Taking the Law into Their Own Hands ABORTION DOC TILLER KILLED TODAY

Read it here. To quote from the Broadway play "The Chorus Line" and the character of Morales: "I feel nothing." The murderer gets murdered.

More on Tiller and the outrage here.

ROUND UP HERE.

RELIPUNDIT ADDS: I SECOND THIS:

Gravely Wicked [Robert P. George]

Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller's life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life. Let our "weapons" in the fight to defend the lives of abortion's tiny victims, be chaste weapons of the spirit.

— Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.

05/31 03:42 PMShare

SOLDIER TESTIMONIALS ABOUT THE IDF'S MORALITY

In their own words:

Let's say that this isn't true. Let's say that it's all propaganda put out to excuse the imagined crimes of a military occupation (albeit one that Israeli leaders have repeatedly tried to get out of...) But let's imagine that all of these quotes are lies.

There is still. a difference between the IDF and the enemies that it fights. Specifically, these are the values of Israel and the IDF. Maybe they don't live up to them - but this is their ideal, what they would like the world to think they're living up to. Can you imagine Hezbollah putting out a video where its soldiers emphasized their humanity - and the humanity of their enemies - over and over again? What about Syria, which has repeatedly gone out of its way to desecrate wounded and dead Jews?

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

LIBERAL CAUSE CELEBRE COLLIDES WITH SCIENCE: HYSTERICAL CLAIMS OF "BIOPIRACY" GET RENOWNED SCIENTIST, TIME "HERO FOR THE PLANET" 16 YEARS IN PRISON

For decades academics and human rights activists have screamed about biopiracy, which is what they labeled virtually any intrusion by Western scientists into the sanctified environ of the Third World. Defenders of measured biotechnological research were screamed down as "racists". Now this happened:

Marc van Roosmalen is a world-renowned primatologist whose research in the Amazon has led to the discovery of five species of monkeys and a new primate genus. But precisely because of that work, van Roosmalen was this year sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison and jailed in Manaus, Brazil. Last month, his lawyers managed to get him freed on bail while they appeal his conviction on charges stemming from an investigation into alleged biopiracy. But scientists in Brazil and across the world are outraged, and describe the case as the most glaring example of laws and government policies they say are stifling scientific inquiry.

To understand the sheer scope of this disaster, you should realize that this description of his honors - which include the phrase "one of the most accomplished field biologists of our time" are underselling his achievements. Tetrapod Zoology recently did a four-post series about new mammals that van Roosmalen has discovered. This is a total outrage.

This style of the activism - the smug self-righteousness of the activists, the hysterical ad homs against anyone who tries to steer a middle course, etc - creates an environment ripe for abuse. This is how global warming research became an anti-scientific endeavor where data is withheld from dissidents until they reverse engineer flawed algorithms, it's how absolutist claims about scientific practice have recently been used to shut down open source science journals, etc.

A more measured model of scientific progress - one that recognizes the sociology of scientific communities while refusing to cede ground to the cultural left on the question of science's privileged relationship to truth - would go a long way to avoiding these pitfalls. But that would lack something in the way of smug sophistication, and where would that leave the soft anti-intellectualism of international human rights activism?

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]

BOSTON GLOBE NOTICES UN IS NOT ENTIRELY FAIR TO ISRAEL

The Boston Globe (whaaa?) has a piece that is somewhat unsympathetic to the formal and binding decision by the UN Human Rights Commission to exclusively single out Israel for demonization. It's by Irwin Cotler, a Canadian member of Parliament and a former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, and he is not pleased:

This discriminatory treatment is not only prejudicial to Israel, but it is a breach of the United Nations Charter's foundational principle of "equality for all nations, large and small," and it concluded a week - and year - of unprecedented discriminatory conduct. The week began with Archbishop Desmond Tutu reporting to the UN Human Rights Council on the fact-finding mission to investigate the Israeli "willful killing of Palestinian civilians" in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, in November 2006. He received a standing ovation, an extraordinary reaction by a body that frowns even upon applause. I suspect the appreciation was as much for the man as anything else. For the mandate that authorized the mission was a sham. It made a mockery of the council's own founding principles and procedures.

We're not sure if this is Anglo understatement or genuine confusion, but our hunch is that the applause were for to the man and his mandate. We originally wrote about the UN's decision to send Tutu to Israel here. The title of the post was "UN Sends Committed Anti-Semite Anti-Zionist To Conduct Unbiased Investigation Of Zionists". Even by our admittedly jaded standards, it probably rose to the level of a rant - the rank bias was just that transparent. Cotler has significantly more on how how the bias has become even more shameless. Of course, among the anti-Israel resolutions that get debated are recurring condemnations of Israel's defensive actions against Hezbollah. Syria never seems to come up. Here's what a Lebanese Muslim leader thinks about that.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]

HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS UNTROUBLED BY DOZENS OF ISRAELI SECRET ARRESTS, PLANNED EXECUTIONS

Just kidding, obviously. They're seemingly untroubled by secret arrests and planned executions, but only because Lebanon is doing it:

A Reuters witness said Lebanese soldiers took about 20 men, blindfolded and handcuffed, away from the southern entrance of the camp. There was no immediate information on their identities.... "The blood of the martyred soldiers is a deposit around the neck of the army which will not rest before the criminals are arrested and taken to justice," army commander General Michel Suleiman said at the wake of a fallen soldier. The authorities charged three more members of Fatah al-Islam with terrorism on Thursday, bringing to 30 the total indicted, judicial sources said. The charges carry the death penalty.

Ah well, there's probably a very subtle distinction that allows Lebanon to get the "not a human rights violation" badge, while Israel is condemned for being twice as careful while doing half of what the LAF is doing. Especially when Israel doesn't even have the death penalty for arrested terrorists. A subtle distinction like - and we're just spitballing here, maybe you can come up with something else - "in Israel, the victims of terrorism are just Jews".

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]