The abortionist George Tiller was apparently killed by a pro-lifer. This has led to attacks on the pro-life movement at innately violent.
The widespread denunciations of the Vietnam War as illegal, unjust, cruel, and criminal, led students at Brandeis to plot the violent overthrow of the government.
On Sept. 23, 1970, Brandeis University woke up to another day of classes, cool fall weather and news of a murder and bank robbery at the hands of three of its students.
There were five people suspected of murder and robbery, three of whom were associated with Brandeis. According to the Sept. 29, 1970 issue of the Justice, the suspects included Robert Valeri, 21, a student at Northeastern University; William Gilday, 41, also a student at Northeastern; Kathy Power ’71, 21, a senior at Brandeis; Susan Saxe ’70, 20, a Brandeis graduate and admitted Brandeis graduate student; and Stanley Bond, 25, also a Brandeis student. The five were accused of murdering Boston patrolman Walter A. Schroeder during a robbery that gained the group $26,000 from a Brighton, Mass. bank. Schroeder, 42, had nine children; he died from a gunshot wound in the back.
Should the anti-war demonstrators have kept quiet, for fear of causing some people to become violent in their actions against violence?
Edward Abbey’s denunciation of the rape of the West in The Monkey Wrench Gang inspired some of his readers to become eco-terrorists, burning property to prevent development. The Unabomber was also motivated by fears of technology and its effects on freedom and the ecology. Should Al Gore tone down his rhetoric for fear of causing people on the fringe of rationality to become violent?
As a teenager Dontee Stokes was sexually abused by the Rev Maurice Blackwell. Years later, the stories of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church filled the media. Dontee obsessed over them, got a gun and confronted Blackwell, demanding an apology. Blackwell refused, and Dontee shot him. Joseph Druce had been sexually abused as a child; he had murdered a homosexual who had tried to pick him up. Druce was on the same cell block as the convicted molester the Rev. John Geoghan. Druce watched the months of television exposes of sexual abuse in Boston and heard the denunciations of the molesting priests as monsters. He overheard Geoghan planning to get out on appeal and to go to South America to molest children there. Druce murdered Geoghan so that Geoghan would never again molest. Should the Church have been allowed to cover-up its crimes forever for fear of a revelation of its iniquity inspiring private vengeance?
Bush administration officials have been denounced as torturers and war criminals. Suppose someone decides to kill one to punish a torturer?
Any denunciation of evil has the potentiality to inspire someone to decide to become judge, jury, and executioner. Therefore should evil never be denounced, for fear of inspiring vigilantism?