If one more person on the internet pissed and moans about how liberals are all upset about Dr. Tiller’s murder, but not about the murder of William Long, I will drive to their house and kick them in the shin with my own foot.
You want to know why I find your pissing and moaning bullshit? Because I’m willing to bet you one million dollars that when you read “William Long” your first thought was “who the hell is William Long?” and then you thought, “Oh, I bet it’s that poor kid who got killed by the radical Muslim nutjob.”
Everywhere I look, I see folks talking about Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad having shot some Army recruiters, but the focus is all on him.
So, let me be clear–my position AS A LIBERAL is that motherfucking yes Mr. Muhammad was a terrorist. It will not surprise me to learn that he had ties or was attempting to establish ties with terrorist groups. And to me, the only question that remains is how a recent convert (and if you ask any religious leader, he or she will tell you there’s nobody as zealous as a recent convert), traveling with counterfit documents to Yemen, where he is detained, is then somehow free to move about our country where he then acquires weapons, without it raising any red flags along the way.
But if you are using the murder of William Long to dance on the grave of Dr. Tiller, you need to sit back and ask yourself what the hell is wrong with you?
I don’t want to hear any more about this nonsense. Stop talking about it on my site. It’s fucking ghoulish. A kid is dead. A fucking twenty-three year old kid is dead and you can practically hear the sighs of relief from folks who are rushing to their keyboards to type “See? See?! It happens to us, too.”
No, nothing happened to you. What happened was that William Long’s family and friends had William Long ripped from them by a guy who seems like he should have been stopped long before he got back to Arkansas.
Let’s keep our eye on that ball.
Tiny Cat Pants 
While I agree if people are doing that, it’s stupid. But what I’ve seen mostly is criticism of the media coverage of the two. YMMV.
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My first thought was who the hell was William Long. My second thought was how could an American who was in prison in Yemen for traveling under a false Somali passport actively being investigated by the FBI as a terrorist get his hands on a .22 rifle, an SKS assault rifle and a handgun. My third thought was, what is this “extremist Tennessee mosque” he was alleged to have links to, and is it in Nashville or Memphis?
Frankly I didn’t make the connection between Dr. Tiller and William Long at all. This “Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad” guy is not a liberal, DFH, anti-war activist, Democrat, Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan supporter or any or the other things analogous to what Dr. Tiller’s shooter was to the anti-choice activists. That guy was active in Operation Rescue. Muhammad was not connected to the anti-war movement at all.
Unless, of course, you are among the tea bagging wingnut Freeperati who believe that all anti-war liberals are terrorists. And there are a few of those folks out there.
Actually, on further reflection, I can see an analogy being made between the Tiller and Long shootings. Perpetrators in both were religious fanatics.
But only one of them is being formally charged as a terrorist. Funny, that.
Terrorism is a crime like robbing a bank, possessing a stolen weapon, assault, battery, etc.
Whenever someone is charged with a crime they are usually only be charged with the elements of the crime that can be prosecuted under code.
So while you may have someone who has robbed many banks in the past, been convicted of being a bank robber and has a ski mask in his trunk at the time of arrest, if you are arresting him for growing pot in his basement you can’t also charge him with bank robbery.
I believe, after briefly reviewing both cases that is the reason why the ‘Muslim’ guy is getting terrorist charges (his crime included threats against the government) and the ‘Christian’ guy isn’t. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that the Christian guy committed terroristic acts during the commission of the crime of the murder of Dr. Tiller. Of course if I were the prosecutor I’d bust my ass to find a verifiable, prosecutable link between the ‘Christian’ guy and OR so that I could charge Randall Terry as a terrorist.
Speaking of that scumbag, Terry, have y’all seen this?
RT on Tillman Murder
I’m sorry. I could only make it fifty three seconds in. I may try to finish it later. But the very fact that he says it was unfortunate that he was shot before he had time to get right with god was more than enough for me. Not sorry that he was dead. Just sorry that he died before admitting that terry et al were right.
I’m a Cgristian. I’m a pro lifer in that I believe abortion is a tragic last result. But I frankly believe Tiller was doing the work of God. He showed the compassionate face of Christ to the desperate. Those actions are both prolife and the very essence of Christ.
But the very fact that he says it was unfortunate that he was shot before he had time to get right with god was more than enough for me.
I love these so-called believers saying this, don’t you? Especially since he was shot dead in his own church.
My guess is that Tiller had a relationship with God and did what he could every day to align himself in that relationship. Radical cleric Randall Terry believes himself to have a monopoly in the expression of faith among the faithful.
I have only met one Muslim extremist (a militant jihadist) in my life, and the mosque to which he belonged had been trying to get rid of him and others like him for over a year. Please keep in mind that crazy people are still allowed to worship in all 50 states, so there’s a good chance that this “extremist mosque” may not be extremist at all. Not that SoBeale needs to be told, but it’s always a good idea to go speak to the source about these things.
A bit off-topic, but I have an interesting story about this jihadist guy. He was trying to convert me to his cause one day, and I quoted something from the Koran to make a point about how conversions to Islam are supposed to be conducted. For some reason, this got him all worked up and angry, and he proceeded to explain to me at loud volume that there are people who would make me pay for what I had said, and they would come cut my head off, and they would be sent by God, etc. etc. etc. He had a whole spiel/rant in this vein, and somehow I had triggered it.
After about ten minutes of this, I looked him straight in the eye and yelled, “HEY MOTHERFUCKER! IF SOMEONE IS TELLING YOU TO GO CUT SOMEONE’S FUCKING HEAD OFF, THAT’S NOT GOD!”
I honestly believe it was the first time anyone had ever told him that, or anything like it. He reacted like someone who had been told something obvious that had simply never occurred to him before. I think I was more astonished by his reaction to what I said than he was by what I actually said. It had a profound impact on him, much more so than I had intended.
I guess the moral of the story is that some of these people are incredibly naive. I don’t really know, but I thought I’d share since I was talking about that dude. He’s in prison now, by the way. First degree murder.
The terrorism definition is far more accurately explained, Katherine Coble. If you are a white Christian, you can do just about anything you want to anyone for any political reason you want and you’ll be charged as a run-of-the-mill criminal would for committing similar violence in another context. If you are a brown person who claims to have some affiliation with Islam (however tenuous), you had better not even talk about doing anything violent* or you might find yourself up on terrorism charges**.
In short: white, Judeo-Christian violence is not terrorism; brown-skinned, Muslim (or even quasi-Muslim) violence (or violent fantasy) is terrorism. Note: this rule applies to governments, too.
*This applies even if you are so incompetent as to have a snowball’s chance in hell of accomplishing anything ‘terroristic.’ See: ‘Liberty City Six.’
**Hell, you don’t even have to talk about doing bad things. You can just try and raise money to help people who live under a local government that our government has labeled ‘terrorist,’ and you could find yourself locked up for life on terrorism charges. See: Holy Land Foundation