By the DoD definition posted above, this is terrorism. This guy had intent to harm people based on political motivations of one form or another. Done and done.

This event meets the definition of an act of “domestic terrorism” in the Patriot Act. I find it amusing that those tending leftward are anxious and eager to declare it so while still probably harboring latent opposition to the Act (reaffirmed by the Obama administration as “necessary” and by the Democratic congress in a “mend it don’t end it” action).

Public officials have to take time to evaluate the evidence before they make a pronouncement. They can’t rely on news feeds and twitter posts to declare something a terrorist event. The police probably want to make sure before they lose jurisdiction over the crime scene to the Feds. And they don’t want to alarm the people who, like many people in this thread, will not understand the differences between domestic and international terrorism.

Making this a right-left issue in order to disparage “the other side” on the Donk is surprising. I thought we were better than that.

Terrorism is terrorism – regardless of nationality. It just proves that any target is possible if the terrorist is motivated and has the means to act – there really isn’t much of a defense against it in cases like this. So I guess if this was 5 years ago we would begin a process to undermine the society of Texas, kill all subversives, re-write their laws and traditions, and implement a system of elections to insure the correct people got elected so as to put an end to their dangerous beliefs………wait a minute…..

I see from the thread response that the only person you’re fooling is yourself.

Blatant hypocrisy is just that — blatant — and erudite wiggling and rationalizations and evasions won’t make it any less obvious. You condemned the rhetoric of violence in one breath and then employed exactly that rhetoric in the next. It’s yours. You own it.

A few years ago there was also a study that showed that a Dem President seemed to trend toward less abortions than a GOP President.

Well, then let’s see it. Or do you mean the claim that was debunked here? Keep in mind that the only Dem Presidents since Roe have been Carter and Clinton, and statistics for Clinton will be difficult to attribute to the President when he faced a GOP Congress.

Not to mention that if the best argument you have is prohibition…

I cited prohibition as a practical demonstration that Jacob’s claim of the ineffectiveness of law on behavior is untenable. In that regard, to the extent it can really be called an “argument” (more of an example in service of an argument, really) it’s a good one: it demolishes the claim against which it was launched.

Your snark doesn’t rebut that point. Nor does severing the example fro, its context: Prohibition certainly demonstrated that law alone is insufficient, but as I said, the cognate experience of tobacco demonstrates that law is an effective tool for change when it is part of a broader cultural campaign that is supported by science. The pro-life movement is much closer to the latter than the former.

A few years ago there was also a study that showed that a Dem President seemed to trend toward less abortions than a GOP President.

Fractally confused (or fractally wrong)

The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong person’s worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in on any small part of that person’s worldview, that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite regress, as every refutation you make of that person’s opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths, leaps of logic, and outright lies, that requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the Mandelbrot set in finite time.

If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong person on the Internet–in mailing lists, newsgroups, or website forums–your best bet is to say your piece once and ignore any replies, thus saving yourself time.

and to just point out one other thing. As “proof” that I’m confused you use an example of me quoting you word for word. You follow by repeating it back in exactly the same words and say that you didn’t say what I quoted and you had just regurgitated in the previous sentence… And now I will take the advice of the definition. Talk to you later Cliff.

You said you’re asking me to pursue your assumptions … to their illogical conclusion.

Nope. I said that “you’re asking me to pursue your assumptions to their illogical conclusion.” And I declined to give chase. So far, you’re getting good marks in meither writing nor reading comprehension. But keep trying!

As to Sarah you are fractally confused there as well.

Oh, fun! I’ve never been fractually confused before. It sounds intriguing!

Tell us again how Sarah Palin is an idiot. I bet she knows the difference between fractions and facts.

You said you’re asking me to pursue your assumptions … to their illogical conclusion.

Nope. I said that “you’re asking me to pursue your assumptions to their illogical conclusion.” And I declined to give chase. So far, you’re getting good marks in meither writing nor reading comprehension. But keep trying!

There’s a reason there is a common phrase “getting away with murder” It is because as a society we feel that should never happen.

We as a society also believe that ex post facto laws are unconscionable, and that people should not be criminally punished for doing something that was legal when they did it. While the old saw that ignorance of the law is no excuse, its bite has limits, because as a society, we believe it is the “citizen is entitled to fair notice of what sort of conduct may give rise to punishment,” McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350, 375 (1987) (Stevens, J., dissenting). Hence the rule of lenity and the vagueness doctrine: it is a “fundamental principle that no citizen should be held accountable for a violation of a statute whose commands are uncertain, or subjected to punishment that is not clearly prescribed.” United States v. Santos, 128 S. Ct. 2020 (2008) (slip op. at 6); cf. Sash v. Zenk, 439 F.3d 61 (2d Cir. 2006) (per Sotomayor, J.); United States v. Ocegueda, 564 F.2d 1363 (9th Cir. 1977) (“[t]he Constitution does not require exact specificity, but it does require that a law give reasonable notice so that citizens subject to it may conduct themselves accordingly”).

In your simplistic worldview that brands me as “gutless” for refusing to abandon our longstanding view against ex post facto laws, you should shut your mouth and do nothing, because some future law may punish you for almost anything. Of course, even then, you might be screwed: perhaps a future law will punish you for doing nothing! Not for nothing has anglo-American civilization set its face against such laws, even when the conduct was heinous.

And even if we were willing to prosecute people under new law for acts that were legal when undertaken, your position would still be untenable, since it prescribes the death penalty. It does not follow that if conduct is illegal, a given penalty must be attached, least of all the death penalty. As I have indicated, the Church teaches that the death penalty should only be used when absolutely necessary—that is, when no other sanction is available or adequate—and I accept that teaching.

As to the Bishop of Leicester, I get why you are confused. Yes, he is an Anglican. I didn’t say he was a Catholic.

You cited—I suspect misrepresented—his comments about his teaching office to counter what I said about the teaching office of the Church. This only works as a rejoinder, however, if he is a Catholic Bishop or was actually speaking about the Church’s magisterium. If neither hold, your reply is sleight of hand: it makes an assertion about what another ecclesial community believe about its own teaching authority, either because you don’t understand the difference or you hope other readers don’t notice it.

One religion is as nutty and unbelievable…

Well that answers the either/or posed above: you don’t understand the difference. The Catholic Church and the Church of England are different; your bigotry and incomprehension doesn’t change that fact, although I’m sure it makes it easier for you to ignore it.

I meant that in your confused world view you gave men in dresses from the Catholic Church some super powers of morality that they do not possess, haven’t earned and don’t deserve.

I give them no such thing. I give the Church’s magisterium the due weight to which it is entitled.

Unlike abortion which is legal, pedophilia isn’t and it was practiced – sanctioned – and covered up by your beloved “arbiters of morality.”

This is simply bigotry hiding behind ill-taken snark. Suppose a handful of government officials were found to have been diddling their charges (or even simply with their hand in the till); would you accept the abusive behavior of a few as proof that the entire government, both corporately and to the extent of every one of its employees, is necessarily and inherently corrupt? Both claims are ridiculous.

Gee, I sure hope that in the future, lèse majesté against the Church doesn’t become a criminal act—otherwise, people like you will start clamoring for your arrest and saying people who disagree are “gutless”!

Whenever we have the abortion discussions I mention the fact that illegal abortion won’t save any unborn lives. It only adds a number of women to the death toll. … How do you reconcile the fact that governmental prohibition of abortion does NOTHING to reduce the number of abortions while increasing injuries and deaths of women?

You assert that “illegal abortion won’t save any unborn lives”—but that is not, of course, a fact. To be sure, banning abortion will not stamp out abortion, any more than banning any other activity results in a complete cessation of that activity. The crime rate isn’t zero. But what wold happen if we abolished the penal code and enforcement thereof? No one in their right mind would assert that doing so would have no effect on the incidence of now-criminal activities, yet that is the mirror-image of your assertion. Your theory inescapably rests on the astonishing assumption that criminal law is ineffectual—not that it is merely imperfect, but that it makes no difference at all. That position is untenable, and as I recall, the only “evidence” you could offer was an irrelevant and inapt survey of international abortion statistics.

Consider, by way of analogy, prohibition. That may not be an auspicious analogue, and the analogy is imperfect (because the incentive structures at issue are different) but serviceable, if only for my present point (because in both instances, government prohibits a choice that had hitherto been within the volition of citizens for many years). The point is this: during prohibition, some people still drank, but that is a far cry from the shadow of your claim in this analogy: that governmental prohibition of alcohol did NOTHING to reduce the amount of drinking. Fewer people drank, and those who did drank less. Alcohol consumption collapsed. Obviously we can’t accurately say by what percentage, but let’s take the improbably low figure of 30%. Do you understand how many lives would be saved by a thirty percent reduction in the number of abortions carried out in the United States? Do you understand how many lives would be saved if the rate dropped by a reduction—by far the more likely result of criminalization—of 90%+? Inability to save all does not justify saving none.

So if I haven’t addressed your claim before, Jacob, it’s probably because I had better things to do than explain what ought to be obvious: law isn’t ineffective, the necessary predicate of your position. And all of this, by the way, assumes that the legal change stands in isolation. But why would we assume that? You start from the assumption that demand for abortion is invariable regardless of its legality, but have you ever watched Mad Men? Demand for a deadly product is not a given, as Don Draper’s clients and colleagues probably joined you in assuming. Law is not the only thing that can be changed: Culture can be, too. In the case of tobacco, a long-term culture war combined with scientific evidence and various interventions of law undermined demand. In thirty years, smoking will probably be all-but illegal—or fully illegal in ten if Obamacare passes. While there will be very few holdouts, changes in law and culture will have all-but destroyed a habit that was ubiquitous fifty years ago.

Lols simon you are a chuckle and a half. Did you say you were a fiction writer, or was that someone else?

I believe you’re thinking of Michael Reynolds. I haven’t (intentionally) written fiction since my teenage years, and that effort was so horrible that it barely deserves the title.

I could care less if the president or anyone else has a vagina.

I tend to think that her being a woman amplifies progressives’ hatred of her, because it gives a hint of apostasy: progressives feel entitled to the votes of women, blacks, and homosexuals, and so they reserve an especially intense fire for people in those demographics who refuse to toe the line and obstinately cling to conservative and libertarian views. Clarence Thomas is the most prominent example, of course. Still, while I think Palin gets some of the same treatment, I’ll happily agree with you that her gender isn’t the primary driver of progressive disdain for her. Part of it is that they hate her because she’s part of a culture that is everything that New York liberals aren’t: conservative, non-urbanized, life-affirming, joyful, humble, religious, and so on. She chose life, something incomprehensible to people who regard “choice” as a euphemism for “abortion.” so it’s partly cultural. But more than anything, I think, it’s that Progressives believe people like Palin are to be the happily ruled, not the rulers, and she has the temerity to reject the progressive’s aristocratic view of government.

Still, we need not be detained by the why when the what is self-evident. Progressives loathe her, and as we have seen this week, we live in a kitchen where the cauldron of violent rhetoric is at serious risk of boiling over into violent action.

You truly believe that Obama is shallower than Carrot Top. If that is so I truly believe you are an idiot. This was possibly the most foolish, over the top statement I have ever read from you. Being charitable, I thought it was just your judgment that was in question and that you were not an idiot. But no one but an idiot could truly believe the statement you made. As to Sarah you are fractally confused there as well.

You said you’re asking me to pursue your assumptions (What do you see as an assumption? You said it was murder) to their illogical conclusion. There’s a reason there is a common phrase “getting away with murder” It is because as a society we feel that should never happen. You talking out of both sides of your mouth. You say it is the most heinous crime and then ah forget it… Gutless.

As to the Bishop of Leicester, I get why you are confused. Yes, he is an Anglican. I didn’t say he was a Catholic. One religion is as nutty and unbelievable as the next until you kick it up to belief in witchcraft level as your girl Sarah does or go the space alien route like Mitt.

I meant that in your confused world view you gave men in dresses from the Catholic Church some super powers of morality that they do not possess, haven’t earned and don’t deserve. Unlike abortion which is legal, pedophilia isn’t and it was practiced – sanctioned – and covered up by your beloved “arbiters of morality.”

The Bishop to his credit, said that a position of superiority on morality was ridiculous on it’s face. You still don’t get it. It is all absurd on it’s face. Belief in the unbelievable should not be a point of admiration. You are starting to remind me of Cliff Klaven, a nutter to just roll your eyes at when you say something instead of to be taken seriously. Believe it or not, I didn’t always feel that way.

If the Democratic Party ran Carrot Top for President, we’d be on similar footing but even when they run flawed candidates, they are not flawed to that level of shallowness.

You ran an even shallower candidate last time, unlesss you’re fooled by that fancy facade of a law degree.

Which is what is wrong with American politics. You’d support anything from the right. She is the embodiment of anything – absolutely anything.

Something that could equally be said about that empty suit you voted for last time around. Obama embodies everything and nothing, a blank screen (as he himself put it) onto which people project their desires, a rudderless skiff of a man who will wear whatever persona he thinks is politically advantageous today. For all Sarah Palin’s failings, she knows who she is and what she believes. The voters certainly didn’t know that about Barack Obama, and frankly, one gets the impression that he doesn’t, either. For all the world, he resembles a doll. Today the fire-breathing g-droppin’ populist; tomorrow the cool professorial type; yesterday the throwback liberal scold; at all points in between, a lost, confused little child.

I believe I was pointing out that fatal flaw in your reasoning. I’m just asking you to back up the logical conclusion of your stated belief.

Wrong: you’re asking me to pursue your assumptions to their illogical conclusion. It does not follow that past crimes must be prosecuted today, still less that they should have the death penalty imposed. That’s your assertion, not the logical endpoint of what I’m saying.

I’d like to respond Whoop de frigging do to that. They have ZERO credibility on that subject. (Millions of living, breathing people in Africa are sentenced to death by their absurd condom policy) Make an argument but don’t hide behind their skirts and expect it to mean anything. Most of the world rejects those claims as do I. (I recently met the Bishop of Leicester and he specifically stated that he (and their Bishops) had no special level of morality over anyone else.) You think all but Catholicism is wrong and see no bias there at all. I just take it one step further to it’s logical endpoint. It is all absurd on it’s face.

LMAO. Dude, you met the Bishop of Leicester? Do you understand that there is no Catholic Diocese of Leicester? I’m sure that the man you probably met, Bishop Stevens of the Church of England diocese of Leicester is a very nice and erudite man—but he’s an Anglican. The city of Leicester is within the Diocese of Nottingham, so its local ordinary is Bp. McMahon of Nottingham. How can you expect to be taken seriously on this point when you so evidently don’t understand what you’re talking about?

I suppose that one could attempt a distinction on two grounds. One could argue that … the state has a kind of incipient and exclusive right to the use of force.

Not buying that one Comrade although every horrible government relies on the acquiescence of people who should know better.

Notice that I didn’t actually advance that argument. I merely noted that it was one argument that one could make to distinguish them from abortion, without passing on its persuasiveness.

Whenever we have the abortion discussions I mention the fact that illegal abortion won’t save any unborn lives. It only adds a number of women to the death toll. I’ve asked you before to speak to this and you remain conspicuously silent. May I ask again?

How do you reconcile the fact that governmental prohibition of abortion does NOTHING to reduce the number of abortions while increasing injuries and deaths of women? Isn’t it more humane to ensure legal, safe abortion access for the unfortunate women who feel they need to follow that path, while investing time and money in efforts that might actually reduce the number of abortions?