Mississippi vs. Westboro Baptist Church

[MacGyver1968]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/praise-citizens-rankin-county-mississippi_557677.html

Most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. It seems that certain Rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had Kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over. Police were called but their wrecker service was running behind and it was going to be a few hours before they could tow the trucks so the Kansas plated cars could get out.

I find this both hilarious and disturbing at the same time. Hilarious that those crazy nutjobs missed out on their protest. Disturbed that the police and other agencies conspired to violate their civil rights.

I'm sure a lawsuit will be forthcoming.

 

[chimpkin]

I'm sure a lawsuit will be forthcoming.

Probably

Nonetheless, smiling.

Disturbed that the police and other agencies conspired to violate their civil rights.

Yeah, that's why I want to move out of the old south...I live in a big city and am okay, but in small towns good-old-boy networks are how things are STILL run.
It happens to be with a result I approve of this time...

But yeah, say we lived there and somebody torched mine and my wife's house b/c we're a pair of queer heathens?
Nobody would see anything, the police wouldn't investigate it, charges wouldn't be pressed even if there was an escalating pattern of threats or an admission of guilt.

OTOH, if I defended myself there'd be a very good chance I'd be charged, and I'd better get a VERY good attorney for that!

Good-Old-Boy affirmative action.

 

[Tiassa]

A nod's as good as a wink to blind Justice

Hilarious that those crazy nutjobs missed out on their protest. Disturbed that the police and other agencies conspired to violate their civil rights.

I'm sure a lawsuit will be forthcoming.

I'm wondering how much official collusion was necessary. Is this the sort of thing you could do with nods and winks, or is some sort of (virtual, perhaps) paper trail necessary?

The thing is that down in Mississippi, they're pretty good at this sort of thing. Many will be thrilled that, for once, the GOBs finally did something that seems, on its face, to be an actual public service. But that's really the only thing separating this action from what officials in Mississippi—indeed, in many places around this country, and not all in the South—have gotten away with too many times in the past.

The upside is that well before this gets to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, it will probably be laughed out of every courtroom in Mississippi.

Think of it this way: Wouldn't it be ironic if, in busting Mississippi officials, federal investigators provided the kind of justice, for an old, nasty bigot and his corrosive, fanatical followers, the state has long had a hard time producing for ethnic minorities?

Someone learned enough to sit on a bench in Mississippi will recognize the question, and the Good Ol' Boys will have at least one last laugh in the Westboro case. Indeed, if this somehow represented the swan song of that kind of subversive "Mississippi Justice", I suppose history would look kindly upon the trade.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Blocking in their cars was pretty funny, and for the most part innocent.

What bothered me is this part:

A few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. Turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business.

Edit: I told this story to my mother, who is from Mississippi. She said 40 years ago, they would have never been heard from again.

 

[Rhaedas]

On the surface it does seem like an ingenious indirect way of stopping their frankly immoral protests.

However, I do agree that their rights were violated, and doing a wrong to stop another wrong really isn't the best way to go about things. I don't know of any good way to stop Westboro from doing what they do legally, short of everyone just ignoring them, which will never happen.

 

[Tiassa]

Small Grits

What bothered me is this part ....

Indeed. That's an old routine among American cops. Very nearly a sacred tradition.

I don't disagree that it is problematic behavior, but as malfeasance goes, it's small grits, especially in the South. We'll have to see if and how this comes up in legal documents before we can outline the full implications of what Rankin County personnel actually did.

 

[chimpkin]

Is this the sort of thing you could do with nods and winks, or is some sort of (virtual, perhaps) paper trail necessary?

Nowadays, there's a good probablitiy cellphone calls were involved...text messaging is still a younger person's thing...small buttons...
I suspect an unofficial discussion at a local cafe' might be involved too.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Indeed. That's an old routine among American cops. Very nearly a sacred tradition.

I don't disagree that it is problematic behavior, but as malfeasance goes, it's small grits, especially in the South. We'll have to see if and how this comes up in legal documents before we can outline the full implications of what Rankin County personnel actually did.

While I hate what the WBC stands for...I only have to substitute them for a group that I agree with. Would I want a group that I'm in agreement with to experience the same treatment?

 

[Tiassa]

A bad precedent, indeed

While I hate what the WBC stands for...I only have to substitute them for a group that I agree with. Would I want a group that I'm in agreement with to experience the same treatment?

Oh, indeed. As I wrote last year:

Reverend Phelps leads a repulsive flock according to diseased ideas. But it is exactly that disgust so many feel toward Westboro Baptist Church that ought to caution against stifling them. As one who has long held unpopular ideas in close stead, I shudder to think what damage such a precedent could do. Freedom itself was once reviled; truth itself has before been locked in dungeons; and faith itself has been pierced by glowing pins.​

It's sort of the same thing here. We can't be doing that to people, and the fact that I really despise Phelps' minions doesn't mean we can make an exception.

 

[wynn]

However, I do agree that their rights were violated, and doing a wrong to stop another wrong really isn't the best way to go about things.

If a lesser evil can prevent a greater evil - then do the lesser evil.

Blocking those cars in the parking lot is a lesser evil than an aggressive protest at a funeral.

 

[Tiassa]

The obvious question

If a lesser evil can prevent a greater evil - then do the lesser evil.

Is there an identifiable outer boundary on that proposition?

 

[wynn]

I don't know.


But life is a struggle for survival, as we learn in school, right?
So why play dumb and hurt when the struggle actually happens?

 

[Asguard]

Have to agree, all they did was protest in a way by blocking traffic. Truck drivers have been known to do the same thing and shut down the city or block off Parliament. Of course here they would be in jail for harrasment so I have little sympathy for them. Personal I find it sickening that something designed to protect political speach and using it to harras people at there most vulnerable because of hatred

 

[Tiassa]

The Worst Among Us, and the Demons of Their Own Making

So why play dumb and hurt when the struggle actually happens?

Theoretically, someone has to do the right thing insofar as there's really no point to right and wrong if the standard is completely arbitrary.

And, yet, evolutionarily, we are inclined toward civility. It just seems quite silly if, in the end, we dedicate our efforts to opposing our natural inclinations in order to justify behaving like the people we consider psychiatrically incompetent.

I mean, yeah it's gross and kind of unsettling when the retarded kid in class pulls the shit out of his shorts and flings it across the room, but if he's the retarded kid, I'm not going to get too pissed off about it.

Rev. Phelps and his minions don't upset me too much anymore. They have no faith in God, which is why they pretend to be His judges. When I see them yelling about fags and dead soldiers, I just remember that these are people so insecure in their relationship with the God they made up in their own heads that they need to shout at other people in order to drown out the discord in their minds.

It's not that I don't have compassion for those who are inclined to hurt themselves, but Phelps and the Westboro crew actually want to hurt themselves, so I say leave them to their writhing agony.

Or we might simply propose that leaving them to speak is the lesser evil preventing a greater wrong. If we silence these morons, we can silence anyone.

How we treat the worst among us says a great deal about our human condition.

 

[Cifo]

I wonder if desecration of a corpse could extend to ruining a respectful burial.