01 June 2009

couple things

let's all stare out at the terrorist

This point was interesting. "....a magazine that advocated the justifiable homicide position". If true, I'm not sure if that's actually protected free speech or not, to advocate violence. Not because I wouldn't argue that it is (annoying as that may be), but because there's some legal confusion.

"1993 shooting of Tiller". I saw a quote yesterday on google that indicated: The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance when we are in the majority." I'd say we can say, given the amount and consistency of threats to his person and business, who came out ahead on these tests. The supposed majority failed in its imposition toward tolerance. There are many who are suggesting now that this lone act does not or should not discredit pro-life movements. I disagree because this isn't a lone act. Violence toward abortion providers has been constant. There are very rational concerns that indicate an individual may not wish to have an abortion, and pro-life advocates should be permitted to lobby, even intensively, to prevent, limit, restrict, or even to ban abortions, and to protest at clinics that perform them. They should not be permitted to do so with violence and they have done so. In addition the rhetoric that has been used seems to foment and encourage violence further (as in the above case with "justifiable homicide").

This therefore does a great deal to discredit the entire movement simply because when a few members are willing to use violence to further their cause, it suggests there's a problem with the underlying movement. As an example, we shouldn't have to impose democratic rule through invasions and violent assaults on other nations, the merits of our cause should sell themselves and we can do what we can to do so further. But to use violence to create democracy? Similarly, when Islamist movements try to (and indeed, have to) use violence to impose sharia law and to suppress opposition, this doesn't bode well for their underlying demands. Despite what I might think of religious intolerance and practices, I have no problem if an individual wishes to use a particular, even a strict, interpretation of personal morals and conscience and impose it upon themselves. There's a big difference imposing such codes upon everyone else. It's a distinction that occurs within Christianist movements just as often, and a principle reason (based on recent studies) that many people have had something of a falling out with organized religions. I think most of us are content to live and let live, and to leave judgments of less serious matters to whatever higher authority we wish or at least, to allow people to learn of their mistakes and to present grievances where they occur to aid in this matter. There should be no quarrel that prevents people from lobbying a particular social construct or point of view. But they should be able to make that appeal without resorting to force and direct harm. There are occasions where this breaks down on the international scale and war breaks out, just as there are occasions where mayhem and murder occur on the individual level. But we must be careful to deny and to work against violent resolutions toward our civic disagreements just as diplomacy must work to resolve international disputes peacefully where possible.

I am not seeing a pre-existing attempt to suppress violence by ardent anti-abortionists within the remains of the pro-life constituency only a post event grief that may have set in with the understanding of the type of terrorist incident that their rhetoric has fomented.

""Freemen" was a term adopted by those who claimed sovereignty from government jurisdiction and operated under their own legal system, which they called common-law courts...." I think this is similar to the idea that Muslims would operate under their own distinct sharia courts in some countries of Europe. But they're still required to follow most civil laws, particular governing interactions with other people. Simply because your particular group condones a particular strain of violent behavior upon others (or each other) does not mean that the harms that it causes are non-existent and should not or cannot be punished by the society at large. And again, if you must resort to violence (in the case of Roeder, he appeared to be doing so with home-made pipe bombs as far back as 1996), then your case is appreciably weakened. Looking over the statements by those who knew him from various radical groups, even they appear to look at this as someone who was a red flag. And yet none of them stepped him aside to question his rhetoric or his penchant for violence to resolve a social discord? Or to publicly speak out against violence for doing so before this action? Not surprising. When people believe their cause is just anything is often seen as furthering the goals.

9 comments:

not undecided said...

Amen. It's frightening how staunch the pro-life movement is. This will not discourage them or even make them question the NAME of the movement, pro-life, and if it is damaged by its members' MURDERING people, let alone the real logic behind the issue. Helllooooo? I mean, I consider myself a feminist, but if my fellow feminists went around murdering men, even the chauvinistic retrofucker ones...I would no longer be calling myself a feminist.

Sun Tzu said...

There's some distinction in that the view of ultra-feminist or "ultra-chauvinistic retrofuckers" does not preclude the existence of the opposite sex, merely that there are significant problems with the perceived roles of the opposite sex or the demands of their opposite number and these can be rationally ameliorated through debates and facts to appeal to moderating forces in between the extremist points of views. Presumably, based on economic trends, this is a point of view war that the retrofuckers have been losing, rapidly.

Abortion "debates" by contrast have tended to focus solely on radicalization, at least on the pro-life end. I'm sure there are some radical views in defense of abortion rights as well that would be construed as unsatisfying but I'm not familiar with these. Similarly I'm not well versed in gay rights advocates that proclaim some sort of supremacy of homosexuality, in the same vein that might say there should be pre-positioned anti-choice points that require an abortion rather than merely permit one. There is nothing wrong with reaching an ethical opinion that having an abortion is wrong. The issue becomes whether that conclusion is subjective and cannot be imposed (but can be argued with others) or whether it derives from some presumed objective source (religion). That's the main objections to gay rights as well and the reason that there's little enough civil debate over something as intrinsic as marriage rights and discrimination therein. Fortunately at least, that battle appears to be changing. I have no such hopes for the moderation of abortion debates away from violence, even with a powerful social force of nature like Obama out there making moderating speeches. Indeed, the apparent disenfranchisement of the main proponents of "pro-life" positions makes violence like this all the more likely. Consider that the last assassination of an abortion doctor happened in 1998, when the Clinton administration held more or less the same declared positions on abortion as Obama has versus the more strident and radical positions of the Bush evangelical coalitions in imposing things like the Mexico City restrictions on government foreign aid work or the peculiar interest in hand-picked Iraqi leaders' positions on Roe v Wade. The future of the next couple years looks all the more bleak because of this.

not undecided said...

I see all your points, but I gotta hold out hope that you're wrong. Just on the last sentence. Though I can't argue with it. I'm hoping that Obama can just get re-elected. Then he won't have to worry so much about political strategy for his own job security and can balls-to-the-wall go after some of these nutjobs.

Bazarov said...

Has there ever been a woman that killed an abortion doctor? Just wondering. It always seems to be men, who I'm guessing, are horrible fathers themselves. I wonder how these people would react to someone who's actually pro-abortion.
I liked how he had a Jesus fish on his car, 'cause I know when I think Jesus, I think murder people.

Sun Tzu said...

1993, the previous attempt on Tiller's life. Was a woman who shot him. For reference's sake, there's also a Reverend and the Atlanta Olympic bomber. A couple of the bombings/arsonists were women as well. One who had had an abortion.

Those are merely American cases of such assaults to boot. But even within that relative sample the percentage of women doing such things is pretty low.

There's a Gaffigan skit where he goes "You know those people with almost the exact same beliefs as me. I want to kill them. Because my God's all about lovvvvvve." So yeah. The religious fundamentalist who kills people who don't believe exactly what they do makes a lot of sense.

Sun Tzu said...

I'm not that worried about Obama's re-election yet. Most of that will depend on the pocketbook more than anything else (like it always does).

If they wreck the economy by fixing it, not much else will matter (they probably being Congress more than Obama and his team; they've already damaged the stimulus bill, the carbon cap/trade bill, probably will screw up health care reforms, defense cuts and entitlement reforms [SS]).

But a clash of violence against abortion or homosexuals doesn't sound too implausible given that sort of theory. And I don't imagine that a crackdown would seriously affect his re-election campaign. Particularly if people start referring to such acts as domestic acts of terrorism (like they did with Eric Rudolph and his bombings back in the mid 90s).

not undecided said...

It IS domestic terrorism, isn't it?

Sun Tzu said...

I meant the media when I said "people". Rational people know terrorism (and for that matter torture) when they see it. But for some reason newspapers and TV news talking heads are reluctant to identify things as they are. This has the effect of not dissembling to the irrational folk that make up the vast majority of people the nature of things as they are.

not undecided said...

Gotchya. Yeah, I forgot to mention the torture porn thing in the comments on your other post. I saw Hostel almost on accident, not knowing what it was really going to be. Ye gads. My friend's psycho ex boyfriend gave it to us...which makes a bit of sense now that I think about it. Psycho fucker.