"Culture of Life" - U R doing it rong

I cannot express in words the rage I am feeling right now.

Not just at the fact that Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider specializing in medically-necessary late-term abortions, was murdered today. No, I am enraged by those who whipped the hatred against this man, who did everything to encourage his murder, are suddenly pretending they had nothing to do with it.

Damn them all. All of them.

Randall Terry. SUZANNE. The Catholic Church. The Army of God.

All of them. They are the same. They purposely espouse violent rhetoric, celebrate past perpetrators of violence and murderers as 'martyrs' and try to create false moral equivalence with a medial procedure and a planned premeditated murder of a 67-year-old professional, father and grandfather.

These people purposely took a procedure that represents less that 0.02 % of abortions, and always for medical reasons, and turned it into their main argument, that somehow Dr. Tiller was killing healthy, viable 8-month-old babies en mass simply because their mother's decided they just didn't want to be pregnant any more.

Lies! Disgusting, purposeful lies by authoritarians bent on controlling everyone's body and mind.

And they have the gall to call themselves "Pro-Life" and "The Culture of Life".

Let see how these people respect human life, shall we?

Pro-choice victims of anti-abortion murder:

Dr. David Gunn
Dr. John Britton
James Barrett, clinic escort
Shannon Lowney, clinic receptionist
Lee Ann Nichols, clinic receptionist
Robert Sanderson, off-duty police officer working as a security guard
Dr. Barnett Slepian
Dr. George Tiller

Add to the list above the numerous bombings, harassment campaigns, vandalism, threats of death and other crimes in which no one was actually hurt. Add to that the actual assaults committed by "Operation Rescue" folks at clinics across the US.

Anti-choice victims of pro-choice murder:

.

The "best" the anti-choice side can come up with of pro-choice violence is the assault on Ed Snell, who was attacked by the boyfriend of a woman he was verbally harassing from the top of his car...a woman who was not seeking an abortion. Add to that, pushes and shoves in self-defense.

Who, then respects life?

People who say this? -

I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you... I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism." Randall Terry, head of Operation Rescue, August 16, 1993.[emphasis mine]

"When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you and we will execute you." Randall Terry, head of Operation Rescue 1995.[emphasis mine]

There is no debate with these people. There is no reasoning with them. These are the people that wish to grant legal personhood to a blastocyte, but will not do anything to help already born children in poverty. These are the people that condemn women who make the choice of abortion, yet refuse to condone birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place.

These are the people who wish to control every woman's body, to force them to give birth to unwanted children so they can then abondon both, as a punishment for having sex and or not believing in their religious teaching.

And they are prepared to kill to make it happen.

These people are the enemies of freedom and liberty. They are pure fascists and totalitarians through and through. And they will stop at nothing to enslave us all (and make no mistake, if a person cannot control or own their own body, they are in fact, a slave).

It is time for self-defense. I am in favour of abortion doctors, clinic staff and volunteers either being armed themselves for self-protection or to hire armed security guards and personell. The government obviously can't or, as evidenced in Kansas, won't help. Sometimes it is agents of the state doing the harrassing.

Am I over reacting?

But Warren Hern, a Colorado physician and close friend of Tiller's who said he is now "the only doctor in the world" who performs very late-term abortions, said Tiller's death was predictable.

"I think it's the inevitable consequence of more than 35 years of constant anti-abortion terrorism, harassment and violence. George is the fifth American doctor to be assassinated. I get messages from these people saying, 'Don't bother wearing a bulletproof vest, we're going for a head shot.' "[emphasis mine]

No, I don't think so.

I will not let my daughter be enslaved in a world run by these thugs.

I'm pro-choice and I shoot back.

Pants pissing update (June 5 2009):

From Patrick Ross in the comments -

"And by the way, Mike, you very much can be a co-defendant in a libel suit if you really want to.

If that's what you want, I suggest you repeat the latter of these two statements again."

So there you have it. When he can't instigate me by his over the top behaviour and misrepresentation of what I said, he threatens me with legal action. Will his next comment complain tha I am trying to stiffle his free speech? Only time will tell...

Barack Obama - Liar and Fraud

I always knew I would strongly disagree with Obama on economics. He is, after all, a Keynesian spender and will, like Bush before him, lead the US down to economic collapse with his nonsense ideas about "stimulus packages" and his warmed over socialism with his nonsense "bailout" plans for big auto and big banks, corporate welfare queens who should have gone out of business long ago.

At least he would stop the wars and pull the US back from despotism and restore rule of law and respect for human and US constitutional rights, right?

Nope.

Obama has decided not to release the torture photos and to continue the cover-up of the crimes of the last administration.

He is keeping US troops in Iraq until 2011, instead of the 6-9 months he stated during the campaign.

He is increasing the presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and best estimates think they will be there for at least 10 more years.

He is refusing to prosecute the war criminals in the last administration, from the actually torturers all the way up to Cheney and Bush. They all get a pass.

He has decided to continue with the Military Tribunals in Gitmo - kangaroo courts that violate nearly every rule of justice and evidence that the West and the Common law has evolved since 1215.

What has Obama delivered but more and bigger deficits than Bush and has either covered up or continued Bush's crimes around the world.

You can call that a lot of things, but it ain't even close to being "Change".

Right now, the only difference between Bush and Obama is that the latter is smarter and able to fool a lot more people while doing exactly what the former did.

Barack Obama - Bush lite.

Perspective

Lets say one day, I grab a young man off the streets, take him home and lock him in my basement. This young man isn't very nice and has been hanging out with the wrong crowd, so he isn't very well liked.

Lets say that I keep him locked up in a 6' x 6' room in my basement, with a metal cot and an open toilet. I wake him at the same time everyday, tell him when he can sleep, when he can eat, when he can talk.

Lets say further, that on an unpredictable yet regular basis, I steal what little possession I allow him to keep, I beat him, I feed him second rate food and occasionally rape him.

Lets say further that I allow my friends to come over and rape him when they feel like it too - in exchange for cigarettes, booze or food.

Lets say that I do this for 10 years or so, every day, before he finally escapes.

What would you think of me?

More importantly, what would you think of what happened to this young man. Is his treatment horrible? Evil? Will he be remotely normal after he escapes?

Would you say he had it easy?


Of course not.

I'm curious then why so many people seem to think doing this exact thing to Momin Khawaja is "letting him off easy". Check out the comments over at CBC.

I make no apologies for Khawaja, nor do I remotely support what he did or his causes. In reality, he has already been in prison for 5 years and was sentenced to an additional 10 1/2 years for his actions. That means his sentence is 15 1/2 years for his crimes and he will not be eligible for parole for another 5 years, until he has served 10 years. That doesn't mean he'll get it, it means simply he'll be allowed to ask, to simply make the request.

For a guy who never actually harmed another individual or caused any damage, that seems like a pretty stiff and fair sentence.

And yet everywhere you turn, you see so-called "law and order" conservative blowhards claiming that the sentence is "too light" or demonstrates that our legal system is too lenient.

Bullshit.

Those commenters at CBC and at the Blogging Tories are the same people that wouldn't last 45 minutes in a stuck elevator, yet claim 15 1/2 years in a prison is "too light". These are the same people that wouldn't last 10 days inside the dark pits of anal rape we call Milhaven or Kingston, yet seem to think 10 years in such a place is "getting off with a slap on the wrist".

Perhaps Khawaja should have gotten more - I don't know, because like right-wing howler monkeys, I haven't read the actual decision yet. But that doesn't mean 10+ years in one of our federal pens isn't punishment. It is. It is 10 years of horror and anyone who thinks differently is an utter and complete, ignorant fool whose mean-spirited and uninformed opinions should be utterly ignored or viciously ridiculed.

Khawaja got what he deserved and trust me, he'll pay for his crimes, whether the vengeful right thinks he will or not.

Just because the bigots and authoritarians could exact their sadistic revenge, doesn't mean justice hasn't been served. It has.

The Principles of Fundemental Justice

This is a phrase that no Conservative or their supporters understands, it seems. It was based on this part of our protections under Section 7 of the Charter that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the reverse onus clause of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (formerly the YOA).

The decision states that provisions of the act requiring youths convicted of serious crimes to prove to the courts that they should not be treated as adults for sentencing, that they should, in fact, be treated as youths, is unconstitutional and violates the rights of due process of the Charter.

Its a good decision and very straightforward. It means that if the Crown wants to sentence a 14 - 17 year old to an adult sentence, they need to prove they deserve this sentence. Just as they need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the teen committed the crime in question, including the mens rea (literally, 'guilty mind' or intent) of the crime. This has been a requirement of our criminal justice system since at least the Magna Carta.

But, if you read the comments section on the CBC link above, you can see conservative hand wringing, pearl clutching and ignorant anger on display:

" kids know they can get away with murder."

"The 'Supreme' Court has, once again, through their decisions declared open-season on the law-abiding citizens of this country."

"Time to bring back corporal punishment."


You get the idea - more slack-jawed yammering from ignorant troglodytes who, curiously, have no problem at all treating teens differently and NOT like adults, when it comes to say, driving a car, buying a drink or having sex with the partner of their choice. Funny that.

Nothing in the ruling says that a teen who commits a serious crime can't be tried or sentenced as an adult, it merely states that the Crown must prove that they are mature enough to be held as culpable as an adult, rather than the defendant prove they are not (since, technically, its impossible to prove a negative). Indeed, I would posit that this ruling forces the courts to treat youthful offenders in the same manner they treat adults - that is, it is up to the Crown to prove all aspects of the case, including the appropriate sentence, rather than assuming the defendant must prove they are NOT worthy of a sentence, just as they do with adults.

The logic of the law, before the Supreme Court decision today, was this:

"Teens are mature enough to make moral decisions regarding criminal acts and therefore they must prove to the court that they are NOT capable of making those decisions, so we should treat them differently in regards to charging and sentencing"

Now lets apply the very same reverse onus logic to the way we treat teens in other aspects of life and law:

"Teens are mature enough to make moral decisions regarding sexual acts and therefore they must prove to the court that they are NOT capable of making those decisions so we should treat them differently in regards to the age of consent"

"Teens are mature enough to make moral decisions regarding drinking and therefore they must prove to the court that they are NOT capable of making those decisions so we should treat them differently in regards to buying and consuming alcohol"

"Teens are mature enough to make moral decisions regarding voting and therefore they must prove to the court that they are NOT capable of making those decisions so we should treat them differently in regards to the enfranchisement"

I don't think there is a Conservative or conservative out there that would agree with any of those. It takes some kind of cognitive dissonance to think its ok to apply that logic to crime.

The ruling recognizes that we treat teens different, because they are different. They are not adults, nor are they children with no culpability. And if the Crown wants to treat them as adults, because a particular teen offender is mature enough, they ought to be forced to prove why they should, on a case by case basis, in a court (which, incidentally, was an integral part of the original YOA in 1984 and was not changed until this reverse onus was brought in - by the Liberals). Even kids are innocent until proven guilty and the sentence should fit both the crime and the offender.

Considering our crime rate is at a 30-year low, including youth crime, I'd say most of this hand-wringing by Conservatives over this is out of proportion with reality. But since when have they used reality for the basis of their dogma?

Once again, the Conservatives are wrong.