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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- An unrepentant Eric Rudolph declared Monday that abortion must be fought with "deadly force" as a judge sentenced him to life in prison for setting off a remote-controlled bomb at an abortion clinic that killed an off-duty police officer and maimed a nurse.

"Children are disposed of at will," the 38-year-old Rudolph said, jabbing the air in a speech that echoed a rambling manifesto he issued in April when he pleaded guilty to four bombings in all, including the blast at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. "The state is no longer the protector of the innocents."

Rudolph's fiery statement came as his victims confronted him court, branding the anti-abortion extremist a cowardly "monster" and recalling how their lives were devastated by the 1998 clinic bombing in Birmingham.

"It gives me great delight to know you are going to spend the rest of your life sitting in an 8-by-12 box," said the clinic's director, Diane Derzis.

Under a plea bargain that spared him a death sentence, Rudolph received two life sentences without parole for the Birmingham bombing. Next month, he will receive two more life terms for the deadly Olympic bombing and two other attacks in Atlanta.

Rudolph spent more than five years on the run in the North Carolina wilderness, employing the survivalist techniques he learned as a soldier.

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Link here.

[ 19 July 2005: Message edited by: Granola Girl ]

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Funny. No international demands that Christian leaders denounce his actions as of yet...

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Most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims. There is no place in civil society for an ideology that celebrates mass murder or deems suicide bombing a sacred act.

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Van. Sun link.

The day after, a similar story condemning "Islam's" continuing nurturance of hatred ran. I didn't notice a spate of any like articles making blanket condemnations of "Christians" (because they're all the same, Catholics and Jehovah Witnesses being wholly indistinguishable from each other) for fostering the likes of Rudolph or McVeigh. I'm sorry you find that observation facile. Perhaps you should find a more intellectual thread to read somewhere else and not bother with this one anymore?

[ 20 July 2005: Message edited by: Granola Girl ]

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Originally written in newspaper quoted by Granola Girl:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- An unrepentant Eric Rudolph declared Monday that abortion must be fought with "deadly force" as a judge sentenced him to life in prison for setting off a remote-controlled bomb at an abortion clinic that killed an off-duty police officer and maimed a nurse.

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Originally posted by Granola Girl:
[QB]

Link here.

Funny. No international demands that Christian leaders denounce his actions as of yet...

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Muslim, Christian, whatever. The religious zeal is perverted to just cause, and gives perceived permission to commit violence.

It's not the religious element that the fanatic taps pleasure out of, it's the violence.
The religious element just provides a great perspectivly guilt free outlet.

We need to stop labeling the religion and start stepping on the individuals. This particular lunatic who cowardly killed and maimed by remote control should be given the opertunity to debate his actions with his Lord.

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Originally posted by Farmageddon:
a fanatic, is a fanatic, is a fanatic.

Muslim, Christian, whatever. The religious zeal is perverted to just cause, and gives perceived permission to commit violence.

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This is utter nonsense. You're suggesting that simply because someone is a religious extremist, their actions cannot be politically nuanced beyond some animal desire to harm? You're prioritising the act (violence) over the motive itself for that act (doctrine), which is ridiculous. There is no single category into which you will successfully fit all religious extremists or even Islamic fundamentalists. The philosophies and outlooks and motivations of the various religious denominations who have gone so far as to kill in the name of their beliefs over the years are as varied as any political landscape.

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Originally posted by Farmageddon:
It's not the religious element that the fanatic taps pleasure out of, it's the violence.
The religious element just provides a great perspectivly guilt free outlet.

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I'm going to venture that the universal figuring of violent religious extremism as an attempt to "tap pleasure" from "violence" doesn't stand up to much real-world observation at all. Palestinians living hopeless lives in expansive refugee camps amongst the dispossessed, who strap bombs to their bodies for the journey that will be their last, do not declare that they're going to go "tap some pleasure" through "violence" when they go to kill as many Israeli civilians as they can with their last act. Nor do Chechen supporters of Shamil Basayev, whose cities have been rendered a shelled out ruin go try to "get some kicks" by "hurting people" when they strike out against Russians in any way possible.

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Originally posted by Yonge Street Blue:
He is a terrorist buthcer, pure and simple

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No doubt about it. If I believed in capital punishment, he'd be one of the first to go, IMHO.

But, I do take issue with listing a few North American nut cases like Randolph to, in effect, say "our wackos are just as bad as your wackos, therefore we cannot criticize your society more than we can criticize ours."

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Originally posted by Farmageddon:
Yst:
Did I say fundamentalist? Did I say extremist? I said fanatic.

F

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And what is this fanatic category, which is so well defined that fundamentalists and extremists mustn't be mistaken for them? It seems it needs definition. It's something we've obviously been trying to answer a lot recently, so I suppose I'd like to take my own crack at it, especially given the individual who constitutes the topic for this thread is, among fanatics, somewhat less controversial as a subject than would be most other 'terrorist' personalities.

So here goes. It seems to me people like the individual in question are distinguished by two things. First, obviously, their subordination of all moral and legal authority within society to a theological doctrine regarding The Good and, secondly, and worse, what I'd describe as a "theocratic utilitarianism" directed at achieving that Good.

What I mean to imply by "theocratic utilitarianism" is a personal moral code which

1) As I say and as we all probably recognise, subordinates all legal justice (favouring vigilanteism) and intuitive justice (suppressing any sympathetic aversion to the taking of lives and imposition of one's will on others) to a predefined set of dictates enshrined in religious doctrine.

and

2) Within the context of an overarching theocratic moral system (I consider this sort of vigilante justice 'theocratic' rather than merely 'theological', as it unilaterally imposes its will on society by force in order for its precepts to rule over it), applies a radical utilitarian outlook on even religious justice, whereby smaller theologically defined injustices (killing of innocents) are themselves subordinated to larger theocratic goals (successful exertion of religious control over the social agenda).

The latter seems to cause much confusion amongst religionists themselves. Essentially the entirety of the Christian community reacts to abortion-related crimes with disgust and, predictably, points out the religious laws outlined within Christian doctrine which oppose such actions. The problem with Islamic vigilante radicalism and the more rare and therefore harder to characterise Christian vigilante radicalism alike is that they throw the vast majority of their own religious dictates to the wind in order to manifest religious 'justice' through larger utilitarian goals which are seen as eclipsing small evils.