One year ago this month I began the practice of "inbox zero", and I can report that this simple technique is, for me, a complete success.
Inbox zero is a so-called "life hack", a simple and perhaps non-obvious practice that has a significantly positive effect on daily life. For those who are unfamiliar...
How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand? More?
Consider: how often do you go to your physical mailbox (the one outside your house), take the mail out, read some of it, and then put most of it back into the mailbox? For most of us the answer is "never", and yet this is what you do with your virtual (e)mailbox all the time.
Inbox zero is simple. I don't do that. Ever.
When I check my email, after deleting all the obvious spam, I open each email and do one or more of these five things things with it:
1) Reply to it
2) Take the action it requests me to take
3) Forward it to someone else to take the action
4) Put it in my "follow-up" folder
5) File it away into an appropriate folder for archiving
...and then I remove it from my inbox. My inbox is either empty, or I have yet to check it. I never, and I do mean never, leave my inbox with even a single email in it. I only check my "follow up" folder when I have the time to take on a task.
This sounds difficult, but it is not. I thought, when I started, that it would be hard to start this procedure because I had so many emails in my inbox at that time that it would take forever to go through it. So I didn't... I put it all into a folder called "old inbox", knowing I could get to it if I needed any of those old emails later.
Interestingly, I never did. I still have it, but I've never gone back to it.
Modern life is extremely inter-connected. So many things can demand our attention, and we have a kind of "queue" in our brain of all the things we are doing, just did, and are about to do. The size of this queue produces stress, stress that we often fail to even feel anymore because it is so ubiquitous. Since adopting inbox zero, I have found many positive effects:
1) Less stress in general
2) I am much more responsive to people, without more time spent on email. In fact, I spend less
3) I am more organized, non only about communication but about most things
4) I don't check my email as frequently as I used to
5) I don't lose information as often as I used to (this is remarkably different)
Also, I've had no problems sticking with it. Once you do inbox zero for a couple of weeks, you find yourself wondering that you ever handled your email any other way. I heartily recommend it.
-Scott Bain-
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
What Money Does
We're in the midst of a very contentious fight over the right way to close the budget deficit; one the one side, it is believed that simply reducing taxes on the rich will eventually accomplish the feat.
This is the belief of the conservatives, and I understand what it is based on. It is based on the nature of an industrial economy. Unfortunately, we are no longer an industrial economy.
In 1952 (to pick a year at random) if you gave a tax break to a wealthy person (which means, essentially, giving them extra money to spend) and given that they would obviously want to find a way to make more money from this windfall, they would invest it in something that was likely to grow. They would expand their business, or build a new one, or invest in the expansion of someone else's business. This would create jobs that, ultimately, would expand the tax base and contribute to the shared coffers that pay for our social programs.
In other words, putting money in "at the top" would mean growing the economy. In 1952.
Today if you give a wealthy person "extra money", what are they likely to do with it? Their goal would be the same; grow the money into more money. This is only natural, you or I would probably do the same. But is the best way to do that still investing in a business? Probably not.
In most cases the windfall will be invested in complex, "innovative" financial instruments: CDO's, credit-default swaps and the like. It will be invested in the financial sector itself. Or, it will be invested in overseas endeavors where the economies are emerging (like China, India, and the like). It will rarely create jobs here at home.
The Bush era proved this. The Bush tax cuts invested massively in the upper end of our economy and we lost jobs, lost tax revenue, and exploded the deficit. It did not work because it cannot work in an economy such as ours.
So, it is not that the conservative "trickle down" theory is baseless, it is that it is obsolete. Put money in at the top of an economy based on the financial sector, and you grow the financial sector. Into a bubble. Eventually the bubble pops, and all that wealth simply disappears, or gets recycled back into financial products.
Prior to 1985 the financial sector had never represented more than 16% of the US economy (in 1947 it was 2.5%). In the current decade it represents more than 40%, and is growing steadily.*
We are a consumer based economy, like it or not. Jobs are created by consumption of goods. The only way to grow the job base, and thus the tax base, and thus the economy itself is to inject money into consumption.
In other words, the middle class is where the tax breaks should go, and the only way to make that workable is to shift the burden upward. This does not have to constitute class warfare, it's just a realization of how the modern US economy works, and making policy based on reality.
The problem, of course, is that rich people own our politicians, and they naturally don't want to be burdened with higher taxes. The problem, of course, is money distorting our political process. What we should do about that is another subject.
-Scott Bain-
*Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/the-dominance-of-the-fina_b_317310.html
This is the belief of the conservatives, and I understand what it is based on. It is based on the nature of an industrial economy. Unfortunately, we are no longer an industrial economy.
In 1952 (to pick a year at random) if you gave a tax break to a wealthy person (which means, essentially, giving them extra money to spend) and given that they would obviously want to find a way to make more money from this windfall, they would invest it in something that was likely to grow. They would expand their business, or build a new one, or invest in the expansion of someone else's business. This would create jobs that, ultimately, would expand the tax base and contribute to the shared coffers that pay for our social programs.
In other words, putting money in "at the top" would mean growing the economy. In 1952.
Today if you give a wealthy person "extra money", what are they likely to do with it? Their goal would be the same; grow the money into more money. This is only natural, you or I would probably do the same. But is the best way to do that still investing in a business? Probably not.
In most cases the windfall will be invested in complex, "innovative" financial instruments: CDO's, credit-default swaps and the like. It will be invested in the financial sector itself. Or, it will be invested in overseas endeavors where the economies are emerging (like China, India, and the like). It will rarely create jobs here at home.
The Bush era proved this. The Bush tax cuts invested massively in the upper end of our economy and we lost jobs, lost tax revenue, and exploded the deficit. It did not work because it cannot work in an economy such as ours.
So, it is not that the conservative "trickle down" theory is baseless, it is that it is obsolete. Put money in at the top of an economy based on the financial sector, and you grow the financial sector. Into a bubble. Eventually the bubble pops, and all that wealth simply disappears, or gets recycled back into financial products.
Prior to 1985 the financial sector had never represented more than 16% of the US economy (in 1947 it was 2.5%). In the current decade it represents more than 40%, and is growing steadily.*
We are a consumer based economy, like it or not. Jobs are created by consumption of goods. The only way to grow the job base, and thus the tax base, and thus the economy itself is to inject money into consumption.
In other words, the middle class is where the tax breaks should go, and the only way to make that workable is to shift the burden upward. This does not have to constitute class warfare, it's just a realization of how the modern US economy works, and making policy based on reality.
The problem, of course, is that rich people own our politicians, and they naturally don't want to be burdened with higher taxes. The problem, of course, is money distorting our political process. What we should do about that is another subject.
-Scott Bain-
*Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/the-dominance-of-the-fina_b_317310.html
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Rules and Exceptions
An interesting thing to note:
If one believes, as I do, that there is an exception to every rule, then this has two implications.
First, the notion that every rule has an exception means that if one believes something to be in fact a rule, then among other things one must provide, as proof, the exception to it. This is simple logic: if all mules are sired by horses, then to prove that something is a mule one (at least) must find the horse that sired it. Finding an exception to a rule does not prove that it is a rule (other things have exceptions too), but failing to find an exception means that it cannot, in fact, be a rule.
Second, if one believes that there is an exception to every rule, then this belief itself is being proposed as a rule. Therefore it must have an exception. Failing this, by its own standard, it cannot be held to be a rule. So does the rule "there is an exception to every rule" itself have an exception?
If so, then there must be at least one rule that has no exception.
There is. It is this:
There is an exception to every rule.
If one believes, as I do, that there is an exception to every rule, then this has two implications.
First, the notion that every rule has an exception means that if one believes something to be in fact a rule, then among other things one must provide, as proof, the exception to it. This is simple logic: if all mules are sired by horses, then to prove that something is a mule one (at least) must find the horse that sired it. Finding an exception to a rule does not prove that it is a rule (other things have exceptions too), but failing to find an exception means that it cannot, in fact, be a rule.
Second, if one believes that there is an exception to every rule, then this belief itself is being proposed as a rule. Therefore it must have an exception. Failing this, by its own standard, it cannot be held to be a rule. So does the rule "there is an exception to every rule" itself have an exception?
If so, then there must be at least one rule that has no exception.
There is. It is this:
There is an exception to every rule.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Dropping Anchors
Many on the right are currently pushing two agendas that contradict one another. How do I know this? I read, and one of my closest friends is the smartest man in the universe.
Agenda #1: Re-jigger the 14th Amendment so that people who are born in this country do not automatically become citizens, if their parents are not already citizens. The idea is that illegal immigrants are crossing the border to drop so-called "anchor babies" who, as citizens, can enable their parents to stay in the U.S. Leaving aside the notion that it's really not at all that simple, we can examine in the context of another agenda item...
Agenda #2: Social Security is insolvent, and the only way to save it is to ___________. Some fill the blank with extending the retirement age, some with privatization, some with means testing, etc...
TSMITU* pointed out to me that the problem with Social Security is not, as many claim, that the population is aging. It is, but the system is one where young people support old people with their current contributions. So the real problem is that the demographics of our country are shifting. In the 40's, there were 8 people in the workforce for every person in retirement. This balance has been shifting steadily over the decades since, and we are rapidly approaching a ratio of 2 people working for every retiree. In other words, the problem is not too many old people, it is too many old people for the number of young ones.
Illegal immigrants tend to be on the young side. Elderly people don't cross the border in the back of Coyote trucks, and older (let's say it) Mexican citizens tend to be better-established in their own country, and have less reason to seek work in the states. Still, the average age of an un-documented worker is 39, which, statistically means that they shift our national average age by only 4 months in the young direction (Source: Center for Immigration Studies) . Their babies, of course are another matter.
Whatever your view on immigration is, whether you want undocumented workers in this country or not, if you want to save Social Security you want their babies, and you want them to be citizens paying into the system.
Thank you F.T.
--
*The aforementioned Smartest Man in The Universe, one of my oldest and dearest friends, Dr. Frank Tamburine.
Agenda #1: Re-jigger the 14th Amendment so that people who are born in this country do not automatically become citizens, if their parents are not already citizens. The idea is that illegal immigrants are crossing the border to drop so-called "anchor babies" who, as citizens, can enable their parents to stay in the U.S. Leaving aside the notion that it's really not at all that simple, we can examine in the context of another agenda item...
Agenda #2: Social Security is insolvent, and the only way to save it is to ___________. Some fill the blank with extending the retirement age, some with privatization, some with means testing, etc...
TSMITU* pointed out to me that the problem with Social Security is not, as many claim, that the population is aging. It is, but the system is one where young people support old people with their current contributions. So the real problem is that the demographics of our country are shifting. In the 40's, there were 8 people in the workforce for every person in retirement. This balance has been shifting steadily over the decades since, and we are rapidly approaching a ratio of 2 people working for every retiree. In other words, the problem is not too many old people, it is too many old people for the number of young ones.
Illegal immigrants tend to be on the young side. Elderly people don't cross the border in the back of Coyote trucks, and older (let's say it) Mexican citizens tend to be better-established in their own country, and have less reason to seek work in the states. Still, the average age of an un-documented worker is 39, which, statistically means that they shift our national average age by only 4 months in the young direction (Source: Center for Immigration Studies) . Their babies, of course are another matter.
Whatever your view on immigration is, whether you want undocumented workers in this country or not, if you want to save Social Security you want their babies, and you want them to be citizens paying into the system.
Thank you F.T.
--
*The aforementioned Smartest Man in The Universe, one of my oldest and dearest friends, Dr. Frank Tamburine.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Lost, and Won
I've been reflecting on the end of Lost, and I thought I'd share some of my thoughts.
First of all, I think the ending was both a success and a failure, depending on what you wanted from the show, and what you thought it was.
As science fiction, it was a failure. We never find out the mechanics of the smoke monster, the light, the electromagnetic "properties" of the island, etc... Why Tunisia? What caused the time travel? What was going on with Faraday's rocket? If one was looking for rational explanations of these phenomenon, one would not find them. Personally, I came to realize that the show was not science fiction at least a season ago, maybe even earlier than that. I'm okay with that... I don't know why the One Ring makes you invisible, and I don't care. It's fantasy, and fantasy can be done well.
I think the writers realized at some point that they had written themselves into an impossible situation. They determined, I think in season 5 if not earlier, that they needed to get the audience to "let go" and "move on" when the show was over, and that this final season was essentially a 12-step program to get us weaned off the show. Unfortunately, this ends up in an emotionally-manipulative ending that is satisfying only to those who wanted that kind of thing; the lovers reunited, all that.
For me, it was disappointing. I still really enjoyed the show, and I'm glad I watched it. But I'm not sure I'm strongly motivated to watch it again, now that I know that so many of my questions will be essentially abandoned as unimportant, and that the climax of the drama will be totally about love, children, and the inevitability of death. Interesting topics, but not the show I thought I was watching.
So, a little bummed here.
First of all, I think the ending was both a success and a failure, depending on what you wanted from the show, and what you thought it was.
As science fiction, it was a failure. We never find out the mechanics of the smoke monster, the light, the electromagnetic "properties" of the island, etc... Why Tunisia? What caused the time travel? What was going on with Faraday's rocket? If one was looking for rational explanations of these phenomenon, one would not find them. Personally, I came to realize that the show was not science fiction at least a season ago, maybe even earlier than that. I'm okay with that... I don't know why the One Ring makes you invisible, and I don't care. It's fantasy, and fantasy can be done well.
As character drama, one could argue that it was a success. Jack comes to a resolution with his need to make things right ("fix" them) and he has his denouement with his father. Sawyer finds his way to justice and redemption, and reunites with Juliette (having already resolved his need for family by joining the Dharma Initiative and playing house with her). Sun and Jin get to have the baby together, Kate gets to save a mother (not her own, but Claire), and so forth. Hurley gets to help, Ben gets to serve, all that. Fans who were caught up in these aspects of the story are well satisfied, and so, I believe, are the writers who have long said that they wanted to solve the mysteries that the characters cared about more than the ones the fans may care about. Fair enough. But there is a third aspect, which is where the ending falls short for me.
It is the big-picture narrative, the critical motivations that drive the plot overall.
- For example: What does Charles Widmore want? What would be a "win" for him? Why did he send Martin Keamy and the mercenaries? To kill Ben? To capture Ben? To kill everyone but Ben? Does he want to destroy the island, save the island, control the island, or... what? The Mother says that men want more of the light, but is that what Widmore is, simply the greed of men? Why does he bring Desmond back to the island; Desmond being the only one who can pull the magic stopper and... destroy the island? Save the Island? Why does he fake the crashed underwater plane with all the dead bodies? I don't know, and I wanted to know.
- For example: What was the Dharma Initiative doing, and why? I know they were doing "research", but into what, and in what way? Why have people sit and punch numbers into a console every 108 minutes? Was it "faith", that is, they wanted to see if people would do it? That would explain the notebooks that go nowhere. But no, it turns out that something really bad does happen when you don't push the button, so is it "science"? If so, why have people type the numbers in like that? Seems pretty dangerous. You have a computer system, why not just automate the whole thing? Why the fake quarantine? What's the thing about the babies? Why these particular stations? Why do the "Dharma drops" keep coming after the employees are all killed and "the initiative was deemed a failure?" Who is sending them? Why?
- For example: What is Eloise Hawking trying to do? She knows that she killed her own son accidentally in the past, which must be her greatest tragedy... so she makes sure he becomes a physicist, makes sure the oceanic six go back to the island... to make sure it happens? Why? What's her goal? She seems exceedingly determined, but I'm not clear what she's determined to do.
The ending is lacking, for me, because it fails to address the key motivations and actions that constitute most of what actually happens in the narrative. We never really know why the man in black wants off the island. We're told that "everyone will die" if he succeeds, but why is that? Is it even true? I have no idea.
I think the writers realized at some point that they had written themselves into an impossible situation. They determined, I think in season 5 if not earlier, that they needed to get the audience to "let go" and "move on" when the show was over, and that this final season was essentially a 12-step program to get us weaned off the show. Unfortunately, this ends up in an emotionally-manipulative ending that is satisfying only to those who wanted that kind of thing; the lovers reunited, all that.
For me, it was disappointing. I still really enjoyed the show, and I'm glad I watched it. But I'm not sure I'm strongly motivated to watch it again, now that I know that so many of my questions will be essentially abandoned as unimportant, and that the climax of the drama will be totally about love, children, and the inevitability of death. Interesting topics, but not the show I thought I was watching.
So, a little bummed here.
Friday, May 7, 2010
The Purpose of Terrorism
Why do terrorist organizations target innocent people with their violence? What do they hope to achieve by doing this? This is a critical question because we know that people do things that they believe produce a benefit for themselves, even if that benefit is short-sighted or misinformed. If the terrorists believe they are achieving what they intend, they will continue to attack.
The actual suicide bomber who detonates himself in a crowd of people likely has motivations that are too complex and strange for anyone not of that mind to truly understand, but it is not the bomber I am considering here, it is the people who planned the attack, recruited the bomber, and made the bomb.
Al Qaeda did not kill 3,000 Americans in the World Trade Center out of any expectation that they could significantly impact U.S. population, obviously. They did not do this to gain territory, capture resources, or to in any way materially effect their lot in life. They did this to effect behavior, to make people around the world change what they are doing, and thus to prove to themselves and others that they can.
I suspect the nature of this change is less important to them than the existence of the change, any change, that they can foment through their violence. I think it's no accident that terrorism grows in parts of the world that are relatively powerless to actually effect the rest of the world. They feel powerless because they are, and when they see an event like the recent scare in midtown Manhattan, even though it was a completely failed attack in every sense of the word (nobody got hurt, the attacker was arrested quickly, and he spilled his guts immediately to the authorities), dominating the airwaves and capturing the attention of legislators in the halls of real political power, they feel satisfied. And encouraged to do more.
I'm sure there are other motivations. Revenge for predator attacks, religious fervor, internal power struggled within these organizations, etc... But it seems to me the major goal of any terrorist attack is to show the world that these powerless people can force others to change what they are doing, in any way. They make us endure invasive body scans, give up our mouthwash and nail clippers, and wait in long lines. They force powerful governments to pass new laws, change policies, and withdraw (or send) troops.
It's understandable that our social and political leaders want to respond (or at least appear to respond) to terrorist attacks by making new rules, instituting restrictions, etc... but this will simply not have any effect. It will not make us any safer: the terrorists will do the unexpected, as they always have, and in showing a response they give the terrorists exactly what they want. We won't see more planes flown into buildings... the next significant attack will be something we are not talking about right now. As a casual observer, I can think of a dozen ways to kill a lot of people quickly. I am sure the people who are focusing their entire attention to this question can as well.
Imagine a bomb going off in a Miami shopping center, killing hundreds, and for some reason nobody anywhere said anything about it. No news stories, no congressional investigation, nobody talking about it over the water-cooler the next day. The terrorist would feel that they had failed, because they would have. Dead bodies get them nothing, getting attention and altering behavior is the entire point of such an attack.
That will never happen, of course. It's unreasonable to suggest that it could. But, I say every time we mitigate our response to these attacks in any way, we're moving in the right direction. Let's ignore them as much as we can, and perhaps they will engage in this behavior less and less until, perhaps, one day they will realize these attacks are not an effective way to prove their existence to the world.
The popular wisdom about dealing with terrorists seems to be split between two camps: those who want to punish them, and those who want to remove their motivation. The former send troops, the latter say "why do they hate us?" and seek to fix whatever they think is the cause. Sending troops plays into their hands, but so does "reaching out".
Living our lives normally and ignoring them entirely would be the only defeat for them. If only.
The actual suicide bomber who detonates himself in a crowd of people likely has motivations that are too complex and strange for anyone not of that mind to truly understand, but it is not the bomber I am considering here, it is the people who planned the attack, recruited the bomber, and made the bomb.
Al Qaeda did not kill 3,000 Americans in the World Trade Center out of any expectation that they could significantly impact U.S. population, obviously. They did not do this to gain territory, capture resources, or to in any way materially effect their lot in life. They did this to effect behavior, to make people around the world change what they are doing, and thus to prove to themselves and others that they can.
I suspect the nature of this change is less important to them than the existence of the change, any change, that they can foment through their violence. I think it's no accident that terrorism grows in parts of the world that are relatively powerless to actually effect the rest of the world. They feel powerless because they are, and when they see an event like the recent scare in midtown Manhattan, even though it was a completely failed attack in every sense of the word (nobody got hurt, the attacker was arrested quickly, and he spilled his guts immediately to the authorities), dominating the airwaves and capturing the attention of legislators in the halls of real political power, they feel satisfied. And encouraged to do more.
I'm sure there are other motivations. Revenge for predator attacks, religious fervor, internal power struggled within these organizations, etc... But it seems to me the major goal of any terrorist attack is to show the world that these powerless people can force others to change what they are doing, in any way. They make us endure invasive body scans, give up our mouthwash and nail clippers, and wait in long lines. They force powerful governments to pass new laws, change policies, and withdraw (or send) troops.
It's understandable that our social and political leaders want to respond (or at least appear to respond) to terrorist attacks by making new rules, instituting restrictions, etc... but this will simply not have any effect. It will not make us any safer: the terrorists will do the unexpected, as they always have, and in showing a response they give the terrorists exactly what they want. We won't see more planes flown into buildings... the next significant attack will be something we are not talking about right now. As a casual observer, I can think of a dozen ways to kill a lot of people quickly. I am sure the people who are focusing their entire attention to this question can as well.
Imagine a bomb going off in a Miami shopping center, killing hundreds, and for some reason nobody anywhere said anything about it. No news stories, no congressional investigation, nobody talking about it over the water-cooler the next day. The terrorist would feel that they had failed, because they would have. Dead bodies get them nothing, getting attention and altering behavior is the entire point of such an attack.
That will never happen, of course. It's unreasonable to suggest that it could. But, I say every time we mitigate our response to these attacks in any way, we're moving in the right direction. Let's ignore them as much as we can, and perhaps they will engage in this behavior less and less until, perhaps, one day they will realize these attacks are not an effective way to prove their existence to the world.
The popular wisdom about dealing with terrorists seems to be split between two camps: those who want to punish them, and those who want to remove their motivation. The former send troops, the latter say "why do they hate us?" and seek to fix whatever they think is the cause. Sending troops plays into their hands, but so does "reaching out".
Living our lives normally and ignoring them entirely would be the only defeat for them. If only.
Friday, April 2, 2010
My Interview with Scott Roeder...
...will never happen, of course. But, if I had a chance to cross-examine the man who shot George Tiller to death in his church, I know what I'd ask. And, given his willingness to speak at length on his views and ethics, I think I can guess what his responses might reasonably be.
Bain: My Roeder, you admit that you killed Dr. Tiller by shooting him in broad daylight, and in a public place, his church. Is this true?
Roeder: Yes. He was guilty of murdering innocent children, and deserved death.
Bain: Do other people, similarly, deserve to die?
Roeder: Yes.
Bain: Given that you have not killed everyone who deserves to die, I have to assume you had some specific goal in mind when you killed Dr. Tiller. Why did you decide to shoot him to death? What did you believe this would accomplish?
Roeder: It was the only way to stop him from ripping infants limb from limb. That's what he did, you know. So-called partial-term abortion is basically taking a viable baby and cutting it into pieces. It's pure murder, and by killing him I stopped him from doing it anymore.
Bain: I'll agree that a dead person cannot do anything, so you did indeed prevent him from taking any actions whatsoever from this point forward, including performing abortions. But, could you not have accomplished the same thing by kidnapping him and imprisoning him in some dungeon?
Roeder: I don't have the resources to do that. Only the government can put someone in jail for life, and they refused to do their job. It was left to people like me to deal with this murderer.
Bain: Could you not simply have crippled his hands, or even removed them? He could no longer perform abortions if you did that, but he'd be alive.
Roeder: He got what he deserved. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the Bible teaches us. He killed, and so he deserved to be killed.
Bain: So, preventing him from performing abortions was not your only motivation. You were also seeking justice for the abortions he had already performed.
Roeder: Yes. Again, dispensing justice is the government's job, but since they refused to do their job, it was left to those who do God's will to punish the wicked.
Bain: So, to summarize, you killed Dr. Tiller to punish him for his past acts aborting the unborn, and to prevent him from doing so in the future.
Roeder: Yes, that's right.
Bain: Then why do it in public? You could have kidnapped him, or confronted him in his home, and killed him just as easily. Also, you might have been able to escape capture and reamined free to deal with some of those others who equally deserve, in your view, to die. Why did you kill Dr. Tiller in a public place?
Roeder: People need to know what happens when you ignore God's law, and when you victimize the innocent. I was willing to give up my own life for this, to make sure that the public sees the harvest of such sin. If you kill the innocent, you yourself will be killed. If I did this in private it would have been far less visible.
Bain: You feel that this will deter others from performing these abortions?
Roeder: It already has. The planned parenthood-types are already complaining that women are having trouble getting access to what they obscenely call "reproductive health". Most doctors won't do abortions, especially in the heartland of this country. Hopefully there will everntually be none at all.
Bain: So, in truth you had three motivations in killing Dr. Tiller. To punish him for past acts, to prevent future abortions, and to deter others from performing abortions as well. Correct?
Roeder: Yes. All three things are important.
Bain: Which is the largest issue, in your view?
Roeder: The last one. Stopping one abortionist murderer is important, but if the example I set, that we will kill you if you kill innocent children, if that stops large numbers of other doctors from doing the same then the good I will have done is much larger.
Bain: By killing doctor Tiller, you put the fear of death into others who might otherwise support abortion rights in this country?
Roeder: I certainly hope so.
Bain: In what way, Mr. Roeder, does this not constitute terrorism?
I don't know what Roeder would say about this. Maybe he would say terrorists kill innocent people to make their points... but I'd point out that terrorists do not consider the people they kill to be innocent any more than Roeder would consider the fact that Dr. Tiller's acts were lawful (they were) makes him innocent.
Terrorists always feel that they are doing the right, moral thing. Whether they quote the Quoran, the Bible, whatever, they feel justified by moral ascendence to commit acts that take the lives of others.
"I think I know what's right" is in the mind of every truly dangerous person; people who kill their spouses for infidelity believe that this punishment fits the crime. People that kill for money obviously feel their gain is more important than the loss of life on their victim's part.
I know. I'm right. My view is more important. These attitudes are at the center of most represensible behavior. You may feel abortion is okay, or wrong, or murder, but a firm belief that you are right and others are wrong, to a moral certainty, and your willingness to act based on the certainty, is what makes for a terrorist.
Let's question ourselves, practice humility, and work to persuade.
Why don't the Roeders of the world work to repeal the laws they hate, work to register voters who believe as they do, do the hard work of systemic change? The left recently got a black man with the middle name "Hussein" elected president, mostly by creative use of the internet to organize and findraise. No easy task, but they did it.
It's a lot easier to pull a trigger, I guess.
Bain: My Roeder, you admit that you killed Dr. Tiller by shooting him in broad daylight, and in a public place, his church. Is this true?
Roeder: Yes. He was guilty of murdering innocent children, and deserved death.
Bain: Do other people, similarly, deserve to die?
Roeder: Yes.
Bain: Given that you have not killed everyone who deserves to die, I have to assume you had some specific goal in mind when you killed Dr. Tiller. Why did you decide to shoot him to death? What did you believe this would accomplish?
Roeder: It was the only way to stop him from ripping infants limb from limb. That's what he did, you know. So-called partial-term abortion is basically taking a viable baby and cutting it into pieces. It's pure murder, and by killing him I stopped him from doing it anymore.
Bain: I'll agree that a dead person cannot do anything, so you did indeed prevent him from taking any actions whatsoever from this point forward, including performing abortions. But, could you not have accomplished the same thing by kidnapping him and imprisoning him in some dungeon?
Roeder: I don't have the resources to do that. Only the government can put someone in jail for life, and they refused to do their job. It was left to people like me to deal with this murderer.
Bain: Could you not simply have crippled his hands, or even removed them? He could no longer perform abortions if you did that, but he'd be alive.
Roeder: He got what he deserved. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the Bible teaches us. He killed, and so he deserved to be killed.
Bain: So, preventing him from performing abortions was not your only motivation. You were also seeking justice for the abortions he had already performed.
Roeder: Yes. Again, dispensing justice is the government's job, but since they refused to do their job, it was left to those who do God's will to punish the wicked.
Bain: So, to summarize, you killed Dr. Tiller to punish him for his past acts aborting the unborn, and to prevent him from doing so in the future.
Roeder: Yes, that's right.
Bain: Then why do it in public? You could have kidnapped him, or confronted him in his home, and killed him just as easily. Also, you might have been able to escape capture and reamined free to deal with some of those others who equally deserve, in your view, to die. Why did you kill Dr. Tiller in a public place?
Roeder: People need to know what happens when you ignore God's law, and when you victimize the innocent. I was willing to give up my own life for this, to make sure that the public sees the harvest of such sin. If you kill the innocent, you yourself will be killed. If I did this in private it would have been far less visible.
Bain: You feel that this will deter others from performing these abortions?
Roeder: It already has. The planned parenthood-types are already complaining that women are having trouble getting access to what they obscenely call "reproductive health". Most doctors won't do abortions, especially in the heartland of this country. Hopefully there will everntually be none at all.
Bain: So, in truth you had three motivations in killing Dr. Tiller. To punish him for past acts, to prevent future abortions, and to deter others from performing abortions as well. Correct?
Roeder: Yes. All three things are important.
Bain: Which is the largest issue, in your view?
Roeder: The last one. Stopping one abortionist murderer is important, but if the example I set, that we will kill you if you kill innocent children, if that stops large numbers of other doctors from doing the same then the good I will have done is much larger.
Bain: By killing doctor Tiller, you put the fear of death into others who might otherwise support abortion rights in this country?
Roeder: I certainly hope so.
Bain: In what way, Mr. Roeder, does this not constitute terrorism?
I don't know what Roeder would say about this. Maybe he would say terrorists kill innocent people to make their points... but I'd point out that terrorists do not consider the people they kill to be innocent any more than Roeder would consider the fact that Dr. Tiller's acts were lawful (they were) makes him innocent.
Terrorists always feel that they are doing the right, moral thing. Whether they quote the Quoran, the Bible, whatever, they feel justified by moral ascendence to commit acts that take the lives of others.
"I think I know what's right" is in the mind of every truly dangerous person; people who kill their spouses for infidelity believe that this punishment fits the crime. People that kill for money obviously feel their gain is more important than the loss of life on their victim's part.
I know. I'm right. My view is more important. These attitudes are at the center of most represensible behavior. You may feel abortion is okay, or wrong, or murder, but a firm belief that you are right and others are wrong, to a moral certainty, and your willingness to act based on the certainty, is what makes for a terrorist.
Let's question ourselves, practice humility, and work to persuade.
Why don't the Roeders of the world work to repeal the laws they hate, work to register voters who believe as they do, do the hard work of systemic change? The left recently got a black man with the middle name "Hussein" elected president, mostly by creative use of the internet to organize and findraise. No easy task, but they did it.
It's a lot easier to pull a trigger, I guess.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
