Talk:Operation Rescue

Delete

1. Operation Rescue is called "Operation Save America" these days, as it has been for the last 10-odd years.
2. Sources have not been provided for the libelous claims made in the stub, viz., that the Operation Rescue people are terrorists responsible for bombings and assassinations.

ListenerX^TalkerX 21:45, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, as of yesterday they were still calling themselves Operation Rescue on the website. The actual site seems to be mysteriously down now, although some reported they were scrubbing parts before the downtime started. --Kels 21:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

That is the Kansas branch, which broke away from the main body to keep its focus on abortion while the national body broadened its focus to other sorts of wingnut activism. If the Kansas branch is being referred to, point 1 is not an issue. ListenerX^TalkerX 21:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The latest addition provides only a tenuous connection, similar in substance to Mr. Schlafly's "Hollywood Values" anecdotes, and certainly not enough evidence to claim that the entire organization is a terrorist front. ListenerX^TalkerX 22:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Right, because being convicted of conspiring to bomb a clinic is only a minor glitch in a resume and certainly shouldn't effect a legitimate organizations desire to higher you on as a senior policy adviser. Fifth Horseman 22:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

You could, of course, say the same thing about universities and successfully carrying out a lot of bombings. Or are universities not "legitimate organizations"? ListenerX^TalkerX 22:10, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

False analogy, this would work if I was claiming that the employer of Roeder was responsible. Operation Rescue is to Roeder as Weather Underground is to Ayers. Fifth Horseman 22:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I made no false analogy. You claimed that no "legitimate organization" would hire someone convicted of conspiracy to bomb to a position of influence. I provided two prominent counterexamples. ListenerX^TalkerX 22:19, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Again, the difference is that Operation Rescue is actively engaged in the exact area that their leadership has been convicted of attempted terrorism. Fifth Horseman 22:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

There is Red activism in universities as well, with entire departments institutionally devoted to it. And the source you provided contains absolutely nothing to indicate that Mr. Roeder is anything more than a crazy man who tried to become involved with Operation Rescue and posted a few loony comments on their forums. ListenerX^TalkerX 22:29, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a causational factor if nothing else in the rhetoric these people use. Btw, Malloy just played a collage of Bill O'Reilly ranting about Tillman - calling him a killer, a murderer, over and over again. Orgs like OR and scum like Bore O'R create an environment where certain unbalanced people feel like they are doing a good thing by committing murder. ħuman 02:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

People must be held accountable for their own actions and no one else's; otherwise it is too easy to sling blame against people you hate for events with which they, actually, had nothing to do. ListenerX^TalkerX 03:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

ListenerX has a good point. We are always taking offence at the whole "vandal site" label that gets placed on us, but we don't take responsibility for the actions of people associated with us. The same goes for Operation Rescue, they maybe aggressive in their anti-abortion stance, but unless they are condoning the activities we shouldn't hold them responsible for actions of people associated with it. - π 03:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

No he doesn't. Operation Rescue is fucking famous for being "pro murder doctors" as an organisational philosophy. But we need to dig out the dirt if we're gonna write about it. ħuman 03:43, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

They have doctor-murder as their philosophy about as much as we have Conservapedia vandalism as ours. ListenerX^TalkerX 03:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yup, we try to deny it, and yet the vandals congregate here, use tactics published on our website, and have their exploits enshrined in WIGO if they're lucky. What's you're fucking point? Vandalizing CP is utterly trivial in real-world perspective. Murdering doctors, gee, actually FUCKING MATTERS. Operation Rescue promotes the concept of doctors who perform abortions as mass-murderers in order to justify in unhinged minds their "execution". ħuman 03:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The difference between a terrorist group and one like this, is they very carefully choose their words so that they are not legally responsible for their associates actions. A terrorist group will take responsibility for something, these people will condemn it. We could potentially be liable if we accuse them of things they have publicly condemned. - π 03:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Operation Rescue has not actually ordered or carried out any hits on doctors. The only difference between the two groups is that we disagree with what Operation Rescue says, but might sympathize with what the vandals say. ListenerX^TalkerX 04:02, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Nah... to take your analogy to its logical conclusion, if CUR were to buy a bus ticket to NJ and murder Andrew Schlafly and then proudly proclaim, "I did it for RW", would we be partially responsible? No, only because we work like hell to educate him in rational discourse and immediately chastise him for his (online) inanity instead of encouraging him to "treat murder like it's murder". ħuman 04:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Please don't give CUR any more dumb ideas, even in jest. - π 04:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

(EC) That is not the "logical conclusion" of my analogy. ListenerX^TalkerX 04:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is. If your analogy holds any weight, we must compare/balance outcomes. Actually, I'm wondering what your point was in the first place, maybe it got lost in the shuffle? ħuman 05:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The logical conclusion of my analogy is that if CUR did something like that, we are not culpable because we did not order him to do it, just like Operation Rescue did not order the assassination of Dr. Tiller. Because they did not order this, Operation Rescue's talk and our talk of vandalizing Conservapedia are both only questions of speech. ListenerX^TalkerX 05:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

ListenerX, do you not understand that they encouraged it via rhetoric? Our "speech" accidentally encourages dumbass wandalism. OR's "speech" intentionally encourages murder. Where have you been the last twenty years? ħuman 05:36, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

(UNINDENT) Has this intent been proven in court? Because all I have seen so far to "prove" it is a whole boatload of wishful thinking by OR's ideological opponents, similar to those flaps about Disney sneaking obscene imagery into their animated films. ListenerX^TalkerX 05:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course it hasn't "been proven in court" you idiot. They're not that stupid. Note the plausible deniability in the recent case. OR's rhetoric was always based on the concept of "killing one mass murderer is a lesser crime because of the evil you are undoing". As I asked, where have you been for the last twenty-thirty years? Have you even heard Terry's responses to this tragedy? And, what is your point? ħuman 05:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Terry was attempting to argue that abortion is just as bad as what happened to Dr. Tiller. I am seeing here: (1) kneejerk accusations by people who really want Operation Rescue to have ordered the assassination, which tend to take the focus of blame off the man who fired the shot; (2) attempts to use a murder to make political points, which most people here seem to view as not a good thing. ListenerX^TalkerX 06:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this video may have some relevance to the discussion. --Kels 16:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Salvageable

There is a story here, obviously the language is going to far, but I don't think we need to delete it. Lets tone down the language, qualify a few statements and it might make an article. tmtoulouse 22:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

With all the new additions, I am inclined to agree. ListenerX^TalkerX 22:30, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Other issues

We need to "work backwards" and add in the other bombings and murders they are associated with. Otherwise this looks a bit like we just liveblogged the news and did no real research. ħuman 02:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Issues; deletion

Right now, this is an article about the murder of Dr. Tiller, and not much else. So it's crap, really. I vote for deletion unless someone cares enough to make a good article about OR that doesn't entirely depend on two days' news stories. These psychos have been around a long time, and what, gee, we just noticed? And have no knowledge past yesterday about them? ħuman 03:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

We do need some decent citations, also can we separate the two organisations if they are now separate. - π 03:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's article isn't much better than ours...

But,

"Operation Rescue West was founded by Operation Rescue's tactical director, Jeff White, as a branch of of Randall Terry's original Operation Rescue organization. Under Jeff White, Operation Rescue West stayed true to the original intent of the Operation Rescue organization, maintaining its focus on abortion. White stepped down in 1999 following an $880,000 judgment against his organization for harassment and intimidation of Planned Parenthood staff and handed the organization over to the leadership of Troy Newman. In 2002, Newman moved the headquarters to Wichita, Kansas,[1][2][3] to focus its efforts on George Tiller."

ħuman 04:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

From wp:History of Operation Rescue

"Operation Rescue was founded by Randall Terry in 1986.[1] The slogan of Operation Rescue was "If you believe abortion is murder, act like it's murder."[2] "

ħuman 04:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Grab their cites and write something similar based on them. - π 04:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Or delete the crappy article until someone actually wants to write a good one? ħuman 04:07, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

What would constitute a good one? - π 04:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Right now, I'm just grabbing what I can find, and linking it. We can tighten it up into a good article, but first we just have to dig up the "good"s. --En attendant Godot_{"«Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words. V.Nabokov»} 04:13, 2 June 2009 (UTC) (PS, i agree about teh RT thing, Human. I was just looking for *anything*)

Sigh... oddly, most everything I'm reading seems to suggest that OR was on its way out, underfunded, not supported by churches before Bush took office. Then they started to be funded again, found favor in churches, and heard the US government share their ideas. Can we work taht into the article some how? [1] i've found several links similar. Apparently, Terry and OR was held financially accountable for damages done to clinics in the late 90s. Courts in teh 90s happened to believe that if you say "this guy is bad and shoudl be dealt with at all costs" it means you are telling people indirectly to go do something about him.--En attendant Godot_{"«Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words. V.Nabokov»} 04:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

What I think - we might have a good article on the sick fuck Randall Terry here. We might want to move it eventually. I also think we are over-focused on this weekend's tragic news. Dr. Tiller should just be a sad and sorry late section in whatever we decide the article is about in the end. This bastard and his organization have been promoting murder for decades - and, yeah, WfG, it's no wonder the churches have distances themselves from this monster and his tactics. Anyone got anything on the "hit list" yet? ħuman 05:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice cite

I have found this from Wikipedia, it covers the history of the organisation, including the split between the two organisations. - π 04:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

quoting context

I really don't like this: "Our goal is a Christian nation. ... We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. ... Theocracy means God rules. I've got a hot flash. God rules" - too many ellipses for my taste. Can we put in the entire quote, and perhaps bold the ugly bits? ħuman 05:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Can we go from "media matters" ellipses to finding the actual quote? otherwise we are quoting a quote miner, at worst. ħuman 05:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, I googled this "We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country" and the 7th or so hit was... Essay:The_American_Taliban. ħuman 23:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Most places quote it as "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism." I think the "ellipses" might be like... when there's a pause... in what someone says, perhaps? If so they should be replaced with proper punctuation, if not, let's keep digging. Main problem is the place quoting him is a newspaper in like 1993, and that old content is not on line. ħuman 23:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

More:

"Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. We want theocracy. Theocracy means God rules. I've got a hot flash. God rules?"

Quoted in God-Botherers and Other True Believers: Gandhi, Hitler, and the Religious Right Published by Berghahn Books, 2008 ISBN 1845455126, 9781845455125 229 pages (Attributed to http://www.geocities/CapitolHill/7027/quotes.html)

[2]

Does geocities still exist? Pickles down the rathole, I bet that site links somewhere else unobtainium... I'll see... ħuman 23:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Still goes back to: The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 8-16-93 Anyone got access to a hard copy? Anyone care? ħuman 23:52, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the article is still there but at a small price.--Bob^{bing up} 09:33, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice work! Yeah, it's 3 bucks for one article. The nice thing, though, is that that search captures a part of the quote: "I want you to let a wave of..., which at least verifies the source of some of the quote. I wonder where he actually said it? ħuman 23:05, 3 June 2009 (UTC)