Yep, He Was a Wingnut

Filed in National by on June 1, 2009

While the Bush ‘Justice’ Department was infiltrating groups like the Audubon Society and those militant Quaker groups (irony intended), weapons-toting self-styled “Freemen” like Scott Roeder were doing whatever the hell they wanted. After all, just how dangerous could Roeder be?:

Those who know Roeder said he believed that killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide.

“I know that he believed in justifiable homicide,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. “I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn.” 

Roeder also was a subscriber to Prayer and Action News, a magazine that advocated the justifiable homicide position, said publisher Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines, Iowa.

“I met him once, and he wrote to me a few times,” Leach said. “I remember that he was sympathetic to our cause, but I don’t remember any details.”

Leach said he met Roeder in Topeka when he went there to visit Shelley Shannon, who was in prison for the 1993 shooting of Tiller.

“He told me about a lot of conspiracy stuff and showed me how to take the magnetic strip out of a five-dollar bill,” Leach said. “He said it was to keep the government from tracking your money.”

Roeder, who in the 1990s was a manufacturing assemblyman, also was involved in the “Freemen” movement.

Freemen” was a term adopted by those who claimed sovereignty from government jurisdiction and operated under their own legal system, which they called common-law courts. Adherents declared themselves exempt from laws, regulations and taxes and often filed liens against judges, prosecutors and others, claiming that money was owed to them as compensation.

In April 1996, Roeder was arrested in Topeka after Shawnee County sheriff’s deputies stopped him for not having a proper license plate. In his car, officers said they found ammunition, a blasting cap, a fuse cord, a one-pound can of gunpowder and two 9-volt batteries, with one connected to a switch that could have been used to trigger a bomb.

Read the entire article and ask yourselves, with all the surveillance and wiretapping of American citizens that went on during the Bush years, how is it that true terrorist organizations like the ones Roeder championed, organizations armed to the teeth and full of righteous zealotry, somehow escaped their dragnet? Yes, that is a rhetorical question.

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  1. jason330 says:

    If one person turns violent, that does not mean that the whole movement is a bunch of violent right-wing maniacs – except when they are.

  2. liberalgeek says:

    How much of a stretch is it to think that killing those that support choice are valid targets as well? How about those that would donate to Planned Parenthood?

  3. Extremist in the movement have been harassing doctors, clinic workers and patients for years. Dr. Tiller was shot in both arms in 1993 and had a bullet-proof car.

    I read on the internet the story of several workers in his clinic who had postcards sent to everyone in their neighborhood, accusing them of being baby killers (with the workers name, address and phone number). They also drove around the neighborhood with pictures of bloody fetuses. They picketed the workplace of a woman’s husband.

  4. Tom S. says:

    Remember when 20 foreign terrorists slipped into the country while the FBI was busy running the plates at inter-state gun shows?

    “If one person turns violent, that does not mean that the whole movement is a bunch of violent right-wing maniacs – except when they are.”

    I’ll remind you that you are talking to about a majority of the country.

  5. I remember when terrorists attacked the U.S. because Bush couldn’t bother with doing anything about the warnings he received, yes.

  6. liberalgeek says:

    Remember when the National Guard had to integrate white schools, even when a majority of the state opposed it?

  7. anon says:

    Remember when 20 foreign terrorists slipped into the country while the FBI was busy running the plates at inter-state gun shows?

    No I don’t actually. Can you show some legitimate source that shows a connection between those two things?

  8. Tom S. says:

    “No I don’t actually. Can you show some legitimate source that shows a connection between those two things?”

    I can show the exact same amount of correlation that ‘bulo can.

  9. anonone says:

    Tom S

    Do you think he should be tortured to find out if there are any other terrorist acts that his friends are planning? Could be a few thousand American lives at stake, you know.

  10. jason330 says:

    Tom S is having a hard time coping with the fact that he is a straight-up dupe.

  11. Interesting blog post here.

    Remember the DHS report that the rightwing went nuts over? The alleged shooter was a member of two groups mentioned in the report: Operation Rescue and the Freemen.

  12. Von Cracker says:

    This Roeder guy probably was looking for a reason to kill a human, and in his little micro-world, an abortion provider is an acceptable choice to his peers. If he was born somewhere else in the world, I’m sure he’d target whatever group that was considered the bad guy.

    In other words, this guy is a sociopath.

  13. Geezer says:

    Sorry, Tommy, it was your boy Bush who ignored the warnings that were handed to him.

    If you support the anti-abortion movement, how are you different from a Muslim who donates to a charity that funnels its money to extremists?

  14. pandora says:

    True, VC. But he’s their sociopath!

  15. Tom S. says:

    “Do you think he should be tortured to find out if there are any other terrorist acts that his friends are planning?”

    Is there any evidence that suggests his actions were the result of a broader conspiracy?

    “If you support the anti-abortion movement, how are you different from a Muslim who donates to a charity that funnels its money to extremists?”

    Wow you suck at comparisons. Are there pro-life terrorist training camps secluded in the mountains? Are pro-life organizations diverting money to buy guns and explosives?

  16. Geezer says:

    “Wow you suck at comparisons.”

    They’re called analogies. People with the capacity for abstract thought use them as a way of probing into an issue from a different angle. I forgot that conservatives, lacking the capacity for abstract thought, always think the object is to find the ways in which the analogy is inexact. My bad.

    “Are there pro-life terrorist training camps secluded in the mountains?”

    I don’t know. But Roedel was caught, in 1996, with bomb-making stuff in his car.

    Are there links between right-wing separatist groups and violent anti-abortion types? This guy was both. Eric Rudolph was both. The extremist sentiments are common to elements of both groups. There have been more murders of abortion providers than Muslim terrorist attacks in the US. I guess you won’t be able to see it that way until one of your right-wing wise men tells you to, though.

  17. liberalgeek says:

    right-wing wise men

    LOL, Geezer makes a funny with the oxymoron.

  18. Tom S. says:

    “There have been more murders of abortion providers than Muslim terrorist attacks in the US. I guess you won’t be able to see it that way until one of your right-wing wise men tells you to, though.”

    No, its even. 4 abortionists in the last 16 years and 4 islamic terrorist attacks in the last 16

  19. Perry says:

    Tom S, I think you are going to have to accept the fact that we have domestic terrorists right here in this country, who commit their terroristic acts in support of a cause every bit as valid to them as the Islamic jihadists’ cause is to them.

    And interestingly enough, both hide in among innocent civilian populations.

    The point is that both must be opposed, rooted out of their hiding places and brought to justice.

    I don’t distinguish between the two — both are criminal organizations who have no hesitation to even kill people in order to achieve their ends.

    Worth for you to ponder a little more about this, Tom S, do you think?

  20. Geezer says:

    “No, its even. 4 abortionists in the last 16 years and 4 islamic terrorist attacks in the last 16”

    Who set the cutoff at 16 years? Here’s the link to show that it’s more than 4:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence

  21. pandora says:

    LOL, Geezer! I just posted this on the other thread!

  22. jason330 says:

    Geezer,

    Someone told him 16 years was the cut off. That’s how dupes and suckers operate.

  23. Tom S. says:

    “Who set the cutoff at 16 years? Here’s the link to show that it’s more than 4:”
    “Someone told him 16 years was the cut off. That’s how dupes and suckers operate.”

    A – first abortionists in the United States killed and
    B – 1993 WTC attacks

    Go back further than that and you won’t find anything.

    I read that too, it only lists 4 abortionists.

    “Tom S, I think you are going to have to accept the fact that we have domestic terrorists right here in this country, who commit their terroristic acts in support of a cause every bit as valid to them as the Islamic jihadists’ cause is to them.”

    I know that we do.

    “I don’t distinguish between the two — both are criminal organizations who have no hesitation to even kill people in order to achieve their ends.”

    Well, no. There is a difference between terrorists and criminals and I’m not sure what the organization would be on the abortion side of this.

  24. pandora says:

    There is a difference between terrorists and criminals and I’m not sure what the organization would be on the abortion side of this.

    Well, we could start with these

  25. Von Cracker says:

    So the Mafia never terrorized small business owners, I guess?

    Some people just don’t (or won’t) understand the meaning of certain words.

    Tom’s trying to create a divide when, in reality, there isn’t one. A distinction without difference, if you will

  26. Tom S. says:

    Two different words, two different legal designations.

    Sorry if you can’t grasp that.

  27. Von Cracker says:

    It’s a subset.

    All terrorists are criminals. So therefore, those who are not criminals are not terrorists.

  28. Von Cracker says:

    Nice qualifier there too – “legal designation”.

    No mention of that previously. The goal post has moved.

  29. Geezer says:

    “I read that too, it only lists 4 abortionists.”

    And several “innocent bystanders.” You know, like at the WTC.

    Do the deaths of military personnel at the Pentagon count or not count as innocents in your reality? No agenda to that question, just wondering how your insect-like mind works.

    The way you slice and dice these situations makes me realize exactly how dependent upon those evil “situational ethics” you hypocrites are.

  30. Perry says:

    Right, Scott Roeder is the arrested suspect. Here is my prediction: The terrorist anti-abortion right will make a martyr of this man. It has already begun with rhetoric such as: “Dr Tiller has gotten his just reward.” “He is burning in hell with Hitler and Stalin.” These people are fanatics!

  31. Geezer,

    You know they have situational ethics. Who Would Jesus Torture? Torture is o.k., as long as it’s done to people we call Islamic terrorist (never mind none of them have ever stood trial for anything). But they have great compassion and love for zygote-Americans but can’t find the money to pay for healthcare for living, breathing Americans.