Westboro Baptist Church strikes again....

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JR719

Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
101
Location
Center of America
After this mornings assignment I have to vent. These Protesters/Demonstrators were in town today for a soldiers funeral. If you are not familiar with them, they kick the flag around, and have children doing the same, sing gospel hymns with their own words. Basically, anti U.S. It goes deeper, but you get the idea.
I'm all for freedom of speech, but where is the limit? This is wrong, horribly wrong. And we had to protect THEM from the good guys today. They attempt to make L.E. loose their cool so they can sue everyone they can. Several in the group are Civil Liberties Attorneys (imagine that) so they know how to play the system.
Seems to me, if they want to act the way they do, they should be responsible for the backlash. If they tried that in any other country, they would not last very long. A line should be drawn somewhere, possibly kicking our flag around? Demonstrating at a funeral?
Sorry for the rambling and flying thoughts, just made it home from this and still fired up.
 
Thankfully, freedom of speech is freedom of speech. They can do and say what they please - just like you can. Whether you agree with them or not, regulating what is "acceptable" is, for all intents and purposes, the same as throwing that freedom out the window.

Freedoms and rights are subject to dying the "death of a thousand cuts". Unless we protect them from even small regulation and restriction, they eventually disappear.

NQ
 
I completely agree with your visceral reaction to those trolls, but I do feel their speech needs to be protected just as is ours.

We can't ever start picking and choosing the beneficiaries of our Bill of Rights.
 
I completely agree with you on the fact that they are scum. But, they have the right to say what they want. That's the reason I believe in and support groups like the Freedom Riders, who counterprotest against Westboro.
 
When they focused on the funerals of AIDS victims, nobody outside of the gay world took much notice. When they picketed the funeral of Mathew Shepard, that was seen as "a bit much"...but it's these soldier's funerals that have really got people pissed off.

They've been utter scum for a very long time...all the way back to when Fred Phelps was Al Gore's Kansas state campaign manager in 1988.
 
"About 70 members of the leather-clad American Legion Riders from Kansas and Oklahoma revved their motorcycles for about 30 minutes, drowning out anything the church members tried to say."

God bless those riders. They've probably saved more than a few protesters from mutilation.

The protesters are cowards of the worst possible kind. Speech is /not/ unlimited. There are limits. Some states are considering laws that would prevent "protests" within a certain distance of the funeral. I support those laws for one reason, and one reason only - it's illegal to give the cowardly punks the broken noses they so richly deserve. I wasn't aware of this happening in the past, but it's as disgusting for those who died of AIDS as it is for soldiers killed in action.
 
Beren,

I suppose we can forgive the Riders sparing the protesters from their well-deserved pummelling, since they are likewise saving the counter-protesters/grieving family from the legal repercussions of such an action.

So we take the bad with the good, right?
;)


B.
 
What they are doing is absolutely reprehensible, and their right to do it is absolutely irrefutable. We are left to dislike them, but be thankful for their right to anger us--after all, were they not to have the right to speak their minds, neither would we have that right; then we'd all be up a creek!
 
Jim's right about the levels of attention, and that is the only reason they're picketing soldier's funerals. Their taunts and songs are the equivalent of the school yard bully who would insult your mother to get a rise out of you. He didn't know your mother and had nothing against her; he wanted you to take a swing.

These people are doing the same thing. They don't believe their nonsense about soldiers, they just needed a new gimmick.

And yes, before anyone asks, I HAVE stood and listened to these people, so I know enough to have something to say. They were in Virden last spring.
 
I'm all for freedom of speech, but where is the limit? (snip) A line should be drawn somewhere, possibly kicking our flag around? Demonstrating at a funeral?
Click to expand...
No offense, but that doesn't sound like freedom of speech anymore than "resonable gun control" sounds like "shall not be infringed." Freedom of speech doesn't just apply for things you like or agree with.

Ignore them, shun them, treat like them they're infected with ebola (please do infact), but don't support weakening the 1st amendment because you don't like what they have to say.
 
They should have the right to free speech. That's what's great about this country. That's why this country is worth defending.
 
They have an absolute right to free speech. The government has no place attempting to muzzle them.

If they piss off private citizens and get stomped, then hey, that happens. And hey, the police aren't obligated to intervene and protect them, the DA isn't obligated to file charges, a civil court judge isn't obligated to not throw the case out, and a civil jury isn't obligated to find for the plaintiff. ;)
 
I would first like to appologize. When I posted, I had just returned home from protecting the idiots and wanted them shut down.

I then returned to work and have just returned home again. After stewing on this all day, I was wrong to mention limiting the 1st amendment. Thank you all for helping point that out to me (I was a little on the upset side and lashing out).

Maybe the better solution.... If they want Police presence (for their protection), pay the off duty going rate per Officer. For protests of this magnitude (propensity for violence), around 30 or so Officers required minimum (Our safety too). If they choose to not pay for off duty Officers, they get the same service as everyone else. A car rolls by when able, and respond to emergencies. We'll show up somewhere after the riot, take a report, go to the next call. Protest at own risk.

Without protection, those :cuss: would not dare show up. I have to say though, love the way women and children are on the front line. Our protest was a tiny turnout of the idiots. 2 men, 3 women and a child... We were told another protest was going on somewhere else. They did not like the 500 foot rule. Bikers and fire trucks pretty well blocked their view :neener: .

I suppose to sum it up, I spoke too soon without thinking. Let them say what they want. I don't want to be told I can't say something.

Believe me, if you have not been to one of these things it is difficult to describe emotions. I really, really, have a problem with so called Americans cheering over an American soldiers death while preforming their duty. It burns deep thinking these --insert vulgar descriptor here-- are only able to do this because of brave men and women who gave their lives to afford the liberty to do so. Part of OUR liberty ought to be to beat these...... into a mud hole. Kicking and stomping OUR flag..... They did fold the flag neat as a bed sheet when they were done. Then loaded up in a nice new Honda Odessey.

If I can figure out picture posting again, I'll add a few shots.
 
Well they're certainly pushing the limit of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" when anyone within earshot is, at minimum, compelled to call them all f%#@faces....but sadly it still falls under the first's purview.
 
"Thankfully, freedom of speech is freedom of speech. They can do and say what they please - just like you can. Whether you agree with them or not, regulating what is "acceptable" is, for all intents and purposes, the same as throwing that freedom out the window."

Negative.

Freedom comes with RESPONSIBILITY. Without responsibility freedom turns into anarchy.

Do people have the "right" to assemble in your front yard 24/7 and make noise, beat drums, give speeches over loud speakers? Remember, we have the "right" to peaceably assemble under the 1st amendment. What about the "right" of your neighbors to live in a neighborhood peacefully? Would the peaceably assembled masses assembled in your front yard infringe on their rights to get a good nights sleep? Yes it would.


There was legislation passed recently concerning military funerals that provides a timeline for protesters to do their "thing", while allowing the funeral proceedings to go on without interuption.
 
Here, they have to be 500 feet away. They only protested until the fallen soldier was taken from the funeral home to the church. Approx. 10 minutes after arriving at the church, the idiots left town (Police escort you know).
 
I don't understand why the police need to be there? I mean, I can't get an officer for my own personal protection. I say "@#$% 'em. They are not so special. The police can show up later to draw the chalk lines and take statements just like they do for the rest of us.

Free speech is fine, but why they deserve police enforcing their right is obsurd. It sounds like they are taking our minimal protective force away from the duties they should be doing, increasing the risk that someone else may suffer from illigal activity durring that time.

Kinda selfish of them, eh?
 
A little research into the Phelps-Roper gang (they are more a scam than a church) shows that they are a family full of lawyers. They do the most outrageous things, and when a community tries to shut them down they flock to court to sue.

These people are lower than pond scum (in other words, lower than normal lawyers), and I truly believe that there is a very hot corner of hell reserved for them.

Why they chose the label "Baptist" is beyond me, since they are nothing like any Baptist that I know, and I am one. That said, they do have a right to spew their hateful filth, with their rights and freedoms protected by the blood of those against whom they protest.
 
They're giving the state of Kansas a real black eye...:fire:

Shun them, support the Patriot Guard, and pray for them to get what's coming to them in the end.:evil:

Missouri was trying to enact legislation that would prevent protests at/near a funeral in response to these creeps. Luckily, it failed. As abhorent as this group's garbage is :barf:... I'll support no law restricting the exercise of our constitutionally guaranteed rights.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top