George Tiller is dead.

I can’t say that I am at all sad about it.

If you are unaware of who Tiller was, he was the the abortionist killed just over a week ago, allegedly by Scott Roeder.  Yet, he was much more than just another abortion provider.  Tiller the killer of 60,000 babies is best described by a pro-choice writer William Saletan in Slate (see article at http://www.slate.com/id/2219537/).

The pregnancies he ended were the latest of the late. If your local clinic said you were too far along, and they sent you to a late-term provider who said you were too late even for her, Tiller was your last shot.

Saletan’s article goes further in making a point that has helped me deal with my own lack of condolence for Tiller.  He notes:

Tiller’s murder is different from all previous murders of abortion providers. If you kill an ordinary abortionist, somebody else will step in. But if you kill the guy at the end of the line, some of his patients won’t be able to find an alternative. You will have directly prevented abortions.

That explains it.  This is not a random violent protest–Tiller was a strategic target.  Expecting that I would feel sorry about Tiller’s death is like asking me to be sorry that Hitler is dead.

So, am I condoning violence against abortionists?  Do I think Roeder’s actions are justified?

NO.

While Saletan’s article offers some interesting insight, his conclusion is flawed.  It is in responding to his conclusion that I think, with the help of Chesterton, I can offer some perspective.

Saleton argues that if we pro-lifers really believed abortion was murder we would act more like Roeder and less like diplomats.  Key to Saleton’s argument is the comparison of pro-life and pro-choice people.  There are those on both sides who claim a position, but in the end it is the Tiller who is really pro-choice and Roeder who is really pro-life.

Saletan is correct in setting Roeder and Tiller as equal opposites in the fight over abortion.  He is wrong in his estimation of what the point of commonality is.  For him, Tiller and Roeder are courageous men, like soldiers in battle.  They are the ones who “don’t flinch.”

Saletan presents the two actors in this drama as some kind of  nietzchean tragic ubermen–men with the will to act.  Like most moderns and postmoderns, Saletan forgets that the end of Nietzche is insanity.  But, Tiller and Roeder are perfect examples of that fact.

Insanity.  That is the commonality shared by Tiller and his killer.  Saletan is correct, these two men carried their belief’s to the logical end, and  they acted in a warped courage that knew nothing but pure reason.

To a generation deceived by the image of Mr. Spock on Star Trek it may seem odd to couple pure reason and insanity.  That is because we understand neither.

G. K. Chesterton said it best, “the madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason” (Orthodoxy 19).  Most of us are governed by a mixture of reason, common courtesy, gut feelings, thoughtlessness, social expectations, conscience.  The insane person lives by one unbroken, unbreakable line of reasoning.  (As Chesterton notes, there is no convincing the paranoid man that there is no conspirators–the harder you try the more likely he will believe you are part of it.)

This is the perfect explanation for George Tiller.  How else can we describe a man who says about crushing unborn children at a time when they are completely viable outside the womb–when they could be born at any minute–”I choose to be here because I feel that it is the moral, it is the ethical thing to do” (http://www.foxnews.com/stor/0,2933,523709,00.html?mrp).

At the same time, Roeder claims to be driven by faith in Jesus Christ.  Jesus definitely takes a hard line against those who would harm one of these little ones.  However, he also says, “resist not an evil man.”  The balance of how we exercise justice in a fallen world in a democratic society as believers in a righteous God is far more complex than the strait logical line from God’s love for children to the death of George Tiller.

Contrary to what Saletan says, the real heroes on the pro-life side are the ones who take both God’s purpose and God’s methods seriously.  The ones that speak truth and pray and get drug off in handcuffs without ever taking a life.  These are the ones that seek to overcome evil with good by the word of their testimony, the blood of the lamb, and not loving their lives even unto death.

There are such lies out there when it comes to Obama, he is all for transparency so you think, everything down to the comments you read about him on his youtube channel is fixed it is his paid crew of bloggers and you are not hearing the opposition.
I’ll never forget when I found out by trying to post a comment and knew right off the bat this was trouble, why would he want to hide from debate. Of course he is trying to shut down Rush talk radio program, to force the public from having an opinion other than his and God forbid people do not agree with his ways. So what, Rush stated he wants Obama to fail, let us not read into just that part , what he is saying is he does not want our Country our fathers fought for to be run like a communist country. He does not want our rights controlled, our minds filled with the rhetoric as the media has all sided with Obama for one reason they make money off him, he is a hot topic, look at Time magazine I mean come on when will it end, do these people not care about the children and their future in the world? Why is it that money trumps values and morales of people these days? You could not pay me 1 million dollars cash to agree to keep my mouth shut, freedom of speech is priceless as is our democracy and not being a robot that is told what to think, say, believe, do I could go on forever.
Obama can not control people that disagree with his hopes for the American peoples future. Let’s face it should he fail it is not ever going to be blamed on him he will blame it on Bush, when will you all realize that Obama is covered for his four year term, no matter what, he has a scapegoat and that is George Bush.

United States Constitution

The Bill of Rights in the National Archives.”First Amendment” redirects here. For other uses, see First Amendment (disambiguation).
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws “respecting an establishment of religion” or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, laws that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peaceably assemble, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Although the First Amendment explicitly prohibits only the named rights from being abridged by laws made by the Congress, the Supreme Court has interpreted it as applying more broadly. As the first sentence in the body of the Constitution reserves all legislative authority to the Congress, the courts have held that the First Amendment’s terms also extend to the executive and judicial branches. Additionally, in the 20th century the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the limitations of the First Amendment to each state, including any local government within a state.