Well, unsatisfying as it is to our fast news addiction, we still know little about Robert Lewis Dear and why he killed at least three people, injured many more and terrorized hundreds in his assault against the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. We know his age and gender, we know he's had criminal complaints against him for violence against women and a dog. His neighbors report him as being extremely anti-social and mean and extremely weird. They obviously were expecting him to do something violent. I'd guess he should have been in custodial care back on the East coast, but I won't go into our 18th century style mental health system just now.
Among the things I've so far read and heard from those who come close to being familiar with him one thing that is missing would be any of them identifying him as a church goer. Or religious. Considering the use of him in a blanket indictment of Christians over the past two days, that's rather odd. Though, considering the urban myths of the twit and comment thread class, it would be irresponsible not to just make that up. I will point out, again, that such people in the commentariat are blaming Officer Swasey who was a part-time pastor at his evangelical Christian church, for his own death. I would imagine there's a good chance that is also true of many of the first responders who were trying to stop him and save people on that snowy afternoon, as their colleagues were being shot by Dear. Such a contrast to those whose bravery kept them at their keyboards to complain that they were taking too long and why didn't they just shoot him like they see on TV.
It's clear from the reaction I've gotten over this that the preening, conceited, self-announced reality community doesn't get that point WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW YOU DON'T KNOW. Something which they apparently don't care about either. A respect for the truth has never stopped them from making the most hatefilled and bigoted statements as fact. I could mention the comments that abound online falsely labeling even atheist mass murderers as being motivated by Christianity. Their low regard for the truth puts them in the same category with those who made the dishonestly edited videos lying about Planned Parenthood which so many of them just assume motivated Dear.
They share the same attitude towards the truth with those fascists, a lie is as good as the truth if it gets you what you want. Also, a lie is a lot easier to make work for you because it doesn't have to bother with those so often inconvenient facts. It's perfect for the Twitter rumor age in which lies have been granted the same protection as the truth by the Rehnquist and Roberts courts. That that was done by the same people who oppose womens right to own their own bodies should show who will benefit from a time when lies sold with hate is a dominant force in our culture. Lies are a lot more dangerous to the left and a lot more useful to the right than the lying libertarians of the pseudo-left would want real liberals to realize.
You can have a country in which lies are punished or you can have one dominated by those who lies benefit. Our idiot free-speech industry don't seem to care about what the results are of their absurd program of protecting lies. Considering most of them are affluent, and most of them are men, it's a lot less risky to them than it is for most of the people who would be at a Planned Parenthood clinic on any given Friday. Or the first responders left to clean up the dangerous mess they've made of things.
If it turns out Robert Dear was motivated by absorbing the hate and lies of the anti-choice industry, especially that doctored video, not addressing the ability of those who produce it to just get away with feeding it to the people who will act on that poison, not changing the law as to prevent that from continuing unpunished is a white flag of surrender to the liars and those who they serve.
All of that is a lot more complex than will fit into an oh so satisfying to post hate Tweet or comment thread tantrum. But it's what's necessary to REALLY change things.
From the NYT TIMES:
ReplyDelete"The younger Mr. Dear [Colorado Springs shooter] was raised as a Baptist, Ms. Ross [Dear's ex-wife] said in an interview in Goose Creek, S.C., where she now lives. He was religious but not a regular churchgoer, a believer but not one to harp on religion. “He believed wholeheartedly in the Bible,” she said. “That’s what he always said; he read it cover to cover to cover.” But he was not fixated on it, she added.
He was generally conservative, but not obsessed with politics. He kept guns around the house for personal protection and hunting, and he taught their son to hunt doves, as many Southern fathers do. He believed that abortion was wrong, but it was not something that he spoke about much. “It was never really a topic of discussion,” she said."
Apparently you were the only person on earth who couldn't have predicted this.
Cue your Not a True Christian™ dodge in five....four....three.....
He seems to have missed the "Thou shalt not kill" the "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword" the "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and other such passages in the Bible if he read it cover to cover.
DeleteYou wonder why, if he were such a "wholehearted" believer in the Bible how his life so obviously didn't reflect the moral teachings of the Bible. Among which, I will point out, is NOT to be found a prohibition against abortion but the murder of innocent people is found.
You really do hate Christians don't you, including any of those who are murdered by people like Robert Dear, even as you use their own murders to hate them. That is the be all and end all of all of this
While I can't credit you, personally, with saying anything intelligent enough to learn how vitally important the hatred of religion is to the pseudo-left, your parroting of those lines mixed with your penchant for lying has done nothing to dissuade me that that insight into the malign ubiquity of that hatred in the losing, ineffective, hypocritical political millstone around the neck of the real left that the pseudo-left has been, was incorrect.
Almost everything that has ever been positive done by the real left has been done in spite of the phonies like you.
I was raised among Baptists, but none of us took hostages in a clinic (we're all too old to care now). And still we don't know what motivated Dear, aside from one reference to the infamous video, which had nothing to do with religion.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about his home in Colorado but the lack of electricity in his cabin in N. C. and his general, apparent misanthropy would suggest he's unlikely to have seen it there.
DeleteIf I didn't have a day job I'd go through the comments from the past two days and compare them with comment threads from other events, unfortunately those at Eschaton for the night of Dr. Tiller's murder, as he ushered at his church, aren't up anymore. But I would imagine others in atheist dominated places would show similar things.
I have to say, I looked at a post at Jezebel which I'd expected would be full of that kind of stuff and, in comparison to the "Brain Trust" it was a model of restrained rationality. It would seem the BT is more of a BM these days.
One officer reportedly said Dear said "No more body parts." But reports in the first hours after these things are always unreliable, so I don't know if that's even true.
DeleteBut I haven't seen anything to indicate he was motivated by any religious principles whatsoever.
"The recluse accused of killing three people and wounding nine in an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado posted ranted about the apocalypse and posted Biblical passages online - while also seeking sadomasochistic sex..."
ReplyDeleteOh well, that last part about the S&M is obvious just an anomaly.
Oh, I read that story about an hour ago. It also noted he listened to rock music. Now.... well, I guess I won't ask YOU to tell me, what are his actions more in line with, the Gospel of Jesus whose earliest followers were notable for being pacifists, or a large range or rock music. Maybe he listened to your favorites, Mick and his old Stones who promted S&M and Bondage in a series of songs and albums.
DeleteRemember all those anti-Planned Parenthood rock songs?
ReplyDeleteYeah, me neither.
They must be hiding behind all the ones about men controlling women, doing violence to women, killing women, and those pop songs about "Havin' mah' baby".
DeleteI'd say if he was getting those messages it's more likely to have come from rock songs than the Bible which doesn't ban abortion. It would explain a lot more about his reported behavior than all those church services that even his wife whose claims you rely on said he didn't go to.
Now, admit it, Simps, the conversation here is a lot more interesting than the mutual admiration society at Duncan's place.
DeleteRemember all those "Kill abortionists!" rock songs?
ReplyDeleteMe neither.