How To Deal
With people who have no decency. The New York Times has an article about the push in many states to clamp down on protests at funerals. All of these laws would appear to be in response to the absolutely appalling behavior of members of the Westboro Baptist Church. You know, the lovely little family cult that has been picket the funerals of soldiers. They say the deaths are God's punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality.
First things first. These people are scum, deserving of our scorn and, in general, a complete waste of oxygen. That they choose to inflict themselves on grieving families is beyond any interpretation of decency.
Sadly, they also have a right to speak, even if they are beneath contempt. There is a group that was formed in response to these nasty cretins, the Patriot Guard Riders. They have taken it upon themselves to block the Westboro people from view and, if necessary drown out their noise by revving their motorcycles. I think this is the right approach. The Riders are my kind of people.
Let's face it, these pimples are doing this for publicity. If the press would simply ignore them they would move on to something else. Maybe just getting back to more inbreeding, but everyone has to have a hobby.
By Black Jack, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 10:30 am
Sooner or later, these disgusting perverts are going to encounter a few adult males in an advanced state of rage and get exactly what they deserve: a world-class ass whippin’.
By Maimonides, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 11:07 am
I think that reasonable heads from the middle of the right and left can all agree to that “world-class ass whippin.” Hell, I’m normally a “cut’n run peacenik”, but even I want a piece of these bastards.
By Gauis Arbo, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 11:11 am
I don’t think it’s necessary. The Patriot Guard Riders have it exactly right. Block them so the families don’t have to see them.
That said, I’m kind of surprised the ass-whippin’ hasn’t happened yet. My guess is they make sure they have local police protection before they pull one of these things.
By jeff, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 11:22 am
I understand part of their strategy is to push people hard enough that they push back…providing grounds for civil suits. Best is to ignore. I like the visual blocking by patriotic citizens, whether they lean left or lean right.
By Gauis Arbo, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 11:24 am
Yeah, I think it’s about a close to a perfect response to these slimeballs as is possible.
By Craig, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 12:13 pm
“Let’s face it, these pimples are doing this for publicity. If the press would simply ignore them they would move on to something else.”
The problem isn’t wanitng publicity. The problem is what they want it for.
Our society needs to balance the right of the individual to express even a very offensive opinion with the limits that are appropriate.
Violence is not the answer; if you advocate that, you are not really a ‘free speech’ person, it doesn’t stop where you want it to.
No, the right way to handle this is for the law to prevent them from inappropriate actions, and police to enforce that.
Ultimately, we have to tolerate some things we find offensive.
Today’s Phelps (I don’t view him as “Reverance phelps” is yesterday’s sit-in by blacks at a segregated lunch counter.
Both were seen as offensive affronts by many in the community, with an ‘ass-whooping’ the right response. But they aren’t the same, morally.
The important thing is that our society try to have those good morals, and that it protect the right to express unpopular views.
By Craig, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 12:15 pm
By the way - nice to see the right finally take on some of its own extremists, but too bad it only mentions the soldiers, and not the gays too.
As long as they’re just doing it to gays, that is a lesser crime for you?
By Gauis Arbo, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 12:26 pm
I do not agree with passing these laws, in case you hadn’t noticed. And I did not advocate violence.
Also, nice that you characterize me so conclusively by looking at one post.
By Craig, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 1:27 pm
My post was not written to you, Gauis. Two other posters supported violence, and part of my posts addressed that topic.
I’ve yet to decide on the laws. Of course, it’s terrible behavior, but there are lots of things people should not do where laws banning them are a bad idea.
As always there’s the question of where to draw the line. I’m yet to be convinced that outdoor protests should be outlawed.
There are other forms of response I’d like to see, including a campaign for these people to be shunned where they lived.
By Gauis Arbo, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 1:45 pm
Sorry I took that wrong then. I actually think creeps like this should be encouraged to yap. Everytime they open thier mouths they prove there wasn’t quite enough chlorine in the gene pool.
Take a look around, Craig. You’ll find I’m pretty fierce on the free speech thing.
And I’ve frankly never seen anyone, left or right, who supports these psychos.
By Black Jack, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 2:04 pm
I’ve thought it over, read the comments, and I still think a rather severe ass whippin’ is one way, maybe not the best way, to communicate with these Neanderthals. A direct physical assault does have the virtues of being both immediate and unambiguous.
There are some men, perhaps blood relatives of the deceased troops, who just might consider the affront so unacceptable as to justify assault and battery, and who would subsequently be willing to submit their behavior to the judgment of a jury of their peers.
I’d like to be on that jury.
By Gauis Arbo, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 2:15 pm
I can’t really say I’d be surprised if someone snapped. It just wouldn’t be a good thing for anyone involved.
By Craig, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 3:09 pm
“There are some men, perhaps blood relatives of the deceased troops, who just might consider the affront so unacceptable as to justify assault and battery, and who would subsequently be willing to submit their behavior to the judgment of a jury of their peers.
I’d like to be on that jury. ”
So, you don’t support free speech. You support the beating - why not murder while you’re at it - of people you strongly disagree with.
And you oppose the rule of law too, implying you would ignore the law and acquit the guilty.
You know, we had times like that - the decades of lynching, when a white man could not be convicted of a crime for killing a black some places.
You’re an un-American thug. I happen to agree with your opinion about these creeps - and I support free political speech I disagree with without stooping to violence to silence it, because I recognize that while violence may be effective, it’s not always on the side of right. You have to let the system work, knowing that while sometimes the wrong side will get an advantage, there are benefits as well for when the minority is right.
By Gauis Arbo, Monday, 17 April , 2006 @ 3:35 pm
Oh calm down, Craig. At some point it’s not a rights issue at all. While even though I favor the Rider’s approach, I could also see someone going off on these people. Not because they wanted to suppress their free speech but because it’s such a horribly tastless and inflammatory thing to do. And really pissed off people don’t necessarily think about rights when they are being deliberately provoked.
And do not use the term un-American, please. Some things are - this is not one of them.
By Drindl, Tuesday, 18 April , 2006 @ 7:43 am
What’s really sad to me is that they would use the Bible as a club to beat homosexuals. What did Christ say about ‘the least among you’? Where did Jesus say you should hate homosexuals, or prostitutes, or immigrants, for that matter?
The whole group of inbreds is twisted and pathetic. That said, if it was a funeral for someone in my family that was bing desecrated, I would beat the crap out of them.
By Gauis Arbo, Tuesday, 18 April , 2006 @ 8:27 am
As I have said, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened. But I think that goes to disprove some of the random accusations that get hurled by the left, too.
By Craig, Tuesday, 18 April , 2006 @ 10:10 am
“At some point it’s not a rights issue at all.”
Not at this point. They’re *expressing their view*, peacefully, offensively. Calling for or condoning violence, even ’subtly’, is wrong.
“While even though I favor the Rider’s approach, I could also see someone going off on these people. Not because they wanted to suppress their free speech but because it’s such a horribly tastless and inflammatory thing to do. And really pissed off people don’t necessarily think about rights when they are being deliberately provoked.”
You sound a whole lot like the people who would beat a black man if they saw him walking down the street holding the hand of a white woman.
You ‘could see’ beating him, not because they want to repress his rights, but because he was being ‘inflammatory’ and ‘really pissed off people don’t necessarily think about rights when they are being deliberately provoked’. Go read the history of the early 60’s, and you will see your own words as the way the racists justified their behavior.
You say the issue isn’t free speech, not because it isn’t, but because you simply don’t want to face the fact that it is - so you say it’s not.
*Some* laws are appropriate to limit free speech, but at the end of the day, you need to deal with utterly offensive speech, not threaten it.
“And do not use the term un-American, please. Some things are - this is not one of them.”
It absolutely is. How thin is the line between the supposed American who cerishes free speech and the one who is offended.
Who would have thought that our second president would forget so quickly when he tried to repress free speech against his government? But he did, with all the same bad logic here, only to luckily have that precedent overturned and banished by the third president.
And it’s important we do call it Un-American, lest the term ‘American’ be lessened to allow for it to include the violent threats against speech.
DO I feel the urge to use violence on those people? Of course. Do I resist that urge and condemn it being acted upon by anyone else, out of the principle that the free exchange of ideas needs to defeat bad ideas with good ones and not with a mob beating the minority? Do I recognize the way the precedent of violence can be used for evil as well such as in my race analogies? Yes.
We all know how correct you are, precious, but you need to be right with your hands not contacting those who are wrong.
And that goes for posts on how ‘you can see’ others doing violence and such as well, if you are implicitly condoning such acts.
By Gauis Arbo, Tuesday, 18 April , 2006 @ 10:18 am
Craig, one thing alone in your long-winded comment proves you are a complete idiot. Playing the race card.
By pj chicago, Tuesday, 18 April , 2006 @ 12:12 pm
Craig is awfully long winded in his principled approach, but I think he is correct. Free speech is an absolute principle, and these are the cases that test it. I always think back to the ACLU lawyer who defended the illinois nazi’s right to march through skokie. That is a man of conviction. That is why I love when the right picks on the ACLU…who are sepcificaly fighting for the constitutional rights this country is founded on.
BTW, Gauis, what the hell does this mean?
“As I have said, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened. But I think that goes to disprove some of the random accusations that get hurled by the left, too. ”
Maybe I don’t understand, but it seems these westboro people would be right wingers…lunatics, but right wingers none the less. And before you try to say that is an unfair characterization, I would just like to note that I heard about Banana Boat Man everyday on talk radio as if the DNC had made him chairman of the party.
By Gauis Arbo, Tuesday, 18 April , 2006 @ 12:30 pm
Pj, did you read all of my coments? I’m not advocating any violence. I don’t think an enraged person, having been provoked by a bunch of loons is thinking of the provocation in first amendment terms. You and I standing to the side can do that.
Random accusations of suppression of free speech. Actual suppression seems to be more likely coming from the left these days, a al NKU.
By Craig, Tuesday, 18 April , 2006 @ 2:45 pm
pj, thanks for the comments.
Gauis, you’re not a complete idiot, but if we round off, you’re in trouble.
The name-calling is the first indication - ironically, one of the few things that justifies name-calling in return; your misuse of the ‘race card’ is another.
The race card is when you use the claim that race is the motive for something. For example, when OJ’s lawyers alleged that he was being prosecuted because he is black, they played the race card. It’s sometimes legitimate to play the race card, such as in the motive behind the felon purge lists in Florida in 2000; because blacks voted over 90% for Gore, they were a target.
What I did is called an analogy, something you have heard of but obvious do not understand.
I did not accuse you of racism in any manner.
Rather, I was illustrating the thought processes of those who justify violence against those they disagree with. It so happens that a group who spoke very similarly to you were the racists of the early 1960’s. I’m comparing your ‘understanding’ of violence against the Phelps bigots with the ‘understanding’ too many whites had of violence against ‘uppity black people’, e.g., the Freedom Riders. I did not ‘play the race card’.
We can use many other examples having nothing to do with race; people who are triggered to attack gays ‘acting out in public’ are another.
No doubt, many on the right would like to shoot Michael Moore or others on the left, for ’sins’ such as Moore’s anti-gun Bowling with Columbine.
I’m sure there are people ‘who could understand’ that, too, while only implicitly rather than explicitly condoning it.
Sorry, but ‘understanding’ the visceral reaction against these people, a reaction I share, is only appropriately expressed with the position that those urges must not be acted upon - a message which is all too whispered in your posts.
Hate their views, and celebrate their right to express them. if you like, go protest at THEIR events, in thier community. But tolerate them.
If not, you will lose the right to free speech against anyone who threatens power - and you will possibly soon after see why you needed that right.
Long-winded - well, sometimes one sentence saying ‘it’s free speech and therefore must be protected’ is not sufficient to address the differences.
If that’s the best you can say - long-winded and name-calling - you might benefit from a new hobby other than political discussion.
By Gauis Arbo, Tuesday, 18 April , 2006 @ 2:58 pm
Listen closely, Craig. You are the one trying to pick a fight . Saying I understand is not the same thing as saying I condone.
I would walk away from these people. I have to; I am REQUIRED to walk away by law.
Your bringing race into this is using the race card, by analogy or not, you’re bringing in an extraneous subject to steer off into a different discussion and conflate two separate things. You either did it knowingly and are now trying to deflect, or you do not realize you did it.
You might want to consider commenting elsewhere or even starting your own blog if I bother you. You came here and you picked a fight.
“You’re an un-American thug” would be not name calling to you apparently.
So, on balance, you’re a hypocrite.
By Craig, Wednesday, 19 April , 2006 @ 1:45 am
Gauis, I’m not interested in ‘picking a fight’. If this is your blog, I was unaware, but it changes nothing in what I said.
One of us needs to listen closely, and it’s you. I’m not saying you are explicitly calling for the violence against the protestors; I’m saying that you are *implicitly*, not explicitly, condoning it, and I cited other examples of where such ‘implicit’ condoning has happened, for the purpose of illustrating why it’s a problem.
Let’s look at your most recent post, in a multiple choice question.
As you said you would walk away from these people, did you say the reason was:
A. The moral wrong of the violence of attacking them
B. The importance of defending free speech requiring opposing the violence
C. The only thing keeping you from violence is the law
D. All of the above
The answer is C. You indicated only that the law against violence requires you to walk away; you did not add any comments there about how you actually believe that the violence would be wrong, for any principled reason, so you get no credit for having such beliefs. I have given you full credit for not explicitly supporting the violence.
But preventing violence requires more than passively acquiescing to the laws against it, while speaking out about how deserving they are of attack.
All Americans should actively support the right to free speech, and by definition, *oppose* violence against it, not merely restrain themselves.
As noted previously, in this very thread you had people advocating the violence and supporting the ignoring of the law ro prevent any legal punishment for the offenders - and they obviously feel a ‘kindred spirit’ here with your comments, which don’t explicitly call for such actions, but rather are merely ‘understanding’.
Again, I’m saying it’s ok for you to discuss such ‘understanding’; understanding is good.
What I’m also saying is that you should then go on to say why the violence is wrong, and not stop at the ‘understanding’ sentiment.
As for the race card, I understand that that’s a phrase you seem to rely heavily on to pretend you have something of substance, and so you are not going to give it up easily, no matter how wrong you have applied it; we’ll just have to agree to disagree. It’s just one of those common right-wing fallacies, like how programs to equalize for minorities a playing field corrupted by a history of racism, is itself ‘racism’ against them.
And finally, on name-calling, I’ll clarify that I define name-calling as the use of *general* pejoratives, as distinguished from specific negative comments intended to point out a real problem. The difference is between “you’re a jerk” and - to use my own example above - “you’re an un-American thug”, said to Black Jack - not you - for expressing support for violence and having the jury refuse to enforce the law against violence.
I meant exactly what I said, that it’s un-American to oppose the right of free speech and the system of law, and thuggish to support the violence.
That specific criticism is a far cry from the sort of “you’re a jerk” name-calling.
In fact, I accept your attack of hypocrisy as something other than name-calling; it would be a legitimate attack, but for being wrong. I understand that you *thought* I was being hypocritical for criticizing name-calling of the sort you did, while calling someone else a name myself. I explained the difference above; agree or disagree, but it was not hypocritical, as I’ve clarified.
Sadly, you are ignoring all the points in my posts but the ones you are reacting to emotionally, so the discussion is going nowhere.
Can you clarify whether you agree with my position, that while the views and disrespect that the Phelps bigots are willing to express and commit are very offensive (and, for the sake of discussion, we agree are wrong), that violence against them is not only something to avoid because it’s illegal, but because they *should have the right* to express those views publically, for the good of our society?
If you disagree with that simple defense of the reason there should be a right to free speech, please explain how and why.
By Gauis Arbo, Wednesday, 19 April , 2006 @ 4:20 am
Craig,
The answer is C. because I carry a gun. Different set of rules.
You can dance around it, but I still stand by what I wrote.
By Black Jack, Wednesday, 19 April , 2006 @ 12:43 pm
Craig, contrary to your efforts to push a false premise, we’re not talking about free speech. That’s not it, that’s not it at all. No one is attempting to prevent these Phelps people from speaking freely, just not at the funerals of deceased servicemen. It’s out of place there.
The topic here is a pack of outrageous and belligerent bigots inflicting their unwanted and hateful demonstrations, trashing the memorial services of our fallen troops, in order to get publicity for their idiotic nonsense. It’s wrong and people who do it well deserve a fat lip.
BTW, I saw one of the Phelps women on TV last night. The evil witch was many times worse than I had imagined, full of self-righteousness and bigotry, sort of like a deranged Old Testament Prophet. I thought I was back in the 50’s listening to some fire and brimstone Tent Revival preacher, only one obviously drunk on a potent cocktail of ignorance and arrogance, and clearly so off his rocker as to attract the caterwauling of stray cats.