Justice = Served

There are a few things that I find myself avoiding on this space, simply because to write about them makes me so upset and angry and frustrated that the emotional cost is just not worth it to me. I know some of you are probably on the floor, laughing hysterically, because so much of this blog is angry ranting, but in truth, a lot of the stuff that I seem ready to grab a rifle and head for the rooftops over isn't stuff that stays with me throughout the day. I get pissed, come home, mine it for some humor, and then usually get distracted by something shiny and continue on my way. In fact, while we're talking full disclosure here, many times I actually write things that I think I can spin some good rant-based humor out of down on a pad of paper I keep in my purse because otherwise I forget.


But there are some things that, once encountered or discussed, stay with me all day, if not for multiple days, and put me in foul moods to the point of mild depression, and while I love you guys, I don't really want to do that for the sake of some ranting material. I also don't know that I could make it funny, which is part of what I like about the rants I DO post. One of these topics is the Westboro Baptist Church.


I am against the Iraq war. I don't think we should have gone, I don't think we should be there now, I don't think we're going after the right people, and I don't think it's worth the cost in lives and disregard for domestic issues. I just don't believe Iraq was the threat it was made out to be, I DEFINITELY don't believe it was connected with September 11th, and I have a lot of friends who disagree with me on at least the former count, but I have yet to be convinced that Iraq had the capabilities we were told it did OR that they were an imminent threat. Please save the covert info and whatever...I don't care. If they had substantive, confirmable evidence or a type and quality sufficient to justify this war, they would have splashed it all over creation by now. It's great that Saddam Hussein got taken out, but I think that was the end of the planning, and now we're stuck with an expired game plan.


I'm taking a course right now called Peace & War, in which we just finished discussing quite a bit of ideology involved with WWII...it's not the first place ideology has gotten involved with war, but it may be the most dramatic. With ideology, you're fighting for an idea, which distracts you from figuring out what achieving that idea actually means...as the professor likes to say, "they knew in the name of what they were fighting, but didn't know what they were fighting for." In the case of Iraq, we're fighting to "bring democracy and freedom to Iraq," so...what does that mean? What does a democratic and free Iraq look like? Who handles the national power grid, who picks up the trash, who answers the complaint line for the government? As the prof points out, crazy terrorist groups like Hamas get elected not because people think it's great to hate Israel, but because they make sure that the trash gets picked up. We haven't established any of this, and until we either do so or agree that this was a shitty idea, we're never going to win. And this is all before I get started on the "war on terror," which besides being ambiguous to the point of ludicrousness (Quick Quiz! What should you, as a resident of the United States, do in response to an "orange" terror level?), is self perpetuating...terrorists of any affiliation are reacting to a percieved slight from someone else, in this case, the US, so if the person they think is threatening them then turns around and pretty much straight up says they are coming after them, what do you THINK the reaction will be?


However, most sane and non-morally-degenerate people can figure out that the soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere are a.) not fighting to preserve and encourage homosexuality, b.) not dying because God is punishing them for that imaginary ideal. But because the world has produced all kinds of complete fucking nutbars over the span of history, there is in fact an asshole named Fred Phelps who believes that God is punishing American soldiers with death because America has tolerated homosexuality. Now, I am all for freedom of speech, and if this asshole wants to sit on his front steps and pontificate about this deranged concept to his neighborhood, fine. It's kind of like the white power people, who I feel have reached a kind of weird coexistance with the world...they spew their hatred out and people go "ah, crazies," and move on, and that's how it is until they take some kind of action, at which point the usual response is for society at large to go "no, wrong," and jail them or fine them or what have you. But Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church care not for such coexistance...no. They want to exploit the free speech allowance by protesting at soldiers' funerals, holding signs that say "God hates fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers."


I have an extensive vocabulary and am rarely at a loss to express myself, but this asshole is just beyond any kind of expression. I know that society has taken a bizarre u-turn and is headed for a world where every single goddamn thing has to be directed by law, because apparently common sense is dying off faster than any more gets developed, and no one can figure out that politeness and etiquette is supposed to fill the gulf between every action in the world and the law, but for these people to show up at the funerals given by grieving families for men and women who put their lives between a bullet and this country is so reprehensible, so fucking VILE, that I can't imagine anything horrible enough that could happen to them in order to make these families whole. This man wants to preach about how the country is going to hell...he is going to burn. If we are lucky, his PASS to hell will be gruesome, long, and beyond what even the worst directors of torture porn could ever come up with. To disrespect the funeral rites of ANYONE, much less one who served the country just so assholes like Fred Phelps can behave so disgustingly and not be shot on sight, is foul in the extreme. I want this man to lose everything - his family, his money, his every earthly possession - in the most soul-gouging manner available, and then I want him to die. I want him to die of the things that made Josef Mengele wake up screaming in the night.

I feel bad when I get this angry. I am a Quaker, I am a staunch advocate and more importantly believer in diplomacy, I believe myself to be a pretty good person and generally disposed to pacifism. But some people are just such a blight on society...an ACTIVE detriment to the overall win-loss record of humanity that my mind can't help but abandon all those good things that help me keep my head. In part, I think it's because I know that none of those peaceful inclinations would have any effect on him...if someone is so far gone as to spew this hate over something so apolitical as a funeral (or what SHOULD be so apolitical...), is there any way in hell that he could be reasoned with? I really don't think so. And somehow, I don't really care. I generally don't go for the death penalty, because I believe our justice system is so uneven that we just cannot justify giving out death as a sentence. But then there are some cases where it is so clear cut that there can not only be no argument, but there is no other option but death. If we caught Osama bin Laden, what other punishment could even come close to being proportionate to his crimes against others? While I don't feel like Phelps and his disgusting congregation should be put to death by the state, I unfortunately have to admit that upon hearing of something horrible happening to him, I'd have no remorse or sympathy for him, and would likely only feel like the world was a tiny bit better. I don't really care if that makes me a bad...whatever, it's the reality of the matter.

In any case, we're a tiny bit closer, as a judgement came down against Phelps AND his sham of a church in a lawsuit brought by a dead Marine's father for $11 million. And can I tell you, I am SO GLAD that the father sued the church itself as well, because the huge judgement may force it to close.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of folks.

The summation of this rambly post is basically that I am really effing happy about the fact that this judgement came down. I just wish people like this were a total non-issue for all of us.