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I want to explain my absence from these pages, in the midst of the on-going abortion debate with SLB and while very exciting political issues surround us.
About 10 days ago, I was exceptionally careless and tripped over a threshold into our home. The result: A broken knee cap, a stay in a rehab center (with limited internet access), little patience to read and an anticipated 6 or 8 weeks of therapy.
I hope to return to the fray as soon as I return home in a week or two.
I posted the following comment earlier today. It appears that both parties have expressed their respective viewpoints.
There are no winners or losers here. But I would appreciate the Orble community's reactions.
SL and I are just about winding down our debate. When the last question is asked and answered, sometime next week, I have a suggestion and a request.
Anyone who feels that he or she is more in agreement with me, why not post a comment to that effect on her blog. By the same token, if you feel that I am wrong or missing basic points, post your comments here.
Nothing is more pointless than just hearing from those in agreement!
I do not know if SL will agree but it seems to have interesting possibilities.
Within the past weeks, two murders took place. In Little Rock, Arkansas, William Long was killed outside of an Army recruiting office, allegedly by an American convert to Islam, 23 year old Abdulhakim Muhammad. Mr. Muhammad reportedly said that the shooting was a general and vague war protest and police initially have reported that the shooter had acted alone.
While it may end up otherwise, the killing of Private Long does not appear to be part of a group religious conspiracy but rather the act of a deranged criminal. Nonetheless, the killing was inexcusable and the murderer needs to be punished in accordance with the law.
On May 31st, while standing in the foyer of his Wichita church, serving as an usher and distributing bulletins, Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder an unstable drifter who found a home on the extremist right, joining a militia group that refused to pay taxes and allegedly posting comments on antiabortion websites likening Dr. Tiller to the infamous Nazi Josef Mengele.
Immediately the far Right complained that media coverage of Dr. Tillers murder was far more extensive than that of Private Long, thus equating the two. I do not dispute the different amounts of coverage but the murder of Dr. Tiller seems more newsworthy.
The killing of the soldier in Little Rock was a criminal act supported by no political group in this country; it was inexcusable and, as far as I am aware, no one has posed any conceivable excuse or politically based defense. On the other hand, many on the right have stretched facts in order to provide some justification for Mr. Roeder.
Most disturbing is that for years religious leaders, many in the media and. influential members of the anti-abortion have set the stage for violence.
To their credit, some of these same religious leaders have acknowledged the responsibility they bear, the harm that comes from referring to opponents in pejorative terms and how that kind of talk is not only counter-productive but can incite violence by the weak and unsophisticated. Others still deny the repeated calls to violence, calls to which Mr. Roeder responded. The efforts some on the far Right is illustrated by the following excerpt of a comment on these pages where motives are discussed:
Tiller was a Baby Killer, Jim. He murdered over 60,000 babies that could have survived outside the mother. He was a monster. There is no excuse for what he did.
That being said, the man who shot him may have had motives that we don't yet know. Perhaps Tiller murdered his grandchild or perhaps his granddaughter lost her mind after Tiller killed her baby. Until we know the motivations, I'm willing to wait to condemn the shooter.
Notice, if you will, the killing of Dr. Tiller is probably wrong, but. . . he may have had a granddaughter, his hypothetical granddaughter may have become pregnant, that hypothetical granddaughter who may have become pregnant may have had a late-term abortion, she may have traveled to Wichita, she may have voluntarily gone to Dr. Tillers clinic where the doctor may have legally performed a legal procedure. So its possibly excusable to kill Dr. Tiller. There is always, but.
There is a fiction going around that the pro-choice and anti-abortion-at-all-costs groups are two equally extreme positions, and that rational answers exist in the middle, where everybody disapproves of abortion except when they want one for themselves or someone they care about.
There's only one set of extremists here, the one that uses language like "baby killer," " Nazi," "murderer," and "death mill," kidnaps and murders providers and clinic workers, burns and bombs clinics and drives cars into them, posts pictures of clinic workers and their families on the internet, and harasses patients on their way to get care.
Bret McAtee, a well known and popular Michigan pastor made a statement regarding Dr. Tillers murder:
Somehow when the end came for Dr. George Mengle Tiller the setting of his death was altogether appropriate. Tiller had spent his life serving as the high priest in the sanctuary of humanism for decades, bringing murder, death and torture to tens of thousands in his abortuary [sic]. In turn, when Tiller was murdered Sunday, God returned him the favor as Tiller was murdered as he stood in Gods house. The irony shouldnt be lost on us it seems that even God operates with an eye for an eye ethic.
But I also know joy. Not the shallow type of joy but a deep resonating joy. I feel joy that no longer will this wicked man slay the judicially innocent. I feel joy because justice, albeit of a rough variety, was visited on someone who so thoroughly opposed a culture of life and who worked so assiduously to spread the culture of death. I know joy because the truth of Scripture that those who take up the sword shall die by the sword is seen as authoritative. I know joy because I know that no longer will Dr. Tiller be sucking out the brains of people, or torturing people with saline or dismembering people in utero. How could a sane person not feel joy at the death of a mass murderer and a terrorist?
To their credit, some religious leaders and people strongly opposed to the work if George Tiller (which after all was legal and sanctioned by Kansas law) have acknowledged that hate speech is inexcusable. Frank Schaeffer, a long time evangelical on the Right, along with his late father, assumes responsibility and guilt:
Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which -- when taken seriously -- lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.
When evangelicals on the right call President Obama a socialist, a racist, anti-American, an abortionist, not a real American, and, echoing the former Vice President, someone who is weakening America's defenses and making us less safe, the logical conclusion is violence. If you take these words literally you might pull the trigger to "make America safe" and/or free us from communism or to even protect us from -- what some "Christian" leaders claim -- Obama as the Antichrist.
The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as "murderers." And today once again the "pro-life" leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for performing abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.
I am very sorry.
And so am I.
I really am not certain of the significance of the far Rights, Foxs and a few others fixation on the Presidents faith. Normally, we take a persons word on the specific Deity to whom one chooses to pray or even the absence of such a Deity.
Certainly, many of President Obamas critics, including those at this site who cannot even bear to write his name (now, thats hatred!) claim to be members of the Clergy and Christian; I take them at their word. If the President says that he is a Christian that ends the irrelevant question. This does not mean that I agree with all of the tenets of that faith, and I do not. But the issue of his being Christian is settled
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I am posting this to let the 7 people in the world who, if they do not actually agree totally with me on all issues, political, economic and social, are at least prepared to hear me out.
Starting next week, SL and I will be engaged in a debate-discussion. Damo is going to moderate and keep us honest
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In a previous post, I suggested that the way to best challenge and defeat terrorists would be to use well established and experienced civilian law enforcement agencies to investigate, arrest, prosecute, and, if appropriate, punish and incarcerate those convicted through the regular judicial system.
Almost ten years ago, the United States General Accounting Office published a report studying the manner in which Canada, France, Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom addressed the issues. Certainly, no one can doubt that the United Kingdom has had years of terrorist acts by the I.R.A. and Israel has been under the threat of imminent attacks from the day it was established
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Several years ago, I wrote of our proclivity to use the term war when we really mean focusing our resources to address a societal problem. Thus we have had a war on poverty, a war against drugs, a war against inflation and others. These are not real wars in the conventional sense; no one seriously expects to totally eradicate drugs or poverty, for example but there is no real harm in using the term.
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The preceding piece was written by Nevar who is going to post occasional material to this site. I welcomed him in a comment appended to his article but I think that the occasion deserves special attention.
My comment was
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A fellow-Orble writer has requested to become a member-participant on poliicalcertainty. The email link sent to me doesnn't work but his name is in the "settings" but noy on the side pane. Any suggestions? Jon?
Not that anyone is likely to notice, it having been suggested that there may be six or seven misguided people, at most, who read my scribbles, but I am posting less and less on Orble and closing to write on and for Examiner and Worldblogosphere. In addition to the fact that they, or at least the former, pay far more, attempts that I have made to engage in dialogue with those opposed to my views have been totally rebuffed.
I am willing to take responsibility for this and accept that my inability to convince anyone to address issues and not engage in ad hominem attacks is the cause of this failure
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Comment by Jim Stillman
on The debate has run its course
Political Certainty