"i Shot Us Abortion Doctor To Protect Children,"

[sacredheartandbloodofjesus]

Let us all continue to pray for an end to abortion +

[Veridicus]

[quote name='sacredheartandbloodofjesus' date='31 January 2010 - 10:25 PM' timestamp='1264998318' post='2048658']
Let us all continue to pray for an end to abortion +
[/quote]

Indeed. Prayer is a much more powerful weapon than any gun.

[KeenanParkerII]

I have a lot of respect for Sir Thomas More, but here I cannot agree. I was watching two priests on EWTN explain Catholic obedience to state law, and we're only called to do so so long as it is not a grievous injustice to God's law. That drags up a whole boatload of worms, like who interprets what is and isn't grievous against God's law. Allowing babies to be murdered seems like it would fit in that category though. I understand what you're saying. However, I still disagree that what he did was wrong if it is simply because it was a vigilante act against the law.

Just to reiterate though, every possible option should be exercised before resorting to physical violence. In that consideration, I consider what this man did wrong.

[quote]Let us all continue to pray for an end to abortion +[/quote]

Amen

Edited February 1, 2010 by KeenanParkerII

[Jaime]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='31 January 2010 - 06:53 PM' timestamp='1264982005' post='2048547']
Not to be a jerk, but our military works on the basis of preemptive strikes. So it is morally justifiable if the person wears a uniform? In my history I was told that these events were morally ok because of the greater good, but then I see this person did the same?

Not that I am arguing that what he did was right, just exploring the issue.
[/quote]

OMG WHAT A JERK!!

I kid.

There's a couple things to consider. If you mean by first strike like what we did in Iraq, then no its not morally justifiable. Then Cardinal Ratzinger spoke out against the Bush Doctrine as not being acceptable for Just War theory.

Now if we are at war and the army has a preemptive strike (preemptive to a major battle) this is different as well (as long as it is a Just War) because the war is run by the state (govt) and not an individual. What Roeder did was an execution. the Church teaches that this can only be done (and only in rare circumstances) by the governing state.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='KeenanParkerII' date='31 January 2010 - 10:34 PM' timestamp='1264998877' post='2048664']
However, I still disagree that what he did was wrong if it is simply because it was a vigilante act against the law.

Just to reiterate though, every possible option should be exercised before resorting to physical violence. In that consideration, I consider what this man did wrong.
[/quote]

I have never asserted that what Roeder did was wrong simply because it was against the law. What he did was wrong because it was the illicit killing of a someone who was no immediate threat to life. The only person in that church who was an imminent threat to human life was Roeder.


Perhaps we all need to look at it this way. Let's say that I was in the church and I just happened to carry a gun on my person for protection. Now I see Roeder come through the door and knock Tiller to his knees and pull out a gun. He is getting ready to blow Tiller's brains all over the floor. Am I NOT supposed to use force to intervene and stop Roeder from killing Tiller who is in fact no immediate threat to anyone? Am I supposed to sit there in judgmental silence and let Tiller be summarily executed without a moment for redemption? Do I have the moral prerogative to NOT intervene to protect Tiller's life simply because I think he is a bad person?

If I had been in that church when Roeder walked in waving a gun, I think I would have tried to stop him...with lethal force if necessary. It is not up to an individual to decide it is okay to go kill a man in cold blood in the middle of the day when the man is no immediate threat to anyone. When we create moral loopholes in our framework of morality we create spider's web of dangerous possibilities.

[KeenanParkerII]

Wellll First of all, I don't anyone should be shot in a Church, though I think that kind of goes without saying. Now if you had done everything you could possibly do to stop him and he was still just about to leave to kill a few hundred babies.. Well, I would certainly turn a blind eye to it.

I know it makes people squeamish, but we can put it in just about any context right.. Here's a fellow sitting in a crop dusting pilot school about to take the test for his license. You know he's going to fly a plane into the world trade centre a few months from now. Do you pull the trigger? I would, but don't think that it makes me happy to know I would.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='KeenanParkerII' date='31 January 2010 - 11:21 PM' timestamp='1265001702' post='2048690']
Here's a fellow sitting in a crop dusting pilot school about to take the test for his license. You know he's going to fly a plane into the world trade centre a few months from now. Do you pull the trigger? I would, but don't think that it makes me happy to know I would.
[/quote]

That's where we differ. I cannot justify murder on the part of the individual as a means to justify the ends of a purported act of hostility months down the road. We as individual humans simply lack the perspective to take such weighty moral risks ourselves. You cannot [i]know [/i]he is going to blow up the world trade center 3mos later and it is illogical to assert you know this...there are a million contingencies which could play out that lead him not to blow up a building 3mos later. It is my opinion that killing as a means is only justified when the there exists an imminent threat to innocent life.

When we start granting individual moral license to murder based upon personal presuppositions about the future morality of another individual we are opening the floodgates. What then when in 15yrs I refuse to consent to let my child receive a medical treatment involving embryonic stem cells. I consider the use of embryonic stem cells an egregious and morally corrupt act and I would prefer my child die than only live because he has benefitted from the murder of dozens of embryos. So some guy with a gun who disagrees with my morality comes to my church and shoots me in the head so that my kid can become a ward of the state and receive life-saving treatment. These are the kind of floodgates you open when you leave it up to the individual to determine morality and to pull the trigger based upon their own individual conclusions. I do not want someone blowing my brains out in Church because someone else thinks I am evil for denying my child a morally-questionable medical treatment. But by the same logic that has been applied to the Tiller case, whoever blows my brains out could be justified because in their mind I am grievously condemning my child to die unnecessarily.

Edited February 1, 2010 by Veridicus

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Veridicus' date='31 January 2010 - 11:10 PM' timestamp='1264997437' post='2048653']
I feel it is worth restating the St. Thomas More quote in respect to this line of thought: "And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you, where would you hide?...the laws all being flat? This country is planted with laws from coast to coast...[i][b]Man's laws[/b][/i], not God's, and if you cut them down do you really think you could stand upright in the wind that would blow then? I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."
[/quote]

St. Thomas More did not say those lines. An author and subsequently, an actor did. If a law fails uphold true justice, it is not a law.

~Sternhauser

[Veridicus]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='31 January 2010 - 11:45 PM' timestamp='1265003143' post='2048706']
St. Thomas More did not say those lines. An author and subsequently, an actor did. If a law fails uphold true justice, it is not a law.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

I realize he didn't himself say this which is why I stated that it was from the movie (see post 63). I wasn't purporting that the legalization of abortion was just. Nor did I say that I recognized it as true law. My point was that just because a one law is morally objectionable doesn't give an individual moral license to break other morally-based laws and murder people in cold blood at church when they are no imminent threat to life.

Edited February 1, 2010 by Veridicus

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Veridicus' date='01 February 2010 - 12:49 AM' timestamp='1265003373' post='2048708']
I realize he didn't himself say this which is why I stated that it was from the movie (see post 63). I wasn't purporting that the legalization of abortion was just. Nor did I say that I recognized it as true law. My point was that just because a one law is morally objectionable doesn't give an individual moral license to break other morally-based laws and murder people in cold blood at church when they are no imminent threat to life.
[/quote]

What morally-based law was broken here? A morally-based law that prevents anyone from using any efficacious physical means to stop a murderer? There's no such thing.

The man was a serial killer. If there were no laws against what Jeffrey Dahmer did, and you would be prosecuted by the State if you were to do anything to physically stop him from continuing his vile proceedings, (imminent or not) would you really consider it immoral to put a permanent end to his killing spree?

~Sternhauser

Edited February 1, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Ed Normile]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='01 February 2010 - 01:08 AM' timestamp='1265004498' post='2048718']
What morally-based law was broken here? A morally-based law that prevents anyone from using any efficacious physical means to stop a murderer? There's no such thing.

The man was a serial killer. If there were no laws against what Jeffrey Dahmer did, and you would be prosecuted by the State if you were to do anything to physically stop him from continuing his vile proceedings, (imminent or not) would you really consider it immoral to put a permanent end to his killing spree?

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

Well, yes I would. This would be placing me on his level. Can you claim that you find something offensive and then not act against it, I would say certainly in this situation.

ed

[Veridicus]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='01 February 2010 - 12:08 AM' timestamp='1265004498' post='2048718']
What morally-based law was broken here? A morally-based law that prevents anyone from using any efficacious physical means to stop a murderer? There's no such thing.

The man was a serial killer. If there were no laws against what Jeffrey Dahmer did, and you would be prosecuted by the State if you were to do anything to physically stop him from continuing his vile proceedings, (imminent or not) would you really consider it immoral to put a permanent end to his killing spree?

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

I understand the point you are making and I to some extent I want to agree with you. However, I still consider giving personal license to kill who you feel is an evil person...even a murdering person...is unacceptable. It is not up to me to decide who lives and dies based solely upon my own judgment and willingness to pull the trigger. When someone becomes an imminent and obvious threat to life, I would act with lethal force. Outside of this context is an immoral presupposition for an individual to act of their own volition to kill who they consider meriting death. I refuse to open those floodgates.There are tons of physicians who make a living off performing abortions and even more physicians who make a living off prescribing progesterone-based oral contraceptives which are for all intents and purposes abortifacient rather than anovulatory in mechanism. There exists no individual moral license to start blowing these people's brains out because you have subjectively decided their death is worth your freedom. I respect your opinion, but I am sorry because I think we just have to agree to disagree.

As I have posted previously, the next question that your suggested moral license begs to be asked is this: If it is morally [i]permissible[/i] to kill a career abortionist outside of the context of an imminent abortion, when does it become a moral [i]obligation [/i]to do so in order to protect life?

The mass killing of US abortion physicians by lay Catholics would be a very efficacious physical means to slowing the number of abortions in the US since the US laws are unjust. Sacrifice their personal welfare, freedom, safety for the sake of defying what they perceive as a state-based evil. This sort of radical zealous justice starts to sound all too familiar...

Edited February 1, 2010 by Veridicus

[Saint Therese]

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

[Veridicus]

[quote name='Saint Therese' date='01 February 2010 - 11:28 AM' timestamp='1265045308' post='2048939']
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
[/quote]

[Ed Normile]

[quote name='Saint Therese' date='01 February 2010 - 12:28 PM' timestamp='1265045308' post='2048939']
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
[/quote]

Channeling Johnny Cash eh?

ed