..I hate people. WTF is wrong with them
And don’t fool yourself, crazies exist everywhere. It just takes different forms.
PurpleGirl
I feel for Dr. Tiller’s family. I hope they find comfort in their faith.
And fuck the bastard who killed him. I echo the comment upthread about the shooter spending the rest of his miserable life in solitary in a supermax prison. May be never see the light of day again.
omen
I hate to say it, but if we as a society honestly want to avoid this kind of thing, we MUST crack down on hate speech.
that will only drive hate speech to go underground, grow to be more insidious and molder in intensity. something forbidden holds more appeal. hate needs to be out the open in order to be denounced and argued against.
lilysmom
We lived through the Oklahoma City bombings, the Branch Davidians and the multiple Atlanta/Birmingham bombings by Eric Rudolph. All of these terrorist acts were perpetrated by American right wingers, not fuerrin nameless, faceless Mooslim brown people. Now we have this.
I hate these people. Live and let live is an unknown concept to them.
SrirachaHotSauce
Yes, at least the first two of which the motherfuckers tried to blame on liberals.
There’s crazy, and then there is evil crazy.
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
So long as i don’t need a gun to defend myself, I’m with ya on wanting to see the next act!
Bad Horse's Filly
@Mayken: Yeah, that pretty much sums up my thoughts. Additionally: 900,000 adoptable children in foster care.
TR
There are plenty of clips to work with. O’Reilly was psychotic about this.
tc125231
@John Cole: So your theory –which may be correct –but I want you to stand up to it –is that anyone can yell “Fire” in a crowded theatre, and if a stampede of the feeble-minded kills someone, it is sufficient to wring your hands about it?
The German Constitution has a very different attitude towards the Nazi Party. It’s not guaranteed that they are right. But your approach is by no means “self-evident”.
Library Grape
@Ash Can: i second and third the bullshit called on this. government suppression of right-wing hate will only inflame them and make everything worse. we need to engage them in the marketplace of ideas and BEAT THEM, not suppress them. this will, of course, require leading national dems to get some balls and start calling spades spades. when they say hateful things, we must respond with the overwhelming force of reason and better argument.
John Cole
@lilysmom: Not to diminish the nutjob David Koresh and his band of followers, but the violence done there was pretty clearly a result of actions by the government. Yes, some authorities were shot, but they were shot as they were undergoing a military assault on the compound. Those were tanks they were using on civilians.
Little Dreamer
@lilysmom:
The Bible says absolutely nothing about live and let live (unless you read those blood red colored letters, I mean).
John Cole
@tc125231: My theory is you publicly display everything these nutjobs are saying, and shame the people who promote them. I am much happier with the KKK marching down main street in Skokie than I am with them plotting behind closed doors.
Little Dreamer
@John Cole:
Thanks John, I was going to ask about that myself. The question I guess is, who set the compound on fire? I think there are still a lot of people who think the Branch Davidians set fire to the place themselves (I am still under the impression that is what happened) and so in that respect, right wingers held some responsibility.
Svensker
@The Grand Panjandrum:
What you said.
Krista
The entire damn thing disgusts me, but especially this insistence that he somehow deserved it because he provided late-term abortions.
Guess what, people? There was a survey of women who had late-term abortions, and the top two reasons they had them were:
1. Woman didn’t recognize she was pregnant or misjudged gestation
2. Woman found it hard to make arrangements for abortion
In other words, if these anti-choice assholes stopped fighting tooth and nail against contraception and comprehensive sex ed, they would help reduce the number of late-term abortions. And if they stopped working so fucking hard to close clinics, they’d help reduce the number of late-term abortions.
But that would require them to actually use their brains to look at the root causes of late-term abortion, and to address those root causes, instead of just assuming that every woman who gets one does so because she just looooooves to murder babies.
So they decide that they’re going to shoot abortion doctors, and that’ll intimidate the women out of getting abortions. They are NO better than the Taliban, who have closed girls’ schools by threatening to shoot the students or the teacher. It is the EXACT same tactic, and it is just as evil.
gex
@Little Dreamer: Moreover, they were amassing weapons and ammo for a reason…
Little Dreamer
@Bad Horse’s Filly:
The market on used children is not moving. New children, now that’s a different matter.
omen
RNC has had 2 ads that targeted pelosi. one at the end of a gun barrel. the other, a trailing bomb fuse. i’d be surprised if this hasn’t generated more threats against her life.
Little Dreamer
@gex:
yes, true, no way around that.
SrirachaHotSauce
@John Cole:
Well, your summary leaves out an important point or two. There was good reason to think that profound child abuse was going on in there. Therefore the thing was escalated above the typical hostage situation and just waiting it out.
Whether the estimation of that abuse was accurate, or not, it clearly motivated the escalation, and I don’t know how one can sit back and let a Koresh do what he was doing without calling in the tanks.
The tanks were not there to fire on the compound, but to scare the hell out of the bad guys and provide cover to the people advancing the attack on the compound.
A little perspective is in order here.
Mayken
@Ash: Oh, of course, and Europe has it’s own special brand of crazy, especially right now.
Was thinking more the really incredible “criminalization” of sex and sexual behavior and the borderline encouragement of violence in our society while generally quite the opposite is the case in Europe. I simple find the views many of the countries of Western Europe on the issues of sex and violence to be far more compatible with my own. (Not to mention their view of taking care of their people. But that’s a whole ‘nother thread!) That and my family really does freak every time some big published violent act happens here – definitely a misunderstanding of distance and probabilities but also heart-felt worry for their clan member in the “barbarian” lands. LOL!
LD50
Most typical are the claims that a liberal did this to discredit the ‘Pro-Life’ movement. None of the commenters seem to disagree with this thesis. It’s a convenient way to take zero responsibility for the violence inherent in their movement.
JL
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: Did you watch the interview? A girl who at thirteen wanted nothing more that to raise the baby. After the abortion she became promiscuous and used drugs. She became promiscuous after she was pregnant. This is in no way judgment on her behavior but her testimony was weak. Bill O’Reilly will not take any responsibility for his role in spreading hate.
Cain
@TR:
Hell we have youtube, just make your own and stick it up there. We can all be citizen journalists. If it goes viral, you’ll get all kinds of love.
cain
SrirachaHotSauce
@Little Dreamer:
I am not aware that anyone with all the facts thinks that the fire was set by anyone other than the Davidians.
The fire was a response to the escalation and the attack from outside, and the propriety of the attack is certainly an issue that deserves discussion. But that discussion should not include any suggestion that the attackers set the fire, because I know of no believable evidence that they did.
Ash Can
@Cain:
@John Cole:
@Martin:
Under normal circumstances I’d agree, which is why I began my comment with “I hate to say it.” But I don’t consider these normal circumstances.
My question boils down to this: Once the incitement is out in the open — as happens on a regular basis these days — how should it be dealt with? Would increased publicity be enough? As it is now, the O’Reillys and Becks and Limbaughs get a fair amount of publicity when they say something outrageous. It’s obviously not enough to stop people from acting upon their suggestions.
So how exactly do we confront/handle the incitement? Do we give it a complete pass, but send feds out to break up militias and abortion/gay protests and round up their leaders? Do we make examples out of a few high-profile screamers and hope (against hope) that the rest of the would-be terrorists are smart enough to take the hint?
Right now, we basically do nothing about incitement and little about overt preparation for armed attack/confrontation, and instead reserve action mainly for the aftermath of violence — in other words, we treat the symptom rather than the cause. How do we treat the cause?
gex
@omen: Those should be treated by law enforcement as actual threats on her life.
This is how the right likes to do it. They go up to the edge, but try to avoid actually advocating violence. Their goal is to specifically trigger the deranged and unstable into lone wolf action that they can disavow.
As is so often noted, I’d really love to find out there is a Heaven. I would like, if I make it there, to see that these assholes aren’t there. If I don’t make it, their presence there will allow me to point at them and laugh.
Mayken
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Yeah, and unknown numbers of children “warehoused” in foster care while trying to reunite them with a family that may or may not ever be able to take care of them. And many others whose families really could take care of them if we had sane drug policies etc.
Ash
True. But when it comes to matters of race, ethnicity and immigrants, as bad as it can be in America, it’s downright hell for many non-Caucasians in Western Europe.
Like I said, just a different brand of wing-nut.
PurpleGirl
Canada considers anti-abortion inspired violence to be “single-issue terrorism.”
Dr. Tiller joins Drs. Gunn, Britton and Slepian as a victim of domestic terrorism. Another doctor who performed abortions was killed in Alabama but isn’t usually counted as a victim of terrorism because police were unable to link the murder decisively to anti-abortion rhetoric. Besides these doctors there have been several receptionists/clinic workers and bodyguards killed by bombs or guns. Damn Operation Rescue and its companion groups.
The Grand Panjandrum
@tc125231: I won’t speak for John but the yelling “Fire” in a crowded venue argument doesn’t hold anymore water than the ticking time bomb scenario does when used to justify torture.
Of course you cannot use words to incite riot or provoke panic in certain circimstances, but we are talking about ideas here. I am sure one of the attorneys who read and comment here regularly can explain more elegantly than I all the complexities of First Amendment, but their is a difference between incitement and regular speech.
demkat620
@John Cole: Exactly. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
malraux
@Little Dreamer: On the flip side, the government did everything they could to weaken the members grasp on reality (sleep deprivation, disturbing sounds piped in, etc) for days on end. That’s exactly what you shouldn’t do to an apocalyptic cult.
gex
@Ash Can: Fairness Doctrine!
JL
@Ash Can: You can’t show a boob on tv or use the word fuck. There’s not a lot of killer boobs out there. The fairness doctrine would shut them up.
gex
@JL: I think Salma Hayek has killer boobs.
kuvasz
Mr Cole, you assume that these sorts of people respond to public shame by modifying their behavior.
In my experience, they don’t. Most of them, if not all of them have the moral, ethical, and social conscience of cannibals.
Tony J
Obvious, isn’t it? The slimy “through the proper channels” line from OR’s press-release already sets it up. The DHS report exposed a plan to label right-wing patriotic groups as ‘terrorists’, so it’s really no suprise that this poor guy, who felt so strongly about the slaughter of innocent snowflake babies, took the law into his own hands, fearing that “the proper channels” were closed to him. In short, it’s not – our – fault, you – drove – him to it by making him think he had no other option.
Follow that with a segue into “Aren’t Liberals always pleading for Americans to feel sympathy for the real terrorists out there with their “America is a monster” rhetoric? Why are they so eager to take another tack when the ‘terrorist’ is a white Christian driven to madness by their police-state tactics?” and you’ve got your Wingnut-Friendly justification half written.
All that remains to be seen is how far on a limb the MSM is willing to go in order to give the wingnutosphere cover for their complicity in this murder. I’m betting there’s a 60/40 chance they’ll muffle the outrage and go with ‘blame the victim’, because that’s what they do.
randiego
What he said. Motherfuckers… there are WAY too many goddam guns in this country. Armed to the teeth and everyone at risk of some psychopath who doesn’t give a damn.
JL
They will also question Sotomayor’s views on abortion and state that it is relevant because a terrorist killed a doctor. Rush will probably call the guy a christian soldier.
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
Right after the incident, there were questions and constant footage trying to ascertain if the tanks started the fire. Don’t you remember that?
Ash
Above all though, let’s hope this guy actually gets caught. It’s been about 4 hours now.
Martin
As a society we seem insistent on ascribing 100% of blame on one group – either the government or Koresh was responsible, but not both. In reality, there’s always enough blame to go around. The Davidians were clearly breaking laws and looking for a fight. The government stupidly gave them one over other options. Everybody lost in that scenario.
I don’t know why Americans can’t seem to get past good/evil thinking for everything from terrorism to food additives, but we’re a really fucking dysfunctional group because of it.
On the abortion issue, I don’t know why Congress (especially now) can’t pull its shit together and pass legislation that mirrors RvW. It doesn’t need to say more than that, but in my view it’s cowardly of Congress to leave this issue solely in the hands of the Supreme Court. People are powerless against court decisions, but at least feel empowered with legislative actions.
Cain
@Ash Can:
If the press don’t do it then we must by writing letters to newspapers, our congresscritter, whatever. Sometimes the law is a substitution for lazy citizens (me included) who apparently don’t care enough to take to the streets to protest. It’s unfortunate, and it’s wrong. We can also use it as an example to teach our children let the next generation understand this debate and learn to avoid it’s pitfalls. We cannot affect immediate change and a law won’t affect it either it just creates more laws and murkey legal situations that we must navigate around. Let our own values be our conscience and act on them.
If you care, write to your congressman and your newspaper and protest loudly. If you’re watching cable news that are not on the right side of this debate. TURN IT OFF. Tell your friends to TURN IT OFF. The press does what it does so that they’ll have more eyeballs but if it turns offensive they’ll change their tune very rapidly it’s not a good time for them… You can affect change much more immediate by turning away.
cain
edit: added a last paragraph.
Mayken
@Ash:
Oh, trust me, we know about matters of race, ethnicity and being non-Caucasians in Western Europe. My family is a mixed race product of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. So they know from not being “Dutch” enough for the Dutch (and not “Indonesian” enough for the Indonesians, lest anyone think the prejudice doesn’t flow both ways.) And I’m more than aware of the fun of being not “white” enough for white America.
But, yes, the Western Europeans have much to answer for in how they treat their immigrants. Even the less affluent of their EU member nations come in for a lot of prejudice and scapegoating there right now.
Yep, crazy is everywhere.
omen
@The Grand Panjandrum:
the yelling “Fire” in a crowded venue argument doesn’t hold anymore water than the ticking time bomb scenario does when used to justify torture.
good point. it wasn’t a prohibitive the founders put in. the “yell fire” argument restricting free speech is early 20th century interpretation.
gex
@Little Dreamer: Were those questions posed by these same Villagers?
Little Dreamer
@Martin:
Because the Bible says so, that’s why!
Cain
@Martin:
I suspect it is our Protestant roots. Those guys were crazy from what I remember reading from history. Our whole approach to sex comes from them.
cain
Little Dreamer
@gex:
I’m sure they were part of that whole contingency.
freelancer
DougJ:
OT, but Debbie Schlussel had a full-throated Sotomayor = J-Lo post yesterday.
Martin
I don’t think it’s shame that works. I think it’s turning them into public pariahs. The mindset that drives them to do this comes from somewhere. There is a community supporting this mostly full of people that will regularly call for the murder of doctors but aren’t so committed to do it themselves. They’re just holding station in their little world. Putting this front and center for the whole nation disrupts that community. The rabble-rousers aren’t likely to be willing to remain in good standing with their community if it puts them in the national spotlight looking like a fucking lunatic and risking their place in all of their other communities. They’ll stop supporting the guys really willing to pull the trigger. It goes from a movement to the usual problem of unsettled loners with guns, which is still a problem, but a much more manageable one.
Tonal Crow
@Ash Can:
Boromir said, ‘…Why do you speak ever of hiding and destroying? Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of need? Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the Enemy….Let the Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth to victory!’
‘Alas, no,’ said Elrond. ‘We cannot use the Ruling Ring…. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil. Its strength, Boromir, is too great for anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart. Consider Saruman. If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron’s throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear. And that is another reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it will be a danger even to the Wise.’
cd6
@John Cole:
Sorry.
HotAir locked comments on this topic.
Too many crazies.
Cain
@randiego:
I don’t agree it is guns. Anybody can kill with whatever is at hand. A car could have killed that doctor just as easily as a gun. You cannot stop pre-meditated killing. Jumping on guns is exactly where right-wingers want you to go. They’d love to have that conversation so that they can gin up their pro-gun movement. It’s a predictable strain of thought, don’t do it.
cain
Library Grape
@Ash Can:
“How do we treat the cause?”
By winning in the war of ideas. The absolute worst thing we could to is to use the power of government to suppress their speech. In their minds, this would just prove their point!
Tony J
ISTR that the late and lamented Bill Hicks headed out there with a camera and was very, very insistent that he didn’t believe the official storyline on what caused the fires, or at least the first ones.
Just like that. If the editorial choice comes down to going with “Notorious Doctor’s Death raises temperature of Abortion Debate”or “Doctor’s Murder raises questions about the role of Right Wing Hate Radio in causing Domestic Terrorism”, I don’t think there’s much doubt about which way they’re going to jump.
Martin
That’s the whole reason as the community is guessing.
I hate to break this secret news, but Obama taught constitutional law. I think it’s almost a certainty that he studied her opinions. Unless you can provide an objective measure that there are better candidates than Sotomayor (and I doubt anyone criticizing the decision can) then she’s is equally as qualified as any other individual.
From what the lawyers that know this shit have opined, she seems to rule in a manner that people expect Obama would rule. Maybe this is as simple as he found a candidate for the court that would behave similarly to how he would behave if he was on the court.
bfredson
How can one react to this event in any other way than feeling relief for all the babies’ lives that will be saved? They’ll be saved not only directly from the hands of this particular murderer, but also by the chilling effect this justified killing may cause other baby murderers to rethink their ways.
It is unfortunate that he had to die the way he did–in front of a church, with families no doubt witnessing the act–but Tiller was a baby murderer, and that’s how he’ll go to the grave. He deserved to die for his crimes against nature.
This is a happy, blessed event. New children will have a chance at life because this monster is gone.
Zuzu's Petals
I hope this is prosecuted under federal law as an act of domestic terrorism.
You will note that the federal law applies criminal penalties to those who harbor or conceal a domestic terrorist, or provide material support, including financing, for such an act. That’s in addition to anyone who can be shown to be conspirator in the act.
InflatableCommenter
@Little Dreamer
Yes, and I studied the films at length. I don’t know of any credible evidence that the fires were started by anyone or anything outside the compound.
The material supposedly supporting the opposite conclusion strikes me as being at the level of Truther evidence.
Little Dreamer
@InflatableCommenter:
Agreed, but it was still a question for debate right after the incident.
Cain
@bfredson:
Blessed event? Murder is a blessed event, troll? Do you think the guy who killed him is going to heaven? Killing someone in abject hate with no repentance. I guess he’s just like Jesus isn’t he? Going to hell so the rest of you can bask in heaven’s light? You willing to pay taxes to support all those unwanted babies? What about if it increases the black and hispanic populations? How do you know this isn’t a big plot to kill off the white populations eh?
I hope this isn’t a spoof as this would be in very poor taste.
cain
freelancer
Martin,
You are arguing with moron Debbie Schlussel as quoted by me. I’m pretty sure Obama picked her on the basis of her opinions as well.
The Raven
Oh, we corvids feed today!
Eventually, I think, trolling for violent psychopaths will be a crime. This seems less restrictive of speech, say, than slander and defamation laws. Then again, it may be the Roberts court that rules on it.
Krawk!
Zuzu's Petals
@bfredson:
What utter BS. Not a single abortion will be prevented because of this murder. Not a single one.
True, other providers will “rethink their ways” just as Americans “rethought” flying after September 11. They’ll have to live in fear, just as principals of girls’ schools live in fear of the Taliban. Terrorism has that effect. So you are in great company, pal.
Whether you agree with Dr. Tiller’s practice or not, the fact is he was working within the law and guidelines of the medical profession.
Your argument is with the law; but typically, when you can’t change the law you condone cold-blooded murder.
Thanks for making your deep psychic rot so abundantly clear for us all.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Martin: It is for that reason that I won’t be surprised if she is more of a centrist than Souter. The notion that Sotomayor is a flaming liberal is not bourne out in her record.
burnspbesq
@Ash Can:
What you’re suggesting would make a great episode of “Law & Order.”
McCoy gets his Irish up and wants to prosecute a talk-show host for criminally negligent homicide. Somehow convinces his bosses to allow it, despite their misgivings about the DA’s office not being a legislative body. Gets a conviction.
But here’s how the final scene plays out.
Interior, McCoy’s office. McCoy is at his desk doing paperwork.
Enter boss, holding sheaf of papers.
Boss: The Appellate Department reversed, unanimously. First Amendment.
McCoy: We had to try.
Boss: Let’s see if somebody in Albany wants to take this on. But don’t hold your breath.
McCoy: I need a drink.
Boss: I’ll buy.
Exit McCoy and Boss.
Fade to black.
Krista
Why yes, because intimidating those who don’t do what you want them to do by way of murdering one of them is a very praiseworthy tactic. You’d be right at home in the Taliban or the mafia, wouldn’t you?
Maude
Koresh- It was a knock and announce warrant. There was no legal complaint about the treatment of children at the compound. The statement about child abuse was made by Reno in defense of the government’s actions.
Mrs. Can- We are a lot safer hearing the garbage of hate. Sometimes, a person calls police and tells them about violent speech.
I don’t mean broadcast media. Broadcasters have been fired for saying a no-no on the air.
Promoting hatred toward any group or person on the air should not be tolerated. It is tolerated because it gets ratings and makes money.
Until it becomes socially unacceptable for this crap to go on, we need to know what is being said. It is being said and not knowing is harmful.
I’m waiting for the jerk who says that the Doctor should not have been going into a church because he would profane it.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
As did Joe Biden, actually.
The thought that the President and Vice President, both decade+ long teachers in a core subject around such a pick, wouldn’t take every care in the world to choose someone at least nominally qualified, is literally crazy talk. And it’s reflected in the “criticism” we’re hearing.
Little Dreamer
@bfredson:
You obviously haven’t thought out the ramifications of children whose mothers would have aborted them if that option were available and what happens to those children (and society as a whole) further down the road if their mothers are forced to give birth.
Here’s a hint: many of them become homeless and mentally ill.
Joe Lisboa
This is a happy, blessed event.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the face of evil. No “shades of gray,” no moral complexity, no faux compassion for the slain, just the confidence that God is on their side, period, and that murder is justified because murder is wrong.
I’m no psychologist, but this strikes me as pathological at best. Disgusting.
Dave_Violence
Abortion is legal.
Abortion rights are not in the Bill of Rights.
Free speech is in the Bill of Rights.
Gun rights are in the Bill of Rights.
Therefore, something doesn’t have to be in the Bill of Rights to be legal, but if it is, hands off!
Americans have the right to lawfully protest whatever they see fit to protest. “We the people” also are certainly allowed to petition for an amendment to the Constitution that addresses abortion, rather than leave it to some nebulous Supreme Court decision or the individual states.
What’s not legal is murdering someone outside of the womb.
Thus… It’s odd that Dr. Tiller would be welcome in a church other than the Unitarian Church. Anyway, this act of terrorism is no excuse for you FACISTS on this comments board to call for restricting free speech (hate speech is free speech, you fake “liberals”) and for repeal of the 2nd Amendment.
This was a criminal act and the criminal responsible should be dealt with accordingly, like Eric Rudolph, et al.
Hart Williams
Once more a hypothetical baby (God being the greatest Abortionist of all, one in four human pregnancies ending in spontaneous abortion) is more important than an actual human life.
Mostly, some dried up prune’s decision that a real woman is less important than an imaginary baby, but this time, the descent into the ugliest ideological spaces of the human mind, as the Righties show their “Christianity” on Lucienne, on WorldNetDaily (whose coverage is almost ENTIRELY about charges brought against the murdered doctor and verbatim reprintings of denials from “classy” anti-abortion groups to “prove” how they didn’t have any bloody fingerprints on the murder weapon) to (Not so)Breitbart and the aforementioned Freepers.
All ugliness, ofttimes with the ADDITIONAL “Christian” crow that now the assassinated doctor will have to “meet God.”
Tee hee, they titter and twitter.
To steal a line from Michelle Malkin: “the religion of PEACE, huh? Snort!”
Ideology: where an idea — a linguistic formulation — trumps all realities; where the pre-existing “thought” justifies the darkest deed.
Where the cuteness of a “baby” that may never exist is more important than the blood flowing from the veins of a man dying in the street, gunned down by “Faith.”
Yeah, that “Domestic Terrorist” DHS report was COMPLETELY cobbled together out of whole cloth.
Maybe the Shroud of Turin?
linda
bfredson is an example of the american taliban. no different from their cowardly brethren in afghanistan.
burnspbesq
@bfredson:
And when you get your way, and abortions become illegal again, and your daughter bleeds to death after a botched back-alley abortion because you wouldn’t give her the money to go to Canada, don’t ask me to mourn for her, you monster. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
TR
Quick quiz. Which one of these is more indicative of fascism?
A) Calling for the suppression of speech from political opponents
B) Calling for the execution of political opponents
Tricky, I know. Go ask an adult to help you figure this one out.
Maybe as a starting point in helping you understand what fascism is, they could first teach you to spell it.
InflatableCommenter
I have no reason to not take her assertions at face value, knowing what I think I know about the Davidians.
If she was considering that aspect, then it is a defense, and in my view, a pretty good one.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
And that’s how they “reduce” abortions. They know good and well they can’t convince a court, or the American people, to prosecute a women for having an abortion. That ship has sailed.
So, instead, they amp up every (admittedly sad and to be improved at all costs!) extremely rare death from the procedure. They accuse the Doctors of running “abortion mills”, ignoring that it was their pressure that made hospitals avoid the procedure like the plague.
And then, they back away when their words and statements cause someone to do something a few “Pro-Lifers” will admit they like — kill a Doctor to discourage others, and kill clinics that do Abortions. If every clinic within driving distance closes, that’s Even Better than legally barring it, since poor people can’t afford to take a day off to get the procedure done, and no one’s crazy enough to go back to the underground days.
Yet.
JL
According to MSNBC.com they have made an arrest in the murder of Dr.Tiller.
InflatableCommenter
@Little Dreamer:
Yes, you are right. I would stay and talk about it longer but I have lunch plans and have to get going.
TR
I’m pretty sure this episode’s been done already — one with Robert Klein as a talk show host who arranged a surprise meeting between a pedophile and his former victim, and the pedophile wound up getting shot.
Andrew
I am just so mad about the state of the right wing that I;m losing the ability to think rationally about it. From complaints about Obama going to Broadway to racist rants about Sotomayor, they’re just a bunch of fucking assholes that drive me crazy. I mean real fucking assholes.
Now, they’ve always been real fucking assholes, so this should not be a surprise. I’m just not sure why it’s bothering me so much right now.
More to the point, I need a way to relax. Any suggestions?
TR
Here’s the episode.
Xenos
Oooh boy. I guess it will be interesting to see the Patriot Act in action now. Let’s start by presumptively freezing the finances of every right-wing organization or ‘charity’ the shooter has ever been associated… just in case there is some money laundering going on.
I hope Holder’s people do a very vigorous investigation, including some grand jury subpoenas to Bill O’Reilly and others at Fox. Those bastards need to sweat.
Little Dreamer
@InflatableCommenter:
I’m ready. ;)
TR
In all seriousness, I always find that making a donation to a liberal cause makes me feel better.
As Jon Stewart says, “No, no, fuck you.”
burnspbesq
@Andrew:
A long, hard bike ride or run.
gwangung
@burnspbesq:
Well, actually, McCoy IS the boss now…but that just takes a half afternoon’s rewrite…
(We’ll probably need to stick Alison de Garza in there somewhere. Hm. Wonder if she’d be relevant to Sotomayor…)
omen
@TR:
acceptance of A is the fast track towards B.
The Raven
I can only stress that most late-term abortions are done to protect the mother from the risks of giving birth to a deformed non-viable fetus.
Another point to stress is that giving away a newborn for adoption–the option offered by anti-abortion activists–is heartbreaking for many mothers. How many? We don’t know–most of the research is slanted towards learning about babies and the institutions which know best strongly push adoption.
Do you have a mother, daughter, sister? Remember that it is these people who will be hurt most by anti-abortion law, activism, and policy.
Hominids. Eggs are much simpler.
Jay C
@bfredson:
Assuming, for the nonce, that bfredson isn’t just a spooftroll, let me point out that there is one rather large, gaping, hole in its “argument” – aside from the smug, self-righteous piety laced with bloodthirst, that is – that Dr. Tiller (nor ANY abortion provider) didn’t run around the streets of Wichita kidnapping pregnant women and aborting their fetuses, or surreptitiously terminate their pregnancies under the guise of liposuction, or whatever: he was a medical provider providing services to patients who came to him – and, in many cases, were terminating non-viable pregnancies – look up “anencephaly”” in the dictionary, if you can manage it .
burnspbesq
It only takes one wingnut or fundie to hang a jury. And it’s Wichita, where there is no shortage of either. And if the prosecutor uses his or her peremptory challenges to systematically exclude wingnuts and fundies, the case will be tied up in the appellate courts for years.
Wanna bet this guy never does a day of prison time?
JL
What a sick person. Maybe he should be sent to Gitmo.
omen
@Xenos:
Oooh boy. I guess it will be interesting to see the Patriot Act in action now.
rep. peter goss argued anti-abortion protest groups should be exempted from the patriot act. bush later made him head of the cia.
South of I-10
@The Raven:
This cannot be said enough. Happened to a friend and her heart was broken. Her options were risk her own life delivering a non-viable fetus or a late term abortion. This was very much a wanted pregnancy. Screw anyone who would judge her for that.
I am so angry right now.
Josh Hueco
Chris Rock once said something about being more afraid of Al-Cracker than Al-Qaida. He was right.
Anne Laurie
Since the mid-1980s. When Ronald Reagan and his handlers decided that Jerry Falwell and his American Taliban could be used in their War Against Liberals, just as the ReagaNuts thought they could use the original Taliban in the War Against Commies. How’d that one work out for them?
Oh, well, it worked fine for St. Ronnie — who was past embarrassing by the time his Afghan Freedom Fighters started murdering women and children on camera, much less targeting *us* fine upstanding innocent Americans.
The forced-childbirth terrorists (thank you, Pandagon) have been coddled, excused, and encouraged for too long. Of course they should be permitted to spew their willfully ignorant, misogynist, semi-pornographic filth on the public street, over the airwaves, onto the internet. And then their ravings should be handled the way any other terrorist threats would be handled — by enforcing the laws against public terrorism and threats of violence. Operation Rescue is Stormfront with a Bible. We don’t need to snatch their leaders away for ‘enhanced interrogation’ under cover of darkness (enticing as that might seem right now), we need to make it clear that they will pay every time they encourage some half-crazed numbwit at the fringes of their empire to commit the overt acts of violence they are covertly signalling. I want Randall Terry watched by half-a-dozen law enforcement officials every time he walks down his driveway to pick up the mail or calls out for a pizza, and if that public safety effort requires taking some manpower away from the War on Some Drugs, well, what are you waiting for, President Obama?
Mayken
@JL:
You mean Terry Randall? Oh, yeah, he’s a sick asshat and definitely right up there with the Taliban in terms of fundy beliefs he wants to push on everyone and being a terrorist. But no one on the right will ever acknowledge either point.
Even still, NO ONE deserves Gitmo.
But his God will take care of the judgment in the here-after if the temporal powers can’t find a way to shut his sad act down.
Ash Can
@Martin:
I don’t disagree. But is it even possible to turn them into pariahs — at least to the extent that they become marginalized and isolated to the point where the danger they pose to society is minimized, if not eradicated altogether — if, in essence, Fox Network and Clear Channel Communications tell them daily that they’re heroes?
@Library Grape:
The government already does this, in a way, by sending the guys in the black suits and sunglasses out after people making verbal threats against the president.
Nevertheless, this does bring to my attention an important distinction I should have made earlier and failed to. I initially said that we should crack down on “hate speech,” and I shouldn’t have said that. I emphasize that I agree that it’s best to know who’s making threats against whom, when, and where. I’ve said so myself, numerous times. And I don’t disagree that any regulation of speech, even what we have now, has the tendency to drive problems out of sight and make them more difficult to find. The term I should have used was, specifically, incitement, rather than “hate speech.”
I stand by what I said before, for want of more effective measures, specifically regarding incitement. This issue can and should raise serious debate about freedom-of-speech issues, and I don’t mind the hits I’ve taken in this thread one bit, because they were all delivered for what I believe are the right reasons. However, any reasonable person would view calls to take up arms against fellow citizens or the government or to aim for ATF agents’ heads as exceeding reasonable doubt for qualifying as incitement. If there were unambiguous consequences — a hit to the pocketbook, e.g., like for a nipple or F-bomb — maybe this would cut down on the outrageousness-for-outrageousness’ sake/don’t-blame-us-we’re-just-entertainers incitement incidents.
@Cain:
There, this. This, IMO, encapsulates both the best theoretical solution and my frustration with it. Of course the best thing to do, like Library Grape and others have said, is to win the war of ideas. However, I’ve seen wars of ideas won in the past — people cheered when Imperial President Nixon resigned, Vatican II pulled the Catholic Church out of the 16th century, protests in the streets across the nation soured an entire generation and then some on military quagmires. Those wars haven’t stayed won, and I’m not convinced this one can stay won either.
Then again, laws supporting such a win ultimately wouldn’t do that much good, since they could simply be repealed.
I guess I should just accept that backsliding happens. But it doesn’t make me hate to see it happen any less than I do.
Brachiator
@demkat620:
I’ve been worried for a while. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
So now the question is, What are you going to do about it?
The ideological Civil War in America has turned violent. Some extremists have now been fired up to cross the line into violence, and other marginalized goofballs may be energized to commit further acts of violence.
So again, the question becomes, for everyone who objects to this, what are you going to do?
Nope. The only antidote to hate speech is more speech.
Better yet, let’s abolish the Patriot Act, which is largely a bunch of authoritarian garbage.
Donate. Engage. Vote.
Laura W
@South of I-10: Your comment led me to look through my email to find one I got from a friend who was pregnant when I left CO. First pregnancy, been trying for two years. Desperately wanted a child with her new husband. I inquired about the baby when she contacted me out of the blue a year ago. Here is her reply.
So much fucked in the world right now.
Martin
@freelancer:
Sorry, chalk that up to BJs shitty blockquoting.
asiangrrlMN
I can’t say seem to put my thoughts into a coherent statement, so I will just say, thank you, Dr. Tiller, for the difficult work you did with such compassion. May you rest in peace, and may your family find solace.
Wait, I do know what to say. The Freepers are appalling. The rightwing talking heads are despicable. Yes, they should be allowed to say what they want, but then they need to be held accountable for it.
However, they won’t be. That is the sad part. This news will be treated as nothing other than a three-ring circus for a day or two before Paris Hilton or Perez Hilton pushes it off the proverbial front page.
The Grand Panjandrum
Al Giordano has a very smart take on the assassination of George Tiller and he echoes the sentiment expressed in this thread:
Texas Dem
NOW. This is going to get much, much worse before it gets better. The more isolated the right wing becomes, the more violence you will see.
Brett
@JL: It’s a small thing, but their press release on their web site is tagged with “Tiller Watch,” which they attached to all of their other numerous anti-Tiller items. Classy.
Laura W
Do you seriously go into moderation if you put three Xs in a row?
I honestly thought I knew all the rules I was not allowed to break by now.
Laura W
ppfffttt
Ash Can
There. That’s the essence of what we’re up against, right there. The question is, how to deal with that in such a way that deaths of doctors and clinicians are avoided, yet free speech is upheld?
@Zuzu’s Petals:
“Material support” probably wouldn’t cover incitement, though, would it? The law is probably worded this way precisely to avoid any free-speech issues. Nevertheless, this is most likely the best solution under the circumstances.
Martin
The shooters? No, but their motivation is quite different from the cheerleaders. Consider that if every cheerleader from Free Republic or wherever actually put their money where their mouth is, picked up a gun and shot their local abortion provider, we’d be looking at hundreds of killings per day. They aren’t as committed to the cause as they sound – they’re just trying to preserve their place in their community.
The shooters are a different breed, and they can’t be reached, but they wouldn’t be doing this if not for the cheerleaders. They’re looking for social promotion. Take away the cheerleaders by making *them* pariahs, and the shooter loses the community and the reason to shoot. They might shoot someone else for some other reason, and so they’re likely just going to move on to some other cause, but at least this cause would be undermined. And the cheerleaders will respond to be treated like pariahs because their sole motivation is feeling like part of the crowd. They might retain station within their focused group, but they’d be cut off from all others, and that’s probably enough to dial it back.
And treating Fox and Clear as pariahs would be part of the effort. O’Reilly and Hannity and Rush need to be given the same treatment as the Terry Randalls – they need to be shown to be fringe lunatics and deserving of being looked down upon for their public views. That’s truly where this is failing – the media will not call out other media, with a handful of exceptions.
Laura W
@Laura W: Omigod. You can not even say s p e c i a l i s t s ? That must be the mod-worthy word?
I knew I should’ve stayed offline for the rest of the day. Nothing but fucked up shit anyway. That’ll learn me.
jcricket
What needs to happen is that every fucking law enforcement agency in the planet needs to get its collective head out of its ass. Buy a copy of Dave Neiwert’s book – The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right . Talk to the researchers at the Southern Poverty Law Center or ADL.
The right-wing leadership has deliberately set forth a strategy of inciting/encouraging/condoning the so-called “lone wolves” to murder, pillage, bomb, and otherwise terrorize anyone who is the “enemy”. They do this, while maintaining plausible deniability, because they don’t provide organizational support (except things like hiding Eric Rudolph, etc.) for the lone wolves.
I’m not in favor of criminalizing hate speech, but I am in favor of law enforcement understanding that the right-wing is no mere political opposition party. They are domestic terrorist training groups and sympathizers. They need to be watched, monitored, infiltrated, and taken down for the criminal organizations they likely are.
That report that the wingers flipped out about (for mentioning that soldiers could be targeted by right-wing hate groups) is exactly the kind of thing we need more of – and with stronger language and follow-through.
jcricket
What he said.
It’s clear that Republicans created this mess, and are feeding the fire. See Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, Malkin, Gingrich, Rove, Tancredo, Inhofe, etc.
If there was “straight” reporting on what these people actually believed and promoted, the Republican party, Fox News, talk radio, etc. would be toast.
Martin
Anything with the word Cial!s in it gets moderated.
Persia
@burnspbesq: Don’t even bother. They don’t give a fuck. It’s not even about the ‘babies’ for a lot of them. It’s about controlling women’s sexuality. Always has been, always will be. Fuck the carnage; they don’t care.
Cain
@Martin:
Which is why I say we simply turn off or de-subscribe from cable/cable news as a form of protest. We don’t need them, and the fringe right cannot keep channels like Fox alive by themselves. Our protest to stop subscribing to cable will in fact be very effective and save you money too boot! 50 bucks a month translates to a shit load of money a year that you can probably use to buy something useful and stick it to Fox News at the same time.
cain
ksmiami
Earlier, I was soooooo angry about this, I could barely speak, now, I want Obama to go after Amy of God, and all the so called right to life organizations as terrorist cells and fully prosecute them to the extent that Bush’s DHS would allow… How about the Full-Gitmo. These people are not pro-life, they are anti-sex, anti-progress, anti-woman and anti-human and they are undeserving of living in our society of laws. They lost the argument, they lost the election and they refuse to accept this. They are a dangerous, delusional menace to our civil society and we need to deal with them swiftly and rather mercilessly. NOW!!!!!!!!
freelancer
Wow, a lot of people seem to be de-lurking for this thread, and some of them are nuttier than squirrel shit.
—
It’s being reported that they have someone in custody, and this is merely speculation on my part, but considering the shooter in Tennessee’s Unitarian church massacre and his manifesto to kill all liberals; is it out of bounds to wonder whether this murder was partially motivated by the fact that for the first time in more than a decade, a Democratic president is nominating someone for the bench?
The Tennessee Shooter couldn’t kill the Democratic members of the Senate, nor the 50 people in Goldberg’s book, so he lit up a lefty church. This fundie asshole couldn’t have access to a Judge that would likely keep Roe in place, so he slaughtered a Doctor in church in front of his wife.
Again, I’m just speculating but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Svensker
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Well, what we should do is call in an airstrike on the homes of this guy and his family. If there’s a little collateral damage, so be it. Can’t make an omelet blah blah blah. Afterall, these people have consorted with a Terrorist and are practicing that nefarious ruse known as acting as human shields. They are no better than terrorists themselves. Amirite?
Tim C.
What I find so…… well I would find it amusing were it not for the violence and death that will follow as a result, is how the gun paranoia keeps coming from the right even though there is absolutely no willingness on the part of the Democrats to have any kind of gun legislation on the federal level. The comments from freeperville are just delusional, to the point where I think they really want the feds to try and take their guns because then they can try and live out their pseduo Turner Diary fantasies.
Ash Can
@jcricket: I do believe that you’ve managed to say everything I’ve wanted to say and didn’t/couldn’t, and have done so far more clearly and concisely. Thank you.
Josh Hueco
What cain said. I haven’t paid for cable in over two years and don’t miss it.
Fern
@JL:
They also care about Jesus, apparently.
Anne Laurie
Since the mid-1980s, when Ronald Reagan’s handlers decided that Jerry Falwell and his American Taliban could be as useful in their War Against Liberals as they thought the original Taliban would be in the War Against Communists. How’d that work out for them?
Oh, yeah, St. Ronnie was past caring (if he ever could have) by the time the Afghan Taliban started murdering children in front of the cameras, much less targeting us “innocent” Americans…
It’s well past time that we started treating the forced childbirth terrorists (thank you, Pandagon) as the threats to public safety they’ve always been. “Operation Rescue” is Stormfront clutching a Bible, and should be greeted with the same opprobrium by decent people. They’re free to spew their willfully ignorant, misogynist, authoritarian filth on the public street, over the airwaves, on the internet. And we’re free to reject their lies, half-truths, and psychotic fantasies; to denounce the enterprises that allow this brand of hate speech in search of profit; and to insist that anyone who encourages, abets, or condones violence before or after the act be punished to the full extent of the law. I don’t think Bill O’Reilly will ever have to explain in court why he shouldn’t be jailed, but I do think we should make Bill O’Reilly ratings poison to advertisers. I think Randall Terry (and all his lieutenants) should be monitored by law enforcement agencies every time he strolls down his driveway for the mail or calls out for a pizza delivery. And f this should require pulling manpower away from the War on Some Drugs, all the better.
Notorious P.A.T.
Yeah, JFK would be just as dead if Oswald had a knife instead of a rifle.
Wile E. Quixote
@jcricket
No kidding, if muslims were behaving the way the American right is the wingers would be shitting themselves in crazed hatred and fear and demanding that the government do something about this horrible threat and in fact they have. Well it’s long past time that we started treating the American right wing in the same way we’d treat an Islamic group that was advocating violence and encouraging suicide bombers.
omen
@Ash Can:
The question is, how to deal with that in such a way that deaths of doctors and clinicians are avoided, yet free speech is upheld?
if memory serves, the kkk went bankrupt because it got hit with a mountain of civil lawsuits. maybe that’s a model that could be followed.
LD50
And I see no reason why he couldn’t have successfully thrown a knife at JFK from the book depository.
Zuzu's Petals
@Ash Can:
No, “material support” wouldn’t cover incitement, even if it were directly applicable here. I cited these provisions, but there may be others more directly related to an act like this.
Wile E. Quixote
Anne Laurie
And if law enforcement won’t do it let’s do it ourselves. Let’s see how Terry and the filth in his group like it when a group of private citizens monitors everything they do and posts information about their daily routine and movements on the web. We all saw how Michelle Malkin liked it after her address was posted online after the l’affaire S-CHIP, everyone’s favorite immigrant hating anchor-baby squealed like Ned Beatty caught in the clutches of a group of aroused hillbillies about the violation of her privacy.
dmv
Jesus. He was killed… in church.
The irony meter goes places it has never before been.
Tonal Crow
@Ash Can: I have real problems with speech restrictions, both because I think (despite some Supreme Court precedent) that the 1st Amendment prohibits them, and because I think they make poor policy.
Also I have problems with making law based upon “common sense” reasoning. In this particular case, some are drawing direct lines from Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and other trash-talk artists to a doctor’s murder, and are urging criminal sanctions on the former to prevent the latter from recurring. Some (as you) are restricting your argument to some form of “incitement”. The problem here is that we don’t really know how much the trash-talk (or incitement) contributes to the murder, so we would be legislating in the dark. Would we be criminalizing 10 hours, 1000 hours, 100,000 hours, 1,000,000 hours, or some other quantity of incitement per hate-crime prevented? If we really care about the freedom to communicate — and about our laws’ effectiveness — it ought to matter to us.
Zuzu's Petals
@Svensker:
No.
jcricket
When the FBI finally got around to doing what I’m suggesting with the Klan, they took it down in less than a decade. Similar thing happened to a couple of the big Aryan groups in the 90s. The “lone wolf” thing is a result of that (i.e. if we don’t plan big operations centrally, we can’t be held liable).
Couple that with the rise of the “religious right” as some kind of “normal”, to-be-taken-seriously political group, and we backed off all the policing.
Time to step it up again, and never, ever back down. These people won’t stop until there are another 10 Oklahoma cities, and they’re as much of a threat to our country as Al Queda (and I’m not being hyperbolic).
Zuzu's Petals
@Wile E. Quixote:
Not to mention picketing his home, a tactic he seems to favor.
Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and as far as cancelling your cable goes that’s just a first step. Another step is to cancel Fox News on every TV you can. How can you do this? Well you could whip out a .45 and punch a few rounds through the TV, but that sort of thing gets you talked about. A more elegant, and less noisy solution is to get a TV-B-Gone. I got one of these for a friend whose gym showed nothing but Fox News and he said that it worked like a charm.
jcricket
Bill O’Reilly can’t even handle it when someone turns 1/10th of his ambush tactics back on him, and turns into a whiny-ass-titty-baby times infinity. Do you have any idea the apoplexy we’d get from “serious” right wingers (and probably mealy-mouth centrist fucktards like Saletan and Broder too) if wingers got the scrutiny their behavior deserves?
I mean for fuck’s sake, look at the rhetoric over Sotamayor – see statements by Gingrich (“she’s racist and unamerican”) or Liddy (“in illegal alien…”) – do they really think this kind of talk has no impact? Well, actually, they think liberals do the equivalent, so I’m sure it’s justified in their minds or whatever.
Anyone who votes Republican anymore is enabling these eliminationist nutjobs to stay in business.
AnotherBruce
If I were a family member of the good Doctor, I might be rounding up some youtube evidence, call a good attorney and sue the Fox News Corp, Bill O’Reilly and Operation Rescue for about a billion dollars each.
O’Reilly should lose his job over this, how to make this (legally and non violently) happen?
Fern
@Martin:
I don’t think it’s shame that works. I think it’s turning them into public pariahs.
Not sure I agree with this – I think turning people into public pariahs just cranks up the victim mentality and solidifies the barriers between us (good) and them (evil) – making violence even more likely.
Anne Laurie
@Laura W: My original comment wasn’t just moderated, it was dumped. Just so you know FYWordPress is even-handed in its arbitrary whimsy.
There’s a paranoid cluster in my brain which assumes some minimum-wage NSA agent is ‘monitoring’ every post & comment here, and when a sufficiently hot-button topic arises that agent has to scramble to catch up. (If so, dude, sucks to be you, but at least this ain’t RedState, which is an EPA-certified neuron-killer.)
deekaa6
In 1994 my wife and I found out that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult and unusually uncomfortable but her doctor repeatedly told her things were fine. Sometime early in the 8th month my wife, an RN who at the time was working in an infertility clinic asked the Dr. she was working for what he thought of her discomfort. He examined her and said that he couldn’t be certain but thought that she might be having twins. We were thrilled and couldn’t wait to get a new sonogram that hopefully would confirm his thoughts. Two days later our joy was turned to unspeakable sadness when the new sonogram showed conjoined twins. Conjoined twins alone is not what was so difficult but the way they were joined meant that at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants. We were advised that our options were to deliver into the world a child who’s life would be filled with horrible pain and suffering or fly out to Wichita Kansas and to terminate the pregnancy under the direction of Dr. George Tiller.
We made an informed decision to go to Kansas. One can only imagine the pain borne by a woman who happily carries a child for 8 months only to find out near the end of term that the children were not to be and that she had to make the decision to terminate the pregnancy and go against everything she had been taught to believe was right. This was what my wife had to do. Dr. Tiller is a true American hero. The nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff. Dr. Tiller understood that this decision was the most difficult thing that a woman could ever decide and he took the time to educate us and guide us along with the other two couples who at the time were being forced to make the same decision after discovering that they too were carrying children impacted by horrible fetal anomalies. I could describe in great detail the procedures and the pain and suffering that everyone is subjected to in these situations. However, that is not the point of the post. We can all imagine that this is not something that we would wish on anyone. The point is that the pain and suffering were only mitigated by the compassion and competence of Dr. George Tiller and his staff. We are all diminished today for a host of reasons but most of all because a man of great compassion and courage has been lost to the world.
lilysmom
This is the Taliban Republican rightwing acknowledging that they are not likely to be able overturn Roe v Wade in the SC in the near future. All those contributions and boots on the ground and phone banking, and their ultimate goal isn’t likely to be achieved. They aren’t going to have a “permanent majority”. They don’t cope well with the concept of being out of power. They react violently.
John, I apologize. I didn’t intend for the earlier conversation to devolve into an argument about David Koresh. That wasn’t the point. I wanted to use it as another example of how when Republicans are out of power, parts of the religious Republican paranoid base begin hoarding weaponry, preparing for the end times and plotting to destroy symbols of government. You didn’t see crap like this from Democrats during the Bush years.
I agree w. Texdem @ 173. I am so afraid that more of this is to come. That was their general reaction to Clinton being elected. The loonies are moving back in to full wingnut mode.
lotus
deekaa6, I’m sorry for your trauma. Amen to your conclusion.
The AP just ran something that makes me wretch again:
Wile E. Quixote
@LD50
That’s only because the Warren Commission has pulled the wool over your eyes. On the other hand I see no reason why the guys on the grassy knoll and the Cubans on the triple overpass couldn’t have successfully thrown knives at JFK.
As an aside on hate speech one of the things I hate about the right-wing in America and that fills me with loathing and contempt for them is their stupid hypocrisy. Case in point: The right wing loses sphincter control, what little they have anyways, over pornography, claiming that it incites licentious behavior and rape and must therefore be banned. But if you go to the same right-wingers and say “we need to pass laws against hate speech because it incites violent behavior” they become the most ardent defenders of the first amendment you’ll ever see and will deny any connection between the actions of dipshits like Eric Rudolph, or the TVUUC shooter with the rantings of Bernie Goldberg or Fox News.
Brachiator
@LD50:
Thank you. This is the funniest, most ridiculous thing I’ve read all day.
Engage. You can’t just expect people to change because they have seen the light. People will have to be convinced to change votes, switch parties.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
I guess that ‘right to bear concealed weapons in church’ law is gonna have to wait awhile before introduction.
Josh Hueco
Anyone seen BOB the past couple days? Just wondering.
lilysmom
@deekaa6: I am so sorry. Peace to you and your wife.
Cain
@Notorious P.A.T.:
It was a convertible, a projectile could have done it. You probably wouldn’t be able to escape as easily is the only difference but that doesn’t invalidate my statement.
cain
asiangrrlMN
@deekaa6: Thank you for sharing your poignant story today. I am sorry for you and your wife’s loss. I wish the people on the far right would try to understand what Dr. Tiller really did, as opposed to what they think he did.
Josh Hueco, he’s been put in a timeout for a bit. Enjoy it while you can.
@Cain: I don’t have cable. Never have, most likely never will.
As for the gun thing, it’s a hell of a lot easier to kill with a gun than with anything else, and a lot more impersonal, too. Any coward can kill with a gun.
KG
I know I shouldn’t feed the trolls, I know… but seriously, @ 142: actually, a decent argument can be made that abortion, or more properly the Right to Privacy under which it is currently categorized is within the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court (in very convoluted writing, even for a lawyer such as myself) said as much when it referred to the Ninth Amendment – you know, that one that specifically says, that the first Eight Amendments are not an all inclusive list. As for the First Amendment, yes, hate speech is protected. But you know what isn’t? Speech that incites unlawful acts, including violence – it’s called, if I’m remembering my constitutional law properly, the Clear and Present Danger Doctrine. Just like you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater when there is, in fact, no fire, you can’t get up and give a speech calling for the murder of people, or the violent overthrow of government. That is not now, nor has it ever been, protected speech. As for the Second Amendment, I’m pretty sure that the right to keep and bear arms does not extend so far as to allow for the murder of individuals.
South of I-10
@Laura W: It just infuriates me. Like your friend (and mine) weren’t suffering enough. They must be subjected to the ideologies and views of others, who have absolutely no understanding of the situation, but feel free to judge anyway. It is a fucked up world.
LD50
We’re through the looking glass here, WEQ.
South of I-10
@deekaa6: I am so sorry for your loss. That must have been heartbreaking.
Martin
Worked with racism and sexism. It’s working with the anti-gay set and the anti-Muslim attitudes. The violence that has resulted since it became generally unacceptable to voice those views on TV is considerably lower than it was before then. Sure, it still happens, but there’s no question that the violence levels go down when society steps up and says ‘this is simply unacceptable’.
To Tonal Crow: I’m not suggesting laws, rather social pressure. Organized social pressure, mind you, but nothing that hasn’t worked in the past. If O’Reilly wants to go on TV and suggest that doctors following the law are murderers, he’s welcome to do it, but we should make it clear to Fox’s advertisers and management that we won’t put up with that shit. We should make it socially intolerable to voice those views. That’s not a first amendment issue.
Ash Can
@deekaa6: Many thanks for sharing your invaluable story. I can’t begin to imagine how difficult that experience was for you and your wife, or how difficult it must have been for you to recount it here. All the best to you both.
TenguPhule
$50 says that anti-abortion leaders use the murder for their fundraising.
Any takers?
TenguPhule
And this is why all Anti-abortionists need to be treated as Taliban-lite.
Wile E. Quixote
@jcricket
When my father was a child he decided to have some fun one day by sitting in his bedroom and yelling, as loudly as possible “No, please, please don’t beat me, please don’t beat me. No, please stop” with the window open. My grandmother was working in her garden and heard all of this commotion and went inside and gave my Dad a very thorough spanking because she didn’t want him to be a liar. It was the last time that my Dad did this sort of thing.
I want the right to shit themselves they’ve whipped themselves into a frenzy with their paranoia about liberals well Hell, I think it’s time that we started to really give them something to be paranoid about. If they start getting pissy about it we need merely point out the fact that the majority of political violence in the United States comes from the right, with prominent recent examples such as Eric Rudolph, the TVUUC shooter, Oklahoma City and Richard Poplawski and that therefore the American right cannot be trusted and has to be watched. If Saletan and Broder have problems with this, well fuck ’em, who cares if Saletan and Broder get all apoplectic, they’re nothing more than a couple of pathetic screaming fauxtrage queens anyways.
Martin
About the same likelihood that I’d get any takers on this:
$50 says that Rush spends 3 hours tomorrow defending the community who supported this with no fewer than 30 utterances of “Now, I’m not defending what this guy did, but…”
K. Grant
I believe that bfredson was offering the ‘thoughts’ of your typical anti-abortion zealot, not his/her own. I recognize the soul-destroying aspect of this heinous crime, but let us not allow ourselves to react without thought.
Of course, if I am mistaken, and bfredson was serious, well, then, I have nothing but pity for such a thoughtlessly cruel person.
TenguPhule
Guns are designed so that any idiot can murder someone without much more training then point and shoot.
Anyone trying to claim a car or knife is more dangerous when it comes to killing others is a fucking idiot.
Fern
I live in a country in which, if a broadcaster had aired the kind of things the OReilly and Rush spew, they would have had their licenses yanked. And I don’t see how that is such a bad thing.
omen
@KG:
you can’t get up and give a speech calling for the murder of people, or the violent overthrow of government.
i don’t know about the violent part, but doesn’t the declaration of independence argue we have the right to overthrow government?
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
[…]
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
LD50
@TenguPhule: In case I wasn’t clear enough, this is the point I was trying to make in #198.
That said, I don’t believe the Warren Commission’s ‘magic knife’ theory, with that knife passing through Connally before it hit JFK.
Svensker
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Awww, come on. Just a weensy little bit of collateral damage? Take out a house or two? Really, I don’t see why we can bomb the crap out of neighborhoods in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan for harboring terrorists, but we can’t do it in the blonde neighborhoods at home. It would be so interesting to see how Fox reporters would handle the difference.
dslak
@omen: The Declaration of Independence is not a legally binding document for anyone now living. The Founders appreciated both the role that violent revolution had played in winning their freedom and how it could easily undermine any government if not kept in check.
Even Jefferson, in his less passionate moments, recognized that regular elections were sufficient to fulfill the conditions set out in the Declaration, even if such a move sounds far less poetic than his words promoting a nation of rugged and self-rulling individuals.
TenguPhule
@LD50
Yes, I know. Got to the thread a little late this morning.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
First of all, a big fuck you to bfredson. If you’re a spoof, fuck you for being so un-funny and for having such poor taste. If you’re not a spoof, fuck you for being a demented sociopath who exults that some coward murdered a man in a church.
Unfortunately, we can’t shut the nuts up. The Supreme Court has ruled on this one in the past, and there’s a big difference between Asshole bfredson advocating murder on a blog, and Criminally-Liable Accomplice Asshole bfredson advocating murder in the car with the murderer, as Dr. Tiller walks up the sidewalk to the church.
For those who want to understand that difference, I recommend reading Brandenburg v. Ohio, a unanimous 1969 opinion that upheld the right of the KKK to be hopelessly repugnant assholes as long as they weren’t inciting imminent violence. Here’s the text of that opinion:
“The appellant, a leader of a Ku Klux Klan group, was convicted under the Ohio Criminal Syndicalism statute for “advocat[ing] . . . the duty, necessity, or propriety [395 U.S. 444, 445] of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform” and for “voluntarily assembl[ing] with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. 2923.13. He was fined $1,000 and sentenced to one to 10 years’ imprisonment. The appellant challenged the constitutionality of the criminal syndicalism statute under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, but the intermediate appellate court of Ohio affirmed his conviction without opinion. The Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed his appeal, sua sponte, “for the reason that no substantial constitutional question exists herein.” It did not file an opinion or explain its conclusions. Appeal was taken to this Court, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 393 U.S. 948 (1968). We reverse.
“The record shows that a man, identified at trial as the appellant, telephoned an announcer-reporter on the staff of a Cincinnati television station and invited him to come to a Ku Klux Klan “rally” to be held at a farm in Hamilton County. With the cooperation of the organizers, the reporter and a cameraman attended the meeting and filmed the events. Portions of the films were later broadcast on the local station and on a national network.
“The prosecution’s case rested on the films and on testimony identifying the appellant as the person who communicated with the reporter and who spoke at the rally. The State also introduced into evidence several articles appearing in the film, including a pistol, a rifle, a shotgun, ammunition, a Bible, and a red hood worn by the speaker in the films.
“One film showed 12 hooded figures, some of whom carried firearms. They were gathered around a large wooden cross, which they burned. No one was present [395 U.S. 444, 446] other than the participants and the newsmen who made the film. Most of the words uttered during the scene were incomprehensible when the film was projected, but scattered phrases could be understood that were derogatory of Negroes and, in one instance, of Jews. 1 Another scene on the same film showed the appellant, in Klan regalia, making a speech. The speech, in full, was as follows:
“This is an organizers’ meeting. We have had quite a few members here today which are – we have hundreds, hundreds of members throughout the State of Ohio. I can quote from a newspaper clipping from the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch, five weeks ago Sunday morning. The Klan has more members in the State of Ohio than does any other organization. We’re not a revengent organization, but if our President, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it’s possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.
“We are marching on Congress July the Fourth, four hundred thousand strong. From there we are dividing into two groups, one group to march on St. Augustine, Florida, the other group to march into Mississippi. Thank you.” [395 U.S. 444, 447]
“The second film showed six hooded figures one of whom, later identified as the appellant, repeated a speech very similar to that recorded on the first film. The reference to the possibility of “revengeance” was omitted and one sentence was added: “Personally, I believe the nigger should be returned to Africa, the Jew returned to Israel.” Though some of the figures in the films carried weapons, the speaker did not.
“The Ohio Criminal Syndicalism Statute was enacted in 1919. From 1917 to 1920, identical or quite similar laws were adopted by 20 States and two territories. E. Dowell, A History of Criminal Syndicalism Legislation in the United States 21 (1939). In 1927, this Court sustained the constitutionality of California’s Criminal Syndicalism Act, Cal. Penal Code 11400-11402, the text of which is quite similar to that of the laws of Ohio. Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927). The Court upheld the statute on the ground that, without more, “advocating” violent means to effect political and economic change involves such danger to the security of the State that the State may outlaw it. Cf. Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U.S. 380 (1927). But Whitney has been thoroughly discredited by later decisions. See Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 , at 507 (1951). These later decisions have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. 2 As we [395 U.S. 444, 448] said in Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290, 297 -298 (1961), “the mere abstract teaching . . . of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action.” See also Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U.S. 242, 259 -261 (1937); Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 134 (1966). A statute which fails to draw this distinction impermissibly intrudes upon the freedoms guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It sweeps within its condemnation speech which our Constitution has immunized from governmental control. Cf. Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957); De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 (1937); Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359 (1931). See also United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589 (1967); Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U.S. 11 (1966); Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500 (1964); Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360 (1964).
“Measured by this test, Ohio’s Criminal Syndicalism Act cannot be sustained. The Act punishes persons who “advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety” of violence “as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform”; or who publish or circulate or display any book or paper containing such advocacy; or who “justify” the commission of violent acts “with intent to exemplify, spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal syndicalism”; or who “voluntarily assemble” with a group formed “to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.” Neither the indictment nor the trial judge’s instructions to the jury in any way refined the statute’s bald definition of the crime [395 U.S. 444, 449] in terms of mere advocacy not distinguished from incitement to imminent lawless action.
“Accordingly, we are here confronted with a statute which, by its own words and as applied, purports to punish mere advocacy and to forbid, on pain of criminal punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate the described type of action. Such a statute falls within the condemnation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The contrary teaching of Whitney v. California, supra, cannot be supported, and that decision is therefore overruled.”
(emphasis added)
There you have it. People have the First Amendment right to be assholes. Other assholes may draw solace (and potential target lists) from their assholitude, but if I listen to Bill O’Reilly this morning, and decide to go out and shoot an abortion provider this afternoon, I have all day to realize what an asshole I am, and to stop myself. Bill O’Reilly’s not criminally liable for my actions, and there’s no direct incitement to imminent acts of violence. If American democracy survived permitting shithead Klansmen the right to speak their vile, depraved minds, even while criminalizing their conduct of blowing up churches full of little black girls and torturing 14-year-olds to death for whistling at white women, it can survive doing the same thing now for a new generation of sociopaths.
Asshole right-wingers will always be among us, and I want them as loud as they can be. I want their comments aired to the world. I want the bastard who murdered Dr, Tiller to be the face of the pro-life movement. The reaction to this insanity will be deafening. We beat these people with more speech, not by muzzling their speech. They don’t get the glory of becoming an underground movement. They don’t get to become the martyrs of this moment.
Brachiator
@Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s:
Actually, I’m wondering whether some conservative will argue that if people were allowed to carry concealed firearms, then someone may have got to the shooter before he had a chance to shoot the doctor.
LD50
@TenguPhule: No prob.
Svensker
@deekaa6:
Deepest sympathies. And thank you for putting a human face on this story for us.
Tonal Crow
@Martin:
I wholeheartedly agree. It’s our 1st Amendment right to protest and boycott the haters, and we should exercise it.
omen
@dslak:
seems to be the pattern that whatever new regime siezes power nullifies whatever illegalities they’ve committed to get there.
Zuzu's Petals
@Svensker:
Got it….any excuse to bullshit will do.
geg6
deekaa6: I’m so sorry for your and your wife’s loss. Also, thank you for witnessing the good works and great compassion of Dr. Tiller, a true hero.
KG
@ omen: well, technically, the Declaration of Independence didn’t call for violence against the British. It has been called (and by the FSM, I wish I could take credit for this) the most eloquent “fuck you” in human history. One could argue, rather persuasively, I think, that the War of Independence (or whatever the in vogue name is these days) was started by the British. The language “to alter or abolish it” lends itself to political change, I think, not the violent overthrow of government (and a means of altering or abolishing the system was provided for in the Constitution through Amendments or Convention). But then again, Jefferson supported the rather bloody French Revolution, so maybe he did think that way (side note: Jefferson, despite the brilliance, was effing crazy).
All that said, moving beyond the Constitution and into the arena of natural law, one could argue that the violent overthrow of government is sometimes warranted – particularly when you’re talking about despots (benevolent or otherwise). But as your quote points out “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
Still, as a matter of constitutional law, calling for the violent overthrow of government: not protected. Calling for impeachment, or the election of new officials, or (in the case of States that allow it) recall: all protected. Hell, even calling for the abolition of the current constitution is protected. But calling for it by violent means is absolutely unprotected speech.
auntieeminaz
@The Grand Panjandrum: Al Giordano’s essay is excellent. Motivated me to contribute to his Fund for Authentic Journalism.
KG
@240: I’ll put $20 on Instapundit in that pool.
dmv
@dslak:
There’s also the whole notion that small pockets of people do not possess the right to overthrow their government. The Declaration doesn’t contain the seeds of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Declaration was the Declaration of Independence of the colonies as a whole, not of Virginia and New York and Massachussetts. The Founders were cautious about the tyranny of the majority (see: judicial review), but they also had a philosophical defense against a tyranny of the super-minority: the right of revolution.
Anyway, we already settled this question to a large degree. The South lost.
TenguPhule
But no right to use public airwaves to broadcast it to everyone else.
Time to chop-chop the radio and tv shit.
Wile E. Quixote
@LD50
Uh dude, that was sarcasm on my part. But it brings up a somewhat relevant point. When you read about Lee Harvey Oswald, Gerald Posner’s book Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK has an excellent biography of him, you realize just how much of a useless, crazy fuck-up he was, just like Richard Poplawski, Eric Rudolph, the TVUUC shooter and probably the suspect in the Tiller case. And like Poplawski he was a huge momma’s boy.
someguy
@ Jcricket
No shit. Time for a RICO prosecution of the RNC, Fox, Rush, Hannity, and pretty much every right wing nutbag advocacy group you can find. Maybe you can’t convict, but you can damn sure legal bill them them to death so that they can no longer afford a podium to spread their swill.
dmv
@TenguPhule: @Martin:
$50 says that pro-choice leaders use the murder for their fundraising.
The political class is pretty equally slimy with such things.
PaulW
Dear Right Wingnuts:
who are you gonna shoot when you run out of doctors?
who are you gonna shoot when you run out of Unitarians?
who are you gonna shoot when you run out of cops?
who are you gonna shoot when you find out that it wasn’t liberals and blacks and puerto ricans keeping you down, it was the rich fat white guys sitting in their radio booths urging you to kill other people?
Don’t sit there, Wingnuts, crying like you’re the victims in all this, that it’s not your fault your fellow Wingnuts are going around armed to the elevens, that the big mean libruls are to blame for your violence and hate. It’s not the libruls pulling the trigger. It’s not the Unitarians painting bullseyes on their shirts. It’s not the doctors and the cops going about doing their jobs trying to bring order to a chaotic universe. It’s you pulling the trigger. It’s you painting bullseyes on everyone. It’s you shooting up schools and clinics and churches and offices and homes.
Goddamn you, Wingnuts. Goddamn you all to Hell.
LD50
Uh dude, I know.
Josh Hueco
Um, no.
dslak
@omen: Yes, I think this goes back to the very notion of a state as an entity with a legitimate monopoly on violence. Whoever has a monopoly on violence is also duty-bound to prevent the infliction of violence upon others. That means that violent solutions to political problems are no longer acceptable.
LD50
Disagree. Anti-abortion leaders will spend 2-3 days making statements beginning with “We don’t condone violence in any way, but you have to admit…”, then they will simply never mention it again.
Randall Terry’s a loon, but I don’t see him taking out ads saying “We shoot abortionists now! Donate money!”
Zuzu's Petals
Looks like they already have someone in custody:
CNN
TenguPhule
You must be new here.
asiangrrlMN
@LD50: They’ve already started to say that they hope the left doesn’t use this for political reasons, which means they are using it themselves in the same way.
My heart is very heavy today.
Here is what Randall Terry did say. Pretty reprehensible.
http://lafiga.firedoglake.com/crooksandliars.com/
LD50
@TenguPhule: Not that new.
Seriously, while I have no illusions about RT’s true feelings about this shooting, they still have to pretend in public that they oppose violence.
If there’s counterevidence for my claim here, give me a link.
South of I-10
@asiangrrlMN: Beat me to it. They are already trying to turn it around. Makes me sick.
Bad Horse's Filly
@deekaa6: Thank you for sharing your story. I’m so sorry you and your wife had to go through that. I cannot imagine the heart break.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@TenguPhule:
Viewpoint-based regulation is going to be a tough hurdle. Political speech enjoys the highest protections of the First Amendment, and unless there’s some Supreme Court precedent I’m unaware of that said it’s fine to let Political View X be broadcast, but not Political View Y (and if there is such an opinion, I’d really like to see it- it’d be contradicting the language of about a dozen other Supreme Court opinions I’m aware of), I don’t see the Court upholding any statute that does it this time.
And I wouldn’t want the Court to uphold such a law, even if Congress were stupid enough to pass it and Obama were stupid enough to sign it. (Thereby driving hate speech underground, giving it more power, and overshadowing a murder by making the ideological compatriots of the murderer feel like the Constitutional martyrs.)
If we pass a law today that says Bill O’Reilly can’t call abortionists murderers on the air, then someday, when/if the GOP is back in power, they’ll be passing laws saying that anti-war protestors and “traitors” can’t air their views on the air. Viewpoint-based restrictions on political speech are probably going to be pretty much always unConstitutional, maybe barring some compelling emergency with consequences to national survival.
LD50
That’s completely predictable CYA bullshit, to weasel out of any responsibility. The militia movement came up with precisely the same kind of butthurt after the OK City bombing, whining about how awful it was that the government was going to PERSECUTE the noble, patriotic militia movement, just because of one mass murder. Yeah gee, that the government should react to terrorist movements by trying to, you know, control them.
GregB
Randall Terry says that the left will use this killing to intimidate the right.
What a brilliant logistician.
-G
bago
I skipped comments 40 through 200. However I saw a disturbing undercurrent of people that wanted to curtail hate speech. As someone who has had a bunch of friends killed by a right-wing nutjob, I don’t want hate-speech curtailed. I want it out there in the open, so everybody can see it. I want it bandied about so that the evidence is there to apply prejudice upon these people when they start with their smallest of crimes. Don’t criminalize speech, criminalize crimes. Just let speech be a determinant factor when sentencing. If the jackhole who blew away my friends had gotten a 5 year sentence for shooting up the town in Montana before he shot up my friends, my friends might still be alive. Instead it was a boys will be boys type affair in old montana, and 6 undeserving souls are taking dirt naps now.
Seriously, anyone who fucks up even once with lethal force needs to have the book throw at them.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@LD50:
Yeah, it’s predictable, reprehensible bullshit. Sometimes, it’s even loopier. I remember shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing, a friend of mine whose Dad was a right-wing redneck showed me something he’d seen in his Dad’s issue of “Soldier of Fortune.” It was a picture of Timothy McVeigh, and next to it was a picture of an FBI agent who looked similar to McVeigh. The implication the article made was that they might actually be the same person (wink, wink). In other words, the government bombed its own building, and arrested, tried, convicted, and executed its own federal agent, just for an excuse to crack down on decent, hard-working Americans who happened to belong to right-wing extremist groups.
prospero
burnspbesq wins the prize. Even if they do actually catch the dude, he’ll end up with a light sentence and a book deal. I know the dreamy black dude with the funny name was elected, but no matter how many times he says “Change” that doesn’t mean much has changed. It’s Chinatown, kids. Deal with it.
gwangung
Bet yer ass, we will, Terry. We will intimidate yer ass NOT TO USE VIOLENCE, YOU TWIT!
LD50
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: See my comments in #90, about Freepers blaming this on a ‘lib’ trying to make antiabortionists look bad. Absolutely nothing’s changed.
Martin
Nope. This guy will be tried in a federal court, likely far from Wichita. He’ll be charged with violating the “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act”. Maximum penalty for killing an abortion worker is life imprisonment, and the feds aren’t real fond of parole.
celticdragon
@deekaa6
I am so very sorry. Thank you for sharing your insight.
Best wishes
AnneMarie
Wile E. Quixote
Well, a projectile did do it, a 160 grain projectile fired from a 6.5x52mm Carcano rifle. What do they call those things again? Oh yeah, they call them “guns”.
Yes, theoretically if Oswald had a keen eye and incredible throwing arm, a throwing arm so incredible that had he possessed it he would have fighting off offers from every MLB and NFL team in the country, he could have theoretically gotten close enough to JFK’s convertible to quickly pull out a knife, throw it at JFK and hit him, causing a fatal wound.
In theory Oswald also could have killed JFK with a pea-shooter. If he had a keen eye and incredible lung capacity, lung capacity so incredible that had he possessed it he would have been (OK, my analogy is breaking down here, can someone help me out? Fighting off offers from people who needed to rapidly inflate large quantities of party balloons?), he could have gone to the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository and killed Kennedy and wounded John Connolly with nothing more than a straw and a handful of dried peas.
Hell, in theory if Oswald had had a keen eye, an incredibly huge and mightily turgid johnson and a set of testicles to match; a johnson and set of testicles so incredible that had he possessed them (I’m not going any further with this. In fact I’ve probably gone too far already.), and unmatched control over the mighty ejaculatory powers that this Überjohnson bestowed upon him he could have masturbated and ejaculated so furiously and copiously that his semen would not only have killed JFK and wounded John Connolly but also would have ricocheted into Jackie’s womb and impregnated her, with octuplets!
Dude, I’m a gun nut. I first went shooting when I was six years old. I spent 13 years in the Army, I have not one, but two gun safes in my basement, but even with all of my mighty gun-nut cred I still find your statement completely and totally ridiculous and I find the idea that someone who made such a silly statement might actually own firearms to be absolutely appalling.
It is easier to kill someone with a gun than it is with a knife, and please, spare me any hypothetical situations because they are nothing more than a farrago of ignorant nonsense. Arguments created by idiots, full of sound and fury and signifying only ignorance and stupidity. When I was in the Army my personal weapons were a .45 pistol and an M-3 grease gun, the Army did not issue me a knife (Although I carried a Swiss Army knife with me so I could open cans, and get the corks out of any wine bottles I came across in the field.). I was a crewman and later commander on an M60 and M1 tank. Both vehicles had as their main armament a M68E2 105mm main gun, not some sort of huge catapult designed to throw sharp pointy things at the enemy, just the BFG M68E2 and a couple of machine guns. Cops don’t carry knives (unless they have a Swiss Army knife in their pocket so they can use the corkscrew on any bottles of wine they might come across) they carry guns.
Do I have to keep reiterating this? These nutjobs choose guns because they’re cowardly fuckups and it’s a lot easier for a cowardly fuckup to kill someone with a gun than it is for a cowardly fuckup to get close enough to someone to use a knife on them.
Cain
@TenguPhule:
If you read what I said, I said there is no defense against pre-meditative murder. Obviously, a gun is easier to use than a knife, car or whatever. I’m just saying banning guns is just falls into the rhetoric that the right wants to use to gin things up.
A knife is just as dangerous as a gun in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.
cain
Cain
@LD50:
Ha, I thought he was talking about me!
cain
LD50
I can see the Warren Commission’s gotten to you, too.
DougJ
Justice delayed is justice denied. That 45 million Americans have to wait another year to get health insurance because David Broder hasn’t been institutionalized yet bothers me.
Brachiator
@auntieeminaz:
Agreed. I just made a contribution as well.
Bill E Pilgrim
The news itself is horrifying but the Free Republic thread was astonishing. The gist seems to be “Oh great, now they’ll use this against us”.
Er, yeah, the fact that one of your hypocritical wingnut “right to life” nutjobs has just mudered a human being might be used to condemn such things, good thinking there Sherlock.
They were some advocating it openly right in that random sampling of Freepers, for Pete’s sake.
“Great, now they’ll blame us just cause we condone murder and egged him on! Sheesh!”
Ay yi yi.
Zuzu's Petals
@prospero:
Every single time an abortion doctor or worker has been murdered, the perpetrator has been tried, convicted, and sent to prison for life or executed. That last happened in Florida, under state, not federal, law.
Cain
@Wile E. Quixote:
Dude, I didn’t bring up JFK, it wasn’t even my example for fuck’s sake. Somebody else bought a hypothetical and just reacted to that. Jeez. And no, I don’t own guns, I have no use for guns.
cain
Wile E. Quixote
LD50
Yeah, no kidding. Remember how the wingers wanted the government to come down hard on Muslims after 9/11. Not islamic terrorist groups but any muslim, anywhere. Remember how much they shit themselves about Al Jezeera and called it a terrorist news network? Imagine how they would have reacted if the head of the Taliban had said “What Al Qaeda did is horrible but we hope that the US Government doesn’t use their actions as an excuse to go after us” or if the Saudi “charities” that were pumping money into Al Qaeda said the same thing.
We need to start going after these bastards the same way we went after the mob and the Klan. I want Randall Terry and the right to be intimidated. I want them to live in fear because that’s the only thing that will keep the bastards in check, it’s not as if we can reason with them and rely upon their self-restraint. But if we say to them, “if you cross this line society will land on you like a ton of bricks and hammer you so badly that you will think that your god has turned his back on you” and back it up then we should be able to keep them in line.
LD50
When he is, I think he should be made to pay for it himself.
asiangrrlMN
@Cain: True. Unfortunately, most of the people who kill with guns wouldn’t have the guts (no pun intended) for hand-to-hand combat. That is MY point. Guns make it far too easy for little shits to kill. Then again, I am a DFH who deplores the lack of gun control laws in America and the fact that places in my state have to have signs that ban the carrying of guns rather than signs that say guns are welcomed.
I am so goddamn sick and tired of this.
@bago: I would agree with you if I thought it would do a hill of beans to get the shit out there. Most of these perps are surrounded by people who know full well that their friend/family member/etc. isn’t right in the head or is full of rage, hatred, etc., but who won’t do a damn thing.
In fact, Dr. Tiller’s local community considered HIM the criminal.
Still. I don’t see how Janet Jackson’s boob can get a fine from the FCC, but the filth that Limbaugh, et. al spew can’t get fined, too. Or at least fact-checked.
Everyone wants his or her rights. With those rights come responsibilities.
Still, in the end, I would come down on the side of letting them say their sick shit. I just wish they would get called on it more often.
Oh, and bago, I’m really sorry about your friends.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Ash:
I call BS on this one. Your chances of being gunned down by some insane person in Europe are infinitely smaller than in the US. Not just terrorism but general gun crime, random or not.
Of course there are other huge considerations about the “moving to Europe” fantasy that I often want to warn people about, it’s a much bigger deal than most people realize, and mild disaffection with the US isn’t nearly a good enough reason to weather all the changes it will involve culturally and otherwise.
However the idea that there are an equal percentage of crazies ready to blast away with guns is simply not true, something the other poster probably knows with family in Holland.
The fact is that Americans are subject to gun deaths at horrific, epidemic levels.
DennisR
I wonder if the assassin is affiliated with the Army of God, aka the American Taliban.
Beauzeaux
Any bets on which right-wing gasbag will claim the culprit was liberal and did this only to make the right look bad? Someone is going to make this claim sooner or later.
Sasha
Here’s the sad thing: Although the comments are unusually appalling . . . are they in any way surprising?
bago
@asiangrrlMN: It’s not so much about getting the shit out there, but rather that initial incidences are treated with deference because the context is not applied properly the first time around. If someone kills a puppy, that is bad. If someone kills a puppy while claiming all jews are dogs, you need to bring down the hammer quickly. Violence is bad. Hate speech is not so bad. As soon as you combine violence and hate speech though, the badness is exponential.
My math works like this:
Hate speech is bad but not criminal.
Violence is bad and criminal.
Hate speech AND violence is one step away from a lot of people dying. Nip that shit in the bud.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Beauzeaux:
Direct from that Freeper thread, one of the first comments:
No matter how much you try to anticipate their paranoid, reality-twisting insanity, they’ll always be there ahead of you.
dmv
@bago:
I’m not sure I understand what result you think should follow.
I mean, hate speech that incites violence is not protected speech, right? (I confess, I’m not taking a 1st Amendment course until the Fall.)
asiangrrlMN
@bago: Yeah, I see what you’re saying. It’s not going to happen, though, not as long as we refuse to see patterns in behavior and some such shit.
Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in right now, but I don’t think we’re putting a stop to this kind of thing any time soon.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@dmv:
Actually, it is, provided it’s not incitement to imminent acts of violence. The difference my First Amendment professor gave was the difference between the KKK advocating genocide on a KKK ranch where everyone present was a KKK member, and a KKK guy saying the same thing at 3 am next to a black guy’s house. Same speech, different likelihood of imminent violence, no First Amendment protection, criminal liability.
Pasquinade
Suspect identified as Scott Roeder
Democratic Underground has been busy doing research on him.
* Identified as associated with Randall Terry’s Operation Rescue
* 1996) Scott Roeder, 38, of Silver Lake, Kan., was arrested in Topeka and held on charges of criminal use of explosives, driving with a suspended license and failure to carry registration and insurance.
Check out the threads: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=389
LD50
Fixed.
dmv
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Right, I was sort of assuming imminence in the notion of incitement (in my head), insofar as I was imagining that the speech has to proximately cause the violence (and under the facts you gave as examples, proximate causation would be tenuous at best, unless the black guy’s house was across the cow pasture or something.)
Fail at explicating my assumptions. :)
[And I guess I’m using proximate causation a bit loosely, too, insofar as it’s not clear how speech can strictly cause another person to do something. As oppose to, you know, inciting them to do something. :P]
LD50
DKos has a post up on Roeder, too:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/31/737335/-Tiller-Murder-Suspect-was-Bomb-Maker,-Tax-Protester
An excerpt:
PeakVT
Infinitely, no. Substantially, yes.
bago
@dmv: It’s not about incitation. It’s about the fact that killers tend to start small and work their way up.
b-psycho
Anyone else notice that some of the Freepers in those comments are claiming a “librul” did this, and invoking the Reichstag fire?
LD50
Yeah, looks like a moonbat to me (from 1996):
(http://www.the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=12019)
burnspbesq
@prospero:
A prize I would much rather not have, if it’s all the same to everyone.
I’d like to see this bastard tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in a Federal Supermax. Haul him out one day a year, under heavy guard, and make him the guest of honor at the annual meeting of NARAL, where members can pelt him with rotten tomatoes upon payment of a large contribution.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@dmv:
Yeah. It would depend on the facts. If it’s a case where a mob is gathered to firebomb somebody and lynch them, and you give an inciting speech beforehand, your speech is not protected by the First Amendment.
In the instant case, Bill O’Reilly’s not going to be in any trouble, unless it turns out that Bill O’Reilly was sitting in the guy’s car, urging him to walk into that church and gun that man down.
I think “cooling time” is going to be a factor in incitement. If the target’s right there, there’s less time for peoples’ passion to cool down, and for their reason to sway them not to commit the criminal act. If we’re next to the kind of person I’m urging you to kill, it’s different than if we’re 500 miles away; if you have 500 miles of travel time to calm down, cool down, and think it over, you assume greater responsibility for your actions, and I lose liability for my part in inspiring you to acts of violence you should have been able to talk yourself out of. (Obviously, if there’s a criminal conspiracy to commit murder, that’s a little different. If I tell you to travel 500 miles and gun this person down, I’m still an accomplice. But if I say all abortionists should die, and you then kill an abortionist a week later, I’m not going to be responsible. You had a week for your brain to take over, and it didn’t.)
To think of it by way of inverse analogy, consider the “fighting words” doctrine. If I burned an American flag at Ground Zero on 9/12/01, I’d be criminally liable for “inciting” violence against myself. Those around me who saw what I was doing would be so aroused and impassioned that they probably couldn’t resist the urge to do physical violence to me. (They’d be criminally liable too, mind you, but I’d get charged with disturbing the peace, at least.) On the other hand, if I posted a Youtube video of myself burning an American flag, and someone came all the way up to my house just to beat the crap out of me or kill me, I doubt I’d be criminally liable for that attack. The guy has a week to calm down, but instead, he used that time to plan to get me. That’s cold-blooded violence, not the violence of thoughtless passion.
I hope that helps make the distinction a little better. That’s how it’s been explained to me, anyway.
omen
wow….somebody is suggesting the murderer was a “post-abortive” victim.
http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2009/05/from-priests-for-life-statement-on.html
Bill E Pilgrim
@PeakVT:
Okay I can’t stand behind “infinite” in a literal sense, no ;)
It’s interesting though, that one chart you linked to is misleading IMO, only in that it shows stats like “0.0279271 per 1,000” people (US rate) versus “0.00534117 per 1,000”, (Switzerland) which makes for only a slightly wider faint green bar, which is largely because the scale is shrunk to fit South Africa, Columbia, and Thailand which are so huge. France, where I live, is too small a figure to get on that chart.
These represent enormous differences however, far more than “substantial” I’d argue, if not reaching to infinity.
For instance:
That’s a huge difference, some 10,801 versus 1,260, in a somewhat comparable population. By most estimates when literal population figures are weighted, our gun death rate in the US is a multiple of between five and six times that of Europe. Someone those lists of numbers don’t get that across.
Left Coast Tom
@Zuzu’s Petals:
I heard about Dr. Tiller’s murder on the radio while driving back from Oregon, and had the same thought.
prospero
Zuzu’s Petals:
If that’s the way it happens, I owe you a dollar. It’s a wager I’d love to lose.
PurpleGirl
I googled the name of Dr. Tiller’s church and found that Reformation Lutheran Church is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. That means it is a moderate to liberal congregation. The synod (ELCA) was formed by the merger of three moderate/liberal Lutheran groups after the Missouri Synod schism of the 1980s.
Alice
@deekaa6 – thank you, and my condolences. I grieve for Dr. Tiller and his family because any person’s death is horrible, but I wept when I thought of another family in your situation being without recourse due to this horrible tragedy.
The world is a smaller, darker, less beautiful place after his death, but people who are brave enough to share their stories as you’re doing will keep making it better.
tc125231
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Punk David
If abortion is not murder, then what is it? Does it not kill a human being? I’m not sure of the logic of not calling something what it actually is. What are you trying to hide?
Well, until each and everyone of you on here starts to consider yourselves more than merely “walking genitals”, women will seek an easy way out, through the murder of a child, to solve a problem rooted in their (and their partner’s) irresponsibility.
Are you all quite comfortable with admitting you have no control over your sexual urges? That is rather sad and pathetic. It is akin to admitting that you are little more than animals.
As far as Pro-Life groups are concerned, they never have and never will promote murder, as murder is the realm of pro-abortion groups. This man murdered a child killer, and is no better than him for it. George Tiller was a human being, and had every much a right to life as the children he killed, or the women he maimed. He had well-known drug and emotional problems in dealing with his line of work. He deserved compassion and help, not death. Stop associating real Pro-Life people with the likes of pro-death individuals such as this cowardly killer.
If you want to stop abortion, promote responsible sex. We can CHOOSE not to have sex until we are ready to accept a baby. It really isn’t that hard. The best sex is sex without fear, reservation, or contraception with someone you truly love. But it isn’t the end all, be all of life. Quite the contrary, it is but one small aspect of it. Unfortunately, our society glorifies it into something much more than it actually is.
Punk David
Also, if abortion is not murder, then what is it? Does it not involve the killing of a human being? I am not sure of the logic of calling something by some other name than what it is. What are you trying to hide? Who are you trying to kid?
Punk David
That was a pathetic article. Think hard about what your saying. You would rather save money than save a person. You consider money (in this case, taxes) to be more valuable than people. What if those people are you? What if they’re your parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends, lovers?
That is not a very compassionate social view on your part, and as a leftist, it shows a sad reality that the peace and people loving movement of the sixties has been destroyed by money hungry power seekers.
Wow, money instead of lives. How very fascist of you.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Punk David:
Highly debatable on a theological and scientific level whether a fetus constitutes a human being, a person. Some say yes, some say no. Your absolutist position is not universally shared.
So now your misogyny justifies shooting a man dead in church somehow?
As opposed to the heroes who kill an old man in a church. Thanks for clearing that up, you fucking asshole.
Stop producing people who shoot doctors, and we’ll stop conflating you fuckos with them. You don’t see death penalty opponents shooting prison wardens; why is it that the pro-life movement has so many trigger-happy bastards affiliated with it?
The thought of anyone, ever, having sex with you fills me with revulsion.
You’re right. Society’s values are out of whack. They ought to take more cues from your side of the aisle, where the people who shoot doctors in churches and bomb abortion clinics come from. That’s where the real respect for life comes from, from folks who cry “murder” for years, then wring their hands when someone who’s swallowed their rhetoric takes action on it.
Punk David
Oops, you screwed up.
First, it is not a matter of theology or philosophy. Read a biology text. Human life begins at conception, genius.
Children understand this, where did you go wrong. It is biology, and nothing else. To not understand that is to claim that gravity does not exist.
Second, the only mysogynists are those who damage women and make money off of them. And there supporters such as yourself.
Third. your debating skills involving insults shows that you are in the wrong, and you know it, but do not want to admit it. I feel sorry for you.
Fourth, Pro Life groups do not produce killers anymore than vegan groups produce killers and vandals who destroy academic labs. Your simple and flawed logic is getting you into trouble here. You’re wrong, pure and simple. Being Pro Life has nothing to do with killing people. That is the work of pro abortion people.
Fifth, yet another insult on your part. I would guess that you are a very hateful person. I am not. I feel sorry for you and hope that you seek help. A fulfilling sex life and relationship is a joyful thing. Please find one.
Sixth, once again, I do not associate with terrorists and murderers. Never said I did. You are discriminating and stereotyping, akin to racists and bigots. Do you really want to be like racists and bigots? Think before you speak. It helps.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Punk David:
You’re right. Feeding your inane troll was a big mistake.
Human life begins at birth, I say. If you want to talk about the fertilization of an egg, that’s not necessarily the same thing. We could be even sillier than you, of course, and argue that life begins at cellular meiosis (“every sperm is sacred”), but I think you’ve already hanged yourself with the rope you’ve been given. You don’t need any more.
Children who go to Catholic Church are taught this. Other religions have different traditions.
As opposed to people like you, who think women shouldn’t have any autonomy over their own bodies. Nothing shows respect for someone like not letting them make decisions about their own physical beings. Tell me, should we repeal womens’ suffrage while we’re at it? Abortion is an inevitable consequence of letting the womenfolk get the vote.
I couldn’t care less, you fucking asshole. You’re pissing on the grave of a murdered man. How will you justify yourself in front of God?
There’s a dead man whose blood is on Operation Rescue’s hands. His blood is on your movement’s hands. How will you justify this to God?
Bears repeating: The thought of anyone, ever, having sex with you is completely revolting.
Your movement has blood on its hands. Your inability to admit this says volumes about your lack of honesty and your lack of genuine morality. Fuck off, and troll somewhere else.
synykyl
… Pro Life groups do not produce killers anymore than vegan groups produce killers and vandals who destroy academic labs …
Yes they do.
Punk David
So, you weren’t alive before you were born? That is so insanely incorrect, it is like believing that the sun is made of extremely shiny cheese. It is simple biology. You had a heartbeat long before you were born. You move, you sleep, you suck your thumb, etc.
But apparently, you were dead for 9 months and then miraculously became alive. Wow. That must have been something. Strangely enough, absolutely NO biologists or physicians would agree with you. Ever. You’re wrong, yet again.
As far as your other stuff, and your constant insults, that is sad and error-filled. This man is not my friend, nor part of my movement. We don’t kill people, and he did. Do you associate blacks who kill whites as part of Martin Luther King’s movement? Really? That is very sad. Martin Luther King himself would say how very WRONG you are. You are filled with hate and rage here, and needlessly so. Please, take a breath.
Do you really want to be a stereotyping bigot? Because you are acting as one. Please stop, for you are only hurting yourself. May God have mercy on you.
Punk David
syn…no they don’t.
I guess by your logic, the world produces killers. You are a part of the world, so you’re guilty too.
That is so flawed on your part, it almost is difficult to even try to address. Do you really believe that?
The civil rights movement produced killers. By your logic, the civil rights movement was terrible and should have been destroyed. That, of course, is ridiculous.
Please, stop. You’re only hurting liberalism.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Punk David:
For purposes of personhood, no, I was not alive during those 9 months.
And you’re an apologist for a cadre of murderers. So who’s in the position to claim moral superiority, here?
He’s part of your movement. Your unwillingness to claim responsibility for the monsters your hyperbole creates only showcases your utter moral bankruptcy.
Fuck yourself sideways, with a stick. You piss on a murdered man’s grave with every lie that you utter.
You’re the shittiest troll ever. Go do it somewhere else.
deepseas
The right always needs something to hate
Racism against blacks is not popular these days. Racism against hispanics IS acceptable to these idiots, but not really helping their cause. So hating gays and choice advocates is in vogue. These dinosaur-brained fools actually hate themselves, but don’t have the guts to acknowledge it.
Once the fools understand the right is using their hatred to advance their power/money/war agenda, these murders and the ignorance will end so this country can heal itself and move forward.
I am angry with our politicians who do nothing to stop the incestuous/incendiary right-wing media from the critical damage they do to us all.
Punk David
More insults. No truth mind you, nor debate. Just insults.
I am afraid there is no talking or communicating with you. That makes me sad, Obama sad, and other liberal peace-loving people sad as well.
The fact that you do not believe you were alive during those 9 months is the saddest, and most erroneous, part. Do you think your mother and father thought that as well? Did your mother, thinking you weren’t really a person, go ahead and abuse alcohol, drugs, and routinely abuse her womb while you were in there? Did your father abuse your mother during her pregnancy with you?
OR did they treat you with the utmost care. Nurtured you through caring for your mother, her health, her nutrition, her comfort? Did they love you before you were even born, so much that they would have been devastated to lose you?
Think about this when you speak ill of me. You can speak ill of me, but think about your mother ,your father, you in the womb and all of the love there. Think about how amazing it is that you’re even alive! I do not hate you ,but I do not ask that you like me. Just think about this next time you think about abortion, or when rage fills you.
I hate the murder of George Tiller too, but I do not hate abortionists. They are lost and misguided ,but it is not too late to help them change there ways. Many have, but this man did not get the chance. And that is a tragedy.
Peace be with you, and may God’s light shine upon you sometime in your life. Please be open to it.
synykyl
I guess by your logic, the world produces killers.
By my logic, your suggestion that vegan organizations have a record of violence that is comparable to anti-abortion organizations is laughable.
Do the math Punk David. And while you’re at it, do some biology too.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Punk David:
There’s nothing to debate, asshole. I’m not going to argue your fucking religion with you.
And Baby Jesus too. Go fuck yourself.
I was not a human being. Thanks for being too stupid to even read. Fucking troll. Piss off.
A feeling you’ll never know, since you’d have to have sex before you could have kids.
I’d rather not think about you at all. Life was much more pleasant before you entered it.
Just kill a few more of them, and the rest will be too terrorized to leave their houses- that’s the Operation Rescue plan, isn’t it?
Take your shitty concern troll routine somewhere else. It’s a big blogosphere.
Mayken
Wow! Punk David is at least living up to part of his name – “punk” as he is certainly showing himself to be an inexperienced young man from a rebellious counterculture. Not so much with the “David” part, as he is certainly far from “beloved.”
grendelkhan
@Punk David: Look, some of us believe that partially-formed fetuses with rudimentary-at-best mental functionality are morally equivalent to sapient human beings, and some of us don’t. Some of us believe that this question is irrelevant, since because it’s not going on inside of my body, it’s none of my fucking business.
These are axioms; if you have one set and I have another, we’re not going to convince each other, because these are points we’re both reasoning from, not to. Simply restating your position in ever more florid terms doesn’t make you clever, and it certainly doesn’t make you right. It does, however, make you a fool. A persistent fool, but a fool nonetheless. Taking the time to defend terrorism while you’re at it makes you a monstrously insensitive jerk, as well.
To add a bit of dark levity to this grim news, I think I’ll quote Sloth, author of comment #9 on the first PDF.
I think this is the sort of divorced-from-reality loopiness that makes absolutely no sense unless you’re submerged to the gills in the alternate universe that these folks inhabit, where there’s a clear axis of liberalism pointing straight to the gay abortion. Like the “where’s the birth certificate” billboards, but even less coherent.
TenguPhule
By putting them on assassination hit lists, terrorizing their staff and patients and suing them under false pretenses to try and shut them down.
In the old days, Christ’s love for many people meant burning people alive and torturing them for the sake of their souls.
Today, the methods have changed, but the spirit remains the same.
demer
If you think this and the other recent incidents of Right Wing extremism is bad then just wait cuz it’s going to get worse.
Less we forget – McVeigh came home from the Gulf and it took a few years for his fanaticism to grow into the Okie bombing. We got a lot of guys that will be coming home over the next few years who will be bringing their combat training and experiences (which far surpasses Timothy’s) with them.
binzinerator
@Punk David:
If you’ve got something other than theology or philosophy that proves an ovum becomes a human being at the moment of fertilization, give it. If you’ve got anything other than your own religious beliefs that can tell us exactly at any point a zygote becomes a human being, give it.
This it the internet. You can link to your scientific evidence. I await your citation of JAMA.
And by-the-by, why is it that what goes on inside someone else’s body is your business anyways? Or did you magically find an excuse for that in that biology text too?
Or is it that your religion or philosophy insists that every woman’s body — and therefore her deepest personal beliefs — ought to be subjugated to your own beliefs as if it were your own body? Sure seems like it to me.
And why is it always womens’ bodies you fundies obsess so much over? I really believe it’s true, that if men got pregnant abortion would be a sacrament.
Say, you got any scripture where Jesus rails against abortion? Or points out the sins of people who provide abortions? There’s scripture to justify everything from torture to killing gays to stoning disobedient children. Surely Jesus has some especially powerful words against abortion. Surely the Old Testament has some dire consequence that should be done unto such a woman who has one. I mean, it’s just gotta be fucking way more important than taking care of the poor and eschewing worldly possessions right?
But I’m glad you’re posting your fundie bullshit. Everyone here gets to see your magical thinking and the fundie need to control other peoples’ beliefs and bodies.
You got the right to make your own reproductive choices with your own body — everything from sex to contraception to abortion. You don’t have any fucking right to force what other people do with theirs.
flannel
Oh well, Dr. Tiller is with Tookie now.
binzinerator
@Punk David:
Oh no you don’t you fundie asshole. Your religious beliefs are not the world’s arbiter of when human life begins. For people like you a fertilized egg is a human being. And old man in a church, not so much.
Ah, the so-called “pro-life” people. Where their aching love and fanatical concern for life begins at conception — and dies at birth.
If you people had even a tenth of the empathy for those who by any religion of the world are recognized as real live breathing human beings — you know, that state of existence that every one on the planet calls ‘living’ which occurs after being born — then this world would have far far fewer people dying from hunger, from lack of basic human needs like clean water and medical care, from disease and war.
Nothing could ever encapsulate the fucked up values of this terrorist movement than the shooting of a real, live and breathing old man in his own church because he offended your movement’s narrow religious sensibilities of what life is supposed to be.
codalion
I don’t have much to say here, save to echo the commenters who have noted the movement’s culpability for driving people like this to violence and the general disgusting tastelessness of people who’ve been immediately responding to a man’s murder with “but what if the liberals use this against us!”
However, I would like to note that Scruffy McSnufflepuff is fucking hilarious and I would like to hire them to fend off any future trolls. I pay in sexual favors and/or Monopoly money.
codalion
I don’t have much to say here, save to echo the commenters who have noted the movement’s culpability for driving people like this to violence and the general disgusting tastelessness of people who’ve been immediately responding to a man’s murder with “but what if the liberals use this against us!”
However, I would like to note that Scruffy McSnufflepuss is fucking hilarious and I would like to hire them to fend off any future trolls. I pay in sexual favors and/or Monopoly money.
van
Randall Terry is a murderer palin and simple. These people are the sickest and most fucked. Maybe someone will shoot them.
van
Randall Terry is a murderer. Maybe someone should shoot him and o’reilly
hobby
Bye Bye tiller…have a nice trip
4AllLife
Would you care to have some thoughts from a pro-lifer?
I’m truly horrified at what happened to Tiller, and that’s not just lip-service. I do believe abortion is killing, but that wrong is not rectified by killing abortionists. That only compounds the tragedy. I don’t even support the death penalty by legal means, and for someone to take the law into his own hands, acting as judge, jury, and executioner, is inexcusable.
It’s a fine line to walk, being pro-life. If we try to soft-pedal or pretty up the reality of abortion, we’re being less than truthful. Yet some of the stronger language that is used may be taken by disturbed individuals as a call to violence.
For whatever it’s worth, I do not consider myself a conservative. I can’t stand Rush, and find Billo’s rants over the top most of the time. Even when I agree with them, I simply can’t separate the argument from the tone in which it is made. In fact, save for this one issue, I could be a straight-ticket Democrat without batting an eye. As it is, each election is a struggle. For the record, I voted for Obama, after months of indecision. A president cannot stop abortion. He can stop torture. And I found the idea of an impulsive (Sarah PALIN??) hothead like McCain with his finger on the button gave me cold chills. This puts me at odds, politically, with many of my friends much of the time, as they tend to be more conservative. Still, they are, without exception, gentle people who do not condone vigilante justice.
I don’t believe all pro-choice folks are bloodthirsty monsters. I was one myself for many years. I do believe they are wrong. But violence won’t fix that. So please, do those of us on the other side of this issue the same courtesy by not lumping us together with people who bomb abortion clinics and gun people down in church.
Signed,
A pro-life liberal