Words Have Consequences: Henry II to Clay County Kentucky?

Joanne98

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Thu Sep-24-09 01:04 PM
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Words Have Consequences: Henry II to Clay County Kentucky?

Legend says Henry II, the first king to call himself the King of England rather than King of the English, intemperately blurted out to four loyal knights, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" His actual statement may have been closer to "What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric!" And thus did the four knights ride off into infamy, and Thomas Becket achieve martyrdom. When the high-born, the famous, and the powerful are brought low at the hands of knavish assassins we mourn collectively, deeply, and nationally.

We've grieved for four presidents, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy. For Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and for former Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Terrifying attempts were made by the deranged and deluded on the lives of Andrew Jackson, on Theodore Roosevelt, on Franklin D. Roosevelt, on Harry Truman, on Gerald Ford, on Ronald Reagan. None of these attacks were perpetrated by a cast of thousands, but with the exception of the Truman attack, by single individuals whose delusions gave them the authority to attack figures to whom their attention had been drawn and focused. For these assaults we grieved at the successes and breathed deep relief for those ultimately unsuccessful. However, what if the targets are not the high born, the famous, or the powerful?

What if the target was the 16th Street Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963 and the victims were Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley? They died at the hands of KKK bombers for no other reason than they happened to members of a church serving as a focal and organizing point for the modern civil rights movement.

What if the target was the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City? At 9:02 AM, April 19, 1995 a Ryder rental truck/bomb killed 168 people in the building and injured more than 680 others. What if some of those victims were perfectly innocent children in the day care center? Right wing conspiracy theorist and devotee of the racist "Turner Diaries" Timothy McVeigh would be convicted and executed for this heinous crime, saying before he died that he was sorry about the children, but they were "collateral damage."

What if the targets were people from all over the globe watching, enjoying, and celebrating the Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA? Do we remember that Alice Hawthorne, of Albany, GA died when part of the bomb set by Eric Rudolph sent a nail into her head at 1:20 AM on July 27, 1996? Rudolph "explained" his horrendous attack by saying the games celebrated "global socialism," and he wanted to attack an "abominable government that sanctioned abortion on demand." 111 other people were injured in Rudolph's attack.

What if the targets were nurses and physicians at a womens' clinic in 1998? A miscreant coward set off a bomb at 7:30 AM, January 29, 1998 killing "Robert D. Sanderson, 35, an eight-year police veteran who was working part time as a guard at the clinic. The blast also badly injured Emily Lyons, a 41-year-old nurse who was opening the clinic. Ms. Lyons, in surgery all day today, was wounded in one eye and her face, and both legs were seriously injured." Dr. Sanderson died, and nurse Emily Lyons was injured because someone believed that their demise was justified, at the very least by the violent verbiage of some members of the anti-abortion public leadership. An off duty police officer was also killed, by the bomb created by Eric Rudolph.

What if the target was the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, on July 27, 2008? James David Adkisson fired a shotgun into a congregation watching a musical performance, killing Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, and wounding five other people. Adkisson was detained at the scene, arrested, and interrogated. "During the interview Adkisson stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets. Adkisson made statements that because he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them into office. Adkisson stated that he had held these beliefs for about the last ten years."

What if the target was Dr. George Tiller, one of the few physicians in the nation who offered late term abortions? Dr. Tiller was gunned down in his own church, Sunday May 31, 2009 by Scott Roeder who discussed the possibility of a "justifiable homicide" defense with his attorney in August, 2009. Dr. Tiller's death adds to an already long list of physicians killed by virulent and violent anti-abortionists: Dr. Barnett Slepian (1998), Dr. J.B. Britton (1994), Dr. David Gunn (1993).

What if the target was the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum? What if the victim were security guard Stephen T. Johns who had helpfully opened the door for 88 year old rabid anti-Semite James von Brunn, only to die protecting the museum for which he'd worked for six years as of June 10, 2009?

And, now we worry that the hanging of Census Bureau employee William Sparkman, found on September 12, 2009 in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Clay County, Kentucky, may be the latest victim of an anti-government "hate" attack. Sparkman died with the letters "FED" on his chest.

"Gilbert Acciardo, a retired Kentucky state trooper who directs an after-school program at the elementary school where Sparkman was a frequent substitute teacher, said he had warned Sparkman to be careful when he did his Census work. "I told him on more than one occasion, based on my years in the state police, 'Mr. Sparkman, when you go into those counties, be careful because people are going to perceive you different than they do elsewhere,'" Acciardo said. "Even though he was with the Census Bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as 'the government.' I just was afraid that he might meet the wrong character along the way up there," Acciardo said."

We don't yet know if Mr. Sparkman met with moonshiners or drug traffickers or other anti-government types, but we do know that whoever killed a man described as someone who "saw the good in everyone," was a "person or persons unknown" who didn't want any representative of the government to remain alive where they found him.

So, when Glenn Beck tells his audience that Census workers are taking down data to enslave American citizens, and Rep. Michele Bachmann rants on Beck's venue that the Census Bureau doesn't need your phone number - and that people should refuse to fill out Census data forms, we have to wonder if this rhetoric feeds the delusions of the kindred spirits to "Bomber Chambliss," or Eric Rudolph, or James von Brunn, or Scott Roeder, or Timothy McVeigh, or James Adkisson. If right wing "hate radio" hosts conjure ever more shocking conspiracy theories to drive ratings, are they also driving the Chambliss's, the Rudolphs, the von Brunns, the Roeders, and the McVeighs?

As Henry II found, to his ultimate horror, his words (in whichever version one prefers) had consequences. There are better words to heed now, not new, spoken in March 1865:
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address.

And perhaps we ought to consider living with malice toward none and charity for all not only for safety and security of the high born, the famous, and the powerful, but also for the little girls in the church basement, the children in the day care center, the spectators at the Olympic Games, the nurses, doctors, and security guards at the womens' clinics, the congregants in a Unitarian Universalist Church, and the security guards at the U.S. Holocaust Museum. Words had consequences for them too.

http://desertbeacon.blogspot.com/2009/09/words-have-consequences-henry-ii-to.html