Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Dianne Williamson: An expert on lunacy?

Worcester Telegram & Gazette columnist Dianne Williamson, referring to the murder of late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller, writes, "..it's nothing short of far right-wing terrorism. While anti-abortion [read pro-life] groups were quick to denounce the killing, a quick check of the online comment sections of this newspaper shows that there's no shortage of lunatics in our own backyard." One of the comments she cites: "You live by the sword you die by the sword...How did those babies feel when he did his procedures on them?" But it was Jesus who said to Peter [after Peter cut off the ear of the servant Malchus in the Garden of Gethsemane], "Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." (Matthew 26: 52). Unborn babies might be killed with a scalpel or a suctioning device and not a sword. But the principle remains the same. This isn't to justify Dr. Tiller's murder. It's only to re-state a spiritual principle which Jesus Himself taught. And as for describing a late-term or partial-birth abortion as a "procedure," such a word is actually inadequate to describe these truly heinous acts. Hardly the stuff of lunacy.

And what are we to make of Ms. Williamson's assertion that Dr. George Tiller's murder is "nothing short of far right-wing terrorism"? The American Heritage dictionary defines terrorism as "The systematic use of terror, violence, and intimidation to achieve an end." Systematic means characterized by purposeful regularity. How long has it been since an abortionist was killed by someone who opposes the murder of the unborn? Ten years. And Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz has described the shooting as "an isolated incident" (see here).

Here in Central Massachusetts, we may or may not have "lunatics in our own backyard." But one thing is certain, Dianne Williamson appears to be somewhat of an authority on lunacy. When she's not practicing psychiatry without a license, she's hard at work ignoring reality when it doesn't suit her agenda. Click here for photographs of murdered unborn babies who suffered through late-term abortions at the hands of "health-care providers" such as Dr. George Tiller.

3 comments:

Eric Levan said...

Williamson is just too much. She doesn't even pretend to be objective. She's ridiculous. A caricature of a legitimate columnist or journalist. She never misses an opportunity to engage in anti-Catholicism or to promote abortion and homosexuality.

Samantha said...

If anything, those who offer "abortion-services" (talk about euphemisms) are the ones who engage in systematic "intimidation to achieve an end." Anyone who has peacefully demonstrated on a public sidewalk in front of an abortion "clinic" praying the Rosary or attempting to peacefully hand out pro-life literature or merely to offer an alternative to the mother can verify that these "health-care providers" routinely engage in intimidation. Often they hire their own "security" to bully pro-lifers who are peacefully demonstrating or praying.

I once read of a Catholic priest who had a cigarette put out on his face and who was punched and kicked by those who didn't want mothers of unborn children to be exposed to the truth about abortion.

Ellen Wironken said...

From The Wall Street Journal:

The Religious Right Didn't Kill George Tiller:

By JAMES KIRCHICK

On Sunday, abortion doctor George Tiller was murdered at his church in Wichita, Kan. He was one of a handful of doctors in the U.S. who performed late-term abortions and for decades had been a target of virulent criticism from antiabortion activists. His clinic had been bombed and vandalized, and in 1993 he was shot in both arms in a failed assassination attempt. Tiller's alleged killer, Scott Roeder, is a long-time radical antiabortion activist with reported ties to a militant antigovernment organization called the Freemen.

Within hours after the murder, every antiabortion group in the country denounced the attack. Robert P. George, a leading Catholic intellectual opponent of abortion, wrote that "George Tiller's life was precious" and characterized his murder as "a gravely wicked thing." He called on his fellow abortion opponents to "teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion."

Even Operation Rescue, the extreme antiabortion group that organized a six-week blockade of Tiller's office in 1991, issued a statement condemning the murder. "We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning," Troy Newman, the organization's president, said.

These unqualified reproaches are nothing new. The organized antiabortion movement has always opposed violence against abortion providers. That has never stopped opportunistic prochoice activists, however, from conflating their passionate rhetoric with the behavior of individual criminals. True to form, on Sunday, Mike Hendricks of the Kansas City Star accused anyone who had criticized Tiller as a murderer (Tiller aborted healthy, nine-month old fetuses) of being an "accomplice" to his death.

Over the past decade this argumentative tactic has taken on an even more insidious twist. In addition to fighting violent, Muslim jihadists abroad, some liberals argue that America must deal with its own, homegrown terrorists. These are not just people who commit violence but millions of socially conservative evangelicals and Catholics -- "Christianists" -- who comprise the base of the Republican Party and threaten the stability of the country.

In 2007, former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Hedges published a book called "American Fascists" that compared conservative evangelicals to European brownshirts of the 1920s and 1930s. That same year, CNN's Christiane Amanpour hosted a three-part series, "God's Warriors," that equated Christian (and Jewish) fundamentalists with Muslim extremists.

The comparison between the religious right and Islamic extremists is invariably partisan so as to smear the GOP as being held hostage to forces as dangerous as Hamas or Hezbollah. "Even as the Bush administration denounces and battles Islamic religious zealotry abroad, fundamental Christian zealotry is taking hold here at home," wrote Stephen Pizzo on the liberal Alternet Web site in 2004. On his popular HBO program, comedian Bill Maher frequently compares murderous Islamists to censorious Christians.

But if the reactions to the death of Tiller mean anything, the "Christian Taliban," as conservative religious figures are often called, isn't living up to its namesake. If "Christianists" were anything like actual religious fascists they would applaud Tiller's murder as a "heroic martyrdom operation" and suborn further mayhem.

Radical Islamists revel in death. Just witness the videos that suicide bombers record before they carry out their murderous task or listen to the homicidal exhortations of extremist imams. Murder -- particularly of the unarmed and innocent -- is a righteous deed for these people. The manifestos of Islamic militant groups are replete with paeans to killing infidels. When a suicide bomb goes off in Israel, Palestinian terrorist factions compete to claim responsibility for the carnage..."

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