The Democrats' Buts
Democrats are slowly, but surely, building a permission structure for progressive activists to kill those they determine are bad. From the rise of antisemitism to, now, the murder of an insurance CEO, few Democrats seem capable of condemning violence without adding a “but.”
To their credit, Governor Josh Shapiro and Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania have condemned both without buts. Unfortunately, when President Biden condemns antisemitism in the United States, he cannot help himself but muddy the water with equal condemnations of Islamophobia. No one is chasing muslim students off college campuses. Progressive activists are turning violent and too few Democrat leaders want to condemn the violence without adding caveats.
Luigi Mangione’s alleged murder of United Health CEO Brian Thompson has also been met with lots of “buts.” Senator Elizabeth Warren could not help but justify Thompson’s murder on television with MSNBC’s Joy Reid. “Violence is never the answer. This guy gets a trial who's allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth, but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.”
“You can only push people so far,” she reasoned. Warren is, a supporter of Obamacare, the present healthcare system in the United States that people hate. In fact, Americans’ hatred of healthcare in this country has grown since passage of the legislation Warren supports. God forbid people connect the dots and decide Democrats are the ones who pushed people too far by breaking the healthcare system.
The caveats and excuses and buts muddy the water. If killing Brian Thompson can be explained away as Thompson and his company pushing people so far, who is next? The oil company executives who the left says are evil for climate change? What about the abortion doctors who kill children or the trans-affirming doctors who do sex change operations?
We cannot give ourselves the permission structure or power to make exceptions to the the very basic rule that killing another human is wrong. Unfortunately, Democrats do not seem capable of saying that without adding a but or an excuse.
In 1970, there were twenty bombings a week in California orchestrated by progressive activists. In 1971, the Weather Underground bombed the United States Capitol. In 1972, the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon. In 1975, the Weather Underground bombed the State Department. The members plotted the assassination of a California State Senator in 1978.
According to a report prepared by the Department of Energy in 2001, “Leftist extremists were responsible for three-fourths of the officially designated acts of terrorism in America in the 1980s.” The same report noted leftwing extremists tend to be younger and better educated than right-wing extremists and they tend to live in urban areas thereby making high population centers more target-rich.
While there are instances of rightwing extremists in the United States engaging in violence, such as killing an abortion clinic doctor, Democrat politicians and Republican politicians uniformly condemn the violence without caveats, exceptions, or buts. For that matter, pro-life activists are the loudest voices to condemn abortion doctor murders— noting that it is antithetical to their core mission and beliefs.
But gun down an insurance executive or firebomb a synagogue and, should it be a progressive, few Democrats can resist adding a but to the end of their statement against violence. Over time, these caveats, carve outs, and exceptions form the permission structure for more violence. “Violence is not the answer, but people can only be pushed so far” turns to “violence is not the answer, but something has to change,” which morphs into “violence is not the answer, but it understandable.” That then moves to violence.
The left has called Donald Trump the second coming of Hitler and a threat to democracy. That provoked multiple assassination attempts with one nearly successful. They now are bemoaning a CEO’s murder while justifying the killing. Wanted posters have gone up in New York City with the pictures of other insurance CEOs faces. One might suspect the people putting them up are the same who tore down the posters of kidnapped Israelis. What comes next? If oil companies are destroying the planet and the murder of an insurance CEO can be justified, surely someone will rid us of those other turbulent executives.
Sometime before his death in 1984, Francis Schaeffer stood in Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta and addressed a pro-life audience. I was there. I will never forget that he said, "An amoral society is worse than an immoral society." Everyone, including me, scratched their heads in perplexity until Schaeffer went on to explain that in an immoral society, there is still knowledge of absolute right and absolute wrong. The society knows the difference between the two and chooses to do that which they know is wrong. In an amoral society, absolutes have been rejected, morality is relative, and no ones knows the difference between that which is right and that which is wrong. There is no moral true north; thus, there is no sense of direction.
Schaeffer was a prophet, and what he warned us of is coming true.
I voted for Donald Trump, and I thank God that he won; however, we must not worship him as our saviour. There is but one Saviour, and His name is not Donald. The true Saviour does not need the Republican Party nor the conservative movement to work His will; but He does make bold claims. He claims that if we ask the Father anything in His name, He will do it. It is a time that we who claim Christ asked for forgiveness for our sin. There is no need to expect the wokes and progressives to join us in contrite prayer. With no moral compass, they do not even know what sin is; so, expecting them to repent is meaningless.
In 1973, the American Humanist Association (whose motto is "Good with a God") wrote Humanist Manifesto II. Included in their Manifesto II, there were these statements:
"While there is much that we do not know, humans, are responsible for what we are and what we will become." I agree with this statement; however, for the Christian, this is a statement of problem. For the humanist, it is a statement of solution.
"No deity will save us..." Again, I agree with the humanists, for salvation involves a sacrifice. Someone has to die for there to be salvation. A deity that dies is no deity. Death is stronger than this deity.
"...we must save ourselves." It is interesting to note that Humanist Manifesto III did not reaffirm the statement, "No deity will save us; we must save ourselves." Could it not be that in 2013 when the humanists rewrote their Manifesto that they realized that Humanist Manifesto II acknowledged that we need saving?
Only the God-Man, could do what no other deity could do - namely, die as a human and live as God. Only the God-Man could save us. And that is what the incarnation is all about, and that is what Christmas is all about.
I call on my fellow Christians to pray for Donald Trump's salvation so that his mind might be renewed by the healing powers of the Holy Spirit so that our beloved nation might return to its origins.
Sorry for the long comment.
For Leftists, when their side commits acts of violence it has to be "recontextualized" into a more comfortable dialectic whether it be race, class, or gender. That's what Elizabeth Warren was doing in her interview where she justified the shooting. The problem, the shooter does not represent the working class. He's a spoiled rich kid who became radicalized reading the Unabomber manifesto and became isolated after a back surgery when he dropped out of his social circles. People like that are looking for a cause that justifies their own malevolence. Case in point, the number of creeps on the Left coming out and supporting this guy. Erick is right to point to the slippery. The kicker, to these people private health insurance is evil but they would have made owning private health insurance mandatory twelve years ago during the Obamacare debates. They can't stop and think seriously about health care policy or how to solve the problem of high prices because then they have to acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act didn't make healthcare more affordable for most Americans and that they played a role in enriching the pockets of this CEO they despise. It all seems like one big necrotic mess.