Waco sect leader's mother killed

BBC ^ | 1/25/09

[LibWhacker]

The mother of the notorious Waco sect leader David Koresh has been found stabbed to death at the house of a sister in Texas, police say.

Bonnie Clark Halderman, who was in her sixties, was found dead at the home of Beverly Clark who has been taken into custody pending a court appearance.

Police say they have no idea of a possible motive for her death.

[I see my hands]

When a son is fire bombed to death by ones own government there likely will be enduring angst in the extended family.

[Paladin2]

BBC?

Should be the NYT or Waco Journal or BATF newletter or Janet Reno's blog reporting.

[red-dawg]

notorious Waco sect leader..

Passing judgment in a supposedly objective report.
No bias there I see. (rolls eyes)

[al baby]

CLINTONS FAULT !!!!

[Richard Kimball]

Waco paper doesn’t cover actual news. Nice guys, and I occasionally have work in the paper, but they primarily go to pre-publicized events and write stories from press releases.

[bill1952]

Janet Reno back?

[AnalogReigns]

Regardless of Janet Reno’s infamous response, any “conservative” who doesn’t agree that Koresh was a complete wack-job, and yes infamous (remember the part about how he shot what, 5 ATF agents clearly identified, that started the whole standoff?) has some serious issues.

Am I defending Reno-and-Co’s treatment of the Koresh standoff? No, not at all. But not to acknowledge Koresh as a seriously dangerous nut-job, and his religion as a twisted sub-Christian cult....is to be perilously like him yourself.

Koresh is a “conservative hero” only as much as say John Brown was in 1859...which is to say, not at all.

You tube links about Koresh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRcAd4plJZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc9oB_v1giI

[Sherman Logan]

There is a case to be made that John Brown’s actions at Harper’s Ferry were morally and intellectually defensible, being based directly on the principles in the Declaration of Independence.

Of course, they were in practice a horrible idea and led directly to secession and our Civil War.

Koresh was just a perverted nutjob out for himself. That’s something JB was never accused of. Say what you like about old John, he certainly wasn’t operating out of self-interest.

[Oztrich Boy]

(remember the part about how he shot what, 5 ATF agents clearly identified, that started the whole standoff?)

Actually no. The only ATF agents shot were assaulting the rear of the building at the same time as Koresh was being shot by the ATF at the front door.

[mad_as_he$$]

The part many, including you, seem to miss is that the whole thing was avoidable. The local Sheriff told the ATF that he could bring Koresh in with no violence. The ATF wanted to show Congress how effective their new SWAT style team was performing. They were nothing but amateur hour and got a bunch of people hurt and killed - unnecessarily. The BATF needs to be disbanded but that will not happen. Now they work for a tax cheat and the 0 crew. There is another Waco not far off.

Yes Koresh was a nutjob but since when do we kill kids and women because there is a nutjob in the building - since Waco. BTW are you following the case in the SF Bay area where a transit cop shot a restrained man who was on the ground and already tasered and killed him? More of that to come also.

[GunRunner]

Regardless of Janet Reno’s infamous response, any “conservative” who doesn’t agree that Koresh was a complete wack-job, and yes infamous (remember the part about how he shot what, 5 ATF agents clearly identified, that started the whole standoff?) has some serious issues.

You're a notoriously ignorant whack job.

[AnalogReigns]

You’re right about Koresh being a nut.

Hatred of the incompetence of Janet Reno has made some to suspend judgement of Koresh’s insanity—even in the face of eyewitness testimony that Koresh & followers SET THE FIRE that killed them themselves.

[AnalogReigns]

You're a notoriously ignorant whack job.

Yeah, that makes for a great argument, doesn't it?

Janet Reno was a totally incompetent horror--who bears responsibility for the catastrophe. That still doesn't make Koresh anything but a total nut-job, who still bears the primary responsibility--since he killed 5 clearly identified federal officers...and held off the government...taking hostages... by force of arms (in the name of him being the MESSIAH...) for many weeks.

If you want to call him a "conservative hero" go for it, but that just makes you resemble Koresh yourself.

Last I checked, conservatism doesn't imply anarchy.

[GunRunner]

Taking hostages?!

OK, now its clear you don't know what you're talking about. You must be confusing Waco and Jonestown.

The surviving BDs were acquitted by a jury and were deemed to have acted in self defense against the attacking ATF agents.

Secondly, Koresh never took any hostages. He said that any member could leave at any time, and dozens did. The government even provided the remaining BDs with a camcorder so they would go on record to explain why they were staying with Koresh, rather than come out with the others.

I think this article would be one way to begin fixing your vast ignorance on the subject:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/09/09/waco/

It has nothing to do with Koresh being a "conservative hero", which he was not. The point of Waco is that the government slaughtered a bunch of people because they were suspected to have "illegal weapons" and reports of child abuse.

[stainlessbanner]

Brown was sick in the head; his actions were in no way morally justified.

On Saturday night, May 24, 1856, John Brown and his band visited house after house upon Pottawatomie Creek, and, calling man after man from his bed, murdered five in cold blood. They first visited the house of Doyle, and compelled a father and two sons to go with them. The next morning, the father and one son were found dead in the road about two hundred yards from the house. The father was "shot in the forehead and stabbed in the breast. The son's head was cut open, and there was a hole in his jaw as though made by a knife." The other son was found dead about a hundred and fifty yards away in the grass, "his fingers cut off and his arms cut off, his head cut open, and a hole in his breast."

Then they went to Wilkinson's, reaching there after midnight. They forced open the door and ordered him to go with them. His wife was sick and helpless, and begged them not to take him away. Her prayer was of no avail. The next day Wilkinson was found dead, "a gash in his head and side "

Their next victim was William Sherman. When found in the morning, his "skull was split open in two places, and some brains were washed out. A large hole was cut in his breast, and his left hand was cut off, a little piece of skin on one side." The execution was done with short cutlasses brought from Ohio by Brown.

-excerpt from "End of an Era"

[Sherman Logan]

The Pottawatomie killings were in retaliation for attacks on anti-slavery towns and men by pro-slavery Kansans and Missouri border ruffians.

I have had discussions with pro-CSA types who believe the Lawrence Massacre during the war was fully justified because it was done in retaliation for Kansas attacks on Missourians. If you accept this premise, then JB's murders on Pottawatomie Creek were equally justified.

(Personally I believe neither attack was justified.)

Here's the thing. A great moral crime was being committed against the slaves. If anybody ever had a moral right to use violence in their cause, the slaves did. Certainly they would have been far more morally justified in doing so than were American colonists in the 1770s, when they resorted to violence in resistance to what was mostly at the point possible future oppression.

If the slaves had a moral right to use violence against their oppressors, then others had a moral right to join them in their resistance, as the French assisted us in our Revolution.

John Brown was a very poor tactician, but few people at the time claimed he was crazy. Even the governor of VA, who visited him in jail, thought him a fine soft-spoken gentleman.

If you were being held in slavery in Algeria in 1800, would you have had a moral right to resist your owners with violence? If you believe you had such a right, why wouldn't American blacks held in slavery have the same right? I'm just interested in your reason why person A is entitled to defend his freedom with violence, but person B is not.

[stainlessbanner]

Really can one justify murdering innocent people? Does taking the higher moral ground justify cold-blooded murder?

[reagan_fanatic]

Agree 100%