Westboro baptist church

@dyslexia,

I would have phrased it the preservation of property, but yeah, what he said . . .

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@engineer,

Quote:

The Wikipedia article says incitement is "the act of persuading, encouraging, instigating, pressuring, or threatening so as to cause another to commit a crime." I can't see where the WBC folks are doing any of that.

Then we see it differently. SInce in its history the WBC has used "instigation" to incite otjers to commit crimes of violence in order for WBC to sue and collect damages, I dont think that the issue is clear as you wish.
Also, defammation 'SLander,libel etc" (in the casee of many of the dead soldiers I believe the "Advertent-OUTING" of a dead soldier constitutes a libelous action on behalf of the family. (If its available as a libel issue for the upright, its also available to the living family or associates. TAlk amongst yerselves we are going away for a brief vaca.

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@dyslexia,

Quote:

ordinary silliness, all our laws, customs and manners from Hammurabi to this date are based on the preservation of wealth.

But the preservation of wealth (property) has an emotional source.

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@farmerman,

I don't think the WBC folks claimed the soldier was gay, they claim he died because the US allows homosexuality. As for inciting someone to attack you, that's a really tough sell. If I beat up Glenn Beck, are you saying he goes to jail for incitement? I just can't see any court in the country agreeing with that line of reasoning. We teach our children about sticks, stones and words for this very reason.

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@engineer,

Of course we do. But this is a special case. It is reasonable to suppose that the ancient Egyptians ruined their economy with their obsession with seeing off the dead properly. The largest deficits, with cost over-runs, being caused by the monuments many of us traipse to visit despite having to run the gauntlet of the return journey. Mr Mailer covered aspects of the middle-classes aping of their superiors in Ancient Evenings: the utter turgidity of which fascinates the more the more of it one reads.

Those I have not satisfied that this is a special case have obviously no idea of the central place in any culture, except a scientific one where the dead will be ground up, pulverised, boiled up, dried out, bagged up and spread on the fields or sold in garden centres in conveniently handy packs, of the procedures for disposing of the dead. Even a hobo found in a ditch will have some words read over him. I hope. Or her even. One never knows in these times of female equality.

It is a special case and the moreso because, unjustifiable possibly, this is a fallen warrior. They are bang out of order and everybody knows it. The should get lost and I daresay there are some who think the 8 judges should too.

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@engineer,

And I don't think the comparison between Glenn Beck and a grieving family has any legs to run on.

If their concern is to protest that the US allows homosexuality they should take it up with those who allowed it and not with some innocent family.

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@spendius,

The comparison with Beck has excellent legs, not because Beck and WBC are connected or say similar things, but because it shows how arbitrary your proposed censorship/allowance of physical violence is. The WBC people don't send me off the deep end. I think they are a small group of wackos desperately seeking attention and because the press eats up their provocative actions, they get it. No one takes their message seriously. If you want to stop WBC from protesting funerals, really no kidding stop them cold, protest to media outlets and demand they stop covering them. The only reason you have condoned mob violence against them is that you personally don't like their techniques. You're responding from the gut. The same hateful message is being broadcast all over the country every day but you see red because a funeral is involved. I consider Beck and his ilk to be far more dangerous to the country. There are hundreds of thousands of people who hear Beck's weird, distorted views and pay serious attention. IMO, everyday Beck is causing people anxiety, building hatred, weakening the fabric of the country. You say funerals are a special case. I say Beck is a special case. If I was willing to make just one exception to free speech, I would silence Beck... but I'm not willing to make one exception.

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@engineer,

Quote:

but I'm not willing to make one exception.

According to a leading behaviourist, Skinner or Watson--I can't remember which--that coy attitude spells doom for society.

And I don't condone mob violence. In my view WBC incite it. They have the choice. The family doesn't. The family has a dead son to bury.

Also we are discussing the USSC decision to protect WBC which I'm in favour of if it pursues its mission properly. And spewing hate is not its mission.

I've seen a Beck diatribe and it was naive. But any bitterness and anxiety he creates is here today and gone tomorrow. That family will live with its bitterness all its days. I don't think Beck is a special case.

And "stopping Media" hardly fits in with free speech. Media doesn't practice free speech anyway. It can't even handle a bare tit.

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@spendius,

Free speech as an ideal concept is a load of high sounding bollocks.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

According to a leading behaviourist, Skinner or Watson--I can't remember which--that coy attitude spells doom for society.

My attitude is not coy at all; I've stated my position very directly. I think allowing the majority to arbitrarily silence groups they don't like will spell doom for society.

spendius wrote:

And I don't condone mob violence.

spendius wrote:

Here, I think, the cops would let it be known that they were withdrawing to 3000 yards from the church and leave the silly fuckers to the mercy of the mourners and any passers by who are sympathetic to their point of view.

If you're not condoning violence why would you want the police to let it be known that they aren't going to be around?

spendius wrote:

Also we are discussing the USSC decision to protect WBC which I'm in favour of if it pursues its mission properly. And spewing hate is not its mission.

I'm sorry, the mission of WBC is to promote its distorted version of Christianity and that means spewing hate. WBC is pursuing its mission very effectively.

spendius wrote:

I've seen a Beck diatribe and it was naive. But any bitterness and anxiety he creates is here today and gone tomorrow. That family will live with its bitterness all its days. I don't think Beck is a special case.

Beck is an example, but I disagree with your saying the bitterness he engenders is here today, gone tomorrow. His rantings enter the public domain where people fret about them, turn against their neighbors, reject instead of rallying around leaders and spurn their own best interest. WBC is an unsightly pimple on the face of our country; Beck and his kind are slow growing, invisible cancers. WBC hurts today and makes you angry. Beck lays the groundwork to destroy civil society. If it is ok for those of your opinion to silence WBC, why is it not ok for those of mine to silence Beck? Who is next?

spendius wrote:

And "stopping Media" hardly fits in with free speech. Media doesn't practice free speech anyway. It can't even handle a bare tit.

True

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The decision was correct and should be extended to do away with all idiotic and unconstitutional "hate crimes" statutes.

If someone if free to do what these miscreants do, than other miscreants should be free to hang a noose from a tree.

The decision only makes sense if everyone is subject to the cruel and insensitive free speech of assh*les.

These people are despicable and I have to wonder how they have not been subject to violent restriction of their free speech.

They enjoy being outrageous in the name of The Lord...the sick turds.

Who the he'll is paying for them to travel to all of these funerals?

I hope I never have reason to see them in their filthy glory, but if I should, I can easily imagine me breaking the law with a violent response.

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@engineer,

You continually miss that I am referring to a "special case". Beck can be turned off. Laying to rest a loved fallen warrior in peace and dignity is a special case.

Here a Muslim extremist has been fined £50 for burning poppies and chanting hate slogans on Armistice Day. Two large circulation newspapers have front page banner headlines calling for the sentence to be substantially increased.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

You continually miss that I am referring to a "special case". Beck can be turned off. Laying to rest a loved fallen warrior in peace and dignity is a special case.

I understand your point, I just disagree with it. Your special case is not my special case or someone else's special case. If everyone gets special cases, then no cases are special and we have no free speech, just popular speech. If just some people get to make special cases, who decides who those people are? Do the politically powerful get to define special cases? Who defends the unpopular or unconnected from those who can enforce special cases? The Supreme Court has over the years defined how to speak politically unpopular messages in a free society and WBC complied. Because their message is unpopular and offensive doesn't mean it is unprotected.

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@engineer,

You don't understand my point. The right to lay to rest a loved son, or anybody else, in peace and dignity, has nothing to do with free speech or with courts. It is accepted worldwide. Almost on a par with breathing being accepted.

It feels right. And you know it. The opposite is taboo. It is the "special case".

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

You don't understand my point.

I do understand, I just disagree that such an important custom eclipses such an important right.

spendius wrote:

It feels right. And you know it. The opposite is taboo. It is the "special case".

This is where I don't think you get my point. This is the special case for you. If you give me one special case where I could trump someone's free speech, I wouldn't use it here. Now give 300 million US citizens a special case each and see what you have left. It won't be free speech.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

If someone if free to do what these miscreants do, than other miscreants should be free to hang a noose from a tree.

Hanging a noose from a tree in regard to racism, and not a Halloween display or some such thing, is clearly meant to intimidate and terrorize, and or even threaten violence.

It is not the same as holding anti-homosexual protests at funerals, or having racist marches down town main streets, unless these protests and marches explicitly threaten or incite violence.

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@engineer,

The custom long predates any new-fangled ideas about rights, whatever they are besides a vehicle for enriching the legal profession.

I think it is the special case for everybody except some nitwits who think they can draw attention to themselves by traducing what I see as a natural right if family is to mean anything and which I think they would expect to be honoured in their own case.

For me, they bring the concept of free speech into disrepute. They think they've found a loophole and the USSC just loves them. With the exception of Judge Alito who, it must not be forgotten, outranks Judge Jones of Dover fame.

Quote:

If you give me one special case where I could trump someone's free speech, I wouldn't use it here.

You might be taking advantage there of my being unable to provide you one, or a few, which is acceptable on A2K or even in ordinary discourse. But don't think I couldn't.

Our law is roughly based on what the man on the Clapham Omnibus thinks not on people who are in danger of refining themselves out of existence. That's my style of free speech.

It's no good distancing yourself from the members of the WBC with fine words and then giving them legal sanction. It's pedantic at the limit of its scope.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

For me, they bring the concept of free speech into disrepute. They think they've found a loophole and the USSC just loves them.

The same could be said for the KKK and Larry Flynt. Free speech is not a loophole, it is a cornerstone of the US Constitution. No matter how beloved, customs don't trump law.

spendius wrote:

Our law is roughly based on what the man on the Clapham Omnibus thinks not on people who are in danger of refining themselves out of existence. That's my style of free speech.

I disagree. Free speech in the US is not based on what a reasonable and well informed man would think, it is based on a bright white line defined in law, a line that the WBC people did not cross. You can't arbitarily move that line because of your feelings about funerals, race or pornography. The rules don't change midstream because of outrage or hurt feelings.

spendius wrote:

It's no good distancing yourself from the members of the WBC with fine words and then giving them legal sanction.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is the bedrock saying of free speech advocates going back over a century. Justice Roberts made it clear in the majority opinion that he does not agree with the WBC folks or their method of free speech, but he supports their right to say it.

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@engineer,

I don't think any man made law has priority over reverence for the dead. The law is artificial. It exists in a specific place for a specific time. You missed my reference to the family.

Quote:

Free speech in the US is not based on what a reasonable and well informed man would think.

Would think about what? That there is no line to cross. A reasonable and well informed man can tolerate many extreme opinions being expressed but knows there's a line to be crossed which is rarely considered because it is not crossed. You're saying that the law regarding a matter such as this can be decided theoretically by legal bigwigs against the bone-marrow feeling of 300 million people. That there is no line. That's a function of innocence or cynicism. After reading and seeing Judge Jones I suspect the-----er---er----well-----which do I suspect. I'm not sure which is worse.

In what way does the term "free speech" differ now between how it was used in the Constitution. Originally I assume it meant free discourse among the educated classes and the composers of the document. Why did it take 15 years to get Joyce's Ulysses freely published in the US? What's the fuss about Wikileaks all about?

" I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" just sounds good. It's a load of bollocks. I wouldn't offer a hair on my head for the WBC's right to spew that shite. You would defend that lot to the death for it!!!??? Goodness gracious me. I bet not one of the 8 judges could say that in public without everybody falling about laughing. We would be in the trenches I suppose.

I see a case in the sense that the American mission is to set aside nature including human nature. It is to be not only unashamed of the air-conditioned nightmare but to revel in it and be prepared to go all the way till the wheels fall off and burn. And the 8 judges see themselves as leaving a legacy to their replacements which enable them to become the oligarchs of the law and take over. Deciding where the bright white line is to be drawn when they are offering to defend to the death that there is no bright white line at all. Is that not incoherent or am I sober?

What does the Army think about the decision of the USSC?

And what is Justice Roberts' claim worth except to say that he's wobbly? That's like the executioner making a fine speech about the innocence of the victim and then hanging her.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

I don't think any man made law has priority over reverence for the dead. The law is artificial. It exists in a specific place for a specific time. You missed my reference to the family.

I didn't miss it. I think that man made law has complete priority over artificial ceremonies for the dead. I think man made laws have priority over all sorts of ancient customs like honor killings and genital mutilations also. Customs do not trump laws.

spendius wrote:

A reasonable and well informed man can tolerate many extreme opinions being expressed but knows there's a line to be crossed which is rarely considered because it is not crossed. You're saying that the law regarding a matter such as this can be decided theoretically by legal bigwigs against the bone-marrow feeling of 300 million people.

Yep, that is what I am saying. The line is bright and clear. It does not move around with the emotions of the mob. It does not move around because an opinion is unpopular, bigoted, hateful, etc. And yes, we select a group of "legal bigwigs" who can supposedly step away from the emotion and make decisions based on logic and law instead of mob mentality.

spendius wrote:

After reading and seeing Judge Jones I suspect the-----er---er----well-----which do I suspect. I'm not sure which is worse.

Wrong case. I'm not sure where you are going with Jones unless you are conflating creationism with free speech. That argument would merit its own thread IMO.

spendius wrote:

In what way does the term "free speech" differ now between how it was used in the Constitution. Originally I assume it meant free discourse among the educated classes and the composers of the document. Why did it take 15 years to get Joyce's Ulysses freely published in the US? What's the fuss about Wikileaks all about?

I don't know why you would assume that. I thought it was always meant from day one to allow everyone to have their soapbox without government interference. That does not mean that there aren't always people who want to shut free speech down. Sometimes they are successful, at least in the short term. Nor does the protection for free speech extend outside of the government. If you are privately employed, your boss can fire you for your free speech. The protection against free speech is protection from the government, not a guarantee for a risk free platform for your opinions.

spendius wrote:

What does the Army think about the decision of the USSC?

If you ask them if they are defending the Constitution warts and all, I'm sure they will agree that they are.

1 Reply

Westboro baptist church

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