In checking out some of the stories being published regarding the murder of Dr. George Tiller, I found this blog entry from David Neiwert on the Web site Crooks and Liars:
Three years ago, O’Reilly and his ambush-crew specialist, Jesse Watters, went hard after Tiller, accusing him of wantonly murdering babies because he performs late-term abortions:
Bill summarized in a heartfelt Talking Points Memo on Friday, November 10th: “If we as a society allow an undefined mental health exception in late-term abortions, then babies can be killed for almost any reason… This is the kind of stuff that happened in Mao’s China and Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union… If we allow this, America will no longer be a noble nation… If we allow Dr. George Tiller and his acolytes to continue, we can no longer pass judgment on any behavior by anybody.”
This is the kind of hate speech, as I said in an earlier blog, that leads inspires unstable people to commit murder and other acts of violence. Even if a hate speaker does not pull the trigger … there is a level of responsibility (even if not necessarily a legal responsibility) for those people who incite others to commit acts of violence.
It will be interesting to see how Bill O’Reilly responds to this massacre of Dr. George Tiller. There is no excuse for murder.
Crooks and Liars:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/bill-oreilly-has-dr-george-tillers-b
