The Usefulness of Civil Disobedience-Part II-The Bonhoffer Option

[Update 1/10/11 - I'm getting some traffic for the golden oldie after the tragic events in Tuscon on Saturday. This post was a flawed exercise in looking at the logical extent of what my linkers call "eliminationist" thought.

Such wiping out of your enemies isn't right and goes counter to God's word. Check out Romans 13 before trying to join the CLF or a liberal counterpart.

Some people will take the demonizing of ones foes too far and take up arms. What I was shooting for was to head off such rhetoric before someone does do this. I'm not sure if it would have helped the shooter on Saturday from cooling off, since he doesn't mention much modern politics in his ventings, but it wouldn't have hurt.}

Note-I am NOT advocating the following fantasy episode, but it has a following in the darker parts of my mind.

WASHINGTON-January 6, 2004. A paramilitary organization calling itself the Christian Liberation Front changed the balance of power in Washington by a pair of brutal attacks this afternoon. A force estimated at about 200 CLF commandos stormed the Supreme Court building, killing 35 people, including five Supreme Court Justices. At the same time, a contingent of 1,000 CLF paramilitaries attacked the Hart Senate Office Building, where a Senate Democratic Caucus meeting was being held. Approximately 50 people were killed in the attack. Once the commandos had seized the building, they systematically killed Democratic senators from states with Republican governors. Here is a list of the 21 senators killed

Daniel Akaka	Byron Dorgan	Mary Landrieu
John Breaux	Bob Graham	Blanche Lincoln
Hillary Clinton	Ernest Hollings	Barbara Mikulski
Kent Conrad	Daniel Inouyye	David Pryor
Tom Daschle	Tim Johnson	Harry Reid
Mark Dayton	Ted Kennedy	Paul Sarbanes
Chris Dodd	John Kerry	Chuch Schumer

Joe Lieberman was campaigning in South Carolina, and missed the assassins. The attackers turned themselves in to police, and are proudly confessing their crimes, cooperating with authorities.

If the governors appoint Republican replacements, there will be 72 Republicans in the US Senate until replacement elections can be held. Even if a few Democrats are named, there will be likely at least 60 votes to vote for cloture and appoint replacements for the slain Supreme Court justices, changing the balance of power on the court.

OK, I'm ignoring Vermont, where the governor is a RINO, IIRC, and sparing Ben Nelson and Zell Miller as well. I'm also assuming that Bobby Jindal wins Saturday.

I'm also assuming that such bloodshed would be a good idea; I don't think it would. Would five extra conservatives on the Supreme Court and a filibuster-free Senate be worth the bloodshed? It is opposing evil, given some of the less-than-biblical decisions that have emanated from the court.

If we want to use the Nuremberg approach of opposing evil government, would that be a valid American version of the generals plot on Hitler? Most people don't give Bonhoffer grief for being part of that plot. Germany would have been a better place without him and thousands of lives would have been saved had they succeeded.

However, as much as I don't like them, Justice Ginsberg and Senator Clinton aren't Hitlers. We have a flawed but functional democracy and a legal system that generally protects our rights. Were we to advocate the creation of the CLF, we'd start down the road to anarchy, with militant liberals looking to kill off George Allen so that Mark Warner can name a replacement. It might be a short-term victory for judicial conservatism, but a long term loss for our society and the cause of Christ.

When I start thinking of that Nuremberg imperative, I do have to remember that we're not in Nazi Germany. We do have a duty to not cooperate in evil, but we also have to remember that we're not to perpetrate a greater evil in order to stop a smaller one. Most civil disobedience causes more harm than it solves, and civil wars generally cause more evil than they alleviate.

It's usually better to work within the system than to declare "war" on the system, whether you fight with guns or with sit-ins.

[Update 6:30AM 11-14 ----- I do not support the scenario above. I was expressing a sentiment that we can fall prey to IF we let the combating evil rhetoric go too far. Peaceful civil disobedience can often lead to violent civil disobedience. I think the rhetoric of Operation Rescue types can help lead to Paul Hill type assassins (or for those of you on the left, Greenpeace leading to ELF); I'm trying to nip that impulse in the bud in me and in others. [11:45AM-no, the ELF or Earth First haven't done killed anyone that we know of. I had thought that tree-spiking had killed someone in the past, but my memory was faulty there; here's a seemingly-good piece on the issue that says that people have been hurt but not killed by spiking.]

Why shouldn't we take up arms against our enemy? Because the US government is much more our ally than our enemy. It is a system, flawed as it is, that allows the Gospel to flourish, relatively unfettered. We need to work with in the system, not try to start a second revolution.

For those of you on the left who want to label me a typically sick Christian, it's your legal right to do so, even if it doesn't reflect reality well. I've had to take down some profane comments. I will admit to having occasional violent thought come through my mind, but I do not physically act on them (at least since coming to the Lord two decades ago), and repent of them when those thoughts do happen.]

[Update 6:45AM 11-16-I've closed the comment section on this one. Any comments along the lines of the following

I need psychiartric care.
The FBI needs to take me in.
I'm a f---ing a--hole.
I should be the target of an left-wing hit squad.
I'm a typical right-wing Christian sicko
I did Bohnoffer disservice in the title (true, in 20-20 hindsight)

have already been posted multiple times. You can save the keystokes.]

Comments

[ByronUT]

Eh. Your a terrorist. This shouldn't have a place anywhere in anyone's mind.

[mark butterworth]

Mark,
Your novel plot would make for a good fiction thriller. Sorry that my comment inspired a blog that caused you to get so much hate thrown at you. You might want to see my essay over at my site regarding civil disobedience and if it's ever good or helpful.

[Ron]

Um actually I don't think that ELF has actually killed anybody only destroyed property.

[Mark Byron]

True, Ron, but they have resorted to violence. I do think some Earth First tactics (booby-trapped trees) have killed loggers, if I recall correctly.

[fawndobie]

Wow, Christ as a facsist dictator! What a concept! We'll be forced to feed the poor! Oh, no. That's not what Christians do anymore. Let's see, what do they do? Well, for some reason, I think it has to do with 'the sanctity of life', they insist that every human pregnancy be carried to term to produce another human baby. But once that baby is born, they don't seem to feel the need to provide social services to the under-employed mother so she can provide that baby with health care and day care so she can work to provide for that babies needs. They seem to feel so strongly about this issue that they encourage each other to shoot medical doctors to death and plant bombs in medical clinics where nurses and doctors, who may also be mothers to live children, work. So logically, they don't care about children AFTER they're born. Sanctity indeed.

MMmm...let's see, what else? Well, if Ashcroft is any model, then they probably would like the American Constitution to be replaced by a different form of government. Since the Constitution is what sets up our republic with three branches of government, what would they substitute it with? Well, I guess they can call it a facsist democracy. If the shoe fits, why don't you just put the damn thing on?

[rea]

Don't your believe in constitutional democracy? Let's assume that you could somehow dispose of these people without killing them--put them in a one-way time capsule to the future or something. Would changing or government by force in such a fashion be right and just? Are concepts like "due process of law" and "elections" simply obstacles to the truth, in your view?

[LittleA]

Um...In case you missed the point, Mark was using this EXTREME scenario as an example to show the potential pitfalls of civil disobedience. In other words, he thinks this scenario IS A BAD THING. Can (some of) you folks not read or are you just being willfully ignorant?

[Jonathan]

This was a nice little piece of evil to read this morning. Fantasizing about killing government officials and whatever innocent bystanders happened to be nearby, so that the choices of a democracy can be overturned by a violent few who know better.

Mr. Byron, you're a wonderful example of the casual evil of a very few people who dare to call themselves Christians, and you discredit conservatism.

[Greg]

If this occured, there'd be several immediate effects:

1. There'd be an outcry for the governors of the states to ONLY appoint Democrats.

2. The Republicans would lose the next election,

3. The Republicans would lose power for the foreseeable future.

4. We'd go from a 50/50 D/R split to a 75/25 split almost over night.

We aren't a violent nation, and an attack on that fundamental principle would backfire immediately and without question.

[Jadegold]

I do think some Earth First tactics (booby-trapped trees) have killed loggers, if I recall correctly.

You don't recall correctly.

It's plain you don't think correctly.

Perhaps you're thinking of fellow rightwingers like Tim McVeigh or Paul Hill or Eric Rudolph?

[AngryElephant]

Y'know, I was just thinking the other day that even though the Religious Right was taking on a lot of fascist characteristics, political violence wasn't one of them. How pleasant to know that some of you are daydreaming about it, however. Jesus would be so pleased.

[Dan]

Yep, those ELF people who burn SUVs to make a political point are obviously just as bad as those Operation Rescue types who shoot doctors.

That makes sense.

Civil disobedience is NOT a slippery slope. It is actually quite simple. You don't hurt people. You break the law (ie, sit down in the street) but you don't hurt people. You tear down the police barricade, but you don't hurt people. That means when the cops show up, you don't "fight back."

Now, if you want to talk about the "black bloc" type people, that is a different story.

[AngryElephant]

"Mark was using this EXTREME scenario as an example to show the potential pitfalls of civil disobedience. In other words, he thinks this scenario IS A BAD THING."

Thanks. I'm encouraged to hear that a dutiful Christian believes, upon serious reflection, that the downside of mass murder is greater than the upside.

"However, as much as I don't like them, Justice Ginsberg and Senator Clinton aren't Hitlers."

Anyone detect any irony in that sentence, in a post about jackbooted thugs assassinating political opponents?

[Painiac]

The harsh reaction to this may come from it being of a piece with other violent manifestations of right-wing intolerant hate of the left. Columnists who pass along supposed comments from military personnel wishing to line up and execute Democratic candidates for President. Widespread accusations of 'Treason' and other bullying attempts to shut up criticism, as if free speech and even dissent are not the very freedoms that allegedly make us hateful to 'the terrorists'. (If you hate 'political correctness' take a gander at 'patriotic correctness' it isn't pretty either). Routinely having thoughtful criticism of the reasons for and means of our making war twisted into:"you want Americans to die and Saddam Hussein to triumph". (Ironically, Osama bin Ladin dreamed of Americans in the Islamic heartland killing Muslims: we are fulfilling his plans, his dreams to radicalize the region and overthrow our allies.) Blogger David Neiwart at Orcinus http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/ has written at length how the virulence of the extreme right is being used to empower the GOP. "What rude beast slouches cowards Bethlehem..." American fascism takes shape.

Tim McVeigh had a notorious book in the car with him, I don't recall the name offhand, depicting a scenario much like that appearing on this blog, in service of a RAHOWA, Racial Holy War. Resistance, my Aryan Brothers in Christ, against the mudpeople and the ZOG! I think once you stray far enough off the path to consider yourself called by deity to execute its will by executing fellow citizens, you've declared yourself an enemy of civil society. I'm an agnostic who believes this is my country too: my father fought WWII under the pledge 'one nation indivisible', how ironic we are now divided by the claim of some to be one nation under one exclusive idea of god. (I think it likely that G. Washington or T. Jefferson could give an entire month of sermons on their religious beliefs without once mentioning Jesus)

p.s. I think you offer Bonhoffer a mortal insult by linking your fetid fantasy to his good name.

[sean]

Imagine the outcry if a "librul" pondered publicly offing some Republican Senators, Representatives and SCOTUS Justices, even if said "librul" were, as Mark and his defenders claim he was, pointing to it as an example of what NOT to do. There would probably be tarring and feathering.

In an age when we're reminded constantly to "watch what we do, watch what we say" it's truly amazing that some people can get by with something like this. If, on my own little left-leaning blog, I wrote something in the same vein as this but made it more obvious that I wasn't advocating it, I thought it'd be a bad thing, I condemn all violence, etc., maybe in 50-point blinking red letters, I'd still be on the receiving end of a flame-mail bombardment of, pardon the expression, Biblical proportions.

[Annoyed]

Get off your high horse, folks. Byron was using an extreme example to illustrate a point. He was in no way advocating such action. There is a mentality in evident in a lot of political rhetoric that implies that the other side is evil (you know, "Bush is a Nazi").

Would it have been moral to assassinate Hitler in 1935? One could certainly make the case for that. The fact that people, like Byron and like those on the Left who castigate Bush, will NOT go as far as to advocate assassination because, deep down, they know the politicians in question are not little Hitlers; they're not Fascists or Communists; they may be wrong, but they're not evil future dictators.

The thought experiment that Byron put forth proves that point in spades. A similar thought experiment by someone on the Left arguing similarly about various Right-wing politicians, and pointing out the hypocrisy and evil of violence in support of a political goal, is simiarly valid.

Obviously the original post above got linked to some fire-breathing "right wing is evil" website, that led to all the comments. I'm sure whatever site had the link is likely full of people comparing Bush to various Nazi figures (Goodwin's Law at work, btw).

The irony is delicious.

[Janet]

Well, Mark, your "thought experiment" as it is called by the commenter above, reads much more like a game plan for how to take over the government. We are responsible for what we put out in the world - if you really think that your way is better, perhaps it could be conveyed by testimony. The fact that your fantasy workers resorted to the murder of "approximately" 85 people, while seeking to achieve the murder of 26 people tells me that your arguments must not be very strong, or convincing. Further, whether or not *you're* proposing such an action, by posting this scenario for your readers (instead of keeping it in the darker parts of your mind), you're also tacitly stating that you wouldn't be too troubled if someone else took up the torch you so deliberately lit. There is a probably a reason we can't all read each others' minds, and I wish you hadn't chosen to show us the darkest parts of yours. Your scenario is truly evil, and I'm surpised and saddened that you didn't realize it during the entire time you crafted and posted it to your public site.

[SamAm]

You're a leftwing anti-American sicko. What about the staffers, pages, clerks, and Capitol Police? I mean, they're helping this army of Not Hitlers. Our new glorious America won't have time for your half measures.

Hey hey lets do drys
No time for wets we do despise
All in the name of Jesus Christ
Democrats have gotta die

[burnplant]

Sorry it got posted on left wing site, annoyed, you should be left to your sick fantasies all by your lonely selves. Normal people think all kinds of weird, evil things all the time, but they don't type out detailed accounts as faux news items and post them for the public to see (and then say, "what? I'm just wonderin'")
The "irony" is not "delicious", it's more extremism masquerading as a "thought experiment".
And if someone on the left did exactly the same thing, replacing the senator's names with Hatch, Lott, DeLay etc. it wouldn't just be all over the blogs, it would be all over the corporate media and talk shows. That's the difference, dumbass. Your side is in charge and you still whine and cry and fantasize about more and more power, don't you guys ever get tired of being sorry, crying little babies with violent fantasies?

[Lee Anne Millinger]

This whole conversation really makes me sad. Neither the left wing nor the right wing has a corner on the peace and justice market. Neither the liberal nor the conservative sides of the Christian spectrum has the deed to the Kingdom of God. Last time I checked, Scripture still said, "Not everyone who calls me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven." We all may be a tad bit surprised to see who is holding hands around the Throne, singing praises to the Lamb. Maybe even Dr. Byron with some of the posters here.

[Torquemada]

Whoa.

Friend, isn't just thinking about the act like committing the act, in the eyes of God? Or does that just apply to lusting after thy neighbor's wife?

Keep looking for Christ; I don't think you've found him yet.

[snr]

Tim McVeigh had a notorious book in the car with him, I don't recall the name offhand, depicting a scenario much like that appearing on this blog, in service of a RAHOWA, Racial Holy War.

That would be The Turner Diaries by National Alliance founder William L Pierce under the pseudonymn Andrew MacDonald.

I've read it & there's no question in my mind that McVeigh was inspired by the book. However, inspiration is not incitement. If people are having extremist fantasies like this I'd rather they publish them in blogs & get it out in the open than push them down & deny the reality of what's going on. I see this as a wakeup call to both sides, & I thank the author for posting it.

s/n:r

[Jesus Christ]

My son, I don't want anything to do with people like you. You need to read and re-read and re-read what I said and think about it. A LOT. Then consider again whether I would really approve of you or people like you doing this in My name.

I would also appreciate it if you would please stop claiming to be one of my followers. You're giving me a bad name.

[i can post faster]

you're still not a child molester.

[ThomasMc]

What the hell did the Nuremburg trials have to do with "a plot to kill Hitler", and by extension, a terrorist attack on Congress???

No wonder nobody understands the post, the writer didn't even know what he was talking about.

Justice does NOT equal Anarchy.