Wild Monkeys!

Since I much prefer LJ to FB, I'll repeat myself here: as in the revealing screenshot from Operation Rescue's site captured here -- apologetic platitudes go hand in hand with continuing vilification. In fact the more I hear mealy-mouthed hand-wringing the more I expect it to be completely self-serving and insincere. Is Homeland Security gonna hunt down the killer's "cell" and its hatred-spreading, violence-inciting "handlers"? Or will this be played off as the act of a lone criminal, miraculously unconnected with all the other attacks and harassment?

Tiller was a great man, and I have been going through waves of reaction all day.

As for his killers -- like you, I hold them all accountable -- I was a clinic escort in the 80s. I remember their so-called peaceful demonstrations.

I agree, and I would very much like to be able to convincingly argue that right-wing ideologues, like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and the whole "Operation Rescue" crowd, bear a good deal of the blame (if not criminal liability) for atrocities like this, by espousing dehumanizing rhetoric and fostering an ideological environment that encourages thinking of such acts as justified. I want to believe that the Left is different. We have our own fairly loopy ideologues, but to my knowledge, their own fringe elements don't commit murder (though they sometimes commit property crimes). Do they? Do you get people shooting, say, industrial polluters, or factory farm owners, or whatever? I haven't heard of any.

(The Right might argue that the Left encourages terrorist attacks by suggesting that we ought to consider the needs of Arabic societies, but this parallel is too dumb to be remarked on.)

I don't think any civil or criminal liability can be attached. We hold people responsible for their acts regardless of their ideology. But in a purely moral sense, you can't act all shocked when you announce 'Abortion is murder' or 'God hates gays' day and night, and one of your listeners goes and kills someone.

Vile, repulsive and exposes the utter hypocrisy of the professed intentions of organisations like OR. I share your rage. Unfortunately, it's also making me want to kill things...