Reflections From a Murky Pond

In an Eight to One decision the United States Supreme Court upheld the earlier appeals court ruling and sided with Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church in the case of Snyder v Ph elps. The $5 million judgment against them has been nullified.

Justice Samuel Alito was the lone though very passionate dissenter, as was to be expected.

In a nutshell the SCOTUS’ ruling once again confirmed that unpopular speech and/or expression – Phelps’ brood’s rantings are about as unpopular as it gets – is protected by the 1st Amendment of America’s constitution. They further, by their ruling, in effect reiterated that people cannot use tort law to circumvent the constitutional limitations upon criminal law.

We, the People cannot allow the government at any level to enact laws that curtail freedom of speech by the People, nor can we allow judges to use lawsuits and punitive damages to do the same. Allowing such would lead to greater lasting harm than anything that the Westboro traitors could achieve on their own.

As much as allowing Phelps’ brood of traitors to continue their attacks upon America’s military and military dependents sickens and outrage me, the SCOTUS arrived at the only right decision.

If Americans want to solve for the problem of Westboro Baptist Church and the Phelps brood, then we’re going to have to do it in an extra-judicial manner.  Preferably this should be done in a manner that sends a clear message to any other domestic enemies that would attack our troops and their families in this or any other manner.

Sadly, I don’t think we have the courage and conviction anymore to do this as it would need to be done; we’re too squeamish to enact a pogrom of rape, mutilation, and murder against them with an emphasis on targeting their women, children, and grandchildren, and we’re far too cowardly to sacrifice ourselves up to the law when finished.

So Westboro won 8-1 in the SCOTUS and will continue to win the privilege of attacking our troops and their dependents because we, the People won’t put aside our sensitivities and do what is necessary to put a stop to their atrocities.

Tags: Courts | Fred Phelps | Homophobia | Law | Military | National Security | Shirley Phelps-Roper | Treason | US Supreme Court | Westboro Baptist

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.