Eric Rudolph-Societal Excrement of the Highest Order

[Jackmannii]

I see that Rudolph’s group, “Christian Identity” (which claims up to 50,000 U.S. followers) believes that Jews are the spawn of Eve and Satan.
Man, them is some way cool in-laws.

[Freyr]

@lieu

While IMHO he deserves death, Like MEBuckner said this sentence is no cakewalk. For five years he’s lived in the mountains, tenaciously clinging to the freedom he apparently holds so dear. Now he’s permanently bound on every side by concrete and boredom and I think it’s going to drive him batshit crazy. Good, he’s got a lot of suffering to catch up on.

By sentencing him to life with no parole, I like to think we’re taking the moral high road and not giving revenge or being vendictive. I also think that if he were executed, his death would serve as a rallying point for similarly-minded people. The best he deserves is a passing foot note on the evening news some 30 years from now, “Eric Rudolph, confessed terrorist died today, alone and forgotten.”

[Tuckerfan]

@LilyoftheValley

I heard a local woman interviewed yesterday. She said that Rudolph was not guilty of any of this. He was just admitting it because he had no choice – if he didn’t, the goverment would have railroaded him into the death penalty.

Oh, and the 250 pounds of explosives? She said that was entirely normal and necessary. She said terrorists are everywhere, and we need to be prepared with firepower just like the Minutemen.

Scary stuff.

I heard the same interview. That woman was one addled cow. She mentioned that she’d left food out for Rudolph and in other ways just proved herself to be as nearly disconnected from reality as Rudolph is. (And his whole family’s a piece of work, too. His brother cut off his own hand as a “protest” against what the government was doing to Rudolph. IIRC, our tax dollars paid to reattatch that hand.)

With these asshats, the government needs to come down on them as harshly as it can, otherwise, the publicity-whore flake jobs like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell will start advocating the same kind of behavior, and we’ll wind up with the fundie Christian version of the Taliban running this country.

Against abortion? Fine. Do peaceful, nonviolent protests against it, write your congresscritter to complain, but for fuck’s sake, don’t kill anybody, or make anybody’s life a living hell because they disagree with you.

Although, between nutjobs like Rudolph and pharmacists who have “moral” objections to giving women birth control pills (nevermind the fact that there may be a medical reason unrelated to pregnancy prevention for them taking the medication), I’m half tempted to start firebombing the asshats like Rudolph and his ilk. Maybe if a few of them experienced what they’ve put others through, they’d cut this shit out. (I doubt it, of course.)

[lieu]

@Freyr

By sentencing him to life with no parole, I like to think we’re taking the moral high road and not giving revenge or being vendictive. I also think that if he were executed, his death would serve as a rallying point for similarly-minded people.

Me too, although for the record I’m never for it as a tool of vengence, only as a future deterrent to others. Doesn’t that bring up an interesting point though… in this particular situation we recognize the fact that our greater concern wrt the death penalty might not be that someone else is deterred but that a number of people might be similarly embolden’d. His sympathizers are one seriously misinformed, mal-directioned lot.

[Scarface_Z]

@Jackmannii

I see that Rudolph’s group, “Christian Identity” (which claims up to 50,000 U.S. followers) believes that Jews are the spawn of Eve and Satan.

Well, according to his statement he isn’t affiliated with that group:

Rebutting claims that his anti-government views were shaped by racism, his family or involvement in the extreme fundamentalist Christian Identity movement, Rudolph called himself a Roman Catholic at war over abortion.

He denied any allegiance to the racist, anti-Semitic, anti-gay Christian Identity movement, saying he attended an Identity church for about six months in the early 1980s only because the father of a woman he was dating went there.

Rudolph Reveals Motives for Bombings
Not that I trust his word as far as I can throw him, and you can’t throw very far in an 8X12 cell. I say God damn him, he is a sick fuck who gives Catholics (and humanity) a bad name.

@Tuckerfan

His brother cut off his own hand as a “protest” against what the government was doing to Rudolph.

Is this the same brother who was a closeted homosexual? I’m pretty sure I read that in the paper but I can’t find a cite for it.
Also, does anyone have a link for the full statement? All I can find are excerpts.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@lieu

Me too, although for the record I’m never for it as a tool of vengence, only as a future deterrent to others. Doesn’t that bring up an interesting point though… in this particular situation we recognize the fact that our greater concern wrt the death penalty might not be that someone else is deterred but that a number of people might be similarly embolden’d. His sympathizers are one seriously misinformed, mal-directioned lot.

Indeed. At this point, although I’m opposed to capital punishment on moral grounds, I can barely be bothered to care about this guy. His life sentence is for his sake to a degree, but far more importantly to me, it’s for our sake: it protects us to keep him alive.

Daniel

[Contrapuntal]

[QUOTE=Blalron It’s not YOUR money. It’s the government’s money.

[/QUOTE]

My goodness. And what did the government do to earn that money? How does the government decide what to do with that money? Are you suggesting that we, as citizens, have no more right to complain about how the money is spent than we do about how it is acquired? Or simply that the legitimacy of our complaints is tied to how much of the money used to be ours?

[Tuckerfan]

@Scarface Z

Is this the same brother who was a closeted homosexual? I’m pretty sure I read that in the paper but I can’t find a cite for it.
Also, does anyone have a link for the full statement? All I can find are excerpts.

No clue. Never heard anything about his brother being a closeted homosexual, and I’m inclined to disbelieve it, unless someone’s got photographic proof,

[danceswithcats]

Just for the sake of clarification, yes-I am pro death penalty, except that it can’t be appealed ad infinitum the way the current system allows. If you’re found guilty, an automatic appeal starts, the very next day. Quit fucking around for years at a time. Once your appeal is found invalid, then it’s a done deal, get things completed quickly-take a lesson from Nguyen Ngoc Loan.

What appeal was granted to Daniel Faulkner? How about James Ramp? Can Emily Lyons appeal to get her eye returned? Can John Hawthorne have his wife raised from the dead on appeal? How about Robert Sanderson? I’m reminded of a passage from Genesis: the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.

The air he breathes is a privilege of which he’s undeserving, I just wish I could vote his ass off of this spherical island.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@danceswithcats

What appeal was granted to Daniel Faulkner? How about James Ramp? Can Emily Lyons appeal to get her eye returned? Can John Hawthorne have his wife raised from the dead on appeal? How about Robert Sanderson?

Indeed you’re right: killing people without giving them full appeals as to the justice of their death is at the heart of why we condemn murderers so. It’s what makes us different from people like Rudolph.

Daniel