A disgusting response to a despicable act.

Erick Erickson may have had the most revolting reaction to the Planned parenthood terror attack in Colorado:

The Most Surprising Thing About the Colorado Springs Shooting

This past Friday, a lunatic who lived in a shack with no running water or electricity killed three people in Colorado Springs, CO. He wound up going into a Planned Parenthood facility. Three people were killed. None of those were abortionists or patients. A pro-life Christian preacher/police officer was one of the victims.

 And since the gunman didn't ask for identification to see who were the doctors and who were the patients and just shot at everyone who was in the Planned Parenthood clinic, clearly that proves that this had nothing to do with abortion. Guy just wanted to shoot people, I guess. Go figure.

 At 3:30pm on Friday, while the facts were shifting and things were still unknown, I was already getting emails from leftists blaming me, my rhetoric, RedState, talk radio, Center for Medical Progress videos, etc. for the killings. Again, at that time the facts were still unknown and even now a lot of facts are unknown. The man was neither a church goer nor a pro-life activist. He was a lunatic.

 He was a "lunatic" who said "no more baby parts" when being taken into custody. His motivation is NOT 'unknown." And he was clearly inspired by the fraudulent, deceptively-edited videos from "center for Medical Progress" and all the figures on the right who have been disingenuously bleating on about PP supposedly selling baby parts.

But the left had its narrative. It had been searching for a moral equivalence since Paris and could not resist the fundraising opportunity to claim pro-life Christians were even a bigger threat than muslims. After all, according to the left, if someone shoots up a Planned Parenthood facility, it is proof that all Christians are one degree away from a terrorist related rampage. But when a Muslim walks into a place screaming “Allahu Akbar,” it’s just workplace violence.

 No one said that. No one has ever said any such thing. No one has ever said that any of the many acts and threats of violence directed at abortion providers is any sort of indication of the temperament of "all Christians." Everyone knows that the set "All Christians" contains everyone from Scott Roeder and Tim McVeigh to Jimmy Carter and Mother Theresa. You are just lying.
And no one has ever claimed that acts of terrorism committed by Muslim fanatics are "just workplace violence." I know that's a thing on the right, to claim that Barack Obama said that about the Fort Hood shooting, but the thing is, he never said that. The official reports from the military classified the murders as "workplace violence" because they had to check off a category and there wasn't a box marked "killed by domestic terrorist" because that had never happened on an Army base before. No one was trying to downplay the seriousness of the Fort Hood murders. But you knew that, you're just being a lying sack of shitweasels again.


Oh, and also, there is a moral equivalence between gunmen who murder in the name of Allah and gunmne who murder in the name of Jesus. They're both twisted, depraved terrorists and this scumbag in Colorado does not represent Christianity any more than the gunmen in Paris represent Islam. No one has to "search" for a moral equivalence. It's right out there in plain sight. .



Now, up until this point this is just typical Erick Erickson right-wing dissembling bullshit. But now it's about to get really shocking:

There is one surprising thing about the Colorado Springs shooting at the Planned Parenthood clinic. It is that it is a rare event.

Um. . . rare?



(click for bigger version)

A) violent attacks on abortion providers really aren't all that rare, and
B) The rareness is surprising to you? Are you saying what it seems like you're saying? Are you saying "geez, given the constant incitement to violence being spewed out on right-wing airwaves and websites, it's really surprising that more members of our unhinged, unstable audience doesn't commit murder against the people we constantly demonize and vilify." Cuz that's the only reason I can think of that you'd be surprised by the relative rarity of these attacks.

 According to NARAL, there have been eight people killed and seventeen injured in attacks on American abortion providers in twenty-five years. And they have been getting rarer: this is only the second such killing – after the 2009 murder of George Tiller – in this century. In Chicago alone over Thanksgiving weekend, there were eight people killed and twenty wounded.

Okay, hold on a second here. You're saying 8 killed and 17injured. But those aren't the number of attacks, those are the numbers of casualties. According to the National Abortion Federation: "There have been at least 73 successful attacks on American abortion clinics since 1997. Forty of those acts of violence were arson attacks, including four in 2012. There have also been 20 attacks aimed at abortion providers themselves with different weapons, either shootings, stabbings, or acid attacks."  
So, even if your numbers are correct, they're intentionally misleading. Just because these "Army of God/Operation Rescue" types aren't very good at violent attacks doesn't mean they aren't trying them.

It really is surprising more Planned Parenthood facilities and abortionists are not being targeted. It speaks to the pro-life movement being faith based and turning to their better angels.

Surprising? You mean disappointing?
And which "better angels" told someone to throw acid at abortion doctors 19 times in three states in 1998? Which "better angels" came up with the idea to commit seven arsons in 1999? (source) If those are the better angels, I'd hate to meet the worse ones.

The left is desperate to compare the American pro-life movement to terrorists. They damn well better be glad Christians follow a faith that tells them to honor and pray for their leaders, follow the law, love everyone, and let the state and not the individual act as the sword bearer for God.

What the fuck?
Jeezus, I don't even know where to begin with this shit. Honor and pray for their leaders? You mean like the president of the United States? When has anyone in the "pro-life" movement, or in any of the subsets of the Conservative movement ever honored President Obama?
I know there have been some pro-lifers praying for him:

Christian Pastor Preaches For Death Of Obama And Calls His Mother A Whore

n 2009 Pastor Anderson told his congregation that his disdain for the President wasn’t because of Obama’s policies, but that he actually hated Obama himself.  He said that he prays every night that President Obama will die and go directly to hell.

“And I’m going to tell you something. I hate Barack Obama. You say, well, you just mean you don’t like what he stands for. No, I hate the person. Oh, you mean you just don’t like his policies. No, I hate him.”
“And you’re going to tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil murderer infanticide who wants to see young children and he wants to see babies killed through abortion, you’re gonna tell me I’m supposed to pray for God to give him a good lunch tomorrow when he’s in Phoenix, Arizona. Nope, I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to Hell…When I go to bed tonight, Stephen J. Anderson is going to pray for Barack Obama to die and go to Hell.”

Kansas GOP speaker's prayer for President Obama's death

Wiley Drake Prays For Obama's Death

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 6/4/2009 4:39 pm

The other day I noted that Wiley Drake, Alan Keyes' vice-presidential running mate, had declared that George Tiller's murder had been the answer to his "imprecatory" prayers.

Now Drake has proclaimed that he is likewise issuing such prayers against President Obama in hopes that he also dies:

A former Southern Baptist Convention officer who on June 2 called the death of abortion provider George Tiller an answer to prayer said later in the day he is also praying "imprecatory prayer" against President Obama.

Oh, and "follow the law?" You mean other than the laws against murder, arson, assault, making terrorist threats, bombing, vandalism and blocking access to clinics? Other than that, yeah your movement is really big on law-following. Oh, and it goes without saying that you looooove everyone!

The pro-life movement is most typically represented by men like Garret Swasey, who though pro-life and Christian, worked as a police officer to save lives in Colorado Springs, CO.

No. No it is not. The "pro-life" movement is most typically represented by the people who block the sidewalk in front of clinics and scream "baby killer!!!" at women going in.

Cecile Richards is about the closest we have come in the United States to Joseph Mengele. Under her leadership at Planned Parenthood, doctors have been killing children and harvesting the children’s organs. In some cases, the children are born alive. In some case, whole children are born and then carved up.
This has all been caught on tape repeatedly. The media and left would prefer you ignore it. They’d prefer you believe the tapes were altered, edited, or fabricated. But we should not be ashamed of speaking the truth. It is the truth that Planned Parenthood sells baby parts and its employees were caught on tape talking about the value, the sale, and the altering of abortion procedures to preserve organs for sale.
Planned Parenthood butchers millions of children.

A) None of that is true. The videos have been exposed as fraudulent. Several red states have launched investigations of PP and none have been able to find any wrongdoing.
B) Comparing someone, anyone, to Mengele is the sickest type of character assassination imaginable. It's beyond despicable and maybe even slanderous.
and
C) this is the type of rhetoric that gets people like this Colorado Springs "lunatic" to act out violently.

Given the public light shed on the atrocities committed by Planned Parenthood and both the government and media’s turning a blind eye to it, dismissing it, laughing it off, or lying about it, it really should be surprising that Americans convicted of the need to stop the murder of children have not taken the law into their own hands.

But it's not the law. The law says that abortion is legal and donating fetal tissue to research facilities is legal. So when a pro-lifer commits acts of terrorism against Planned Parenthood, he is doing the opposite of taking the law into his own hands. Taking the law into your own hands is like hunting down the guy who shot your brother and killing him like in an old western. What you're talking about is just murdering people that have a different point of view. And the more that you say how surprising it is that there aren't more of these killings, the more it sounds like you're encouraging them.  Especially when you spin these lurid fantasies of children being butchered like the cover of "Yesterday and Today, " and tell your demented readership that the law is powerless to stop the alleged slaughter of innocents and boy, isn't it surprising that there aren't more people willing to stand up and fight these monsters? You have blood on your hands, you know it, and I'm guessing that you don't care.


PS for our younger readers:


PPS:
Going to California for a few days to visit family. Regular blogging should resume mid-week.

Things that mean nothing

In the wake of yet another senseless mass shooting, the various Republican presidential candidates took to Twitter to put their two cents in. See if you can spot the theme:

Jeb Bush @JebBush

Praying for the victims, their families & the San Bernardino first responders in the wake of this tragic shooting.

Lindsey Graham @LindseyGrahamSC

Thoughts & prayers are with #SanBernardino

Rick Santorum ‏@RickSantorum 50m50 minutes ago

Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones and all those impacted by today's tragedy in California #SanBernadino

Chris Christie @ChrisChristie

RT @GovChristie: Praying for all those victimized by the shootings in San Bernardino, California today.

Ted Cruz @tedcruz

Our prayers are with the victims, their families, and the first responders in San Bernardino who willingly go into harm’s way to save others

John Kasich @JohnKasich

My thoughts & prayers go out to those impacted by the shooting in San Bernardino, especially the first responders. -John

Dr. Rand Paul @RandPaul

My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, families, and brave first responders during this unspeakable tragedy.

George E. Pataki @GovernorPataki

Praying for the victims and first responders in #SanBernardino for a quick resolution.

• 
  

Dr. Ben Carson@RealBenCarson

My thoughts and prayers are with the shooting victims and their families in San Bernardino.

View on Twitter

• 5 hrs ago

Dr. Ben Carson@RealBenCarson

My thoughts and prayers with the shooting victims and their families in San Bernardino.

 Thoughts and Prayers. You know what, guys? Your thoughts and prayers do nothing. Your thoughts and prayers are worth nothing. Three of you are sitting United States Senators. Two of you are sitting governors. All of you have been given a platform to address the electorate. DO SOMETHING! Don't think. Don't pray. Do something.  You all are in positions of influence, do something about this epidemic of gun violence that has infected this nation. Legislate. Support sensible gun laws. People are being mowed down every day in this country while you sit there piously, unctuously, cravenly sending your worthless "thoughts and prayers" out to people whose lives have been shattered. Fuck you all.  Your thoughts and prayers are worse than worthless, they're a slap in the face and a big middle finger to everyone who's been affected by gun violence. It's looking out at the aftermath of tragedy and saying, with a shit-eating grin, "we could do something to prevent this, but we choose not to." 

Fuck all y'all.

Weird Headline of the Day

Browsing through the headlines on Yahoo! News this evening, this caught my eye:

Christians Losing 'Home-Field Advantage' as US Reels from Political and Religious Polarization

Home field advantage? I didn't even realize this was a competition.

 

Okay, Johnson, you proselytize to the left. Henderson, you baptize the linebacker. And if this works, Rodriguez should have an easy conversion!

When it comes to faith, times in America are changing. In fact, in many ways, they’ve already changed. Just ask Ed Stetzer, the executive director of LifeWay Research and my co-host for “BreakPoint This Week.” Commenting on a recent Pew Research Center report, Ed told the Washington Post, “America is undergoing a religious polarization.”
Indeed. According to Pew, “the percentage of adults … who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years. And the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular,’ has jumped more than six points.

You slackers call that believing? My grandmother could out-believe you bunch of bums!

And on the other hand, we’re seeing an increase of those who are serious about their faith when it comes to spiritual disciplines and activities: higher levels of at least weekly Bible reading, participating in weekly prayer or Bible study groups, sharing faith with others at least weekly. So, as Christianity Today reported, “The rich in faith get richer while the poor get poorer.”
Stetzer sees several implications of this religious polarization. First, he says, Christians no longer have what he calls a “home-field advantage” in American culture.

 

Okay, listen up. Christians are down to a mere 70% of Americans, so we're on "their" turf now. Things are gonna be a lot tougher!

Seriously, this is the Pew poll that he links to that shows how Christians are, what, exactly? Becoming an oppressed minority? I guess?

 

So, Christians make up only a tiny 71% of the US population, while the dreaded Muslims have climbed up to almost an entire one percent!





 So, how does this loss of "home field" manifest itself?

“For years,” Ed states, “Christians could assume a person with whom they struck up a conversation was probably a fellow believer. If not, the other person would at least share their cultural values. But that is no longer the case. Increasingly, Americans are just as likely to have no faith background, be of another religion or even hold a hostile view of faith. That’s new territory for most Christians.”

Um, yeah, that would be new territory. If it were remotely close to being true. According to the poll that you cited, you have about a 70% chance that the person you're conversing with is a fellow Christian.  About 73% fall under the rubric "Judeo-Christian," and even most non-religious people don't necessarily have a "hostile view of faith." When you strike up a conversation with a stranger, the odds are about 1 in 300,000,000 that you've run into Bill Maher.

Second, Ed says, we “have lost cultural privilege.” Gone are the days when most stores were closed on Sundays, or schools cleared their schedules on Wednesday nights so that families could go to prayer meetings.

 Well, A) good. No religious group is supposed to be privileged above another,
and B) I have lived in America for nearly (none of your beeswax) years now, and I can not remember a time when stores routinely closed on Sundays. Other than some local mom-and-pop shops. No large corporate chains have closed on Sundays in my recollection except Chic-Fil-A. Stores being open on Sunday has nothing to do with any cultural shift away from religion. It's just good old fashioned capitalist greed.

  But Ed says, that’s not all bad. “Historically,” he writes, “Christians have survived—and thrived—as a passionate and convictional minority.”

Well, okay. But really, not since the time of Constantine I. When was the last time Christians were any kind of minority in the Western world?  My God, the West was ruled by the Holy Roman Empire from the time of Charlemagne until the early 19th Century. Christians haven't been a minority in the US since white people first outnumbered Native Americans.

The third implication, Ed says, it will be easier to tell who is a Christian and who isn’t.  More and more people are facing life without God and without the hope—and they know it.

I don't think they do. I don't think your average atheist is moping around, wringing his hands and bemoaning his lack of hope. Honestly, they seem fine.

So what can we do to bridge the polarization gap? First, we need to be among those Christians who are sharing the good news with our neighbors. 

Oh, yeah. People love that!

 

So we cannot underestimate the significance of the world of ideas, and their consequences if we are going to be able to live well in this culture. It’s always been important, but as we’ve gone from what Chuck Colson and Francis Schaeffer called a “post-Christian culture” to what I think we can safely call “a consciously post-Christian culture,” it’s even more important.

Yes. A "post-Christian" culture in which 71% of the people are Christian. A "post-Christian" culture in which the Democrats are running one Presidential candidate who identifies as Christian and one who is Jewish, and the Republicans are running 17, 18, 20? candidates who all try to out-Christian the others. That is exactly what a post-Christian culture would look like.

I really don't get why some people feel the need to constantly portray themselves as the victims of a hostile society. How does that make you feel good?  If you're going to live in a fantasy world, why not make it a pleasant place for you? It can bed whatever you want, you know. For instance, in my make-believe world, I am the world's highest-paid and most sought-after kitten petter whose biggest problem is that it's annoying constantly being mistaken for Channing Tatum. Why not try something like that?