It’s okay not to feel sad over the death of George Tiller. I know a lot of you are being told you should feel some sort of sadness. If you happen to be against abortion and find everything Tiller stood for to be repulsive, of course you are a Christianist that might as well have pulled the trigger yourself. Well, this is what you will be told at least. Or you might hear from fellow pro-lifers that we must express how terrible a thing has happened because not doing so will hurt “the cause.” (The quotes are there because like so many causes, “the cause” has consumed its object a long time ago.) Just because a rich, white guy is killed for the evil he has done doesn’t mean that we need to mourn the loss of society. George Tiller’s flouting of justice was reason enough to mourn the loss of society. I don’t speak merely of his performance of abortions. I speak also of his flouting of Kansas law, only to find himself acquitted when the Kansas Democratic establishment and a Kansas jury turned away from enforcing the very laws they had created. While one hates to speculate on the impetus that drove a man in Kansas to kill George Tiller, his acquittal on breaking Kansas’s abortion laws when his violations were so manifest should be given honest consideration by those not merely interested in polemics.
Does this mean I’m endorsing vigilantism? Not really. Like the socialists of old debating, I happen to find violent revolution to be a harmful means toward accomplishing the goal. For those still unsure, I don’t think violence is prudent. I’m a little distressed to see the argument that violence should be dismissed as a priori illegitimate except as exercised by the State. Oddly enough the nation that was founded in opposition to totalitarianism seems to have instilled an ethos that is decidedly totalitarian. That is probably a bit too esoteric for this post though. We have to keep in mind that a rich, white guy was gunned down by a serf in an act of vigilante justice. Lord knows if this would have been a gang banger in the inner city killed by another gang banger, we would be seeing all this wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming one should rejoice. I’m giving you permission not to feel bad though. For those that aren’t rich and white, it isn’t a tragedy when a person that does wicked things is harmed from doing those wicked things. When a drunk driver is found 50′ from his vehicle and his car wrapped around a telephone pole, we don’t all the sudden wonder what happened to civil society. Yes, it would be better if he weren’t dead. No one wishes death upon the drunk driver. Depending on your sources, roughly 60 people are murdered every day in this country. Many of these deaths will go unremarked upon, even in the very communities from where they occur. Some will want to celebrate Tiller as a political martyr. There is no reason the pro-life movement has to join that celebration. Check the obituaries over the next couple days if you are feeling guilty. There are plenty of men, including men that have done heinous things, that could use your prayers.
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