Posted on 09/04/2003 8:51:55 AM PDT by Polycarp
My anger over the pathological nature of "legal" baby killing and the individuals on these threads who see Hill's crime as somehow "worse" than that of the baby killers has led me to say things on these threads that I don't really believe, just to point out the rank hypocrisy and stupidity of certain posters on these threads.
I've made my points. I'll stop using bitter sarcasm and cynicism now and state clearly:
1)Hill murdered an abortionist, and deserved the punishment meeted out to him by the state. The state has the right, recognized in 2000 years of Christian moral theology, to impose capital punishment. But In all honesty, I have reservations about the death penalty.
2) Abortion may be "legal" but it is still a crime against humanity. Though it would be unjust to try them, by ex-post-facto prosecution once abortion is again made illegal, abortionists still must pay some measure of justice for their crimes. Revoking their licences and general social ostracizing would be minimum and insufficient justice.
3) Vigiliante "justice" and ex-post-facto law cannot be tolerated in a civil society. However, neither can judicial tyrrany and legislation by judicial fiat. Civil rebellion against judicial tyranny and legislation by judicial fiat is not now unwarranted. However, it may in the future be necessary. In the context of innevitable future civil rebellion against judicial tyranny and legislation by judicial fiat it is very likely that certain individuals might engage in vigilantism and ex-post-facto justice. Don't say I didn't tell you so.
4)In the current situation of pathological legalized violence in the form of "legal" baby murdering, everyone must understand that violence will always beget more violence, outside of the abortion clinics. Expect more cases like Hill. It is axiomatic that the violence of "legal" abortion will beget further violence, usually among the intellectually/emotionally/psychologically unstable.
5) Because it is axiomatic that violence, even the violence of "legal" abortion, will always beget further violence, it is evidence of gross ignorance of human nature and Natural Law that certain folks express surprise and dismay at the actions of someone like Hill.
6) Furthermore, to express more outrage at Hill's crime than the pathological violence ("legal" abortion) that precipitated Hill's crime is a symptom of a culture that has completely lost its moral compass and is on the straight and narrow path to self destruction.
A meaningless comment. Do you disagree with yourself?
Now you're entering the Bill Clinton universe in parsing to meet your needs.
Ah, the argumentum ad Clintonem. Not the most graceful way to concede the argument.
Hill committed murder, he's dead because of it.
So we return to the argument that legality is equivalent to morality. The law says that he committed murder and the law executed him, therefore the law must be right.
What I want to know is whether the law is morally right in asserting that unborn children are not people. If the law is morally right on this point, then Hill was not acting to defend anybody and his actions were incontrovertibly immoral.
But if the law is morally wrong about unborn children not being people, then we need to reevaluate.
Condemned by both man's law
There are many men who have been condemned by man's law who did nothing morally wrong. I know you enjoy the aesthetic resonance of this phrase, but man's law is not automatically morally binding.
and God's Word
So you assert. But you have no authority to make such a pronouncement.
that you would draw a comparision between Hill and St. Peter is absurd
Not really. St. Peter followed his conscience to the contempt of man's law and died for it. Paul Hill also followed his conscience to the contempt of man's law and died for it.
To invalidate the comparison, you would have to explain why Paul Hill was morally wrong to do what he did. In order to do so, you would have to explain why using deadly force with the intent of defending an innocent from murder is the same as murder itself. You have not addressed this point. Rather than addressing it you have simply asserted that he committed murder according to the law of the moment - a point on which we both agree and which is utterly irrelevant to moral analysis.
That's not the point under discussion. He may have completely failed to save anyone's life, but that result does not mean that he acted immorally.
If someone tried to stop someone from being strangled by shooting the strangler and killing him, and it turned out that the strangler's victim had already asphyxiated by the time the rescuer shot the strangler, this does not mean that the rescuer acted immorally or that he "murdered" the strangler. He simply did not succeed.
Well said, Luis.
I don't know you; you don't know me. Obviously we aren't face to face, but you aren't here anonymously either.
Maybe it's just me, but I believe if I were posting on this board openly representing a religious organization, I would try not to post so rudely.
As the Southern Baptists would say, "it's a bad witness".
Then I must have misunderstood your #374.
This isn't about law or politics, but about morality. You completely misrepresent me.
I didn't intend to misrepresent you, but I may have misunderstood you. I thought you were arguing that murder in defence of helpless unborn children was morally the right thing to do.
I have debated Fatima before, and at the end of the rest of the outright lies posted claimning "what polycarp is really saying is" on this thread prior to fatima's posts, I really was not in the mood.
Oh well, I'm sure other "Christians" on this Forum have also lost their tempers on this Forum, and I doubt it will be the last time for me either -- I don't suffer fools very well.
You obviously have misread my posts.
However, you and others attacked me because I had sympathy for the children of Dr. Britton - people I grew up with.
According to you, ("If a family member of mine performed abortions and I found out, I would disown that individual and never lay eyes on them again in my lifetime so long as it were possible ... ") I suppose the children shouldn't have even been bothered by the fact their father was murdered in cold blood, since he was evil.
However, if you wish to speak of nuances, the one some of you are conveying is the same one Jesus condemned the Pharisees for.
While I do not agree with Paul Hill's actions, I do not believe that what he did was wrong for the reasons that the media says he was wrong.
He used excessive force, he placed the lives of innocent bystanders in danger and he acted without regard for the long term effects of his actions.
I didn't intend to misrepresent you, but I may have misunderstood you.
Fair enough.
I thought you were arguing that murder in defence of helpless unborn children was morally the right thing to do.
If you act in defense of another person's life it is not murder, by definition.
Killing to prevent the murder of others is sometimes necessary. Whether the precise circumstances in which Paul Hill found himself created such a necessity is highly debatable.
That's easy to answer: The childrens' "mothers" did.
Killing to prevent the murder of others is sometimes necessary. Whether the precise circumstances in which Paul Hill found himself created such a necessity is highly debatable.
This is an old debate. I think the first time it came into my consciousness was when I was a teen and people were blowing up ROTC buildings to protect the lives of Vietnamese children from what the bombers deemed American "crimes against humanity."
Was Mr. Hill's act really any more justified than the acts of those bombers?
Exactly.
He was, after all, a contract killer.
The ROTC building bombers bombed those buildings because there was a chance that maybe the people in those buildings might one day run bombing missions and that given that chance there was a further chance that those missions might result in the deaths of noncombatants.
That's a lot of ifs, with no certainty.
Add to that the fact that no ROTC member had any personal intention of killing children if they went into combat - they signed up to fight armed enemy combatants and desparately wanted to avoid killing children.
John Britton showed up that day with the express intention of murdering children, an intention that he had acted on like clockwork.
There was no doubt that children would die that day if John Britton went to work and there was no mistaking Britton's intent.
The situations are different.
His word were:
The moment you stop excusing off the true perps...the ones who careslessly created the unwanted pregnancy to begin with, you will see that abortion is a symptom, and moral degeneracy is the disease.
I'll try to break it down for you.
We would not have any abortions in America if our society and our morals were not sick. Abortions are a sign of our sick society.
Lack of morals means women have sex just for the fun of it, without thinking that they might be making babies they don't want.
When women get pregnant with women they don't want, because they are morally sick, they decide to kill their babies, because having those babies might be a lot of trouble. It might even be embarrassing, or cost money.
If no immoral women wanted to kill their own babies, abortion doctors would not have a job.
Does that make sense?
You're right. I read your #469. ;-)
If you act in defense of another person's life it is not murder, by definition.Killing to prevent the murder of others is sometimes necessary. Whether the precise circumstances in which Paul Hill found himself created such a necessity is highly debatable.
Then you said:
John Britton showed up that day with the express intention of murdering children, an intention that he had acted on like clockwork.There was no doubt that children would die that day if John Britton went to work and there was no mistaking Britton's intent.
Paul Hill said that he killed John Britton so that John Britton couldn't kill any unborn children that day, and you said that killing to keep others from being murdered isn't murder. You also said there was no doubt that John Britton intended to kill children that day.
It still sounds to me as if you are defending Paul Hill.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.