Be Kind to Animals or We’ll Kill You: Terrorists Strike Again
All terrorist movements either begin with or develop a messianic belief system. Call it the Paradox of Extreme Virtue: having ascended to a higher moral plane, the terrorists are now entitled- no, enjoined- to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice among us lower beings. It becomes their priestly calling. They don’t consult other people to see if they agree with their definition of Virtue; Virtue does not consult. Virtue exists for itself and is so obviously superior that it compels obedience.
So the Virtuous Terrorist begins to make decisions. Selective ones. This should be smashed. That should burn. Like herding cattle, the terrorist seeks to shape the path of society with clear and forceful examples. Ideally, after much careful correction, just the snap of a whip next to an ear should be enough to direct the herd.
Deafening Silence, August 23, 2007
Domestic terrorists claiming to defend animal rights have struck again. On February 6, 2008 a firebomb was detonated at the front door of the home of Edythe D. London, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. The Animal Liberation Front claimed credit.
London’s house had been vandalized by the group at least once before. In October 2007, members of the Animal Liberation Front flooded the house using a garden hose, causing $20,000 worth of damage.
You can read the details of the latest attack here.
I suppose we should all be thankful that the ALF is as technically incompetent as it is vicious. Apparently, this firebomb only succeeded in scorching the front door. Previous bombs have failed to ignite at all.
We are left to ponder what will happen when the ALF finally develops the expertise to match its hatred.
There is a tendency these days to pooh-pooh terrorist groups whose resources and techniques appear unsophisticated. We are told to laugh at groups like the “Fort Dix Six” and the “Seas of David”- hapless bunglers more likely to hurt themselves than anybody else.
Intent counts for nothing. Drive and determination are meaningless.
I see a long line of people whistling past a graveyard.
In 1995 fuel oil and fertilizer packed into a Ryder truck brought down a multi-story federal building, killing 168 and maiming 800. The perpetrators were portrayed as paranoid drifters and losers, unable to hold down a job and fit into society.
Suppose the bomb had not ignited. Would we be laughing now? Would we be calling for leniency on grounds of incompetence?
In 1993 a very similar device failed to bring down the World Trade Center. Six people were killed and over a thousand injured.
If the bomb had completely failed- if there had only been a flash of light and some smoke- would we have shrugged it off?
We wouldn’t have been shrugging 8 years later.
The urge to coerce behavior by means of violence should never be ignored. Once a person or group decides that their need for revenge and control trumps law and order, a kind of moral milestone has been passed. The law no longer applies to them. They will abrogate it. They will replace it with their own improved version.
They develop a will to power.
It is this will to power that should concern us. Terrorists acting in the name of animal rights, Islamofascism or government reform aren’t interested in what the rest of us think. They have convinced themselves that we should all be frightened and punished into implementing their “improvements” to society.
They don’t care if we call them buffoons. They might even prefer it.
When was the last time you saw anybody arrest a clown for buying fertilizer?
Cross-posted at Deafening Silence
Hear, hear.
Though I agree all terrorism must be pursued and punished, I would like to make a few points, not in disagreement necessarily, but of personal clarification.
1. There is the legal figure of an "attempted" crime. When a person screams "I’m gonna kill you!" and then scratches you with a pencil, we don’t prosecute them for murder and only prosecute for attempted murder if it can be demonstrated that he seriously wanted to kill you, and not, say, scare you. If a car full of explosives fails to go off in a building, you prosecute for attempted mass murder, or terrorism, or whatever.
2.I don’t believe that all terrorist groups are equal. Let’s take Al Qaeda and ALF as an example. The difference is not just in the competence. The goals are different; ALF wants us to become vegans, not keep pets and stop all animal experimentation, essentially elevating animals to the level of personhood, but otherwise doesn’t appear to have a problem with a free democratic society. Al Qaeda wants a worldwide theocracy where every aspect of your life is strictly controlled by their interpretation of Islamic law.
Additionally, although I don’t doubt that some militants in ALF wouldn’t mind killing one or even many people who investigate with animals, I think it’s likely that most of the people at ALF don’t really have the same blood-lust as Islamic terrorists. Why? Because they ALSO know they’re incompetent, so they can safely strut and bully without really facing up to the possibility of actually having to kill someone. I’m betting if ALF started demanding actual murder from it’s members, a huge portion would abandon the group.
Of course groups that aren’t quite murderous yet can grow to become real terrorist murderers, so it’s important to nip them in the bud quickly. However, I do think proportionality is important, so you don’t ship the idiots of the ALF to Gitmo until they’ve proved they need that.
In the end terrorism is like crime. It has to be fought and it has to be confronted and no distinctions made. The reason the far left hates GWB is that he skipped the think tanks, the endless debates, the forums and the sunday morning talk shows. He didnt give us time to write books, debate policy and to wring our hands for 50 years while we all argued preconceived notions of what is and is not the best way to approach it.
He Just Did It. Right or wrong. Mostly wrong but he like the rest of us knew that if we opened it up for discussion and asked everyone to weight in on how to fight the war on terrorism that 50 years from now we would still be divided right down the middle on what was and was not the right way to do it. But unlike the left I give Bush credit for just doing it. Because you all know as well as I had we opened it up for debate that in the year 2065 we’d still be debating the proper course of action after 911.
Terrorism is like the cold war as something that had to be fought and now that its over we dont look back and say, gee I sure wish we hadnt fought the cold war. Cold, tough, hard decisions had to be made to get it done. But as I have advised many times, the war on terror requires new thinking, new approaches and HELP. It needs to be something that the WORLD agrees to tackle.
I think your trying to make the case for going to war. I do not think a case for armies invading other countries is a good case for fighting the war on terrorism. If that is your point I will agree. But trying to draw distinctions as to who are good terrorists and who are bad terrorists is something that the courts can decide. Not the men and women charged with stopping them at what they do. Terrorize.
So in the end the war on terrorism has to be fought on the fly. The CIA had to be endowed with new means which the far left hates and have managed to turn against Bush. We as a country will adapt our policies, we will change our course, but we will continue to fight terrorism and hopefully we can bring more of the world on board.
The bottom line is that these people are going to hurt someone someday to further their "cause" if they are not stopped. How can you start a fire in someone’s house with total assuranace no one will get hurt. I am glad that the FBI considers these people a dangerous terrorist threat and are trying to do something about it.
Terrorists are willing to kill people for their cause. It matters not whether it is a religious, political, or social cause of any sort. If you are willing to kill people to support your cause, you are a terrorist. I believe that we should make the death penalty applicable to all acts of terrorism where in anyone dies or is maimed.
The mistake is in attempting to consider this ‘political speech.’ It is no such thing. A group of PETA people picketing a meat market is political speech; a break in to a lab, or the fire-bombing of a professor’s office is terrorism. Period. A few years ago the Chronicle of Higher Education had an interview with someone defending violence by people on behalf of animal rights and other environmental causes; some of the posters remarked that they thought if a few scientists had to die to make the point that science had to stop using live animals for research it was an acceptable price to pay. I find this as frightening as the notion that shooting abortion providing doctors is an acceptable way of reducing the number of abortions – a comment found on some internet groups oddly professing support for the ‘right to life.’
If we are remain a civil society, we cannot allow anyone to engage in terrorism, and we must be willing to suppress it by incarcerating or executing its practitioners. I personally prefer the latter, simply because it leaves no one behind as a bargaining chip.