Question of the Moment

Given what we know of accused terrorist and murderer Scott Roeder’s acquaintances, including his connection with convicted felon Cheryl Sullenger*, shouldn’t the rabid anti-terrorists types on the right be freaking out about what has all the appearances of a terrorist group?

Or do such standards only apply to people of color?**

* Sullenger was convicted of conspiring to bomb a clinic, which makes her pretty clearly a terrorist in my view, and, I’ll charitably assume, in the views of wingnuts who were so eager to label Bill Ayers a terrorist.

** To be clear, I think Operation Rescue is a terrorist group, in that they engage in intimidation and violent rhetoric against doctors performing legal procedures, and that their denunciations of Dr Tiller’s murder were mixed with talk of “reaping what he sowed” and other language that is very, very close to incitement to violence. Readers of this blog know I’m a fierce defender of free speech, even speech as odious as calling doctors “murderers” and comparing them to Nazis. But I think its time that people like those who encourage Roeder to be accountable for their actions. If what they’ve said rises to the level of incitement to violence, they should be prosecuted, and even where it does not, we must hold them responsible for their violent rhetoric, to the full extent of the law.

Free speech means they can say what they want; it does not free them from the responsibility of answering for what they choose to say.