John Wilkes Booth is reported to have shouted "
sic semper tyrannis" when he shot
Abraham Lincoln; his reasoning may be obscure to those who regard
slavery as
tyranny, but we should try to keep an
open mind. We may disagree but it's worthwhile trying to understand where he was coming from.
When
Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City, was captured, he reportedly wore a
t-shirt with a portrait of
Lincoln and the same
motto.
Benjamin Daniel Smith, the former
World Church of the Creator member who shot several people in
Chicago in July
1999, had used the same
motto in his
high school yearbook, in
1996.
None of this really means much. People who shoot others for political reasons usually believe that they're fighting
tyranny (which is not to say that they're necessarily wrong). Why else bother?
John Wilkes Booth popularized the phrase in the
US, and so it gets used a lot.
Political extremists seem often to have an almost "magical" faith in stock phrases. They're searching for something simple and absolute to live by. There's also the benefit in dramatic terms of having
memorable dialog.
By the time I was done writing this, --OutpostMir-- had beaten me to the punch on the Lincoln thing, but I'm keeping that part for the sake of the snide remark at the end of it, which would be baffling without context. Fortunately, --OutpostMir-- included details that I blew off.