The abortionist George Tiller was apparently killed by a pro-lifer. This has led to attacks on the pro-life movement at innately violent.
The widespread denunciations of the Vietnam War as illegal, unjust, cruel, and criminal, led students at Brandeis to plot the violent overthrow of the government.
On Sept. 23, 1970, Brandeis University woke up to another day of classes, cool fall weather and news of a murder and bank robbery at the hands of three of its students.
There were five people suspected of murder and robbery, three of whom were associated with Brandeis. According to the Sept. 29, 1970 issue of the Justice, the suspects included Robert Valeri, 21, a student at Northeastern University; William Gilday, 41, also a student at Northeastern; Kathy Power ’71, 21, a senior at Brandeis; Susan Saxe ’70, 20, a Brandeis graduate and admitted Brandeis graduate student; and Stanley Bond, 25, also a Brandeis student. The five were accused of murdering Boston patrolman Walter A. Schroeder during a robbery that gained the group $26,000 from a Brighton, Mass. bank. Schroeder, 42, had nine children; he died from a gunshot wound in the back.
Should the anti-war demonstrators have kept quiet, for fear of causing some people to become violent in their actions against violence?
Edward Abbey’s denunciation of the rape of the West in The Monkey Wrench Gang inspired some of his readers to become eco-terrorists, burning property to prevent development. The Unabomber was also motivated by fears of technology and its effects on freedom and the ecology. Should Al Gore tone down his rhetoric for fear of causing people on the fringe of rationality to become violent?
As a teenager Dontee Stokes was sexually abused by the Rev Maurice Blackwell. Years later, the stories of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church filled the media. Dontee obsessed over them, got a gun and confronted Blackwell, demanding an apology. Blackwell refused, and Dontee shot him. Joseph Druce had been sexually abused as a child; he had murdered a homosexual who had tried to pick him up. Druce was on the same cell block as the convicted molester the Rev. John Geoghan. Druce watched the months of television exposes of sexual abuse in Boston and heard the denunciations of the molesting priests as monsters. He overheard Geoghan planning to get out on appeal and to go to South America to molest children there. Druce murdered Geoghan so that Geoghan would never again molest. Should the Church have been allowed to cover-up its crimes forever for fear of a revelation of its iniquity inspiring private vengeance?
Bush administration officials have been denounced as torturers and war criminals. Suppose someone decides to kill one to punish a torturer?
Any denunciation of evil has the potentiality to inspire someone to decide to become judge, jury, and executioner. Therefore should evil never be denounced, for fear of inspiring vigilantism?
Leon, here’s the answer: God decries and condemns evil but never condones vigilantism as the answer (“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”). The answer — which God made specific in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, books that Christians rarely pay attention to, unfortunately — is a justice system that punishes the guilty while requiring strict rules of evidence and highly ethical judges.
Why do people feel the need to take the law into their own hands? Because they somehow believe that the justice system is corrupt or inept.
Also, don’t forget the tendency for people to rationalize their behavior by blaming others (such as group ideology). Besides, though they won’t admit this, ideologues *want* the masses to act on their passions. Why else do they use propaganda (“pro-choice,” “pro-life”) to get their messages across?
2 days ago:
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A man with “political and religious motives” killed a soldier just out of basic training and wounded another Monday in a targeted attack on a military recruiting center, police said. Police arrested Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23…
Are you holding your breath for the torrent of attacks on the anti-war movement as innately violent?
Me neither.
The Vietnam War was a just war, fought to bring about the Kingship of Christ on earth (Richard Nixon had secretly converted to Roman Catholicism, the One True Religion, after being permitted to read the Third Secret of Fatima while visiting Rome) and to lead to the establishment of the Catholic King who will arrive after the 3 Days of Darkness as prophecied by Padre Pio while he was bilocating in the skies over Italy during World War II (it is not true that the Padre Pio story was promulgated by clever men in his Mafia-run town to gain hundreds of millions of dollars for San Giovanni Rotondo). May the brave Catholic men who ordered the murder of Bishop Oscar Romero while elevating the Eucharist at Mass (he obviously was not a true Catholic because he wanted the ignorant peasants of his country to become educated, and he failed to support the Upper Class as was his duty) be recognized for their support of capitalist freedom fighters the world over.
Should you let a man(?) who plans to do the same vile crimes over and over again out?
Geoghan RAPED, not touched in a bad, not did something bad RAPED at least 130 kids!!!!
you really thing that he will stop doing it?