The Supremes Got It Right This Time

Yesterday, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of the crazies from the Westboro Baptist Church to protest military funerals. And they were right. Freedom of speech is not reserved for those with whom we agree.

This case should never have made it to the Supremes. Anyone with a modicum of sense and a dollup of knowledge of the U.S. Constitution would have figured out that suing the protesters was a doomed enterprise.

This is not to say that I agree with the yahoos from WBC. In fact, I rate them on a par with people who fly airplanes into skyscrapers. Like the Jihadists, these folks are driven by the twin evils of hatred and self-satisfaction that is so common among religious extremists.

But trying to curtail their right to speak is the wrong way to go. We can’t fight extremists by limiting our own civil liberties (doncha wish John Ashcroft and Bush Two had taken this advice?).

These hateful, idiotic woohoos don’t really expect to curtail patriotism or bring a halt to military funerals. They are interested solely in publicity. The best way – the only acceptable way – to fight them is to declare them irrelevant. Stop taking pictures of them, stop quoting them in the media, and for goodness’ sake, stop taking them to court.

I know this isn’t a particularly elegant post but sheesh, folks, can’t we just be satisfied to let these hateful wackos self-identify as the fringe element they are?