bad craziness indeed
June 1, 2009 1 Comment
George Tiller
“It is out of characterfor the left to neglect the weak and helpless. The traditional mark of the left has been its protection of the underdog, the weak and the poor. The unborn child is the most helpless form of humanity, even more in need of protection than the poor tenant farmer or the mental patient. The basic instinct of the left is to aid those who cannot aid themselves. And that instinct is absolutely sound. It’s what keeps the human proposition going.” ~ Mary Meehan
I wrote a while ago that I am a professed culture war pacifist. As the years have gone by and I’ve grown older and (a little bit) wiser, I’ve also become a pacifist in the more traditional sense. Where once I saw virtue in strength – in the good fight, as it were – I see now only pain and confusion. War rarely achieves what it sets out to achieve, and victory is at best a mixed bag. Terror is often in the same futile camp, but as Matt Yglesias notes:
Every time you murder a doctor, you create a disincentive for other medical professionals to provide these services. What’s more, you create a need for additional security at facilities around the country. In addition, the anti-abortion protestors who frequently gather near clinics are made to seem much more intimidating by the fact that the occurrence of these sorts of acts of violence.
In general, I think people tend to overestimate the efficacy of violence as a political tactic. But in this particular case, I think people tend to understate it.
Tiller’s death is the culmination of years of culture war propaganda, fear tactics, and Christianity gone bad. Religion is not in and of itself good or evil, but in the hands of villains and fanatics it can be a dangerous thing – much as any ideology can be, though there is indeed something more frightening about the religiously charged fanatic. The pro-life movement has gained nothing from such fairweather spokespeople as Bill O’Reilly who is in it not for the preborn but for himself, not for any particular cause but rather ratings.
In any case, this is not only a blow against life – and specifically the life of George Tiller, who has been brutally ripped from this world and from the lives of his loved ones – but against the pro-life cause. And not just the specific political cause, either, but against life itself. Against all causes for life – be they anti-war or anti-abortion or anti-death penalty.
Now I’m not really sure where to place myself on the generic political playing field. In many respects I would call myself a progressive; on others I might be aptly titled a conservative. I’m a localist, a decentralist, but I also favor social safety nets. I’m against a pervasive government, but not against a welfare state. I’m against military expansion and incursions upon our civil liberties by the state (and big business) but I am in favor of state services, progressive taxes, etc. On gay rights – and rights in general – I fall amidst the left or the libertarians. But as Nat Hentoff – an atheist and a leftist – has often noted, progressive politics are ostensibly about protecting the rights of the weakest among us and yet his fellow progressives fail to see how the preborn (or unborn) are, in essence, the by far the weakest of the weak, the most helpless of the helpless. The right to choose, in contemporary progressive thought, trumps the right to be born (and the preborn have no such capacity for choice). [Read more →]
June 1, 2009 57 Comments
