I’m going to keep this one brief. Hustling by offense, by the use of the mob or protesting, is evil. It is evil because it perverts justice. In Pilate’s case, he did not do his duty and acquit, but instead let Barabbas, who was a thug, out.
There was a crucifixion or three planned, but Jesus was not one of the planned victims. Barabbas was.
We count all men equal… which means all men have moral agency (the exceptions, such as the mad and the slow, have exceptions built into the law, either by legislation or judicial practice). What mau-mauing — walking around with a sense of outrage, protesting, intimidating, threatening, coercing does is remove the sense of disinterest and the understanding that we are all responsible for what we do from the courts.
And then there is no justice, merely tyranny.
13Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, 14and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. 15Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death. 16I will therefore have him flogged and release him.”
18Then they all shouted out together, “Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!” 19(This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) 20Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; 21but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” 22A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.” 23But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. 24So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. 25He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.
The world and the unrighteous do not lie us. They will use any tactic. Consider, for a second, Texas.
State representative Jonathan Stickland tells NRO that being vocally pro-life has made him a target for abuse and threats from some of the pro-choice protesters in Austin. The night before state senator Wendy Davis’s filibuster, she requested that people send her stories about the importance of abortion rights that she could read during the filibuster. Stickland tells me that inspired him and a few other representatives from Tarrant County (part of which is in Davis’s senate district) to send in 84,160 pieces of blank pink and blue paper to represent the number of abortions in Texas last year.
“We delivered them to her office so that she could read the untold stories of all the kids who were aborted last year,” he says, adding that the gesture made him the target of intense vitriol, including thousands of tweets. Many were “very, very hostile,” he says.
“My favorite one was probably this female who said that she couldn’t wait to see Representative Stickland so that she could pummel my face in,” he tells me.
He brought some male supporters into the office during the day of the filibuster because he didn’t want the women who work there to be alone.
“We brought in extra people to make sure the office was going to be safe,” he says.
He tells me he was also concerned for his personal safety during the filibuster. He and a few other pro-life representatives went onto the Senate floor during the filibuster and couldn’t leave until 1:30 am because they were afraid of the crowd. Protesters in the gallery yelled threats and verbal abuse at him, he says.
“Everywhere I went, they were tweeting pictures of ‘Stickland’s in the elevator’ or ‘Stickland’s on the move,’” he says.
They couldn’t move around the Capitol without security because of safety concerns.
“It was horrendous,” he says, adding that he was “absolutely” worried about being the target of violence. “I continue to be very concerned about it,” he adds.
He says he and members of his staff have taken extra measures to protect themselves, and added that they are all licensed to carry concealed handguns. I asked him if he would be carrying a weapon during the special legislative session, and he said he couldn’t answer that question legally.
“I very, very often do concealed-carry, I can say that,” he adds.
State senator Donna Campbell, who issued the third point of order against Davis’s filibuster (which ended it), has also been the target of extensive verbal abuse from pro-choice protesters, according to her spokesman Jon Oliver.
They’ve received Facebook messages and e-mails saying, “I hope you’re raped” and “I hope your daughter’s raped,” Oliver tells me.
“Lots of language — ‘You’re an effin’ blank,’ ‘You are a traitor to women’ — those kind of things,” Oliver says. “I wouldn’t say anything’s necessarily a direct threat, but they’re the kind of e-mails that make you a little nervous, especially when you start talking about family members: ‘I hope your family members are raped.’”
The protesters are fools. By doing this, they make politicians want protection. And that gets away from the idea of the republic: that the prime minister can walk anywhere, go anywhere, and people can talk to him without fear. Moreover, the move to reform the laws (the Texas law is a no brainer: after around 24 weeks fetuses can and are saved by neonatal paediatricians, so limiting abortions to 20 weeks is sensible, and requiring that it is done in a surgical suite at appropriate aseptic standards is simple common sense). Yelling, being emotive, does not change the facts on the ground.
Besides, the anti abortion group is bigger: do you want counter demonstrations? I think the feminists who are being so hateful are worried that they are about to lose something sacred, something sacramental. But that would be to equate abortion with child sacrifice.
Intimidation will not work. Quiet reform may. In the rest of the world, however, big Pharma have released newer contraceptives, and the abortion rate is falling.
Abortion rates have hit a 17-year-low as implant contraception use skyrockets across the country.
Recently released Statistics New Zealand figures show that in 2012, 14,745 women had an abortion.
It is the lowest rate since 1995, 17 years ago, when more than 13,500 women had an abortion.
Family Planning chief executive Jackie Edmond said abortion rates were falling worldwide as long-acting, reversible contraception becomes more accessible and affordable.
One of the most popular of these is the Jadelle implant, roughly the size of a matchstick, which is inserted into the skin of the upper arm under local anaesthetic.
I consider the Jadelle implant in a similar manner to the HPV (genital warts) vaccine. Harm reduction. The church should advocate and plan and encourage instead training for teenagers in the skills of life — what scouting and the guides used to help parents with — from teaching how to use a gym to how to household hygiene or survive in the wilderness — and set up a social network of dances, concerts and events which are regular, for all the family, and allow young men and women to meet without the issues that arise when two young healthy animals are in full lust and alone.
And when two such healthy young animals burn for each other, the church should call it good, and marry them off. Young.
Otherwise, we will need those technologies the mau-maus bleat about and then protest if they cannot use: the inoculations, the implants, the condoms, and the curette. Such a path will lead to our iniquity reaching to the heavens, and our tribe dying. And walking around protesting against that is remarkably ineffective.
