Anonymous vs. Westboro

[Emet]

I am just waiting for the time when something serious DOES happen. If one of their children ends up in the crossfire, the Phelp's should end up losing all their kids for negligence IMO. What do you think of a family exposing their children to a potentially volatile situation?

While they have taken to the airwaves as of late, unless an unbalanced person shows up with a gun, your imagined scenario is very unlikely. In past protests, the police are usually in evidence, and counter-protesters are kept apart.

People bring children to all sorts of contentious and volatile protest rallies. I can't recall any instances where children were physically harmed, and while IANAL, I'm not sure the parents would be held liable.

 

[Nihilianth]

Free speech means you have the right to speak. It doesn't mean you are not accountable for what you say.

It's incitement to riot if your speech specifically encourages people to riot. Harassment is interfering with others rights to speech or movement.

No. Harassment is this: http://www.letswrap.com/legal/harass.htm.

I suppose the WBC can't really fall under the harassment thing, since they only attend one event at a time, and generally never go back to the same place.

In any case, "free speech" doesn't mean you always have the right to speak. I have demonstrated many ways in which you do not have the right to say certain things in certain times and situations. But you are right that speech in which you do have a right to doesn't mean you cannot be held accountable in other ways. Gilbert Godfry got fired by Aflack, for instance. But Aflac cannot press any charges against him.

 

[blutoski]

Yes. That is what I was asking. What the difference between 300 feet away, and directly in front of someone. Clearly, I don't think the distance of a message really makes much a difference on the mental state of the person receiving said message. I could be wrong, though.

I think there is a difference between being face-to-face, vs hearing about it.
There is much precidence. People believe they have the right to 'face' their accusers (as opposed to read testimony about accusations). It is consistent with feelling there is a difference between facing vs hearing about a protester.

I think this is quite a bit different of a scenario. For one, the billboards are directed not any one person in particular. It would be very hard to argue that it was. If not, it would be impossible.

With the WBC, it is quite obvious they are purposely targeting individual people for their messages of hate and harassment. They actually freely admit to looking through obituaries. They go so far as to buy plane tickets to travel halfway across the country for their little stunts to the exact funeral route of a dead person.

This doesn't mean they're targetting the families, though. Just that they find the funerals &c to be an example of the type of person they're obsessed with, and therefore a focal point for their travelling circus.

I'm not so concerned about whether they're being specifically targetted as much as I feel a funeral is a horrible time to mock somebody.

Not only is that creepy in a very stalkerish-type manner, but it is very troubling that a group would go to such extremes. Not even the neonazis would do such a thing. Not that I have ever heard of.

Heh, in fact, speaking of neonazis, I saw this one video which I got a bit of a kick out of. They had this one complete redneck skinhead being interviewed about his views of the WBC. His response: "They are sick freaks who go far and beyond anything even I can imagine doing to another human being!"

I suppose the good that comes out of this, is that it makes even neo-fascists look like moderates who are of the same mind as blacks and other minorities.

I wish. StormFront here in Canada has a habit of assembling at the funerals of what they consider to be undesireables. Usually Jews or blacks with a history of fighting for equal rights.

Then later, they spaypaint their gravestones or tip them over entirely, not to mention vandalizing synagogues and mosques. In Halifax, they literally burn crosses on lawns.

Not saying WBC are the good guys, but they are engaged in what I would call peaceful demonstration.