Supreme Court rules – correctly, sadly – in favor of Westboro nuts
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects fundamentalist church members who mount attention-getting, anti-gay protests outside military funerals.
The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. The decision upheld an appeals court ruling that threw out a $5 million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued church members after they picketed his son’s funeral.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.
“What Westboro said, in the whole context of how and where it chose to say it, is entitled to ’special protection’ under the First Amendment,” Roberts wrote, “and that protection cannot be overcome by a jury finding that the picketing was outrageous.”
As despicable as those “church members” might be, I don’t know how the court could have ruled otherwise. Tolerating the rantings of hateful fools is part of the price we pay for free speech.
– Jay Bookman
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673 comments Add your comment
@@
March 2nd, 2011
5:09 pm
Keep:
They’re civil liberties attorneys. If I’m not mistaken, one of the daughters used to work with the ACLU.
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
5:12 pm
huckabee…
Whatever.
md
March 2nd, 2011
5:16 pm
Jo….I do have to say in relation to downstairs……history is forgotten if never taught.
I can only shake my head in amazement…….
The Adventures of Huckabee Finn
March 2nd, 2011
5:18 pm
I just know that I kin see things to my left that others can see to their right and vice versa.
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
5:22 pm
md
Which is why I’m staying clear of that thread…it’s always the same old, same old recitation of the memos…
Dan
March 2nd, 2011
5:23 pm
@md don’t worry about AmVet, I think he is a consevative plant trying to make liberals look bad
Bosch
March 2nd, 2011
5:26 pm
Doggone,
“Probably not much. They have a family business: lawyering”
I’m sure they don’t have many clients except themselves — can’t be very lucrative to take on such a case pro bono, you know?
Keep Up the Good Fight!
March 2nd, 2011
5:28 pm
@@ — ACLU filed a amici curiae brief which means that your claim that the ACLU “represented” the defendants is incorrect. It filed a brief in support of certain principles that happened to correspond with the rights of defendents. Just as 48 attorneys generals did against the defendants.
Billy Peeler
March 2nd, 2011
5:31 pm
Can’t say I agree with the Supreme Court on this ruling, but I will admit one thing: If they continue to rule consistently in regard to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights…i.e.; that they are total and absolute and must be obeyed quite literally…then I won’t complain. It’s when they start “interpreting” that we have problems with ‘em…
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
5:31 pm
josef:
I hear you ……………..
AmVet
March 2nd, 2011
5:39 pm
Dan, do you hang out often with your buddy, the second gunman on the grassy knoll?
@@
March 2nd, 2011
5:40 pm
Keep:
From the ACLU’s own website:
The ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed suit on Phelps-Roper’s behalf in July, 2006, claiming the Missouri statute was an unconstitutional violation of the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. Unlike funeral protest bans enacted in other states, Missouri’s law does not require protestors to actually disrupt a funeral to be subject to arrest. The Missouri law is also unique in that criminalizes speech occurring near any funeral procession.
“Free speech and the right to protest peacefully extend to all Americans, even if their messages are unpopular and distasteful,” said ACLU of Eastern Missouri cooperating attorney Benicia Livorsi of St. Charles, who also represents Phelps-Roper. “The government cannot pick and choose whose rights it is going to honor. Laws that restrict First Amendment rights never harm only one group; they pave the way for restrictions on the right to dissent for all groups.”
“It is not the job of the government to silence speech that we don’t want to hear,” said Brenda Jones, Executive Director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. “The response to speech that some might find offensive should be more speech explaining why we disagree, not having the police arrest those who take an opposite view.”
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
5:41 pm
AmVet
Stir it up! Things have gotten slow here…
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
5:42 pm
Probably not the popular view but I’m against taxing churches and other houses of worship. They are non-profits and yes, that can be abused, but other non-profits abuse it as well. That covers the income tax side of it, as for the property tax side of it, if you taxed the property of the church, that could be abused by a county commission/tax assesor/etc, that didn’t want a certain house of worship, in a community. That would violate the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, in my opinon.
One thing I seldom hear about, is the fact that in almost all the counties up here in the Hills, 1/4 to 1/3 of the land in the tax base is part of the National Forest, ie, no property taxes. I think having National Forests is a good thing but it shrinks our tax base considerably and those of us who live here pay higher property taxes because of it. So next time you go hiking up here on public land, remember some people are paying more of the freight than others.
@@
March 2nd, 2011
5:42 pm
Legal mumbo jumbo aside.
….on behalf of Phelps-Roper.
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
5:45 pm
@@
Free speech and funerals…check out General Butler’s General Order #28 and the case of Eugenia Yates Levy Phillips… ISH
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
5:45 pm
“An Alabama man was sentenced to death Wednesday for the 2008 slaying of an Auburn University student (Lauren Burk) from Marietta.”
Excellent !
Bosch is an idiot - Death to Bosch
March 2nd, 2011
5:47 pm
Just exercising my right to free speech as protected by the constitution. When is the funeral? I’d like to attend it from the streett with an angry crowd and big signs.
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
5:48 pm
Hillbilly
That’s pretty much my view of it, too.
Don't Forget
March 2nd, 2011
5:49 pm
Hillbilly,
Sure the national forest doesn’t provide any tax revenue for the county but it doesn’t use county services for the most part either. Since the the purpose of county taxes is to pay for county services I’m not sure I see your point.
@@
March 2nd, 2011
5:51 pm
josef:
I’ve been checking out this “Freedom From Religion Foundation”….free-thinkers they call themselves. They list Ulysses S. Grant as “free from thought” or a free-thinker if you will.
Miss Eugenia?
Because she laughed!!??!!
md
March 2nd, 2011
5:51 pm
“if you taxed the property of the church”
If gov’t continues to give churches precedence over other land owners, I’m going to start a petition to tax the crap out of them…………
This bs about not allowing alcohol sales within xx number of feet of any church is unconstitutional when the land owners around the church were there first………….
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
5:51 pm
BOSCH
Who did you pi33 off? And incidentally, I caught that post about the teacher and such comments…I don’t expect special treatment as an educator, but also it must be born in mind that we ARE in a special position when it comes to “charges…” Guilty until proven innocent, so to speak…
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
5:51 pm
In the world I grew up in, you respected the dead and their families. If you were working outside and a funeral procession passed, you stopped work and took off your had as it passed. That went even if you couldn’t stand the deceased. It’s manners, plain and simple.
I haven’t read all the comments here but skimmed a few. One thing about slander and libel laws is that they don’t apply to the dead. Have a relative who’s already been down that road and the suit would be immediately thrown out, if slander and libel were the grounds. As I understood it, the law says you can’t harm a dead person, so no libel or slander. I don’t agree with that but that’s how it goes.
Pogo
March 2nd, 2011
5:53 pm
While I too was almost fooled for a nano-second by Jays topic, Dusty has a real point and that is that the Left and the Progressives in this country just simply hate people with any religious conviction (except Islam) at all. And Jay is using these Westboro fools to “pound another nail” towards white Christians. While I myself am not that religious and believe that it is used too much for political reasons, you will never see Jay critisizing the black “ministers” and their leftist political diabribes from the pulpit. No need to go into Obama’s “former” pastor Wright or Jesse Jackson or Sharpton, is there Jay? In Jay’s mind of mind’s, the black ministers are “AOK” to mix politics and religion because their followers are black . And we all know that blacks and the the liberals have no problem with them mixing the two, right Jay? The Westboro bunch are dispiccable by any defintion. Liberals like Jay have a way of hating religion but at the same time they endorce it when it comes to that political amalgam of church and state that is the black church in America.
And as for freedom of speech, the SCOTUS made the right decision. As abhorable as the Westboro bunch are, the remnants of our freedom of speech, no matter how limited it now is, needs to be protected. But if a black church would have done the same thing as these nuts Jay would never have issued a peep.
@@
March 2nd, 2011
5:54 pm
Uhmmmm, josef:
Your name’s at the bottom of that link.
Can I have your autograph?
(IW&SH)
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
5:55 pm
Harvard has an endowment of $27B…but they are non-profit?!
Well DAMN!!! That gives a whole new perspective to being well endowed!!! Makes me feel a slight bit insignificant. However, I don’t have to have huge sums of money to make up for other shortcomings
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
5:56 pm
Don’t forget
They use our fire trucks when their controlled burns get out of hand and the Forest Service doesn’t have enough equipment to put the fire out and that happens more often than you’d realize. Most of our big fires up here are Forest Service “controlled burns” that got out of hand. Some of the roads in there are county maintained, too. There are islands of private lands within the National Forests.
I’m not in favor of taxing the National Forest, it’d be pointless as we’d be taxing ourselves to some extent but I was just pointing out the situation and the parallel between that and tax exemptions for church properties.
Keep up the good fight!
March 2nd, 2011
5:56 pm
@@ — Margie J. Phelps was the attorney arguing for the Defendants, Fred W. Phelps, Sr. et al at the case on 10.6.2010.
You may not understand that words do have meaning. Just as the 48 attorney generals who filed amici briefts in favor of positions argued by Snyder did not “represent” Snyder, his attorney was Sean E. Summers, neither did the ACLU “represent” Phelps.
Now you may think it is all legal mumbo jumbo but words do have meanings and if you cannot understand the simple legal facts even when pointed out, what credibility does any of your posts have? You are no longer ignorant of the correct facts, but your refusal to acknowledge the truth know goes beyond ignorance and now delves into intentional distortion or reflects your inability to understand nuances on certain issues (which again, if true, calls into question your ability to post intelligent commentary).
Once again, the ACLU did not represent Phelps. Phelps was not a client of the ACLU. The ACLU did what it does, it filed a brief to protect a principle of freedom.
The choice is yours. You can admit error or you can continue down the other paths.
md
March 2nd, 2011
5:57 pm
“Guilty until proven innocent, so to speak…”
That stuff about innocent until proven guilty is just a myth…..we lock folks up on a daily basis assuming guilt till proven innocent.
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
5:57 pm
Damn Pogo,
What is your problem with us Black people?
Keep up the good fight!
March 2nd, 2011
5:58 pm
For the record: A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization may be taxed on certain activities. Even a church may be taxed for some activities.
My Name Changes
March 2nd, 2011
5:59 pm
8-1 says it all. Unpopular speech is protected speech.
Huster Pimps, Union Jobbers, Westboro Fruitloops and Islamic Nutjobs can speak here in The United States.
If we ever lose this freedom we lose everything that makes our country a nation of laws instead of a nation of people.
Net Neutrality is a scheme to control you, information and personal choice. The politicians who support it want to silence dissent.
Forgive my rant, but free speech is the most important link to our liberty and I get a little heated when it comes to this topic.
jack bull
March 2nd, 2011
5:59 pm
This guy at work today was upset at the fact that Georgia, along with others, are trying(going) to pass a bill that makes any candidate on any ballot prove they were born here in this country. i told him he had to be the only person in the country that would think this is a silly bill. It should pass without 1 person opposing it. I’m kinda surprised it’s not already in place. what have we been doing the last couple hundred years, just taking em for their word?!?
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
5:59 pm
HD
I’m in your corner with handing out the cans of whoop ass!!!! Seems like your area should be able to hand a bill to the forestry service for services rendered when they have to go battle a controlled burn that got out of control.
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
6:00 pm
That stuff about innocent until proven guilty is just a myth…..we lock folks up on a daily basis assuming guilt till proven innocent.
Flashbacks???
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:01 pm
“If you were working outside and a funeral procession passed, you stopped work and took off your had as it passed.”
Attended a funeral out in no man’s land a few months ago and even the guys on their 4-wheelers pulled over and took off their hats………..”country folk” still respect the dead and grieving. But out there, they don’t pull over, they just stop in the middle of the road.
@@
March 2nd, 2011
6:01 pm
md:
We had an instance here in Clayton County where a church was told they couldn’t locate next to an establishment selling alcohol because the establishment was there first. Some churches are willing to waive that restriction.
Dave R.
March 2nd, 2011
6:03 pm
“Dan, do you hang out often with your buddy, the second gunman on the grassy knoll?”
Might as well jump into this particular pool with both feet . . .
As many of you know, I’m not even remotely a conspiracy theorist, but I just can’t convince myself that Oswald acted alone. Too many “suspend belief” bullet trajectories for my taste.
Keep up the good fight!
March 2nd, 2011
6:03 pm
Oh great…a Grasser.
@@
March 2nd, 2011
6:04 pm
Keep:
“…on behalf of Phelps”….”represented Phelps”.
All the same to me.
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
6:05 pm
md
We hardly ever use our blinkers because everybody knows where everybody else is going, anyway.
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
6:06 pm
Oh great…a Grasser.
It only hurts him politically if he didn’t inhale……
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
6:06 pm
@@
As she said, “I was in high spirits that day!” ISH
Keep up the good fight!
March 2nd, 2011
6:07 pm
@@ — and yet they are completely different.
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
6:08 pm
“Supreme Court rules – correctly, sadly – in favor of Westboro nuts”
By the way, if it’s correct it’s sure not sad. It’s what makes this country great.
Keep up the good fight!
March 2nd, 2011
6:08 pm
SoCo…..Funny!
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
6:09 pm
@@
Buy the book…I’ll autograph it! ISH
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:09 pm
“Flashbacks???”
No….I was guilty as sin…………
But, had I been innocent, I would have had to prove it…….they darn sure weren’t going to do it for me.
And for the record…….just late teen stupidity involved……no hardcore criminal here.
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
6:10 pm
While we are talking about funeral processions, I’ve had “move-ins” scoff and tell me “they ain’t got time for that non-sense”. They might want to take a look at Georgia Code 40-6-76. Failure to yield to a funeral procession is 3 points on your license.
http://www.dds.ga.gov/rules/rules.aspx?chap=375-3-3&rule=375-3-3-.01&head=375-3
AmVet
March 2nd, 2011
6:11 pm
josef, I’m too damn distracted! I’ve pretty much worked my tookas off today and very shortly I’m off to the Sweatatorium of Pain!
I just love it whenever I read the line that (fill in the blank) doesn’t pay taxes. They just pass them along. So I’ve decided I’m not paying them either! I’m passing them on to somebody else. Though I think my outstanding Jewish CPA (are they any other kinds?!) would have a ____fit.
Dave, I am ambivalent on the second/multiple shooter theory. Seems plausible, but at this point in the game, I don’t think we’ll ever know anything more than what we do now…
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:13 pm
“We had an instance here in Clayton County where a church was told they couldn’t locate next to an establishment selling alcohol because the establishment was there first. Some churches are willing to waive that restriction.”
Had a group of landowners told it would depend on who got their building up first, although the church was the last one to buy their property.
That just isn’t right………….
Don't Forget
March 2nd, 2011
6:13 pm
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
5:56 pm
That’s why I said that forest service land MOSTLY (not shouting) doesn’t use services. In other words, I see your point and agree but I doubt the expenditures represent a significant part of the county budget.
Dave R.
March 2nd, 2011
6:13 pm
AmVet, I look at it this way. If Arlen Specter was involved with the Warren Commission, it had to be screwed up in some way, shape or form.
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
6:16 pm
No….I was guilty as sin
I figured you were reflecting on the discussion about choices last night.
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:18 pm
Re: JFK…….when Clinton tells the country he will open all the Kennedy files when he takes office….gets into office and opens most of the files…..and then proceeds to say he can’t open them all due to National Security………something’s fishy.
If we could only get our hands on that Presidential Holy Crap Book of Secrets………
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
6:18 pm
My theory on the JFK assassination is that Oswald acted alone. I just find it hard to believe that people who can’t even keep their sex lives secret, could have kept a secret like a second gunman, all these years.
It’s not something I spend much time thinking about, though.
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
6:20 pm
Hummmmm ………………….
“The vote is in, and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has gone down in defeat.
In a Brandywine School District contest lasting several months, voters decided the name of the new school being built in the Brandywine Hundred neighborhood of Chalfonte should be Hanby Elementary School, rejecting the name of the second most powerful officeholder in the land.”
@@
March 2nd, 2011
6:21 pm
O-:MG, josef. I just read the entire account of your Miss Eugenia. Were I with you right now, I’d give you a great big hug.
I WILL buy the book. She sounds like my kind of hero.
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
6:21 pm
I am ambivalent on the second/multiple shooter theory. Seems plausible, but at this point in the game, I don’t think we’ll ever know anything more than what we do now
Most of what we don’t know will never see the light of day.
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:21 pm
“I figured you were reflecting on the discussion about choices last night.”
Just reflecting on the reality of the situation……….personal experiences factored in as well.
We as a nation have executed innocent men………hardly innocent until proven guilty.
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
6:24 pm
If we could only get our hands on that Presidential Holy Crap Book of Secrets………
When Clinton got into office, somebody probably whispered something into his ear that made him go
and shut him up. I wonder if Clinton didn’t shred that book himself. I couldn’t see either Bush or Obama holding on to such a book.
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:29 pm
“I couldn’t see either Bush or Obama holding on to such a book.”
I think it goes back to your earlier comment about things we’ll never know……….
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
6:30 pm
@@
Make sure it’s MY book and not the one I was commenting on! ISH
Southern Comfort (aka The Man)
March 2nd, 2011
6:32 pm
md
No disagreement from me @ 6:21 or 6:29.
Grub time here…. Catch y’all later.
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
6:33 pm
Hillbilly:
You are absolutely correct !
What nobody seems to ever mention is that Oswald got the job at the Texas School Book Depository on October 16th before the trip to Texas was even announced on November 7th and before the parade route was announced on Novemer 15th.
Unless he could see into the future it was a crime of opportunity.
If you want the best read on the subject get “A Simple Act of Murder” by Mark Furhman.
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:34 pm
“While they thwarted the regime’s first counteroffensive in eastern Libya, opposition leaders still pleaded for outside airstrikes to help them oust the longtime leader.”
Went from asking to pleading and still crickets chirping……………….
Why do nations call themselves civilized yet stand idly by and watch folks die?
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
6:37 pm
Well, looks like it wasn’t a redneck from Alabama after all …………….
“Gunman kills 2 US airmen at German airport.
Shouts ‘Allah Akbar’ before shooting”
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
6:38 pm
“FARRAKHAN: JEWS PUSHING U.S. INTO WAR”
Ah …………………… nevermind.
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
6:42 pm
My jury’s still out on it, but I do tend to lean toward being a “grasser” (love that one!) The only presidential assassination where I think it’s clear there was no real conspiracy was McKinley…I admit freely though that I’m a bit on the lunatic fringe here…
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
6:44 pm
Scout
Well, we ARE pushy, doncha know?
@@
March 2nd, 2011
6:46 pm
josef:
Absolutely! “My Mama’s War”.
I’ve been checking out this long list of “free thinkers” and what it is they “think” at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Not a very tolerant lot, they…
Free to think what they will though. No skin of my butt. In no way do they impact my thinking.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s among them. For some strange reason, I’ve always found Nietzsche intriguing. Probably ’cause he was crazy.
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
6:46 pm
0311
Haven’t read that but I know that Mark Fuhrman had a lot to do with solving the Martha Moxley case.
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
6:47 pm
md
Execution of innocent people…emotionally, I have no problem with the death penalty, but that even one innocent person may have been so put to death causes me to have to come down as against it…
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
6:48 pm
“After 30 Years, Army Takes Fitness Tests to New Levels”
“In an effort to make the physical training more like combat, the new annual “combat readiness” test will include soldiers running 400 meters — about a quarter of a mile — with a rifle, moving through an obstacle course in full combat gear, and crawling and vaulting over obstacles while aiming a rifle. Soldiers also will have to run on a balance beam while carrying 30-pound ammo boxes and do an agility sprint around a course field of cones.
And that’s just the beginning.
Soldiers also will have to drag sleds weighted with sandbags to test their ability to pull a fallen comrade from the battlefield. The combat test might be given before deployments as well as annually, but that has not been decided.”
And ………………… female soldiers will complain and the standards will be lowered for them.
“Road guard, road guard don’t be blue,
Elvis was a road guard too!”
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/02/30-years-army-takes-fitness-tests-new-levels/?test=latestnews
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
6:49 pm
Hillbilly:
Trust me. It’s a great read. Hard to put down.
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:51 pm
Jo…..this was posted downstairs….I know you want to stay out of it for the most part, but I’m curious if this is anywhere near correct……I wouldn’t normally ask, but I respect your opinion:
“For most American Jews, the core of their Jewish identity isn’t solidarity with Israel; it’s rejection of Christianity. This observation may help to explain the otherwise puzzling political preferences of the Jewish community explored in Norman Podhoretz’s book. Jewish voters don’t embrace candidates based on their support for the state of Israel as much as they passionately oppose candidates based on their identification with Christianity—especially the fervent evangelicalism of the dreaded “Christian Right.”
@@
March 2nd, 2011
6:53 pm
Some say it was the Mafia that killed JFK.
Getalife says there is no Mafia. I believe everything Getalife tells me.
(ISH)
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:54 pm
“Execution of innocent people…emotionally, I have no problem with the death penalty, but that even one innocent person may have been so put to death causes me to have to come down as against it…”
I tend to agree if there is doubt…….but folks like the Tuscon shooter that killed that little girl and others in front of everybody needs to go bye bye………
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
6:55 pm
@@
Couple of comments here…an “organization” of “free thinkers” seems a bit, well, a bit of a contradiction in terms…
As for Eugenia…my kind of woman and the kind I was raised by…
Paulo977
March 2nd, 2011
6:55 pm
Hillbilly…”So next time you go hiking up here on public land, remember some people are paying more of the freight than others.” W…e…l..l you guys are also being helped by a great supply of oxygen !!!
The Adventures of Huckabee Finn
March 2nd, 2011
6:58 pm
This land is yore land, this land is my land… I wonder if that was composed by a native amurican.
md
March 2nd, 2011
6:59 pm
@@
Here’s a little link to some speculation about the mafia and JFK you might find interesting:
Hoffa did not like JFK….and then both get whacked………….
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090316015144AA440fq
Doggone/GA
March 2nd, 2011
7:00 pm
“Execution of innocent people…emotionally, I have no problem with the death penalty, but that even one innocent person may have been so put to death causes me to have to come down as against it”
I’m against it too, but I come from a purely Christian take on it: by killing them you are depriving them of the chance to repent their crime.
md
March 2nd, 2011
7:04 pm
“I’m against it too, but I come from a purely Christian take on it: by killing them you are depriving them of the chance to repent their crime.”
As far as I am concerned, guys like Loughner gave up their right to repent when he chose to take the life of that little girl………
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
7:11 pm
md
This is an interesting one to me. I am a Southerner and as such grew up with the peculiarly Southern viewpoint of things Jewish. There is a great read on the subject which is hard to find these days, Harry Golden’s “Jewish Roots in the Carolinas, A Pattern of American Philo-Semitism ”
I have a real problem with those who would define Jews and Judaism in terms of being anti-Christian. It carries with it a real sense of anti-Semitism. Though many of the tribe would like to pretend otherwise, deep down inside we are ultimately “zionists” of some degree…if we’ve learned nothing else from the last few thousand years, it’s that while it’s nice to have friends, you best not count on them when push comes to shove, “they” (whoever “they” may be in time or place) are likely turn on you in a second. It’s not so much “Christian” (fundamentalist or other brand) as it is “them.”
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
7:12 pm
Huck
Yes, it was. Woody Guthrie. Citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
md
March 2nd, 2011
7:18 pm
Jo…thanks for your take.
I’ve always been puzzled that some folks seem to vote against their own interests……
(3,2,1…)
josef nix
March 2nd, 2011
7:18 pm
md, and Doggone
And it’s just there that I have had to try and reconcile my strong emotions and my fears of what those emotions can result in…do I believe some people are just evil? Yes. Do I ever want to be in the position of passing judgment? G-d forbid.
Del
March 2nd, 2011
7:19 pm
Evidently, the Germany shooter from Kosovo was a devout Muslim. There has been no determination as to his motive.
SnappyG
March 2nd, 2011
7:21 pm
Meanwhile a Muslim from Kosovo shoots and kills – imagine that – two US Airmen at a Frankfurt airport. (Gee, those German anti-gun laws worked well didn’t they liberals?). Obama gives a few token yawning words. Why is the world becoming so unglued at the hands of Islam? Why isn’t Obama using his Nobel Peace Prize to help fix the world? Why isn’t the liberal media and liberal Democrats screaming at gas prices like they were under Bush in 2008? What is this administration doing about ANYTHING these days? Oh silly me…….
“(NewsCore) – Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep, singer-songwriter James Taylor and “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee were among the performers, artists and authors honored at the White House Wednesday with the 2010 National Medal of Arts.”
Meanwhile Rome burns both inside and outside and they conspirators attempt to tell us how well things are going around us like this:
“Food Prices to Skyrocket; Riots Could Follow”
Go take another vacation, POTUS.
@@
March 2nd, 2011
7:23 pm
JFK was before my time. The only Kennedys I know about were Ted and his perverted nephews. I don’t see any point in spending time speculating about who shot JFK. I know his brother was also assassinated. Did Sirhan Sirhan have an accomplice too.
——————————–
I’m against it too, but I come from a purely Christian take on it: by killing them you are depriving them of the chance to repent their crime.
OR….we’re speeding up the process.
If innocent, their final and corrected judgment awaits.
Doggone/GA
March 2nd, 2011
7:24 pm
“Do I ever want to be in the position of passing judgment? G-d forbid.”
I pretty much see it the same way. The best I can say for the death penalty is that IF the crime is particularly horrendous AND there is no doubt whatsoever as to who is guilty…then the death penalty will, at best, prevent THAT person from ever doing anything like that again.
But I can never view the death penalty with anything but sorrow that it has to be used.
As for judging…I have come to believe that “judge not” is an injunction not to judge the person, not an injunction to not judge the deed.
Paul
March 2nd, 2011
7:24 pm
Dave R
Whenever new company comes to town many want to go to Dealey Plaza. When they stand on the sidewalk at the foot of the grassy knoll and look in the street at the X where Pres Kennedy was shot, then up at the window of the book depository, nearly every time I hear some variation of “Dang, everything’s so close. That’s an easy shot.” That grassy knoll isn’t someplace a half a block away. It’s right there. Spitting distance.
As to the trajectories and such, we’ve more than a few vets on this blog who’ve seen some kind of combat. I’d imagine they’d all say they’ve seen bullets do some pretty screwy things that defy logic or ballistics tables.
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
7:25 pm
@@:
See my 6:33
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
7:28 pm
Del:
I thought it was a rednick white supremist from Alabama who did the shooting in Kosovo.
Well, I’ll be ……………………
Hillbilly Deluxe
March 2nd, 2011
7:30 pm
@@
I do remember Kennedy. Don’t remember him doing too many memorable things as President, either bad or good. He was wildly popular and I think that carries over to his current rating as an ex-President. He presided over the Cuban Missle Crisis but he also presided over the Bay of Pigs. The Berlin Wall went up early in his Presidency. Times were tense back then.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that a popular President, a Kennedy, a Roosevelt, a Reagan, can get away with most anything. An unpopular President, a Nixon, a Carter, a Johnson, can’t get away with anything.
Del
March 2nd, 2011
7:31 pm
0311,
I wonder how he got the weapon in Germany. I’m sure it will be traced back here to Georgia.
0311/0317 - 1811/1801
March 2nd, 2011
7:34 pm
Del:
Did you see my 6:48 ?
A not so sneaky attempt by the Army to keep women out of the combat arms. Although I agree ………… it’s not politically correct so it’s just a matter of time.
Del
March 2nd, 2011
7:37 pm
I can vividly remember as a young Corporal with Marine Corps 2nd. Recon out in the field receiving a “Flash Actual” message transmitted in CW or Morse Code on that fateful day in November of 64 advising of Kennedy’s assassination.