As suggested by by our esteemed HurricaneDitka in ATMBhere is your chance to explain. Since you can’t be bothered with the pit, you don’t get any apology.
Now please, WTF do you mean?
I think Timothy McVeigh's actions were not an entirely unreasonable reaction to Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Give me [del]a single false premise[/del] enough false premises and I can make anything appear reasonable.
If one assumes that Ruby Ridge and Waco were the actions of a rogue tyranny seeking to destroy freedom and curtail liberty…
…and if one further assumes that opposing such a tyranny is of such importance as to justify considerable collateral death and destruction…
…and if one believes that destroying the Murrah Building is an effective tool of such opposition…
…well, then I suppose it would not be “entirely unreasonable.”
.
So, in the Bizarro Universe, then.
I can believe Ruby Ridge and Waco were bad events and should have been handled better. That does not negate the fact that Oklahoma City bombing was horrible. Nothing, in my mind justified that action. Nothing.
ETA HD will never come and address this, IMO.
There’s another thread in which people are explaining how justified the lawless mob was who tore down a statute. Because, you see, when you’re victimized by a system that leaves you politically powerless it’s okay to ignore the law.
Except when X, or Y, or Z conditions appear. Then it’s not OK.
What are X, Y, and Z, you ask?
Well, that’s for the people making the original rule to decide, and you better just accept it. Because they have the power to decide not only the exceptions to the general norm that we must obey the law, but also the exceptions to those exceptions.
So to resolve the question posed in this thread, one merely has to ask one of those authorities.
Thankfully, Timothy McVeigh harmed no statues.
CMC fnord!
A statute? I guess when you’re a lawyer, everything looks like a law. 
But was the question being posed by the OP a question of how we deal with laws, or a question about broader issues of moral behavior? Because it’s possible, for example, to believe that it’s morally acceptable to break some laws and not others. And it’s also possible to believe in the general principle that laws should be obeyed, while also conceding that breaking some laws is worse than breaking other laws.
As a first-order issue, let me ask you this: do you believe that (either legally or morally speaking), property damage and mass murder are equally bad?
Are you drawing an equivalency between blowing up a building and killing people, and tearing down a statue? The Oklahoma City bombing resulted in 168 dead, 680 injured. The statue was toppled with no injuries. Laws broken on both sides? Sure. Equivalent? No.
The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law.
The people who killed Anne Frank were following the law.
Which side are you on?
The Law is God. Maybe even higher.
It was physically impossible for him to do so… according to the statue of limitations!
Anyway, fine, apply the law - the people who tore down the racist statue get a fine for vandalism. The guy who assembled a truck bomb and killed 168 people got a lethal injection.
Seems unfair - it’s a pity McVeigh couldn’t be executed more than once.
No.
Good we got that handled.
They are analogous. This means they share some characteristics relevant to the point being discussed, but are not identical in all ways.
So their “equivalence,” is a matter of context. They are clearly equivalent if we are discussing deliberate acts as opposed to accidents, for example.
They are not equivalent in terms of the harm inflicted, to pick another example.
So merely pointing out that they’re not equivalent is not useful. They ARE equivalent in some ways, and manifestly not equivalent in other ways.
Respect.
I don’t agree, actually, that any civilized society should put anyone, even a McVeigh, to death.
But there’s no question that his act was so heinous that he qualified for the death penalyt under the law.
His act was so heinous that he qualified for the death penalty under the law…but not entirely unreasonable according to HD. :rolleyes:
It is very useful.
It is called the False Equivalence fallacy and it is a logical fallacy I would be willing to bet I do not need to school you on.
McVeigh had a valid grievance, IMO. The manner in which he chose to address (avenge?) the grievance was completely unreasonable and unforgiveable.
+1
Reckon X, Y, and/or Z might include actual harm to individuals?
“Okay to break certain laws perceived as unjust” is not the same thing as mass fucking murder. Not the same ballpark, not the same league, not the same sport.
I’m curious what that valid grievance was?