Discussion for article #231453
Boy, that was a lot of words to make a pretty simple point: The guy who shot the abortion doc was directly involved in the anti-abortion movement, so it was an act of political terrorism. Meanwhile, the guy who shot the NYPD officers was not involved in the protest movement and had a troubled history, so it was the act of a lone nut.
Even simpler translation: Donât blame our side, weâre the good guys.
What I find to be most dispiriting about this debate is an unwillingness on both sides to address objective facts. How can you possibly know whether Brinsley was influenced by some of the heated, false rhetoric some of the protesters are throwing around?
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The award for that move goes to Jesse Walker at Reason, who draws a false equivalence between Brinsleyâs actions and those of rightwing terrorist Scott Roeder, who killed abortion provider George Tiller in 2009. âResponsibility for a crime lies with the criminal,â he says, suggesting that people who point to incendiary rhetoric that precedes a bout of violence will create a situation where âwe arenât supposed to criticize anyone at all.â
I just clicked on the link to Jesse Walkerâs article and read it. The mention of Scott Roeder plays a very small role in an article that is far better written, reasoned and argued than this one.
For better or worse, we live in a society where people are allowed to engage in strong, even heated rhetoric, but are not allowed to commit a crime in furtherance of that rhetoric. People who canât grasp that distinction, regardless of political beliefs, deserve to be punished for their crimes.
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I think there are two recent events that make for better comparison. In June Jerad and Amanda Miller murdered two police offices and several other people in Las Vegas. They were at the Bundy ranch protests and were asked to leave because of conduct issues or perhaps because Jerad had a police record. The connection was reported across many news outlets but there wasnât any outrage that Bundy and the militias were responsible. Instead they were allowed to defend their actions and claim by asking Jerad and Amanda to leave it shows the militias were not responsible. No outrage on the right about the hatred from Bundy ranch. Second is the case of Eric Frein who claimed he was on a mission to kill cops and reclaim liberty. His obsession with war and guns. His notions of our liberty being taken are almost verbatim right wing talking points yet almost no politician who talks about resisting government tyranny is asked to comment on this.
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What rhetoric was false in Eric Garnerâs story? What was false rhetoric in Tamil Riceâs story? Is anyone defending this cop killer?
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As society continues to break down, income inequality expands and blatant injustices and the powerful go unpunished while the powerless get stopped and frisked, shaken down and tossed into jail for minor infractions I believe itâs inevitable that mentally unstable and even mentally stable people will turn to violence to fight back.
What will be interesting is to see how the state responds. Will they ease the bounds ever so slightly on the powerless? Will incomes finally be allowed to rise just enough to stave off anarchy? Will there be some powerful people forced to pay for their crimes?
Or will the trend in Ferguson continue? Legitimate gripes with government met with the military grade power of the state indiscriminately used against its own citizens. I hope not.
I tend to agree that this black manâs actions resemble many unstable white men that have come before. But the FEAR of the black man is so ingrained, it will be interesting to see the long term response. The reason that we had gun control in the first place was because of the fear of the Black Panthers.
Maybe the FEAR of more black men taking up arms and fighting back coupled with the FEAR of the populists will be enough to get the masters of the universe to make some concrete changes to forestall a further breakdown of society and government. I am doubtful, but self-interest can be redirected.
I was thinking specifically of âHands up, donât shoot,â which Iâve heard repeatedly referred to as fact even though based on actual evidence, itâs at best an open question whether that ever happened.
Most anti-choice people do not support what Roeder did, BUT many of these same people insist that abortion is murder. If you TRULY believe that, then what Roeder did is entirely logical. Of course any decent person would try to stop a murder if they had it in their power to do so! So yeah, I do believe that anti-choice people share complicity in Roederâs crimes. The more Randall Terry and his ilk chant âABORTION IS MURDERâ, the more they encourage anti-choice extremists to act on this belief.
funny how right-wing rhetoric about possessing firearms in order to resist government tyranny does not seem to apply to black folks outraged by police misconduct directed towards them. If everyone with a Gadsden flag on their car got stopped by the cops regularly for minor traffic violations, Iâm pretty sure quite a few of them would be feeling justified in shooting at cops too. Because liberty.
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There has never been a condemnation of the murderers of Dr. Tiller OR Dr. Slepian by the anti-choice terror groups. Not one word. They surrendered any kind of claim to the moral high ground (not to say they ever had one) by these defaults. Truth: the United States has experienced many incidences of right-wing terror, including the Millers in Nevada, and not one incidence of left-wing terror since the breakup of the SLA. Which was FORTY YEARS AGO.
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Who was telling him to shoot his ex? Was she an advocate of police oppression such that he had to shoot her in order to exact revenge for Garner? I suspect she was just another victim of Brinsleyâs diseased brain shouting at him from every angle.
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This article is awful, please read Walkerâs response: http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/23/amanda-marcotte-is-confused
If your argument is, âan unstable person killed someone and this political movement I dislike is responsibleâ, your argument is almost certainly bad regardless of circumstances. To draw another parallel, I hate Sarah Palin but the attempt to blame Loughner on the tea party was moronic.
It seems that the âresponsibility like with the criminalâ is a meme currently being employed by all your higher end right-wing commentators. It was used by the winger in the Tuesday LA Times to excuse such things as the Sara Palin website targeting certain Representatives with a mock hooters scope. . Perhaps it might be well to include in our discussion the greatest use of provocative speech in history:âWill no on rid me of this meddlesome priest?â- bellowed Henry ll. The Catholic church of the day, no stranger to such intrigue, found Henry culpable for the resulting death of the Archbishop. Words have consequences and movements have consequences and direct hints of violence and murder should be culpable as well as the criminal who actually does the dirty deed. In the case of the NY cop shooter. we see no direct involvement with the movement nor any invitation to violence. Perhaps the movement needs a non-violent leader to emphasize that point.
Whose letting the right-wingers off the hook besides themselves?
The fact that they constantly work on absolving themselves, proves that they know they have guilt and donât want it. See Dick Cheney for instance.
not one incidence of left-wing terror since the breakup of the SLA. Which was FORTY YEARS AGO.
sadly, there are quite a few wrong-wingers who will insist that Jared Loughner was a âfar left-wingerâ because he owned a copy of The Communist Manifesto.