OMG We have a martyr

[MRT144]

People who believe that both abortion and killing abortion doctors are murder have logically inconsistent beliefs.

Cause it isn't murder if it causes a net gain in population?

[Kuciwalker]

McVeigh was a freedom fighter.

Maybe, maybe not, but John Brown definitely was.

[Kuciwalker]

Cause it isn't murder if it causes a net gain in population?

It isn't murder if the people you are killing are evil people who are supported by the state in massacring a disenfranchised minority.

[MRT144]

It's perfectly logical: he commits 1 murder to stop many murders from being commited. Now I do not approve of that, obviously, but I see logic in it.

It's fake Vulcan logic. It is preferable to kill one to save many for him because he believes there will be specific outcome to his action.

[Kuciwalker]

Exaclty, and the majority of pro-life people don't believe it to that extreme.

It's not a matter of extremity. If you think an early fetus is a person, this guy's argument necessarily follows. Have you ever heard pro-lifers argue that early fetuses are "only sort of people, it's more okay to kill them than a regular person"? No, they claim without reservation that abortion is murder.

[DaShi]

Then they must also claim that murder is murder.

[Kuciwalker]

It's fake Vulcan logic. It is preferable to kill one to save many for him because he believes there will be specific outcome to his action.

It would be legitimate even with no hope, really, just as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was.

[MRT144]

It isn't murder if the people you are killing are evil people who are supported by the state in massacring a disenfranchised minority.

It isn't murder to who? The self righteous murderer or other people passing judgment on his actions?

[Kuciwalker]

It isn't morally condemnable killing, to be slightly more precise. Obviously the state and the majority that support the mass slaughter would consider it murder, but they would be wrong.

[MRT144]

It isn't morally condemnable killing, to be slightly more precise. Obviously the state and the majority that support the mass slaughter would consider it murder, but they would be wrong.

Are you a lawyer for sociopaths?

[Kuciwalker]

This guy may be a sociopath, but his actions are heroic and morally laudable from the perspective of a huge minority of the American population.

[MRT144]

This guy may be a sociopath, but his actions are heroic.

I asked the question that way because you seem to be saying that something can't be considered moral or immoral by others if the person is acting to the fullest in upholding their moral views in a consistent manner.

[Kitschum]

You can stop the Holocaust by killing a lot of SS officers.

Yes, but one man does not have that capacity, and neither does the anti-abortion movement as a whole. And even if they did, they would have to risk a breakdown of civilization, with unpredictable and highly destructive consequences.

Moreover, in a democratic country that is perpetrating gross injustice and mass slaughter of a disenfranchised minority based on the will of the majority, such that there's little chance of actually changing their minds, and there are no institutions to defend the oppressed, I'd say vigilantism is pretty justified.

That would seem like a lack of belief in democracy (or this particular democracy) beforehand, and would therefore be begging the question.

But even so, in what way is vigilantism justified? As "true justice"? Or because it brings results? Because I would find the latter highly questionable, and the former self-defeating if attempted by a sufficiently small minority.

The best analogy would be to the antebellum South. Plenty of abolitionists would have been happy to kill a slaveowner. And if we shift the time period forward a bit, I wouldn't have had a problem with a serial killer of Klansmen either.

The breakdown of law and order also affects the killers of slaveowners or Klansmen. If you set rule of law aside, you are moving towards opening yourself and those who on your side to attacks from the majority. And when the Klansmen are armed and out you don't want to be black in the South.

This guy may be a sociopath, but his actions are heroic and morally laudable from the perspective of a huge minority of the American population.

Even if they turn out to be counter-productive?

[MRT144]

Like I said, what Kuciwalker is suggesting leads to thinking that is not consistent depending on what the person is righteous about.

If I believe that people are destroying the planet and that will in turn lead to more death in the long run, if I start killing people who consume more resources than other people in an effort to save the planet, I am being heroic. And inscrutable.

Or, if I think that by killing x person/people, more y people will live, I am morally justified in killing x person/people. Even if I can't determine or measure the outcome of my decisions.

[Kuciwalker]

I asked the question that way because you seem to be saying that something can't be considered moral or immoral by others if the person is acting to the fullest in upholding their moral views in a consistent manner.

Oh, not at all, the dude is definitely a murderer and what he did was wrong. But it is also the necessary consequence of a seemingly innocuous assumption that is believed by a huge minority of the population (including himself). Therefore he's not a hypocrite.