Does Kermit deserve the death penalty for this?

[kentonio]

The reverse of what you are arguning is that all orders need be obeyed. That is not the case, morally or legally.

Of course not, but when you live in a modern democracy with careful safeguards on governmental power, that becomes nothing more than a useful excuse for breaking the law. The test should be quite simple, can you achieve your goals through the application of the democratic process? Because if you can, then resorting to violence is completely unacceptable.

[Aeson]

The real reason why murdering an abortion doctor isn't moral is because even if you feel stopping abortions from happening is worth killing for ... you don't achieve your end. The murder likely didn't stop a single abortion. Just who performed some of them.

Now ... if you were killing lots of abortion doctors (and/or women who got abortions), maybe you could achieve your end by creating enough fear in people that they would stop being abortion doctors or getting abortions.

[Aeson]

Another thing that needs to be taken into account is how murdering a single abortion doctor probably only weakens political support for your position, so even ignoring the morality of the murder in-and-of-itself, the act would actually be immoral from the perspective of the murder.

[notyoueither]

Of course not, but when you live in a modern democracy with careful safeguards on governmental power, that becomes nothing more than a useful excuse for breaking the law. The test should be quite simple, can you achieve your goals through the application of the democratic process? Because if you can, then resorting to violence is completely unacceptable.

I would think that someone willing to kill to stop abortions likely believes that the majority is being tyrannical.

[DaShi]

While I think our constitution is better than anyone else's, it's not perfect. Laws aren't perfect. Laws aren't always just. What is morally right and what is legal are not the same.

We try to make laws correlate to morals as much as we can, and we use them because consistency is in many ways even more important than justice.

By the way, the idea of rebelling against injust laws isn't mine. It's Thomas Jefferson's:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

Note the "light and transient causes" bit--that's why we don't constantly revolt because our taxes are too high.

You probably have bolded that part too then. Otherwise, you come off like Glenn Beck, "I'm not saying that you should shoot democratic congressmen, but they should understand why you did it."

[DaShi]

The real reason why murdering an abortion doctor isn't moral is because even if you feel stopping abortions from happening is worth killing for ... you don't achieve your end. The murder likely didn't stop a single abortion. Just who performed some of them.

Now ... if you were killing lots of abortion doctors (and/or women who got abortions), maybe you could achieve your end by creating enough fear in people that they would stop being abortion doctors or getting abortions.

No, they'd just retaliate by aborting more babies. It'll just be Israel and Palestine, just with self-righteous murderers and babies.

[kentonio]

I would think that someone willing to kill to stop abortions likely believes that the majority is being tyrannical.

There's an awful lot of individual beliefs out there, which was my point about the 'meat is murder' people. If we cheer for people who take lives because their beliefs contrast with the majority, then very soon we're going to be building up some serious body counts.

[Alexander's Horse]

abortion smortion, 90,000 little Australians were terminated last year, the numbers are staggering

[Tupac Shakur]

That's one of the most convincing pro-choice arguments I've ever heard.

[Hauldren Collider]

He said Australian, not English.

[Tupac Shakur]

Australians are just Englishmen without the veneer of class.

[regexcellent]

What are Kiwis then?

[Zevico]

abortion smortion, 90,000 little Australians were terminated last year, the numbers are staggering

Some of them are left to die if they survive the abortion, too.

[Tupac Shakur]

What are Kiwis then?

Mentally retarded Australians.

[Sava]

Mentally retarded Australians.