What was it they paved the road to Hell with again...?

As you're probably already aware, the Westboro Baptist Church has been ordered to pay a civil judgment of $10.9 million to the family of a Marine who died in combat in Iraq. Mr. Fred Phelps and his group were protesting at the funeral, and the family successfully sued. According to the Baltimore Sun, "The jury found the defendants liable for violating the Snyder family's expectation of privacy at the funeral and for intentionally inflicting emotional distress".

I don't think many people would argue that what Phelps and his ilk do is right. They are disturbed and disturbing individuals, and they shame the Christian world with their hate. But this ruling, as appropriate as it seems on the surface, is setting a dangerous precedent for the future of freedom of speech in this country, especially religious free speech, which is already on shaky ground.

While many people are aware of the various hate speech laws that have been passed in countries like Canada and Sweden, where certain portions of the Bible have been labeled as hate speech, far too few people are aware of the efforts, sometimes successful, to get similar legislation passed here in the United States. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, originally drafted in 2001, has recently been passed by the Senate. The bill would add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability to the demographics currently protected by hate crimes laws. President Bush has said he will veto it, but i doubt they will stop trying. And already people in this country are being arrested on hate speech charges. In Philadelphia, 11 people were arrested and 4 were set to stand trial for protesting at a gay pride parade. They were being charged with three felonies and five misdemeanors for praying and reading the Bible aloud at an event known as "Outfest". Luckily the charges were recently thrown out. And a Brooklyn man has been arrested and is facing hate crime charges for throwing a copy of the Koran in a toilet at Pace University. And right here in California, where I live, Gov. Schwarzennegger just signed a bill into law that makes the same changes to California's hate crimes laws as the Senate's bill would make to the federal laws. It takes effect in January.

The Westboro judgment has set a precedent for other lawsuits against Christians. As despicable as their message is, Phelps and his people weren't actually breaking any laws. Apparently they have been very careful to observe every restriction on where and when you can protest, limits on distance and such. So it's not any legal violations that they've been sued for, it's their message. Which means that now any Christian that says something that someone finds objectionable can be sued for it. And if it's not the means but the message, why stop at protests? Why not sue a priest or minister for telling his congregation that homosexual behavior is a sin? Why not sue a blogger or columnist for writing that Islam is a violent religion? People in Canada and Sweden have been jailed for doing just those things.

This ruling is bound to set off a wave of anti-Christian lawsuits across the country. And when it gets bad enough, all it will take to cross over from civil to criminal law is one liberal judge. It's already happening in Philadelphia and New York without that precedent, so just imagine how bad it will get with the precedent. And once speech contrary to "progressive" ideals is a crime, it's only a matter of time before Christianity itself is labeled hate speech, and outlawed.

Already a growing number of both liberal and conservative columnists and bloggers are expressing similar concerns about the potential consequences of this case. Even some Gay Rights blogs and college progressives are worried about what might happen to the First Amendment as a result, which is indicative of the larger threat to civil liberties this poses. And just in case anyone wants to brush these concerns off as paranoia, even legal blogs are discussing the threat.

So why has so much effort been put into pathetic little scabs like the Phelps clan, when the KKK and various Neo-Nazi groups still enjoy their First Amendment rights? If we have to suffer the racist ravings of these people for the sake of freedom of speech, what makes the Westboro slime any different? Is it simply because nobody has taken the KKK seriously in decades? Or is it because their right to spew their venom has already been upheld in federal court? I don't know which would be worse, the criminalization of Christianity, or being forced to cite the federal protection of racist scum to prevent it, thereby drawing a perverted sense of equivalency between the two.

Also relevant to this issue is the fact that nobody is being arrested or sued for anti-Christian hate speech. When was the last time someone was jailed for urinating on the Bible? Forget jail, we'll give them a federal grant! When was the last time someone even suggested prosecuting someone for anti-Christian hate speech? It's hard enough just to get actual threats against Christians investigated, let alone prosecuted! But as soon as you point out the double standard, you are labeled as "homophobic" or "Islamophobic". I applaud the handful of liberals, like those that wrote the above mentioned blogs, that have the courage to speak out against such things regardless of the heat they will probably get for it from their peers. As the wise Dumbledore once said, "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends."

Since when do liberals care about genocide?

Well, after a really long absence, I'm back. I thought that work had calmed down enough in February to allow me to get back to blogging. Wow, was I wrong. But I've decided that I will try to post at least one blog a week. Shouldn't be too hard, right?

Not too long ago there was an attempt by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass a resolution labeling the killing of Armenians in Turkey a century ago as genocide. On the surface, this would seem like a good thing, right? Liberals recognizing the serious nature of genocide? There's a first time for everything, I guess.

But their timing, as well as their track record, casts serious doubt on the motives behind this resolution. So far, the Democratic-led congress has been incapable of making a dent in our war efforts, and they're growing desperate. Their approval rating is 11%, due to their failure at ending "Bush's war". And their complete unwillingness to even talk about current, active genocidal situations like Darfur makes one doubt their sincerity. So why would Pelosi be pushing such a resolution?

Turkey is our only real Muslim ally in the Middle East. They have given us military fly-over permission as well as other assistance in Iraq. Without their cooperation, this war would be vastly more difficult. Turkey has always been a bit touchy on the whole genocide thing. Ottoman Turks took it upon themselves a century ago to slaughter an estimated 100,000 Armenian civilians. Sure sounds like genocide, but Turkey insists that the tragedy was due to civil unrest, and that the numbers are smaller. Regardless, present day Turkey is not the Ottoman Empire. The current Turkish government is not culpable for attrocities of the past. That's not to say that such things shouldn't be remembered. Just like slavery in America, we should always remember, but present day Americans are not responsible for it. Of course, liberals try to pin that on us too.

Democrats and liberals don't have a very good reputation for being concerned with the attrocities commited in other countries. They are completely ambivalent in regards to the slaughter in Darfur, or the human rights violations in North Korea and Iran. They could care less about the oppression of Cuba or the rampant beheadings in Saudi Arabia. But suddenly they've got their panties in a twist about a possible genocide a hundred years ago? You might be able to chalk it up to the typical liberal pattern of jumping on a cause that has absolutely no impact on anything rather than actually getting their hands dirty with something that matters. But I doubt it.

This resolution was a deliberate attempt at destabilizing our diplomatic relationship with Turkey in the hopes that they would withdraw their logistic cooperation in Iraq. Simply suggesting the resolution was enough to make Turkey recall its U.S. ambassador. Luckily, the effort was just as impotent as everything else this congress has tried to do. Pelosi couldn't scrape up enough support to put it through, and then decided to back off herself. Even Rep. John Murtha voiced his opinion that the resolution was poorly timed and undermined our relationship with a valued ally.

You would think that the Democrats would have jumped all over a chance to possibly hinder our efforts in Iraq. The fact that they didn't just goes to show how underhanded and poorly thought out this resolution was. Are Democrats so panicked about ending this war that they are willing to alienate one of our most important allies to do it?

It makes you wonder what other bridges they'd be willing to burn to end the war in Iraq. Just how much damage are they prepared to do to this country in order to secure our defeat? As if the fallout from a withdrawal of U.S. troops wouldn't be bad enough, now they want to make sure we have no friends left when it all hits the fan.

We need all the allies we can get right now. We shouldn't be slapping the few we already have in the face. Perhaps one day we will have a chance to sort out history and figure out what really happened in Turkey a century ago. Now is not the time.

So much for, "give peace a chance"...

I'm back! First off, let me apologize to any readers I might have for being away for so long. Work has been more than crazy for weeks. But now it's tapered off, and I have the time to get back to blogging.

As you may already know, there was a suicide bombing in Afghanistan yesterday, reportedly targeting Vice President Dick Cheney. While the blast killed several people and wounded others, Mr. Cheney was some distance away and was not injured, but a Taliban spokesman said Mr. Cheney was indeed the target.

If you would like more information on the attack itself, you can read the article. What I would like to talk about is the reaction to this event here at home, among the liberal community. To put it simply, many liberals are disappointed that Mr. Cheney was not killed. Here are some examples of their reactions:
"They missed?? Dammit. I hope they try again before he leaves."
"So Cheney is personally responsible for the deaths of 14 innocent people…and then he waddles off to lunch!! What a piece of shit!"
These quotes were apparently taken from this blog, before being cleaned up. This other blog apparently has a transcript of the post that was saved before it was changed, but as of writing this, the link doesn't seem to be working.

Never before, in the history of this great nation, has there ever been a domestic movement that has so openly and enthusiastically supported and empathized with the enemy of not only this country, but of all of humanity. No matter how hard I try, I just cannot figure out what makes these people tick. Liberals are cheering this attempted assassination of their own vice president, feeling that Mr. Cheney's death would somehow be just. Even if there were a U.S. politician who deserved to be punished for something, having him blown up by foreign terrorists would not be the way to accomplish it! I urge you to search the various liberal blogs for this topic, and read the reader comments. They really don't seem to care what kind of secondary effects Mr. Cheney's death would have had. They don't care that it would be of tremendous value to the propaganda machine of the terrorists. They don't care about the detrimental effects it would most likely have on our own political system. They make very little mention of the two Americans that died in the blast, or the other Americans that would have been killed had the attack been successful.

But then, they were just soldiers, just Mr. Cheney's staff, no big loss if they were killed beside him. And our capitalist pig government could use some destabilizing. And why not support the terrorists? After all, they have so many goals in common. Modern liberalism is a lie. They don't want peace. They don't detest bloodshed. They don't want to see the west cooperate with the rest of the world in a compassionate and caring manner. They want the west to be destroyed. And I don't think most of them even realize that's what they want. But when you ask them about the individual components of what they want, all the very worst parts of it coincide perfectly with what the Islamic terrorists want. They want democracy, capitalism, and Christianity to be exterminated. They claim that they grieve for every American who dies, and yet they openly admit that they would like nothing better than to see the brutal assassination of one particular American. This from the same people that decry the death penalty, saying that no one has the right to kill another human being, for any reason.

I chose the two quotes above out of the many others because they struck me as particularly telling of the liberal mindset. The first expresses a desire to see a second, more successful attack on Mr. Cheney. They don't seem to care about the fact that this would almost certainly be done with another suicide bomb, probably an even bigger one, resulting in the deaths of who knows how many more innocent people, including Americans. This is an example of the two-dimensional thinking of liberals. This is how small children think. I want the cookie. Mommy has told me not to eat the cookie. But Mommy isn't here right now, so I'll eat the cookie. Not realizing that every action has consequences, no matter how desirable it may seem at the time, is juvenile. Liberals are only concerned with what they want right now. They don't care about the future, and they don't care about how it will affect the people around them. They are children.

The second quote attempts to lay the responsibility of the deaths caused by the suicide bomber on Mr. Cheney. As if he is somehow liable for the actions of a homicidal maniac who blew himself up, killing as many innocent people as he could. The quote says, "personally responsible". Just like President Bush is "personally responsible" for 9/11, right? Liberals are incapable of understanding the concept of responsibility. A careless woman burns herself with a cup of coffee, and it's the restaurants fault. A criminal falls down a flight of stairs while robbing a house, and it's the homeowners fault. A psycho rapes and murders some school girls, and it's anybody's fault but his. And now the Vice President of the United States of America is "personally responsible" for the deaths of the people killed in a suicide bombing that targeted him. The concept of true responsibility terrifies liberals. They can't handle it, so they pass it on to someone else. Once again, this is something that children do. "It's not my fault, he made me do it!", or, "It's not my fault, he made me angry!" Who hasn't heard a child say something like this? And just like liberals, they really believe it.

The liberals and the Islamo-facists have one other thing in common. They are both revealing to the world exactly what they are. They aren't shy about it anymore. And they aren't shy about admitting their shared agendas either.

To vote, or not to vote: The People's Republic of Massachusetts

Yesterday, January 2, 2007, lawmakers in Massachusetts voted to allow a proposed amendment to the state constitiution to move forward. It will be on the ballot in 2008. This amendment would ban any further gay marriages in the state, but leave the existing ones alone.

Gay marriage has been legal in Massachusetts since 2003, after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that it was unconstitutional not to allow it. Opponents of the decision have so far been foiled in their attempts to put the matter to a vote. Even this most recent decision was almost derailed, after the state legislature recessed last fall without voting, then again with a vote to push this vote back to the 2nd, the final day of the session, and again on Tuesday, with Democratic Gov.-elect Deval Patrick urging lawmakers to skip the vote, and again with some back and forth voting on whether or not to reconsider. It finally went through with a vote of 62-134, giving it 12 more votes than the required 50. Supporters and opponents of gay marriage were both gathered outside the Statehouse, waving signs and such.

In addition to the blatant attempts to stiffle the democratic process by the left, I am also intrigued by what some of the gay rights activists outside the Statehouse told reporters. They said that the civil rights of a minority should not be put to a popular vote. What, so democracy is only a good thing if it doesn't conflict with your agenda? The reason activist judges are so popular with the left is because that's the only way they can get anything done. The people of this country don't want liberalism to rule their nation, which is why they almost always vote against it. Liberals know there aren't enough people in this country willing to vote for their warped ideals, so they use activist judges to force feed them to the people. Then, when the people finally demand a vote, the liberals do everything in their power to squash it before it ever gets to the ballots. It has happened here in California with a number of things, from illegal immigration laws to gay marriage.

Liberals don't believe in "majority rules", because they know that the majority isn't liberal. Liberals are elitist. They think that they know better, so it doesn't matter what the rest of the world wants because we're too stupid to know what's good for us. The peons shouldn't get to vote against the liberal garbage because they just simply aren't worthy enough to argue with their betters. That's the only explanation I can come up with, and their behavior to date seems to support it. Liberal politicians seem to think they can do whatever they want, and their money and status will rescue them if they get in trouble. They think they are above the law. When conservative politicians get in trouble their colleagues are often the first to turn them in. All their money and clout suddenly doesn't mean anything, and their base is no longer willing to support them. These are of course generalities, but they have been demonstrated on both sides time and time again.

This elitist mentality can be seen in their attitudes and policies toward the very minorities they claim to be protecting. They believe in things like affirmitive action, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and preferential treatment of "alternate gender lifestyles" because they honestly believe that minorities shouldn't be held to the same standards as the majority. They believe that if they were held to the same standards, they would fail to meet them. They believe that minorities aren't good enough.

Socialism is rule by the elite. Communism is rule by the elite. They placate the people while stripping them of their power. These are the two political models that modern liberalism venerates and tries to emulate. They don't care what the people want, they just want a free pass to do whatever THEY want. The democratic process be damned. And they are more than willing to step on the majority if it gets in their way.