Two comments on abortion which I’ve submitted to MgS’s blog

http://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2009/05/fetus-fetishists-strike.html
http://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2009/06/twofer-one-gets-it-other.html

Unable to handle anything but approval or timid disagreement, MgS has banned me from commenting at her blog, but I’ve submitted two more comments to her blog anyway, one in the discussion (well, it was a discussion) at the post to which I linked yesterday, and the other at her latest sojourn into the absurd:

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"It's because they've listened to one too many ranting tirades by the fetus fetishist crowd that takes itself seriously."

No. Once again: denouncing something as wrong incurs no reponsibility for someone else doing something wrong in an absurd atttempt to right the initial wrong (absurd because two wrongs don't make a right; try to keep that one in mind).

"Terry's more worried about the political fallout than he is about the role that the rhetoric of his organization and others like it have played in this travesty."
(my emphasis)

Mr. Terry and his allies played no role whatsoever; two wrongs don't make a right.

"BTW - I didn't say what I thought would be appropriate punishment did I?"

Er, yes you did, you said that the assassin is

"a man who deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller."

Good deeds deserve rewards, bad deeds deserve punishments. Or are you making up your own definitions of these terms? If so it would be helpful for you to state them.

"I merely said that he deserved far worse than he gave Dr. Tiller - your imagination filled in the rest, quite incorrectly I might add."

My imagination? No, my reason. Two simple syllogisms explain it:

Syllogism 1.:
Major: the Tiller assassin "deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller." (Proof: they're your words.)
Minor: the virtue of justice is a habit inclining the will to render to each one what he or she deserves. (Proof: that's the definition of justice.)
Conclusion: Those who have the virtue of justice want the Tiller assassin to face a far worse punishement than just shooting.

Syllogism 2.:
Major: Those who have the virtue of justice want the Tiller assassin to face a far worse punishement than just shooting. (Proof: by 1.)
Minor: MgS has the virtue of justice. (Proof: I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and making a presumption in your favour.)
Conclusion: MgS wants to see the assassin face a far worse punishment than just shooting.

Ah, but it's clear where I went wrong: I gave you the benefit of the doubt (when will I learn?) and presumed that you are just.

I'm still wondering: what precisely do you have in mind for the Tiller assassin? Something really horrible, like, say, cutting his head open unanaesthetised and having his brains sucked out? You'll do it to little babies, so presumably you can't reject inflicting it on a grown man (unless, perhaps, that's not "far worse" enough than shooting, and you need the punishment to be preceded by some kind of torture).

"You may consider yourself banned from this blog."

Wow, reasoned rebuttal of your abortion-related ravings is that big a threat, is it?
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"The first one gets it ..."

Oh, this just gets better and better! Do you even know whom you go on to quote? Prof. Robert George, the Robert George of that comment, is a Catholic, i.e. pro-life, i.e. "fetus fetishist", philosophy of law lecturer at Princeton Uni, so you've just destroyed your case (which was wrong logically, and you have now proven wrong factually) that "fetus fetishists" encourage, by their anti-abortion lobbying, people to do wrong in order to make right another wrong!!!

"His focus on Dr. Tiller's professional work misses the point - Dr. Tiller was murdered by a man because of that man's judgment of Dr. Tiller."
(your emphasis)

The assassin's judgment was based on what Dr. Tiller did, i.e. his "professional work". How, then, does focussing on that work miss the point of the assassin's judgment?! You really don't have a leg to stand on here do you, MgS?

And then it gets even better--you're really in full swing here aren't you:

"In doing so, the author has tacitly approved the murderer's actions."

Whaaaaaaaa??? How, I beg you, how?! Mr. Kushiner's very first sentence is

"Alas, notorious abortion "doctor" George Tiller went to meet his Maker today, the victim of a homicide."

How is anything there or in the rest of the comment 'tacit approval' of what the author himself calls "homicide"? Two wrongs do not make a right! Mr. Kushiner knows this!

"It wasn't the shooter's fault at all, it seems - no, it was a "bad law"."

Well, at least your critique is right on one point. Mr. Kushiner deserves to be criticised for saying that "bad laws make bad men", though he does not seem to deny that such a 'bad man' still ought to be held accountable.

"Let's be very clear about two things here. Dr. Tiller was murdered"

Who has disputed this? Certainly not Mr. Kushiner.

"Well, no, it didn't."

We can agree on this, at least.

"The constant howling from the fetus fetishists calling abortion murder and showing lots of lovely blood-soaked images gave him the sense of horror he needed to justify what he did."

This raises two interesting points:

1. I am, as you know, pro-execution, and if the anti-execution movement launched some kind of ad campaign using images of murderers being hanged I wouldn't mind at all, because I know that it is right to hang murderers. The pro-abortion movement thinks that it is right for women to kill their unborn children if they want to, so why are they so opposed to the dissemination of images of babies being killed in abortion?

2. And if that hypothetical anti-execution ad campaign resulted in vigilante attacks on executioners, would that mean that the campaign creators are 'directly or indirectly responsible' for that vigilanteism?
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I still encourage you, my readers, to continue to challenge her at her blog, and please let me know whether or not she publishes your comments.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Pentecost Thursday, A.D. 2009

The latest from MgS: Her Honour hands down the sentence for the Tiller assassin and, by her logic, encourages abortionites to carry it out

http://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2009/05/fetus-fetishists-strike.html

Having shot herself in one foot in her post railing against my “misquoting”, “deliberately misunderstanding”, “intellectual dishonesty” and “typically circular reasoning” (when in fact she was wrong on all four points!), MgS has now taken out the other foot with an extravagant but muddle-headed denunciation of “fetus fetishists” (!) who, in MgS’s addled brain, “[d]irectly or indirectly … are responsible for [the killing of late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller]”. And in the course of doing the very thing that she so floridly condemns (and not only doing that, but going further than almost anyone in the pro-life movement would correspondingly dare to go), she makes a rather revealing statement that shows that her opposition to the death penalty (and to torture, apparently) is (are) a sham. Read her post and then read these comments of mine (here, because I suspect that she won’t be publishing them at her blog):

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"So, I see that Randall Terry is out flapping his gums about how George Tiller was a mass murderer - as if that justifies some nutcase gunman shooting him in church."

Mr. Terry implies no such thing; the non sequitur is entirely your own (two wrongs don't make a right).

"He's not - he's a vigilante, a murderer and a criminal ... and a man who deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller. [...]It is time to recognize that [the "fetus fetishists'"] judgmentalism is giving the worst society has to offer the license to kill."

This is truly vintage MgS. Few can shoot themselves in the foot as artfully as you can. In the second quoted sentence you denounce "fetus fetishists" for giving murderers a "license to kill" because of their denunciations of abortionists(despite the fact that two wrongs don't make a right). But in the first quoted sentence you go much further than a mere denunciation of Dr. Tiller's assassin--you prescribe the punishment of which you adjudge him deserving. So if someone from the pro-abortion movement were to assassinate the assassin, are you then guilty, and all the more strongly than the anti-abortion movement, of handing out a "license to kill"? By your logic the answer is an emphatic 'yes'. (But of course the pro-abortion movement is only comfortable killing defenceless babies, so I'm sure you've no need to worry about someone acting on your advice.)

Now knowing how dense you are, I suppose I'm going to have to spell out the logic there for you like I've had to do on other occasions, so here we go, step by step:

1. You think that the denunciation of abortion makes the denouncers directly or indirectly responsible for the killing of abortionists.
Proof: "Directly or indirectly, they are responsible for what happened in Kansas today."

2. You have denounced the assassin (rightly, of course), but have also gone one step further and prescribed the punishment that he ought to face.
Proof of your denunciation: "[the assassin is] a vigilante, a murderer and a criminal"
Proof of your sentencing of the assassin: "[the assassin is] a man who deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller."

3. Now if denunciation of an action incurs reponsibility for acts that are intended to stop, or even just to punish, that action, then a fortiori, denunciation of a vigilante, coupled with the pronouncement of what amounts to an extra-judicial sentence for that vigilante (and as shown in 2., you have done both these things), incurs responsibility for any attacks on that vigilante (by 1.). So if someone from the pro-abortion movement decides to act on Your Honour's sentence, then you are responsible for that act. Q.E.D.
4. And furthermore, this process turns into a vicious cycle that can only be brought to an end once all denunciations of vigilanteism cease. But of course, the cycle can be avoided altogether simply by acknowledging that two wrongs do not make a right!, and hence he who denounces something as wrong incurs no responsibility for those who try to remedy that wrong with another wrong.
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[Second part (too many characters for one comment)]

"The Fetus Fetishists ..."

Have we been elevated to that encyclopedia of fetishists, the D.S.M., yet? We haven't? Oh well, there's always next edition. I'd better start lobbying for our inclusion in that august tome, that way you'll have no choice but to respect our feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings!

"last I checked the pro-choice lobby doesn't go around murdering doctors in cold blood."

Yeah, the pro-abortion lobby would never choose prey who could respond with proportionate force or take evasive action. And shooting is sooooo passé--the pro-abortion lobby likes to be a bit creative; never in my darkest nightmares could I have come up with the idea of killing babies by slicing their heads opening and sucking their brains out by vacuum suction (keeping the head three inches inside the mother's body, of course, so as to preserve the illusion of your all-important 'biological dependence'), but that's just another day at the office for courageous men (are there many female abortionists?) like Dr. Tiller.

"It's things like this that make me downright furious most days ..."

You poor thing. It must be terribly draining to be a standard-bearer for the angry Left.

"When we hear politicians musing about introducing abortion controls ..."

Good to be reminded of what you stand for: a completely uncontrolled power of life and death of mothers over their children, whether born or unborn up to the equivalent of nine months gestation, unrestricted with respect to both the timing of the abortion and its method.

Now let's conclude by reflecting a little on what you said about the punishment that the assassin deserves:

"the wingnut who shot Dr. Tiller [is] a man who deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller."

Now how the assassin 'treated' Dr. Tiller was to shoot him, and you want to see the assassin treated "far worse" than mere shooting. So it seems that MgS, that staunch opponent of that wicked practice, the death penalty (which you labelled "murder"), is now advocating not only the death penalty, but presumably the death penalty preceded by some kind of torture (and a particularly excruciating torture, it would seem, since the assassin's treatment has to be "far worse" than a quick kill). Thank you, MgS, for proving beyond all doubt that the only thing giving your ethics any consistency is your own tastes and preferences. How pathetic.

(This time I really don't expect you to publish this comment--it's possibly even more ego-deflating than the one where I refuted that post you did raging against me, and you're already "furious"--but I'm publishing it at my blog, where you're welcome to comment; I'm certainly not afraid to defend my opinions in open, mature discussion.)
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Do consider paying MgS a visit and letting her know what you think of her opinions and the quality of her blogging.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Ember Wednesday of Pentecost, A.D. 2009