March 22, 2005 by s.z.

The Crazy Leading the Blind From the Miami Herald piece Crazies Have new Target: Pity James D. Whittemore, next in line for unholy defamation via e-mail, eternal damnation through the Internet and vilification by postcard. Not to mention death threats from those who claim insight into God's own hit list. [...] The judge [Greer] has two deputies in tow wherever he goes in public, assigned to keep God's self-appointed messengers from killing him. Judge Greer will now cede such fringe benefits to Judge Whittemore, who had the case dumped on his head Monday when Congress decided to federalize the issue. Judge Whittemore, when medical reasoning and legal decisions inevitably clash with religious theology, will also get the crazies as a bonus. The federal judge will preside over a family tragedy that has been usurped by meanness and confrontation and a showing of the power -- the considerable power -- of the religious right. [...] But the outlandish seems to have become incredibly effective when spread through the Internet. Republicans have rallied and Democrats have ducked. And the Schiavo bill flew through Congress as if the cyber campaign were the stuff of a national consensus. [...] But when the crazies crank up the volume, the voices of a sober majority get lost in the tumult. The rest of the piece is well worth reading, but we just wanted to present that much as an intro to this Renew America piece (complete with photo) called The forces of evil (all emphesis in the original): March 21, 2005 RenewAmerica staff In Nazi Germany during the early twentieth century, an entire culture engaged in (or implicitly supported) some of the most heinous crimes against humanity ever recorded. [...] A case can be made that no dictator, including Hitler, ever ruled without some semblance of deep and wide societal complicity--however such popular support may have been expressed. [...] Our leaders are us, to a large extent--no matter our form of government. For that reason, God can justifiably hold entire societies culpable for the sins of their leaders--at least to a degree. [...] At some point--as a culture disintegrates morally and politically--its people have a divine duty and right to turn things around. Prudence, of course--the Founders wrote--requires pursuing every legal means available for redress and correction, with the stipulation that, after "a long train of abuses and usurpations" resulting in "absolute despotism" by government, aggrieved citizens may ultimately be justified in undertaking stronger measures. Without such "activism," common citizens are literally part of the problem. Failure to act implies consent--as well as complicity--in the defining moments in any nation's history. Terri Schiavo's execution One of the most defining moments in our nation's modern history is taking place right now in a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida--where brain-damaged Terri Schindler Schiavo is being starved to death by Florida authorities. Okay, from what we've read so far, doesn't it sound like Renew America is urging its readers to take extra-legal action (perhaps a revolution, or maybe a plot to assinate our own Hitlers in the judicial systerm) in order to prevent Terri's "execution" -- or otherwise those readers will be complicit in the execution of Terri, and face the liklihood of being considered Nazi murderers by God? But here's some more from the piece, which (for now, at least) defines "your role" as merely keeping the pressure on "Jeb Bush, the Florida legislature, the courts, and the president". Your role In a press conference Saturday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay commented that one of the main reasons Congress was willing to sacrifice its time and convenience to pass Terri's Bill wasvociferous lobbying from outraged constituents who demanded that Terri's life be protected. Rep. DeLay made it clear that phone calls, e-mails, letters, and petitions from the grassroots were the main driving force behind congressional action in this matter. [...] But we can all do more. Let's multiply our influence by enlisting others--and let's keep pressure on Jeb Bush, the Florida legislature, the courts, and the president. So, Congress was effectively manipulated by wingnuts who are manipulated by Alan Keyes et.al.  I hope those in the legislative branch who caved in to the pressure will do a little research and learn just what kind of people (and views) they are aligning themselves with -- or otherwise. they might be taken by surprise when, at the next "defining moment in history," those "outraged constituents" attempt to overthrow the government and install Alan Keyes as our priest king. 4:04:01 AM

Culture of Life Media Matters recaps the connections between Schindler family spokesman Randall Terry and James C. Kopp, convicted of the 1998 murder a doctor who performed abortions.  Very interesting reading . . . BTW, here's part of the Feb. 2003 interview of Randall conducted by the Rutherford Institute's John Whitehead: If you became President of the United States, obviously your goal would be to make abortion illegal. However, abortionists would still be killing babies. What do you think the remedy for this should be? We need a constitutional amendment that ends child killing—just like we had a constitutional amendment to end slavery. The punishment for abortion is going to end up being a state issue. So, as President, my goal and my duty would be to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and to protect it against enemies both foreign and domestic. The punishment that should be meted out to those who murder babies in the womb is going to fall to judges and juries at the state level, just like the murder of a three-year-old or the murder of a housewife falls to those people. Do you endorse capital punishment? I support capital punishment. As a matter of principle, I believe that if somebody murders an innocent person and the evidence is clear and with two eyewitnesses, that person has forfeited their life. So, if performing a first-trimester abortion is the same as killing a three-year-old, and if we should give the death penalty to someone who has murdered an innocent three-year-old, then execution is in order for anyone who performs an abortion.  (Not that Terry is calling on his nutty followers to take the law into their own hands, of course . . .) A friend of mine once said that evangelicals believe in saving people on one end of the life spectrum but killing them on the other. Thus, is capital punishment pro-life? No, it is pro-justice. Life is about truth and justice. The truth is that there is a God in Heaven who has revealed Himself in time and space. He has shown us what He expects of us. Justice is the application of that truth. It is unjust to kill an innocent child for no crime, and it is unjust to let a murderer sit in front of a TV for the rest of his life and work out in the weight room. It’s about justice. And that's why Terry's new group is called the Society for Truth and Justice, I suppose -- because it's the only society where Terry gets to decide what is truth, and what is justice.  Anyway, in this interview, Terry, who was angry that the evangelical community had turned away from him after he declared bankruptcy, divorced his wife, and married his twenty-something former assistant, said he felt more aligned with the Catholics now (preshadowing his alignment with the Schindler family).  I wonder what he thinks about the new reports indicating that:  Support for capital punishment among Roman Catholics in America has dropped below 50 percent, according to a poll released Monday as part of a new anti-death penalty campaign by Catholic bishops. [...] With the release of the poll at the start of Holy Week, church leaders announced the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty. "For us, this is not about ideology but respect for life," said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., where the initiative was announced. "We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. We cannot defend life by taking life." Damn, maybe Terry's true home isn't among the Catholics either!  In any case, we can all hope for the day when those, like Terry, who promote hate are unwelcome in any community. P.S. Crooks and Liars has the video of Randall's appearance on last night's "Scarborough Country Bear Jamboree."  Among other things, Mr. Terry says that  Judge Greer "scammed" all of us because he wants Terri dead (although Joe Scar never asks why the judge scam us in order to kill this woman, I can only assume that Randall has evidence that the Mafia orderied a hit on Terri, and that judge was paid to whack her or something). And Frederick (if that IS his real name) at BeatBushBlog has an excellent post about various facets of the Schiavo circus, including a surprising example of Mr. Schindler's fealty to the culture of life. 1:13:57 AM

Irony is so Ironical Sometimes GOOGLE NEWS' JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS: Nazis welcome, mainstream bloggers not. I haven't paid much attention to this issue, but I'm often astonished at what turns up in a Google News search these days -- and what doesn't. posted at 08:29 PM by Glenn Reynolds    We should probably have a discussion about what it says about the blogosphere (or about Glenn, for that matter) if LittleGreenFootballs is considered "mainstream," but for now let me just agree that it seems unfair of Google News to add one racist site to their index of "legitimate news services" and to turn away another. 12:41:11 AM