Conservative suggests "Mass Bloodshed" maybe neccessary

[bobalot]

CNN's Erick Erickson Suggests "Mass Bloodshed" May Be Necessary If Roe Isn't Overturned

CNN's Erick Erickson is also Editor-in-Chief and "Dear Leader" of the conservative blog Red State, so this charming passage posted by "The Directors" is presumably his doing:

Here at RedState, we too have drawn a line. We will not endorse any candidate who will not reject the judicial usurpation of Roe v. Wade and affirm that the unborn are no less entitled to a right to live simply because of their size or their physical location. Those who wish to write on the front page of RedState must make the same pledge. The reason for this is simple: once before, our nation was forced to repudiate the Supreme Court with mass bloodshed. We remain steadfast in our belief that this will not be necessary again, but only if those committed to justice do not waiver or compromise, and send a clear and unmistakable signal to their elected officials of what must be necessary to earn our support.

That "only if" construct means that -- according to Erick Erickson's Red State -- "mass bloodshed" will be "necessary" if elected officials don't overturn Roe v. Wade. Again: Red State doesn't say "mass bloodshed" may occur if elected officials don't do what is "necessary to earn our support" -- it says such bloodshed will be "necessary." Erickson and his Red State colleagues didn't indicate how much time elected officials have to earn their support before mass bloodshed becomes necessary.

This certainly is not the first time CNN's Erick Erickson has used violent rhetoric in discussing elected officials. This kind of talk must have some fans at CNN, though: Erickson has been chosen to provide "insight and analysis" for CNN's State of the Union coverage.

Source

The douche uses weasel words, but the intent is the same. These people are honestly unbelievable.

[Talhe]

Obviously they feel strongly enough about their 'pro-life' positions that violence and death against actual living people is a part of their duty to kill those object.

I sometimes wonder at when these people lost their normal strain of thought.

[D.Turtle]

Well, that type of rhetoric concerning abortion is nothing new - and it has even been acted on several times already.

I really like the Rachel Maddow Show special on it: The Assassination of Dr. Tiller (part 1).

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, this sort of thing never surprises me. What surprises me is that when challenged, point blank, on whether it's worth committing murder to stop abortions they say are killing millions of babies, so many opponents of abortion blink. They step back and say "no, it isn't worth it."

I think we should bear that in mind, and that it has a lot of implications for how that part of the electorate views the issue.

[Simon_Jester]

EDIT: Because when you think about it, it really should not be a surprise that there are people who think that, given that an embryo is by definition a baby, the deaths of over one million babies a year is worth killing someone over. What should be a surprise is that there are so very many people who don't: who somehow dissociate the idea that fetuses are babies from the enormity of mass baby-killing they believe to be going on.

I've never quite understood how someone could do that, without having a sort of bounce-back and having to come out and say "oh, well an embryo only counts as 1% of a person so it's not so bad" or something. Something like that might explain why a person would see abortion as infanticide and not do anything about it... but it undermines the whole basis for their hardline opposition to abortion to begin with.

I don't get it.

[Chaotic Neutral]

Honestly, this sort of thing never surprises me. What surprises me is that when challenged, point blank, on whether it's worth committing murder to stop abortions they say are killing millions of babies, so many opponents of abortion blink. They step back and say "no, it isn't worth it."

And that's how you can tell they are all hypocrites. If they really believed what they were saying, they wouldn't have that problem.

[Zaune]

Because when you think about it, it really should not be a surprise that there are people who think that, given that an embryo is by definition a baby, the deaths of over one million babies a year is worth killing someone over. What should be a surprise is that there are so very many people who don't: who somehow dissociate the idea that fetuses are babies from the enormity of mass baby-killing they believe to be going on.

I've never quite understood how someone could do that, without having a sort of bounce-back and having to come out and say "oh, well an embryo only counts as 1% of a person so it's not so bad" or something. Something like that might explain why a person would see abortion as infanticide and not do anything about it... but it undermines the whole basis for their hardline opposition to abortion to begin with.

I don't get it.

Perhaps they just believe in the rule of law and refuse to endorse vigilantism.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem is that this seems almost like a syllogism to me. We generally accept that there is some limit to how great an injustice a law can cover before the law itself becomes a monstrous injustice.

If these people aren't drawing the line at a million dead babies a year, where would they draw it?

And that's how you can tell they are all hypocrites. If they really believed what they were saying, they wouldn't have that problem.

CN, you're an idiot.

1) This is not a problem. I am heartily glad that the majority of anti-abortion people in America aren't murderers; I just don't understand it.
2) This is not hypocrisy. There is no evidence of them saying one thing and doing the other. As far as I can tell, the evidence supports the idea of a cognitive disconnect, some kind of mental fuse that blows out before it causes them to make that extra jump to "kill this guy before he kills again!" That or they are in fact deterred by the legal code from doing so, even though they sincerely believe abortion providers should be killed... and I'm not entirely sure I can understand that either. Either way, it's not hypocrisy, though.
3) You are, based on past threads I've seen, the last person who should be trying to make arguments about what actions are or are not justified by some great evil.

[Alyeska]

And that's how you can tell they are all hypocrites. If they really believed what they were saying, they wouldn't have that problem.

Do you even think these things through before blurting them out?

[Zaune]

The problem is that this seems almost like a syllogism to me. We generally accept that there is some limit to how great an injustice a law can cover before the law itself becomes a monstrous injustice.

If these people aren't drawing the line at a million dead babies a year, where would they draw it?

Well, Christianity is the religion whose important leadership figure gave one of his disciples a dressing down for trying to prevent him from being nailed to a tree for telling people what a great idea it would be to be nice to each other for a change. "Those who live by the sword die by the sword", I think he said.

Plus of course there's a much more practical reason not to resort to violent direct action; it involves significant risk of death, injury or imprisonment and no small expenditure of effort and money for frequently disappointing results.

[D.Turtle]

EDIT: Because when you think about it, it really should not be a surprise that there are people who think that, given that an embryo is by definition a baby, the deaths of over one million babies a year is worth killing someone over. What should be a surprise is that there are so very many people who don't: who somehow dissociate the idea that fetuses are babies from the enormity of mass baby-killing they believe to be going on.

I've never quite understood how someone could do that, without having a sort of bounce-back and having to come out and say "oh, well an embryo only counts as 1% of a person so it's not so bad" or something. Something like that might explain why a person would see abortion as infanticide and not do anything about it... but it undermines the whole basis for their hardline opposition to abortion to begin with.

I don't get it.

This type of disconnect is at the very heart of Christianity - so it doesn't surprise me at all that most Christians who oppose abortion on the "baby-killing" argument have that disconnect.

Think about it: the very basis of Christianity is that if you do not become a Christian and repent, you will be sent to hell and tortured, etc. for all eternity. Anyone who truly believed this, would spare no cost at all in order to be sure that as many people as possible do not suffer that fate. Any action taken during the 30-100 years of life would pale in comparison to the effect they would have on the eternity that follows that life. But you only see a very small number of Christians even willing to become missionaries and try to convert other people. The vast majority of people are content to believe their own little thing, and ignore other people, with maybe some token actions here and there.

It is very simple: Most people do not think the consequences of what they say they believe through. Look at that governor who said that only Christians are his brothers and sisters - this is not something extreme that was said, but something that is repeatedly said by many, many Christians. But they ignore that this would mean that they elevate Christians above others, thereby denigrating any and all non-Christians as worth less.

Its the exact same thing with abortion. Most say that they think its baby-killing, and condemn it, but leave it at that and don't think through what the consequences of believing that are. The problems arise when you have people who truly believe that - then you get things like the killing of Dr. Tiller and other assassinations or bombings.

[Gil Hamilton]

The problem is that Christians "live by the sword", as you say, all the time, both in their rhetoric and in deed. I doubt you'll find too many Christians who'd think that naked violence wasn't justified in destroying German or Japan, in batches upwards to one hundred thousand people at a time with strategic bombing. IN FACT, the term "Holocaust" has been co-opted by many in the anti-abortion camp. Last year, a group out here put up a huge display on the University of Arizona mall SPECIFICALLY comparing abortion in America to the mass murdering of Jews and other minorities in Germany with as many gruesome photos as they could find. They love that rhetoric.

If you believe that mass bloodshed was necessary and proper to end national socialism in Europe, and you are using the same rhetoric to describe abortion in America, then you MUST conclude that violence is necessary and proper solution here as well. But most of those people if you ask them (and I did ask one at the demonstration I mentioned), refuse the part where they follow their rhetoric to the logical conclusion. That's a cognative disconnect.

[Marcus Aurelius]

If you believe that mass bloodshed was necessary and proper to end national socialism in Europe, and you are using the same rhetoric to describe abortion in America, then you MUST conclude that violence is necessary and proper solution here as well. But most of those people if you ask them (and I did ask one at the demonstration I mentioned), refuse the part where they follow their rhetoric to the logical conclusion. That's a cognative disconnect.

Well, that was because people believed that Nazism was a threat. It is notable that before Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of war in support of Japan, which directly linked the Nazis to open military actions against US citizens, there were many Americans who did not believe that it would be worth sending "our boys" to die in yet another European war.

Pro-choice people on the other hand are not a real threat to anti-abortion people. The anti-abortionists have no emotional connection to the fetuses and in fact the brunt of the emotional cost is born by the mother and father, mostly the former, who also take the decision to abort the pregnancy. So the whole anti-abortion is just an abstract moral point, which may be worth a lot of talk and political struggles, but for the majority not worth going to prison let alone die for. So, really it is quite logical from that point of view.

[Samuel]

So, really it is quite logical from that point of view.

Your explanation is why they aren't emotionally invested, which by definition isn't logical. Your explanation itself is logical, but what you are describing isn't.

[Marcus Aurelius]

So, really it is quite logical from that point of view.

Your explanation is why they aren't emotionally invested, which by definition isn't logical. Your explanation itself is logical, but what you are describing isn't.

Does logic somehow dictate that one has to be ready to sacrifice one's well-being and possibly even life to remain morally consistent? Their actions are consistent with the goal of self-preservation. They may not fully realize that it is their goal, but that is another matter.

[Gil Hamilton]

Well, that was because people believed that Nazism was a threat. It is notable that before Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of war in support of Japan, which directly linked the Nazis to open military actions against US citizens, there were many Americans who did not believe that it would be worth sending "our boys" to die in yet another European war.

Pro-choice people on the other hand are not a real threat to anti-abortion people. The anti-abortionists have no emotional connection to the fetuses and in fact the brunt of the emotional cost is born by the mother and father, mostly the former, who also take the decision to abort the pregnancy. So the whole anti-abortion is just an abstract moral point, which may be worth a lot of talk and political struggles, but for the majority not worth going to prison let alone die for. So, really it is quite logical from that point of view.

But they DO believe "abortionists" are a threat. They believe they are a threat to millions of innocent babies. If you believe their rhetoric, that is not an abstract moral point; it is mass murder or a "holocaust" to use the term presented on the posters. Hence why the whole demonstration was done in the first place. As Simon side, if the lives of millions of children are not worth going to prison or dying for to stop... what the hell is? Merely letting it bounce around legislatively and be used eternally by politicians to get themselves elected (and then do nothing about the problem) is SEVERE moral cowardice.

As for the first part, people who didn't think we should go to war with Germany weren't doing it for Jesus inspired reasons, but isolationist ones. They didn't think Germany conquering Europe and exterminating some ethnic minorities was worth fighting for (nowadays you'll find it hard to find anyone who doesn't think it was), but that's not "live by the sword, die by the sword" reasoning.

[Marcus Aurelius]

But they DO believe "abortionists" are a threat. They believe they are a threat to millions of innocent babies. If you believe their rhetoric, that is not an abstract moral point; it is mass murder or a "holocaust" to use the term presented on the posters. Hence why the whole demonstration was done in the first place. As Simon side, if the lives of millions of children are not worth going to prison or dying for to stop... what the hell is? Merely letting it bounce around legislatively and be used eternally by politicians to get themselves elected (and then do nothing about the problem) is SEVERE moral cowardice.

The threat of the 'abortionists' is very abstract in the sense that the anti-abortionist's own babies are not threatened nor do they know the babies, which in their minds are being murdered. Their moral code says that it's wrong to abort those pregnancies, but there are no direct consequences for them from the abortions. Their own lives are in fact not altered at all in most cases, apart from the cases where an anti-abortionist is a close relative of a woman having an abortion, and even in that case they usually do not have any emotional investment in the baby yet.

It's much more easier for people to be 'moral cowards' when their own lives are not influenced by the issue in any significant way. If they speak against abortion and support anti-abortion politicians and organizations, they get the emotional payoff for 'doing something' without actually endangering their physical or economic well-being. And since self-preservation is usually (though not always) the primary motivator in most actions, it does make sense, although like I already agreed, they may not realize that.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The vast majority of Anti Abortion people are EXTREAMLY 'wishy washy'.
Deep down they care little to nothing about actually 'stopping' abortion, for many it is something that they can feel good about and make themselves feel important. Standing in front of a clinc and yelling and waving "Baby Killer!" signs does next to nothing to stop abortions, but it makes you feel all important!

The real show of what so many of these people "Really" feal comes from a simple test I have often done called the "Frozen egg test"

A fertility clinic is on fire. Inside there is a box with over 1000 fertilized embryos inside. There is also a 6 year baby girl. You have only enough time to rescue one. For anyone who truely believed that embryo = human life, this question should be a no brainer. They should immeditalty rescue the frozen embryos as 1000 lives trump one. But in all my time I have yet to meet someone who did not squirm uncomfrtably away from answereing the question.

That said...

There are still quite a few out there who will indeed get all High and mighty, they may not advocate violant measures aginst abortion docs... But if "Someone" did something, they wouldn't exactly weep for the dead.

[Gullible Jones]

What I especially love about this, aside from the massive and unsubtle threat, is the implication that the Civil War was about the federal government overstepping its bounds. Because apparently states' rights >> individual rights.

[Winston Blake]

I am heartily glad that the majority of anti-abortion people in America aren't murderers; I just don't understand it.

Althought it would generate lots of discussion, I think it would be a mistake to explore rich and varied hypotheses about the motivations and reasoning of such people. A much simpler explanation is this:

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

I.e. it can be easily explained if you assume that humans are not inherently logical, and do not always (in fact, usually do not) think about the full consequences of their beliefs. If it's any comfort, things could be worse: almost the entire world was like this before the Age of Reason.

[Gil Hamilton]

The threat of the 'abortionists' is very abstract in the sense that the anti-abortionist's own babies are not threatened nor do they know the babies, which in their minds are being murdered. Their moral code says that it's wrong to abort those pregnancies, but there are no direct consequences for them from the abortions. Their own lives are in fact not altered at all in most cases, apart from the cases where an anti-abortionist is a close relative of a woman having an abortion, and even in that case they usually do not have any emotional investment in the baby yet.

It's much more easier for people to be 'moral cowards' when their own lives are not influenced by the issue in any significant way. If they speak against abortion and support anti-abortion politicians and organizations, they get the emotional payoff for 'doing something' without actually endangering their physical or economic well-being. And since self-preservation is usually (though not always) the primary motivator in most actions, it does make sense, although like I already agreed, they may not realize that.

The term "holocaust" is not "very abstract". They are directly calling it mass murder. If you see someone on the street mugging someone else, it doesn't affect you, but it sure as hell isn't abstract. If someone bashes a live babies head in with a rock, it doesn't affect you so long as it isn't your baby, but it isn't abstract. Based on their rhetoric, abortion is not abstract, it is a real horrible thing that is happening right now.

[Simon_Jester]

Suffice to say that this is a case of incredibly powerful cognitive dissonance.

On the one hand, people avow that a million babies a year are massacred in cold blood by a relative handful of monstrous clinicians, and that this has been going on since the 1970s.

On the other, the same people avow that an appropriate response involves carrying signs, occasionally handing out pamphlets or making it awkward for people to enter the facilities where this happens, and voting for politicians who avow that the massacre is going on and don't do all that much about it.

It's staggering that this can go on in the minds of something like 100 million Americans, who all agree on the two basic premises: a million babies a year are being massacred in cold blood in their own country, and they are under no obligation to do anything dangerous, expensive, or all that time-consuming about it.

[Shroom Man 777]

This is right out of the Rightists' playbook. They sow hatred and discord. They sow violence. They sow race hatred. Then one of their people, fueled by their campaign of hate commits an atrocity, and they blame Americans for it.

[Marcus Aurelius]

The term "holocaust" is not "very abstract". They are directly calling it mass murder. If you see someone on the street mugging someone else, it doesn't affect you, but it sure as hell isn't abstract. If someone bashes a live babies head in with a rock, it doesn't affect you so long as it isn't your baby, but it isn't abstract. Based on their rhetoric, abortion is not abstract, it is a real horrible thing that is happening right now.

What they are calling it and how they actually perceive it are not the same thing, which is what I have been trying to say all the time. Consider it 'cognitive dissonance' (actually I'm not sure if that's the right expression in this case) or whatever, but the fact is that no one forces you to have an abortion anywhere in the Western world and therefore the 'threat of abortion' is not psychologically comparable to widespread street violence or psychopathic baby killers stalking your children. The moral values of the anti-abortionists say that abortion is wrong, but in no way are they or their babies threatened by the abortion clinics. The situation is comparable to say, starting a violent protest movement to help stop the genocide in Darfur. Sure, Darfur is in another country and full of brown people, so less people bother to even say something about it, but neither case is strong enough for most people to actually do anything drastic about it.

[Winston Blake]

Consider it 'cognitive dissonance' (actually I'm not sure if that's the right expression in this case) or whatever

I don't think it's quite the right expression. Wikipedia tells me that 'cognitive dissonance' approximately means 'cognitive discomfort'. A better term would be 'cognitive incongruence' or 'cognitive inconsistency'.