Saturday, January 30, 2010

Unbusted! And here's where we juxtapose ...


There's their side:

Abortion doctor’s killer found guilty of murder
Shooter convicted of first-degree culpability in death of Kansas physician

WICHITA, Kan. - A man who said he killed prominent Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in order to save the lives of unborn children was convicted Friday of murder.

The jury deliberated for just 37 minutes before finding Scott Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder in the May 31 shooting death.

And there's, well, our side (from back in 2008):

Felony assault charge dismissed

A Dauphin County district judge dismissed felony assault charges this morning against a Juniata County man who's accused of pushing an anti-abortion protester off his car Dec. 22 at the Hillcrest Women's Medical Center in Harrisburg.

Judge Barbara Pianka threw out the aggravated assault charge, but Nathan Richardson, 23, of Port Royal, still faces misdemeanor counts of simple assault and reckless endangerment.

According to Harrisburg police, protester Ed Snell was standing on a platform attached to the roof of his car--allowing him to see over an 8-foot fence--when he began speaking to Richardson and his girlfriend who were entering the clinic around 7 a.m.

Police said Richardson became enraged at Snell's comments, scaled the fence and pushed the 69-year-old Susquehanna Twp. resident off his car, causing him to hit his head on the pavement.

Snell was taken to Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, where he was treated for head trauma before being released a few days later, police said.

If you look closely, you'll notice the incredibly subtle difference between when they viciously, savagely, brutally attack someone who disagrees with them, and when we do -- they get to walk away afterwards.

I just thought that was worth pointing out.

THE CREEPY CREEPINESS: Disturbingly, Roeder still has his supporters:

"I don't condone what Scott Roeder did, but I cannot condemn the consistency of his logic," said Randall Terry, a founder of antiabortion group Operation Rescue. "George Tiller killed 60,000 innocent human beings in barbaric ways, and Scott felt the way to protect more babies from a grisly death was to kill Tiller."

Jan Holman, an elderly antiabortion activist, drove from Iowa for the trial. She came in a truck covered with photographs of aborted fetuses. "I support Scott Roeder," she said. "I guess you might say he's my hero."

At which point the rationalization descends into the utterly bizarre:

Advocates on both sides of the abortion divide found themselves squeezed uncomfortably together on the hard courtroom benches during the trial.

One spectator was Michael Bray, who spent nearly five years in prison for bombings in the 1980s related to his antiabortion views. He said he hoped Roeder would eventually be released and didn't think he'd kill again.

"There are bombers who have been released from jail who haven't bombed again," he said with a wide grin. "There is precedent."

"Sure," said Bray, "he murdered another human being point-blank in cold blood. But maybe he got it out of his system so we're good, right? Right?"

Yeesh.

2 comments:

KEvron said...

"There are bombers who have been released from jail who haven't bombed again," he said with a wide grin. "There is precedent."

nah, i think, in this instance, i'm gonna go with the wingnuts' endless citations of recidivism. strange that i'd do that, i know, but even stranger that they'd suddenly dismiss the notion.

KEvron

Sparky said...

Hey cc! Don't you know that someone plannning the killing of a person, stalking that person, and then shooting that person in the head as he was coming out of his church is exactly the same thing as a spur-of-the-moment, get-out-of-my-face, leave-my-family-alone, push-a-guy-off-a-car assault.
At least, that's what I'm told by some bloggers--there's no difference.
These same bloggers also contend that Nathan didn't get his 'day in court' but Scott did. Or was it that Nathan wasn't charged with what he should have been charged with and got off on a lesser misdemeanor, or Scott was charged with too egregious a charge--it should have been lessened...
Or that the 'lefties' celebrated Nathan's victory and didn't celebrate what Scott did...
Or something...
Not quite sure what these other bloggers were going on about, what, with the goal post moving and the rationalizations and the false equivalencies being thrown around everywhere...