{"id":5577,"date":"2012-01-05T20:58:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T01:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=5577"},"modified":"2012-01-05T20:58:48","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T01:58:48","slug":"to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/","title":{"rendered":"‘To intimidate or coerce a civilian population’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville<\/a> notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with \u201cone count of damaging a building by fire or explosive.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he was not charged with terrorism. Why not?<\/em><\/p>\n

McEwan links to this AP story: \u201cAuthorities: Man charged in fire at Florida clinic says he was motivated by dislike for abortion<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities say a homeless man charged Thursday with setting a New Year\u2019s Day fire that gutted a family planning clinic told investigators he acted out of a strong disbelief in abortion and was also fueled by seeing a young woman enter the clinic while he looked on recently with protesters.<\/p>\n

Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, was charged with one count of damaging a building by fire or explosive and was being held Thursday at the Escambia County Jail in the Florida Panhandle region. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n

In an affidavit, prosecutors say Rogers told investigators he went to the Pensacola clinic of American Family Planning around midnight on New Year\u2019s eve with a fire bomb he had crafted from a 32-ounce beer bottle and gasoline with a wick made from an old shirt.<\/p>\n

He told them he lit the bomb, threw it against the building and watched it burst in flames and ignite the building, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

\u2026 The two-story Pensacola clinic that was gutted by flames has been attacked before. It was bombed on Christmas Day in 1984, and in 1994 a doctor and a volunteer who escorted patients to and from the clinic were shot to death as they arrived. The gunman, Paul Hill, was executed in 2003.\u00a0 Pensacola was the site of other abortion-related violence in 1993 when Dr. David Gunn was shot and killed at another clinic by an abortion protester.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The firebombing of the clinic in which Rogers was charged was an act dangerous to human life that was a violation of the criminal laws of the nation and the state of Florida. It appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, and to influence the policy of the government.<\/p>\n

If that sounds like legal language, that\u2019s because it is. Here is the definition of domestic terrorism in the U.S. Code<\/a>:<\/p>\n

(5)<\/strong> the term \u201cdomestic terrorism\u201d means activities that\u2014<\/p>\n

(A)<\/strong> involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;<\/p>\n

(B)<\/strong> appear to be intended\u2014<\/p>\n

(i)<\/strong> to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;<\/p>\n

(ii)<\/strong> to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or<\/p>\n

(iii)<\/strong> to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and<\/p>\n

(C)<\/strong> occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Prosecutors accuse Rogers of \u201cdamaging a building by fire or explosive,\u201d and that seems appropriate.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t just any<\/em> building. He chose this building for a reason, and that reason was to intimidate and coerce a civilian population and to influence government policy by intimidation and coercion.<\/p>\n

How is that not domestic terrorism?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with \u201cone count of damaging a building by fire or explosive.\u201d But he was not charged with terrorism. Why not? McEwan links to this AP story: \u201cAuthorities: Man charged in fire at Florida clinic says he was motivated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-5577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion"],"yoast_head":"\n'To intimidate or coerce a civilian population'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Melissa McEwan at Shakesville notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with "one count of damaging a building by fire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'To intimidate or coerce a civilian population'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Melissa McEwan at Shakesville notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with "one count of damaging a building by fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-06T01:58:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/\",\"name\":\"'To intimidate or coerce a civilian population'\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-06T01:58:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-06T01:58:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Melissa McEwan at Shakesville notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with \\\"one count of damaging a building by fire\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"‘To intimidate or coerce a civilian population’\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'To intimidate or coerce a civilian population'","description":"Melissa McEwan at Shakesville notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with \"one count of damaging a building by fire","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"'To intimidate or coerce a civilian population'","og_description":"Melissa McEwan at Shakesville notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with \"one count of damaging a building by fire","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/","og_site_name":"slacktivist","article_published_time":"2012-01-06T01:58:48+00:00","author":"Fred Clark","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fred Clark","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/","name":"'To intimidate or coerce a civilian population'","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-01-06T01:58:48+00:00","dateModified":"2012-01-06T01:58:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47"},"description":"Melissa McEwan at Shakesville notes that this Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., was charged today with \"one count of damaging a building by fire","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/01\/05\/to-intimidate-or-coerce-a-civilian-population\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"‘To intimidate or coerce a civilian population’"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/","name":"slacktivist","description":""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47","name":"Fred Clark","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Fred Clark"},"description":"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}