By Selwyn Duke
“I’ll go through you to get the child!”? This could perhaps be the message being sent, with more than 20 pro-life pregnancy centers having been fire-bombed or vandalized and more than a dozen churches having been targeted since the May leaking of the Supreme Court draft Roe v. Wade decision. Now, with the official ruling striking Roe down having been issued Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has warned churches to prepare for “extreme violence” as left-wing radicals have planned a “Night of Rage.”
Such threats haven’t exactly seemed a priority to the authorities, however. In May, Alice-in-Wonderland-style, the DHS issued a memo warning against “far-right” violence against abortion clinics; meanwhile, the government sat on its hands while the churches were targeted and ne’er-do-wells, in apparent violation of the law, protested in front of SCOTUS judges’ homes.
Read the rest here.
On another blog a commenter made a list of four types of killing a society might allow: abortion, euthanasia/assisted suicide, the death penalty, killing in self-defense. The first two tend to be allowed by liberals while the second two are usually more acceptable to conservatives.
I'd say a fifth category could be added wrt mob violence and the potential for loss of life during riotous behavior which is more allowed by the left than the right in present-day US. I think it might go either way depending on circumstances, however. Though I guess the right probably prefers violence to be committed more by police/military representing lawful authority. I think this might be the real difference: the right finds killing more tolerable done as part of a community while the left seems to embrace killing to relieve personal suffering.
Mob violence stems from a breakdown in law and order so it's a little different and can end up drawing everyone in if order is not restored. Vigilantism is a variation on mob violence with a similar result that a person or group taking matters into their own hands might require an equal and opposite response from an otherwise law-abiding individual. People neither have the right to drag a community into chaos, nor do they have the right to force their preferences on other citizens. Yet we currently have a problem with this sort of willfulness. If certain people aren't getting their way, they feel entitled to make those who contradict them suffer, sometimes even creating the illusion there is a legal right to forcing another to submit to your will. In such battles of the will, deadly violence becomes possible. (I really don't think it has anything to do with gruesome abortion techniques unless that's what the two citizens are fighting about.)
Posted by: tj | June 25, 2022 at 11:16 PM