Disturbing oped about Dr.Tiller's murder

That is not cool...Not sure who Megan Cardle is /what The Atlantic is but this person is basically using oped space to justify a terrorist act...a murder.
How is this ok?


http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/the_war_on_the_war_on_abortion.php

Let me start off, in the obligatory way, by announcing that I am pro-choice. I don't think abortions before, say, eight months are even arguably murder. Moreover, I don't think many other people believe it's murder, either, for all that they profess to. They mostly don't, for example, want fourteen year old girls who have abortions hauled off to lengthy juvie terms, which is what we'd do if they'd committed infanticide. They wouldn't turn their own daughters, sisters, or friends in if they found out they'd had an abortion, as I hope they would if said dear ones had murdered their own baby.

I don't think that this is an obviously crazy belief--I can see the argument for life beginning at conception. But ultimately I don't think it works, even for most people who profess it.

So. Now I can move onto the observation that if you actually think late-term abortion is murder, then the murder of Dr. Tiller makes total sense. Putting up touching anecdotes about people he's helped find adoptions, etc, doesn't change the fact that if you think late-term abortions are murder, the man was systematically butchering hundreds of human beings a year--indeed, not merely butchering them, but vivisecting them without anaesthetic. I'm sure many mass murderers have done any number of kind things over the course of their lives, to which the correct response, if you're trying to stop the murders, is "so?"


Wtf is wrong with this person?

...man...:wow:

:shrug:

What is wrong??? Too many drugs and on some sick shit when this was penned. Oh, scary thought: This person might be in the possession of a sharp object!

If they aren't some straight up con source, they need to be hearing about this tastless, insensitive oped.

You could, of course, have used google or the like to discover this.

Thanks for your consideration.

vampire on its front cover. That's when I dropped my subscription.

Too many drugs and on some sick shit when this was penned.

We already know what Oxy did to Rush!

some people cling to the belief that conservatism isnt' a mental illness.

Right-wing thinking produces a great need for mental health care.

Observing or describing the moral outlook of someone you disagree with does not constitute an endorsement of it.

:hi: from one who used to post on a NOLA board as "Ignatius J. Reilly"!

You obviously possess theology and geometry......

They aren't merely describing it..

And she isn't talking about someone merely disapproving of Dr.Tiller's acts and calling him a murderer or whatever. She is basically treating it as a rational/sane standpoint to act on their "moral" outlook to the extent of killing someone else.

If you read the whole article (or read it again) McArdle says that she believes the moral intuition she describes is incorrect and that that Tiller's death is murder.

As I say, I think their moral intuition is incorrect. The fact that conception and birth are the easiest bright lines to draw does not make either of them the correct one. Tiller's killer is a murderer, and whether or not he deserves the lengthy jail sentence he will get, society needs him in jail for its own protection.

are opposed to abortion don't believe abortion is murder, and everyone who is pro choice doesn't believe abortion is murder, either.

I don't know why that bugs the OP so much.

Maybe they will tell us?

Why are some people so vociferously opposed to *acknowledging* the mindset of those we disagree with? It's like pointing out that Freepers exist. Doesn't mean we agree with them.
:shrug:

That's the problem with religious beliefs which are the beliefs that drive the anti-choice side in their blood lust.

If you think having abortion is wrong, the only proper thing to do is to work to change the LAW.

Explaining the "moral" positions of these insane whackjobs is one thing. Forget even the fact that she doesn't see the inherent inconsistency of "pro-life" people participating in or cheering on murder.

But she doesn't seem to think it worthwhile to make the point that even if you believed he was a "murderer", you don't go vigilante and murder someone for performing a legal act. Her comparing this to someone stopping a church shooter is pathetically absurd.
This person is an idiot.

She's saying that they are quite sane, but that their sanity is grounded in a different basis than ours. It's a perfect example of "If A, then B" logic.

Our society functions on a different "A" than theirs. Not a different reality, you understand, but a different foundation.

It's very different from someone who sees winged blue lizards erupting from their children's mouths every time they speak and kills the children to prevent any more "demons" from entering the world. That person is not in touch with reality.

In our society, killing "in self defense" is acceptable and legal (if indeed it is proven in a court of law to have been "self defense"). Killing in the form of state-sponsored judicial execution is legal and acceptable by. . . some.

In the "society" in which Tiller's murderer operates/ed, killing "before he kills more innocent little potential babies" is also okay. The murder was therefore a rational act in a rational reality. Not insane, just. . . operating from a different viewpoint, one so different as to be unacceptable to most of us.

The author's premise is, If you see this act -- late term abortion or any abortion in fact -- as an act of murder, then killing the murderer is a rational and justifiable act.

This is no different, in fact, from the sentiment frequently voiced here on DU regarding child molesters and post-birth child killers. "Fry him" was the subject line of a post addressing the prefered fate of Tiller's killer. If the death penalty is an acceptable form of eliminating potential threats from the larger community, then someone who saw Tiller as a potential threat would also consider him/herself justified in killing him.

This is precisely why the hate-mongering of the O'Reillys and Newmans and Terrys is so dangerous. It provides sanctioned support for the view that people like Tiller are murderers and that society will best be served by removing them.

But it is also precisely why, in the opinion of the every humble :rofl: Tansy Gold, we progressives should never support the death penalty, not even for the most heinous crimes. Not for boosh or cheeeney or rumsfeld, not for anyone. The only way to eliminate the climate of hate that justifies acts like the murder of Dr. Tiller is to not buy into it at all.



Tansy Gold

She is really reaching. The thing is, in the real world, in our society "defense killing" is legal, but randomly killing everyone whose "values" don't fit your "morals" isn't.

She is basically making an argument that people would laugh out of the room if it were used justify say the Unabomber, ELF, ALF etc. Our society's underlying sentimentality when anything "baby related" comes up imo is the only reason this illogical nonsense is getting more of a pass.


Everybody can make up some internal argument for why their world view makes everyone else a criminal. But, the basic self-awareness to realize the your view point is not the only one when
living in a society strikes me as an essential component of normalcy or sanity.


The argument she is making is not particularly clever or new. It is a justification or explanation of the vigilante/terrorist mindset, but she does seem to think abortion is something extra special where you can make bs arguments that you couldn't if it were any other form of violence. Which is total bs.

She's attempting -- and in some obvious cases failing miserably -- to get us to understand the logic behind what someone like Tiller's murderer thinks is rational justification for their acts.

*WE* don't think it's justified, but he does; and while he's operating from a different persepctive that we are, he's not operating in a different reality.

Your own logic, and your writing, is faulty. "Killing everyone whose 'values' don't fit your 'morals'" is not, in fact, random at all. Random means there is no specific reason for killing them. They're just. . . . .random victims. *IF* on the other hand, the killer targets individuals who don't fit with his/her morals, then that is not random at all, but targeted and with a logic behind it, however perverse we may think that logic.

Sanity or insanity is based -- however subjective the judgment may be -- on one's connection to reality. The gunman in Wichita was not mentally divorced from reality. Tiller did perform abortions, including late-term abortions. That's reality. And some people, apparently/allegedly including the killer, consider abortion and maybe especially late-term abortion, to be murder. Again, that is a reality because it is an opinion. I don't consider it murder; they do. It's like saying daffodils are prettier than tulips. To some people daffodils are prettier; to some people tulips are. But there is no objective reality to decide the questions because it's a matter of individual perspective.

Some people see abortion as murder. Apparently the gunman did and that's why he killed the doctor.

There's no lapse in logic there. Is it perverted? Well, yeah, most of us here seem to think so. But if the killer wanted to stop what he considered to be the continuing murder of innocent little babies and felt that killing Tiller was a way to stop that, then he was operating in a perfectly rational, non-"whack-job" logic.

In contrast, let's say he went after the members of the church. He started shooting, um, randomly at the congregation during the first hymn. Is that kind of action likely to stop Tiller from performing more late-term abortions? No. In fact, it may -- MAY -- kill or seriously wound people whose views on abortion are very similar to the shooter's. So there's no logic in the random shooting of unspecified targets.

There IS, however, logic in taking out the abortionist.

And that, I believe, is what the author intended to present.

But I could be wrong. After all I am only



Tansy Gold

".. then it's appropriate to kill and butcher her."

You could justify any number of things with that approach.

a beef cow and kills and butchers her in jail for the rest of their lives.

Do you disagree?

So much is left out....

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As I say, I think their moral intuition is incorrect. The fact that conception and birth are the easiest bright lines to draw does not make either of them the correct one. Tiller's killer is a murderer, and whether or not he deserves the lengthy jail sentence he will get, society needs him in jail for its own protection.

Still, I am shocked to see so many liberals today saying that the correct response is, essentially, doubling down. Make the law more friendly to abortion! Show the fundies who's boss! You know what fixes terrorism? Bitch slap those bastards until they understand that we'll never compromise!

.....

Using the political system to stomp on radicalized fringes does not seem to be very effective in getting them to eschew violence. In fact, it seems to be a very good way of getting more violence. Possibly because those fringes have often turned to violence precisely because they feel that the political process has been closed off to them.

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Follow this idiot's line of reasoning to its obvious conclusion, people who work at slaughterhouses are fair game, too. "Now I can move onto the observation that if you actually think (insert your pet peeve here)is murder, then the murder of Dr. Tiller makes total sense."

"clubbing baby seals"
"working for FOX 'news'"
"deer hunting"
"using contraception"

Name your poison, and kill righteously! :sarcasm:

believed that.

Like all of this garbage:

We accept that when the law is powerless, people are entitled to kill in order to prevent other murders--had Tiller whipped out a gun at an elementary school, we would now be applauding his murderer's actions. In this case, the law was powerless because the law supported late-term abortions. Moreover, that law had been ruled outside the normal political process by the Supreme Court. If you think that someone is committing hundreds of gruesome murders a year, and that the law cannot touch him, what is the moral action? To shrug? Is that what you think of ordinary Germans who ignored Nazi crimes? Is it really much of an excuse to say that, well, most of your neighbors didn't seem to mind, so you concluded it must be all right? We are not morally required to obey an unjust law. In fact, when the death of innocents is involved, we are required to defy it.

... that at the two conflicting sides in the abortion rights debate are coming from two diametrically opposed world views--that probably can never truly "resolve their differences."

for non medical reasons.

I think she has her head up her ass and is a lying fuck.

Executing murderers is the duty of the state, not individuals. If a person kills another who has murdered, that person will, in turn, be charged with murder. The rule of law must apply -- arrest, try and convict people of murder, and dole out the punishment his/her peers deem fit. To do otherwise is to be uncivilized.

She is not merely explaining these dolts' POV. She is extending it to say that if you hold that POV, it is logical to become a vigilante and murder someone over it.

How many of us here feel strongly against some things sanctioned by law? I know I feel strongly about factor farming regulations because I don't think sentient living animals should be treated the way big Agra currently does. But, I also feel strongly the the way to do something about that is by lobbying congress, spreading awareness etc. Not by going ALF style and commiting acts of violence and destruction.

She chooses to ignore the clear diving line there between sanity and insanity, lawful protest v. taking the law into your own hands etc.

That's the point you're missing.

Here's logic for you.

Given: That cows are sacred animals and should be protected from all harm.
Therefore: Any person who harms cows is offending the gods and should be punished.
Therefore: Any person who kills cows is commiting an unpardonable offense against the gods and should be punished with death.
Therefore: Any person who kills a cow-murderer is performing an act of worship and such a killing is not murder but justifiable elimination of a religious abomination.

THE PERSON WHO BELIEVES THE ORIGINAL PREMISE ACTS LOGICALLY WHEN HE GOES INTO THE LOCAL SUPERMARKET WITH A SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPON AND MOWS DOWN EVERYONE WORKING IN THE MEAT DEPARTMENT.

He is not acting legally in the context of the greater society in which he lives, but he IS acting logically within his belief set and within an objective reality.

If you substitute the innocent little fetuses for the sacred cows, you SHOULD be able to see how logic is separate from legality, but still logical.


Tansy Gold, shaking her head

disturbingly.

Rather astounding for a supposed 'liberal' magazine. I wonder if it's been Freeped?