Can You Tell the Difference?

So, now conservatives are really angry because liberals paid more attention to the assassination of Dr. Tiller than the murder of Pvt. William Andrew Long outside a recruiting office in Arkansas. (Another soldier was wounded in the attack.) I know that my stupid liberal brain is slow, but I am not sure that I get it.

First, no liberals are expressing joy or relief or thanking God that Pvt. Long is dead. This is unlike the extremist groups that encouraged violence against Dr. Tiller for, oh, like two decades.

Which reminds me: was Pvt. Tiller stalked and harassed before he was killed? No? Did he have to hire security guards because of the repeated threats against his life or the vandalism of his office, which happened repeatedly for almost 20 years? No? Then how are the two murders equivalent?

The killing of Pvt. Long is heinous and vile. But there is pretty much no support among liberal organizations for these aggressive actions against people we disagree with. We do not threaten to kill their children because we think that their actions are morally wrong. We do not bomb their offices. We do not give veiled condemnations of murderous actions that really celebrate those actions.

No one could have predicted that Pvt. Long would be killed. His death is horrible. But it is not part of a long term harassment campaign, and that is why I paid more attention to Dr. Tiller than Pvt. Long. Then again, I don't know why I expect people who equate a fetus to a person who is born, breathing, and feeling to be able to distinguish these types of nuances.