Arkansas Blog

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
Isaiah 45:7

"I'll say this about fear. I never had much until I got crosswise with some concealed weapon fanatics." --- Max Brantley

There are at least two other groups whose antics justify fear on the part of us all: The Westboro Baptist Church anti-gay crowd and the pro-life extremists whose "beliefs" most likely triggered today's murder of Dr. Tiller.

Some will cheer, some will cry and life will go on. There is no change coming, we cannot change. So suck it up and live with it and expect more of the same. Half of us are nuts and there is no cure. I can perhaps understand better why Hitler built the death camps and built the ovens, though that give me no comfort. The bottom line is that nothing matters except your family and you're damn lucky if that unit holds together. Praise Jesus and pass the ammunition.

Hopefully events such as this will make Obama realize that the "anger can't be tamped down" and that he will renew his commitment for the passage of and his signing of FOCA. Appeasement of the religious right won't work to solve any of these issues.

DBI is right. Your family is all that matters. mine fell apart when I had that nasty flesh-eating bacteria a few years ago and nearly died, couldnt work for 3-4 months, etc. I miss them, my two wonderful sons. I want my life back, dammit. if not for my Wonder Dog, I would have gone insane a long, long time ago, at best.

I am sorry for the family and friends of the doctor in Wichita.

What a belief system! "All life is sacred . . . unless you disagree with me!"

One word. Terrorism.

Makes that report on those INTERNAL threats (from both right and left) a little bit prophetic.

Sympathies and thoughts to his friends and family.

From the Wichita Eagle

WICHITA - A suspect in this morning's fatal shooting of George Tiller is in custody in Johnson County.

Authorities have yet to release more information about the arrest in Gardner. Wichita police have scheduled a 4 p.m. news conference to discuss the case.

Tiller, 67, was shot just after 10 a.m. in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th, where he was a member of the congregation.

Tiller was serving as an usher at the church, one of six ushers listed in the church bulletin. He was handing out bulletins to people going into the sanctuary minutes before being shot.

Will the wingnuts EVER realize their open, displayed-too-often HATE has these consequences? And to think that DBI is right - "some will cheer." Wichita, KS - wouldn't you know. Right to LIFE?!!
|

If Google Books gave a more extensive excerpt, I would refer you to pages 35 and 45, in that order, of Jim Whitehead's "Near at Hand", but I cannot.

Is there an indication so far that this had anything to do with his job? I'm not implying that it didn't, I just haven't heard anything more than speculation that it did. Anybody got more details yet?

Art, after my mouth dropped in disbelief I googled "drive by shootings Wichita, KS" and found one
listed for the shooting of a child. That was 8 years ago in 2001.

I doubt they drive by a Sunday church meeting and pick out a random victim but perhaps there is room for reasonable doubt.

"National anti-abortion groups had long focused on Tiller, one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions."
40/29 News.

Aside from the fact that this shooter broke any number of laws of man, religion, and state. Aside from the fact this act of pure terrorism negates the shooter and all his cheerleaders argument/belief that they value life at all.

I can't help but wonder if what I saw on cspan last night .. a professor from Princeton, speaking on abortion... as shrill and angry as any neo nazi Baptist or Pentecost fire and brimstone preaching i have ever heard.. I wonder if the shooter was watching too, and that speech might have sparked this shooting today?

This shrinking but dangerous crowd, finds so much support for their mindless paranoid based hate in our country. they are taught to be terrorists, from the war on terror... be afraid and the best response is to let your fears make you the biggest cowardly bully in the world. They are taught that everyone is a likely terrorist.. even their own 'liberal' countrymen, but they never actually consider what terrorism means.. so they become one group of terrorists themselves. From cheering for and defending torture, all the way over to the current Supreme nominee ... and the fight against 'empathy' this week.

It's all connected, it's systemic.. and it's dangerous to us all far beyond what foreign terrorists could ever do, unless we let them... So far our own wingnuts have let them.. and today is one more tragic example.

Making the morning after pill readily available over the counter, and a push for educating the fertile public could do away with most abortion clinics across the nation. That's one way of removing a target from the wingnut's sight. Nothing will ever be 100% effective against unwanted pregnancies, and some people will simply be too uninformed to use the morning after pill. But that's the best chance I see for reducing doctor assisted abortions and giving the wingnuts nothing to do with their spare time. Better living through science!

"George Tiller was a Mass-Murderer, says Randall Terry -- We Grieve That he Did Not Have Time to Properly Prepare his Soul to Face God"

That's the headline to a short article on the following link (click on name). Notice how about one word of condolence and the rest were the familiar repeated words describing the victim as a murder. No comdemnation of the shooter. Just concern that this will be used politcally.

Supporter of terrorism if you ask me.

Forgot the damn link!

"Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good.... If a Christian voted for Clinton, he sinned against God. It's that simple.... Our goal is a Christian Nation... we have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want Pluralism. We want theocracy. Theocracy means God rules. I've got a hot flash. God rules."
-Randall Terry, Head of Operation Rescue, from The News Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Aug 15, 1993
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we will execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed... If we're going to have true reformation in America, it is because men once again, if I may use a worn out expression, have righteous testoserone flowing through their veins. They are not afraid of contempt for their contemporaries. They are not even here to get along. They are here to take over... Somebody like Susan Smith should be dead. She should be dead now. Some people will go, "Well how do you know God doesn't have a wonderful plan for her life?" He does, it's listed in the Bible. His plan for her is that she should be dead."

Randall Terry, Aug 8, 1995 U.S. Taxpayers Alliance Banquet in Washington DC, talking about doctors who perform abortions and volunteer escorts.

.

Bill O'Reilly often focused on Tiller, calling him "Tiller the baby killer."

Dear Mr. Terry,

". . . "When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we will execute you. . . ." Randall Terry, Aug 8, 1995 U.S. Taxpayers Alliance Banquet in Washington DC

God might forgive you for advocating murder, I shall not. Should the condition you describe ever arise, just stay where you are, you won't have to find me. I will find you.

I remember the time, must have been back in the 90's, when Operation Rescue, the fetus-worshippers, would converge on Wichita every summer. George Gardner, the empath who then ran College Hill United Methodist Church, made national news by warning his congregation that the nasties were hijacking the name of Jesus Christ. Sure enough.

The sainted Martha Genevieve, my mother, who may well have been the kindest human being to live in the 20th Century, and who had devoted the end of her life to College Hill, asked me why Wichita could not just call out the fire department and flush those rude strangers down the gutters.

Wichita had its dose of the BTK serial killer, church deacon and cub scout leader. Now that sweet little Kansas town has another lunatic to apologize for.

The fact that Randall Terry and those who take him seriously has not choked on his tongue is proof that God has a sense of irony that I cannot penetrate.

The suspect is Scott Roeder, who is apparently associated with Operation Rescue, and back in 2007 asked that people storm the doctor's church and raise hell.
Just another example of hateful, whacko nutjobs we have out there, flamed by the fires of Republcan, Faux news crazies who spew their hate on a daily basis.
It's sad that this murdering SOB will become a hero to the far rightwingers.

The suspect is Scott Roeder, who is apparently associated with Operation Rescue, and back in 2007 asked that people storm the doctor's church and raise hell.
Just another example of hateful, whacko nutjobs we have out there, flamed by the fires of Republcan, Faux news crazies who spew their hate on a daily basis.
It's sad that this murdering SOB will become a hero to the far rightwingers.

This act of violence has made me so deeply sad.
I can't figure out why.
I don't know the man and am pretty much past the age when I might be in need of his services, but the fact that there are now only 2 or 3 Doctors in this country who provide late term abortions to woman chills me to the bone.

I just feel so horribly sad for his family and all of those women who will have a need of his services in the future and may be forced to carry a doomed pregnancy to term, or deliver a child who will live for just a small bit of time in pain or, God forbid, die because there was no Doctor to perform a late term abortion.

Want to fight the fascists? Make them regret their terrorism by flooding Pro-Choice charities with contributions. When they learn that each of their extremist actions will result in millions of dollars to expand abortion providers in areas under-served, perhaps they'll choose more civilized tactics, purely out of frustration.
Do the clicky to find a few.

The link didn't take. Trying again.

I would describe myself as pro-life, and I am shocked and disgusted by the murder of Dr. Tiller. Resorting to violence runs in direct opposition to the pro-life cause; the man who took Tiller's life should be prosecuted to the highest extent of the law.

Well, gosh, Libertus, it really took some brass balls to say that. Doh!

Just stating fact. Sorry it bugs you.

I think what bugged Quapaw and bothers me is your timing. Where was your condemnation of the attempted murder of Dr. Tiller sixteen years ago? Where was your condemnation of Randall Terry and many others incitement to murder?

Since 1977 in the United States and Canada, there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers.

Where was your indignation and commitment to the sanctity of all life and obeying the law of our land when:

Dr. David Gunn of Pensacola, Florida was fatally shot during a protest. He had been the subject of wanted-style posters distributed by Operation Rescue in the summer of the year before.

Dr. John Britton and James Barrett, a clinic escort, were both shot to death outside of another facility in Pensacola..

Two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer who worked as a security guard at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, was killed when his workplace was bombed.

Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot to death at his home in Amherst, New York.

Dr. George Tiller was shot outside of an abortion facility in Wichita, Kansas.

June Barret was shot in the same attack which claimed the lives of James Barrett, her husband, and Dr. John Britton.

Five individuals were wounded in the same-day shootings which killed Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols.

Calvin Jackson of New Orleans, Louisiana was stabbed 15 times, losing 4 pints of blood.

Dr. David Gandell of Rochester, New York was injured by flying glass when a shot was fired through the window of his home.

Emily Lyons, a nurse, was severely injured in the bombing which also killed Robert Sanderson.

After the genuine 2001 anthrax attacks, hoax letters containing a white powder were mailed to 554 clinics.

An abortion clinic and two physicians' offices in Pensacola, Florida were bombed in the early morning of Christmas Day by a quartet of young people who later called the bombings "a gift to Jesus on his birthday."

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was set on fire.

A clinic in Concord, New Hampshire was burned by an arsonist.

A Catholic priest drove his car into the Northern Illinois Health Clinic after learning that the FDA had approved the drug RU-486. He pulled out an ax before being shot at by a security guard.

An unsolved bombing at a clinic in Tacoma, Washington destroyed a wall.

A clinic Palm Beach, Florida was the target of an arson.

A man and a woman threw a Molotov cocktail at a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana.

A Rochester Hills, Michigan man crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and then started a fire in the belief that the center was performing abortions, however Edgerton is not an abortion clinic.

A package left at a women's health clinic in Austin, Texas contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death. A bomb squad detonated the device after evacuating the building.

An unidentified person deliberately set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Two men were arrested for the arson of Dr. Curtis Boyd's clinic in Albuquerque. One of the men's girlfriend had scheduled an appointment for an abortion at the clinic. [25]

A man rammed a SUV into the front entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Your post, Libertus, seems timed very conveniently to assuage your conscience of your association with these terrorists.

I am a moderate, to you a liberal. I went to war and contributed to the death of many Vietnamese, Cambodian and probably some Chinese and Russian advisors; I support a woman's right to choice (abortion); I support the death penalty and I believed the war in Vietnam was wrong. However, from the first time that Vietnam war protests crossed into violence and murder, I loudly, repeatedly and longly supported our government in its attempts to apprehend, try and imprison and/or execute members of the Weatherman Underground, SLA and other radical groups that tried to couch their crimes in the cloak of "war protests," and condemned these terrorists and others who used terror tactics.

I am sick of hearing sympathy for the child murderer who catered to the rich and slaughtered innocent helpless children - killing someone innocent is murder. Killing someone who slaughters/murders innocent children is justice. The government, the police, the" law" would not stop Dr. Child Murderer, someone else had to. Dr. Child Murderer slaughtered children in the last couple of months of pregnancy, when those children could have certainly lived like you and I. It is easy to say that the executioner should not have executed the child murderer when one is alive to say it. The first priority of a parent is to protect their child, not to pay a child murderer to murder their child, not to pay a child murderer to butcher their child by cutting them up in pieces while the children are alive and suck them out of the mother's body, sometimes still alive, so the mother won't have a scar on her abdomen, not to dissolve the child with acid or sell the parts to industries for research and the production of cosmetics. The child is not the mother's body. The mother's body is only a shell that the unborn child can see through (can see through her skin) the shadows of people walking past her and can hear her voice and everyone else's voices that are around her and talking, the child can hear music, the television, the car horn, and the dog barking, and it can see and hear these things while it is still in the mother's womb, as it sucks it thumb or smiles or cries. Yes, it cries inside the mother. What type of human murders innocent children? The most evil type there is. One of my sons is a result of rape. 5 doctors told me that I should abort my child because of a deformity in the child's skull, the child would be severely retarded and probably would not live to be 7 years old. They showed me horrible pictures of what my child would look like if I did not have an abortion. I refused. It is an innocent child. If I would have died having it then my death would be have been a natural death. I was not about to murder my child.or any child. That child was born when I was 7 months pregnant. He (the doctors said he would be a she -they were wrong) is 27 years old now and in college, not deformed or retarded or even "slow". He is smart and has been a good son. All 5 doctors were wrong. My mother was only 6 months pregnant when she had me. I only weighed a pound but I was all there just like any child, just small, like all the children Dr. Child Murderer slaughtered. Any parent that willing has their child murdered should be executed too.All child murderers should be executed the same way they killed the child, no less. They do not deserve mercy because they gave no mercy to the children they murdered. I am glad the executioner stopped Dr. Child Murderer from slaughtering any more children for $5000 a head. I am not giving you religious BS. I am an atheist. It is wrong to slaughter an innocent child, especially your own. To the executioner who stopped Dr. Child Murderer from slaughtering more innocent helpless children, I say, "Thank you".