Anonymous Goes After GodHatesFags.com

An anonymous reader writes "Anonymous is now recognised as a serious force to be taken seriously, but its activities aren't confined to mass global protests, as the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, is discovering, according to p2pnet. Says the Examiner, 'Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for their "Love Crusades," obnoxious displays of insensitivity and homophobia at the funerals of fallen American soldiers. The controversial if monotone message of the "Love Crusade" seems to be to blame everything that is wrong in the world on homosexuality. The crusades are part of a hate-based mission started in Kansas by the WBC and Fred Phelps.' In an open letter on AnonNews, 'We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People – have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism,' says Anonymous, stating 'Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS.'"

Comments

I don't think they care

[pipatron]

I don't think their target group knows nor care about what a computer is, so ANONYMOUS won't be able to do much damage here.

Re:I don't think they care

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unfortunately, your contemporary wackjob zealot obtains his morals from a questionable understanding of iron age writings about a sociopathic tribal deity; but often shows an otherwise modern understanding of things like computers and small arms...

Re:I don't think they care

[Weezul]

Worse, I doubt anonymous cares about Fred Phelps. heh

Anonymous must fundamentally be about the lolz. You're welcome to credit anonymous if you get even bigger lolz by inciting Fred Phelps. Yet, I'm not sure that's possible, meaning any normal reaction will already involve lolz. Don't let me stop you from trying! Just please make sure your shit is actually funny before you take on the anonymous label.

If otoh you're just looking for some good ol' internet vigilantly action, may I humbly suggest Muskegon MI Prosecutor Tony Tague. Our dear public servant Tony has clearly got a full plate what with a serial killer on the loose in his town. Yet, he find ample time to prosecute a youtube comedian for tasteless editing. Yes, that right, he's sending some poor kid with a guitar up the creek for 20 years over bad taste in editing.

I'd never call harassing Tony Tague, or the parents that put him up to it, an Anonymous action, well no epic here, maybe if the kid was a funner singer, but meh. I'm confident however that many people feel rather annoyed by grandstanding prosecutors and retarded paranoid parents. And clearly this prosecution goes beyond the pale. So here's your chance to vent some frustration and take a stand against stupidity. Just call Tony Tague's office tell his secretary what an ass hat he is for abusing due process like this.

I'm sure they'll be posting the complaining parent's telephone numbers all over /b/ too, but honestly I doubt America's breeders will gain any collective intelligence just because some get bitch slapped by /b/, something awful, etc.

Re:I don't think they care

[Hatta]

One income source for WBC is lawsuits. They provoke people into confrontation and sue for damages. If they have anyone technically competent around it would be trivial for them to identify and sue participants in a DDOS, ADDING to their cash flow.

Re:I don't think they care

[palegray.net]

If they have anyone technically competent around it would be trivial for them to identify and sue participants in a DDOS, ADDING to their cash flow.

You've just demonstrated a severe lack of knowledge about the basics of DDoS operations. It is most assuredly not trivial, especially when tens of thousands of compromised machines owned by people who are barely aware of the location of the power switch are involved. Even assuming a handful of folks were stupid enough to carry this out in a manner that were to permit their apprehension, there are probably going to be jurisdictional issues to contend with (likely crossing national borders), coupled with the age old adage that "you can't get blood out of a stone." In other words, good luck identifying any actual willful participant, and good luck getting any money out of said person should you manage to drag him into court.

tl;dr version == Ha, good luck with that.

Re:I don't think they care

[mark-t]

But the point that the GGP post was trying to make, I think, is that being disconnected from the Internet is not likely to impede this sort of group because they are not overly reliant on that technology to function.

Re:I don't think they care

[Xaositecte]

it's difficult to tell the difference from the attackee's end, and nearly impossible to prove in a court of law. The defense can point to the existence of botnets and how easy it is to get infected, and furthermore deny all knowledge of the events, even if they were intentionally DDoSing.

Re:I don't think they care

[symbolic]

I think Anonymous, in this case, will be destroying a cultural icon. I mean, come on - the site reads like a web comedy.

Re:I don't think they care

[retchdog]

on the contrary, the "godhates$foo" websites (there are a LOT of them) are fairly sophisticated, easily in the 90th percentile of baptist websites... i like to keep an eye on these loons, partly as a barometer and partly for the black humor.

the weird thing is, the sites already tend to load very slowly; i can't imagine it's demand.

Re:I don't think they care

[mark-t]

It would be difficult to take the fight to meatspace and remain anonymous.

Re:I don't think they care

[plover]

The WBC are definitely not loons. They're barrators with a money stream that looks like this:

1. Select a sign guaranteed to offend people in a 100% legal fashion, and chant carefully worded slogans trolling for a reaction.
2. Receive reaction in the form of ??? (a punch in the nose, or a city council bannination, either works)
3. File lawsuits and profit !!!

What anonymous seems to be failing to understand is that they're just a bunch of amateurs, while the WBC are *professional trolls*. They make their living by trolling. They will not be stopped by other trolls, as they are simply too disciplined to fall for a troll. It's like trying to con a con-artist.

Some of the other God Hates $(foo) groups may be loonies who believe the hateful crap they're defecating on the world, but do not count the WBC in that group. There is actually little chance the WBC believes their own crap. They just substitute the value for $(foo) that looks like it will offend the local crowds the most.

Re:I don't think they care

[retchdog]

have they really won much, or even anything? all I've heard is of their being smacked down, including a huge judgment against them (although it was overturned). anyway, from their websites; videos; and the interview with Phelps' son (who left them at 18), I'm completely convinced they are serious loons. You are right though, from the way Phelps describes his take on "love thy neighbor," he considers it his duty to troll the world. Their theology is an extreme branch of Calvinism, but not unique to them.

as for anonymous, if scientology and everyone involved with HBGary haven't taken down anonymous yet, WBC has no chance. scientology has, for free, dozens of lawyer-believers of phelps' calibre or better, along with /much/ dirtier tactics, and they've scored almost no points.

Re:I don't think they care

[sumdumass]

I'm not sure saying well viruses and bot nets exist would be enough to make the claim your computer was suffering from that when it participated in an illegal activity.

chances are, when they are named in a lawsuit, an order to clone the hard drive will come with it and they will likely look for the ddos software and ignore the virus or trojan or whatever put it there.

You are likely going to have to show your computer was controlled outside of your awareness and that you took steps to prevent that which failed in some way.

Re:I don't think they care

[mabinogi]

How long has the definition of "Natural" been "Leads to Reproduction"?

And to think that all this time I thought it meant "occurs in nature without the aid of Man".

Re:I don't think they care

[rgbatduke]

Sorry, but the Old Testament was probably written in the interval between 500 BCE and 800 BCE, solidly in the iron age. In fact, Tubal Cain in Genesis was reported as an "Artificer in iron", an anachronism as wide and glaring as steel swords and Middle Eastern plants and animals in the New World in TBOM, but anybody who thinks that it rained at a rate of six inches per minute on every square foot of the planet for 40 days straight isn't going to be put off by a little thing like consistency. You're confusing it with the time being written about -- Moses (if he lived at all and wasn't just a myth or legend being recalled by means of an oral tradition some 500-800 years after the fact) would have been dated at the very end of the Bronze Age in the Middle East (the Iron Age is usually dated at around 1200 BCE) , but the tribe that would one day become the Israelites didn't have writing (as far as archeology can tell) until 1000 BCE and didn't write the very first books of the Torah until much later (and then rewrote them after the Babylonian captivity, as it isn't clear that any of the original manuscripts survived).

However, I agree, that even at the Iron Age time of writing the moronic morality was so yesterday, just so Bronze Age...(sniff) rgb

Re:I don't think they care

[toriver]

We'll still have chick.com to entertain us.

Re:I don't think they care

[sqldr]

Well it's a time for revolution and all that, what with the middle east starting to understand the concept of free speech (unless you criticise the prophet), and anonymous infiltrating the bastions of power to show what a bunch of arseholes people in power are. But you can't have a decent revolution without a decent alternative, Possibly the greatest moment in English history wasn't the English civil war where we won the democratic right to vote to be arseholes to Irish catholics, but the "bloodless revolution" where the king fucked off after seeing a huge Dutch army turn up with civil rights on their minds.

Lets take the October revolution for example. I am no place to consider myself an expert on communism.. in fact, nobody is because Marx's manifesto is 1000 pages long and so impenetrably boring that no man on earth has ever read it. The gist of his argument is that when feudalism was replaced by capitalism, we had birthright dictators replaced by entrepreneurial dictators. Same shit, different possibly undeserving leader.

He wrote a 3 stage plan to get to his classless, stateless society:

1) install a "dictatorship of the proletariat"
2) put the means of production into the hands of its utilsers
3) after educating the people, reinstate democracy

This has a problem - dissent. The Russians routinely shot people who didn't agree. It also has the problem of countries around them whose economies are working fine. The only way communism could work is if the whole world was communist.

Anyway, nobody ever got past stage 1, so we have never seen communism at its "finest". The Chinese had a bloody good go at stage two. They called it "the great leap forward". It resulted in the biggest famine in the history of the human race. In fact, to defend my country about the Irish potato famine which was more down to incompetence and neglect than anything else, I just have to say LOOK AT THESE PRICKS!! and the condemnation is diverted.

So it's all very well shouting at the bad and attacking them, but unless you can work out a good, you have no revolution. So what are anonymous trying to achieve other than inflating their egos?

Re:I don't think they care

[vadim_t]

Natural == occurs in nature. That's all it is. It doesn't mean it's optimal, good for the individual or the species, or anything else. Homosexuality occurs in nature, therefore it's natural.

How's if Darwin had intended us to fly he would have evolved us wings? Yea.. something still doesn't sound quite right.

Eh? There's no intention in evolution. There's only genes that get passed on.

Re:I don't think they care

[kanweg]

Not natural? It is common in nature. See for example this book (at least take a look at its great cover, e.g. on Amazon. com):
Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

And of course if you Google for pictures on animal homosexuality and you'd have to change your mind about it not being natural.

Bert

Re:I don't think they care

[nosferatu1001]

So, gay animals arent "natural" either? Do couples that cant have kids lose their right to be a "natural" relationship?

Damn you're ignorant.

Re:I don't think they care

[Weezul]

To elaborate, the anonymous moniker works best when you're extracting lolz from the powerful, CoS, USA, Ben Ali, BoA, etc. If you're lolz target the marginalized & powerless like Fred Phelps, then : Why bother with anonymity? Just take the damn credit since you'll never be hurt by them.

Imho, you're unlikely to extract any reactions from Fred Phelps that're more lol worthy than his standard operating procedure. No worries, just find some nice photo of Phelps & his morons, and fucking photoshop them. You'll make us all smile while reminding us how stupid American christianity becomes.

Re:I don't think they care

[CompMD]

"There is actually little chance the WBC believes their own crap."

You should listen to the interviews that Megan Phelps (Fred's granddaughter) has done with Kansas City alternative radio station KRBZ 96.5.

I live in Eastern Kansas and have had to deal with these idiots on occasion. They are genuinely nuts.

Re:I don't think they care

[sumdumass]

Lol..

so your saying that if something commits genetic suicide in the wild, it's still natural according to evolution?

BTW, you should probably reread what I said. Does "But from a purely biological evolution standpoint, Darwin needed but not God," make it appear that I was intentionally limiting my comment to the specifics of evolution and survival of the fittest and not nature in general?

Because not only does that appear to be the case from the wording alone, it was also the entire point and intent of placing those specific words into that one line of thought.

Re:I don't think they care

[sumdumass]

Did you miss the part about this pertaining to evolution? Yes, organisms hit the kill switch all the time and go extinct in nature. But it's not natural to want to do so when you know it will happen.

Eh? There's no intention in evolution. There's only genes that get passed on.

agreed.. so it made just as much sense as the parent's idiotic statement.. Hence the "Yea.. something still doesn't sound quite right".

Re:I don't think they care

[sumdumass]

Ok, first, before you start making claims of ignorance, you can reread my post and see exactly where I said natural within the scope of biological evolution- darwinism, not nature in general. Your entire point about homosexual animals in nature points to your complete lack of reading comprehension and you own ignorance.

For any species to survive, they need to reproduce. According to natural selection, the strongest traits that give the most advantage survive. It is not natural in this sense, that a portion of the gene pool would intentionally commit suicide.

And yes, from an evolutionary standpoint, couples who cannot have kids are having sex naturally if they know the act will not produce offspring. But they do not lose any rights just as homosexuals do no lose any rights. They from an evolutionary standpoint, simply aren't going to forward their genes to the next generation.

I made a specific comment about a specific situation only to show how absurd the parent's specific comment about a specific situation was and here you and half of slashdot are ignoring the entire thing to jump to whatever you want it to mean.

Re:I don't think they care

[vadim_t]

Did you miss the part about this pertaining to evolution? Yes, organisms hit the kill switch all the time and go extinct in nature.

Right. Or simply don't succeed at reproducing

But it's not natural to want to do so when you know it will happen.

So it's not natural not to want to have children?

Again, if it happens in nature, it's natural. It's perfectly possible for one to be born with a preference for one's own gender, lack of interest in sex at all, lack of ability to have sex due to lack or non-function of required organs, and so on. And all those things can happen perfectly naturally, even if it ultimately leads to not having any descendants, or even to the species collectively committing suicide.

Besides, the fact that homosexuality hasn't been bred out of the gene pool suggests there is some advantage to it. One theory is that since people with a preference for their own gender don't have children, they're available to support the rest of the family. So if say, a father passes the "gay gene" to two children, one of who turns out straight and the other gay, the gay one is fairly likely to end up living alone or at least without children. By doing so, he'll have more money and will be able to support his brother in times of need. By helping his brother survive, he also helps perpetuate the gay gene his brother carries.

Evolution is not about individuals, it's about species, or more exactly, genes (since species are an arbitrary human concept). It's entirely compatible with individuals engaging in acts that are suicidal or leading to no reproduction, so long the overall effect is beneficial.

Also it's funny that you have such a rigid conception of how things are supposed to be, when they vary so much. Look at other organisms, like bees. A hive has a grand total of one breeding female, and is populated entirely by sterile females except during the short time males are needed for breeding. But as weird as that is from a human point of view, it's entirely natural and has been working for bees perfectly fine.

Re:I don't think they care

[sumdumass]

So it's not natural not to want to have children?

From an evolutionary standpoint.. no, it's not natural to not want to carry your genes on. That's entirely how evolution as we know it works.

Again, if it happens in nature, it's natural.

And again, I siad nothing about in Nature, I said from an evolutionary standpoint.. The rest of your comment is nothing but you listening to yourself because it has little or nothing to do with what I said.

Besides, the fact that homosexuality hasn't been bred out of the gene pool suggests there is some advantage to it. One theory is that since people with a preference for their own gender don't have children, they're available to support the rest of the family. So if say, a father passes the "gay gene" to two children, one of who turns out straight and the other gay, the gay one is fairly likely to end up living alone or at least without children. By doing so, he'll have more money and will be able to support his brother in times of need. By helping his brother survive, he also helps perpetuate the gay gene his brother carries.

Actually, the suggestion is more obvious then that and can be derived without attaching some anthropomorphic altruism to it. If it hasn't been bread out of the gene pool, it's because it's either a choice someone makes and not a genetic mutation, or it's because the mutation occurred as a kill switch in the offspring of two somehow incompatible parents. Your reliance on social behaviors is somewhat disqualified as the vast majority of fathers tend to disown their homosexual offspring as it somehow shows a sign of weakness in them to accept them. And it's societal customs, that seems to be changing that somewhat (it's a learned behavior).

Also it's funny that you have such a rigid conception of how things are supposed to be, when they vary so much. Look at other organisms, like bees. A hive has a grand total of one breeding female, and is populated entirely by sterile females except during the short time males are needed for breeding. But as weird as that is from a human point of view, it's entirely natural and has been working for bees perfectly fine.

And if that queen bee, or one breading female bee, turns gay and stops producing offspring, the entire hive is wiped out. Well actually, no because there are other breading females capable of taker her place. In fact, that's pretty much how the hives spread.

The point of evolution is to allow the fit genes to survive and move on while suppressing the unfit. If you are mentally grouping yourself into the unfit portion and committing genetic suicide, you have gave up on survival of the fittest. BTW, Just because it's not evolutionarily natural, doesn't mean it's wrong. I never said or implied that.

Re:I don't think they care

[vadim_t]

From an evolutionary standpoint.. no, it's not natural to not want to carry your genes on. That's entirely how evolution as we know it works.

Sure it is. It's certainly not productive, but if you were born like that, it's entirely natural. Again, "natural" doesn't say anything about whether it's good for you or the species. There's no mandate from above to reproduce, it's just that things that do tend to persist.

And again, I siad nothing about in Nature, I said from an evolutionary standpoint.. The rest of your comment is nothing but you listening to yourself because it has little or nothing to do with what I said.

Evolution and nature are quite linked though. And that would be because you have a weird idea of how things work.

Actually, the suggestion is more obvious then that and can be derived without attaching some anthropomorphic altruism to it. If it hasn't been bread out of the gene pool, it's because it's either a choice someone makes and not a genetic mutation, or it's because the mutation occurred as a kill switch in the offspring of two somehow incompatible parents. Your reliance on social behaviors is somewhat disqualified as the vast majority of fathers tend to disown their homosexual offspring as it somehow shows a sign of weakness in them to accept them. And it's societal customs, that seems to be changing that somewhat (it's a learned behavior).

Except for that there being nothing to suggest so far it's a learned behavior, and that you seem to assume that the current state of things is how it's always been.

In ancient Greece for instance, it wasn't a bad thing, and Homo Sapiens existed for a long time before creating anything like a modern society. There still are a few lost tribes that don't know where children come from. We have no clue what the attitude was towards homosexuality through the millions of years of human evolution, and it's misleading to assume it must have been precisely the current one.

And if that queen bee, or one breading female bee, turns gay and stops producing offspring, the entire hive is wiped out. Well actually, no because there are other breading females capable of taker her place. In fact, that's pretty much how the hives spread.

It's more complicated than that. Queen bees are special and raised from birth in a special way. A random female bee can't just start breeding. The colony may breed a new queen when there are too many bees around, or the old queen is not performing.

Re:I don't think they care

[Hatta]

You've demonstrated a severe lack of knowledge about the basics of the legal system. You don't need to prove civil cases beyond a reasonable doubt, just have a preponderance of the evidence. Fact is, tracking LOIC traffic back to its source will be enough to meet that standard, and the burden will be on the defendant to prove otherwise.

Re:I don't think they care

[sumdumass]

Sure it is. It's certainly not productive, but if you were born like that, it's entirely natural. Again, "natural" doesn't say anything about whether it's good for you or the species. There's no mandate from above to reproduce, it's just that things that do tend to persist.

I guess I was under the improper assumption that in order to evolution and the survival of the fittest to be valid, there would be some underlying desire naturally present to maintain your genes and carry the species on. And if something failed at task, they went extinct.

Evolution and nature are quite linked though. And that would be because you have a weird idea of how things work.

Evolution is a mechanism of nature. They are linked but can clearly be separate and refereed to individually in context. Nothing has to be a weird idea for that to happen.

Except for that there being nothing to suggest so far it's a learned behavior, and that you seem to assume that the current state of things is how it's always been.

Sure there is. You won't be able to pinpoint one specific thing or set of things that turns people gay, but we are talking about preference to a function that doesn't even need a partner to complete. It's a learned behavior just as certain colors are favorable to some and not others.

In ancient Greece for instance, it wasn't a bad thing, and Homo Sapiens existed for a long time before creating anything like a modern society. There still are a few lost tribes that don't know where children come from. We have no clue what the attitude was towards homosexuality through the millions of years of human evolution, and it's misleading to assume it must have been precisely the current one.

well, in ancient Greece, as well as ancient Rome and probably a few other civilizations, pederasty was common and open. Some think it was a right of passage into the military and religions of Zeus. Some people will also argue that molesting prepubescent boys is not homosexuality either. They had the corruptions of religion and government on their side which is why it was openly tolerated. But even in ancient Greece, it was largely a tool for social advancement. but still there was a large social portions that saw it as unhealthy and thought it would lead to rampant homosexuality. So it's not clear that they thought it was fine or not. Just that it existed and they had to deal with it.

You can certainly take away from the known history of sexuality in Ancient Greece, that homosexuality wasn't thought highly of.

It's more complicated than that. Queen bees are special and raised from birth in a special way. A random female bee can't just start breeding. The colony may breed a new queen when there are too many bees around, or the old queen is not performing.

Well, yea it's more complicated. But you brought the bees up so I went with it. I'm not sure why it being complicated means much unless that was your point in bringing it about. But to be precise, if there are eggs left when the queen bee dies, they can and do condition another queen to take over. That was my intent of the comment. Drone bees do not mate at all and makes die right after sex. And the queen bee, as well as the drones, seem to both have independent control over the sex of the bees, but only the drones can initiate the fertile queens.

Re:I don't think they care

[Wandering Idiot]

You won't be able to pinpoint one specific thing or set of things that turns people gay, but we are talking about preference to a function that doesn't even need a partner to complete. It's a learned behavior just as certain colors are favorable to some and not others.

Why do you assume color preference can't possibly have any genetic component? And the first sentence seems to be gibberish, so perhaps you could restate it.

Re:I don't think they care

[Xaositecte]

All that's necessary in a criminal trial is reasonable doubt. Someone testifying that they had no idea their computer was being used for a DDoS attack, coupled with an expert witness testifying that virus infections are common, and no other evidence (if someone uses dedicated DDoS software and leaves it on their computer after the attack, they deserve to be convicted) - would be enough for me to vote "not guilty" if I were on a jury.

Re:I don't think they care

[sumdumass]

Because nothing had pointed to a genetic marker controlling that preference. It's much more likely that preference is a conditioned response attributed to something recognized in the subconscious.

It's like the taste buds on the tongue. Many people have more or less then others. This genetic different doesn't generally translate to if they all like or dislike something based on the number of receptors present. Where it does translate to is that they either really like something or really dislike something. All that changes is how strongly they feel about the sensation.

And no, the first sentence isn't gibberish at all. It's saying that you will not find one thing that turns people gay, and the function involved with someone being gay (having sex) can be done without a partner through masterbation which removes it one step further.

Re:I don't think they care

[palegray.net]

Where, precisely, in that post did I mention LOIC? To put it simply, anyone using that particular method to participate in a DDoS attack is a moron, and deserves what's coming to him. However, since you mentioned the civil aspect of this issue, I'll once again wish you "good luck" in getting any compensation whatsoever out of anyone actually subject to a civil penalty in such a case. Your armchair lawyering aside, history has more than adequately demonstrated the folly of what you're advocating. Oh, and don't forget about the technical consultation fees required to actually get beyond the "reasonable doubt" aspect of the case, the sheer enormity of the number of potential defendants you'll need to chase down, the legal fees involved in putting the matter through the courts (time isn't free, even if you're an attorney yourself), additional repercussions and continued attacks from those who are displeased by such actions, etc.

Once again, "good luck with that."

Re:I don't think they care

[Hatta]

If we're talking about Anonymous, someone's going to be using LOIC. It's not hard to detect, and since there's no other purpose for it, there's little room to argue it's not an intentional DDOS. You are correct that a properly executed DDOS is hard to track back to its perpetrators. That's not what Anonymous does.

Also, it seems you didn't read my whole post. I'll reiterate. Reasonable doubt is not the burden of proof in a civil case. Preponderance of the evidence is. That's a *much* lower standard. It amounts to "is it more likely than not".

You see, WBC doesn't need to stop the DDOS. They just need to single out a few, sue them, and get some judgments. They know how to work the legal system so this won't be hard.

Re:I don't think they care

[AndroidCat]

Worse, I doubt anonymous cares about Fred Phelps. heh

There's a suspicion that the WeBoBaps created that "Anonymous" announcement themselves as part of their attention-whoring. If so, the inbred weasels are now getting heavy traffic to their site from places like Slashdot and Fark, and it seems to be down. Call it a Ground Level Streisand Foot-Cannon?

Re:I don't think they care

[Hatta]

See, it's a trap

Re:I don't think they care

[palegray.net]

I've been had.

"An anonymous reader writes"

[gcnaddict]

I smell a conflict of interest.

Re:"An anonymous reader writes"

[Stregano]

Sorry, that was me

Re:"An anonymous reader writes"

[IrquiM]

As long as Anonymous (Cowards) cannot moderate...

Re:"An anonymous reader writes"

[__aatirs3925]

I loled hard at this. Thank you sir! Although... I'm just surprised that such a website is allowed to exist. I could have sworn that if a domain name was used for hate it could be revoked and banned by ICANN or whoever it is because there is a form somewhere, where you can file a complaint against a domain name. I'm getting very confused on who Anonymous is these days. Are they the ones where you shouldn't break rules 1&2 or that other group of anonymouses?

Hate meets hate?

[Anonymous Coward]

These tactics sound like hate meets hate.

Wouldn't praying for them in a spirit of love work better?

It would either make Phelps & Co. see The Light or at the very least it would annoy the Hell out of them.

Either way society wins.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[DCFusor]

Nice idea, but details are a problem. Anonymous can't publicly pray for them and stay anon very well, can they?
.

Well, they could pray for them on their own hacked website, perhaps.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Prayer: How to do nothing and still feel like you're helping.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Foobar of Borg]

Why not ask the easter bunny for peace in the middle east?

How do you think all these anti-government protests in the middle east got started? I definitely see the easter bunny's paws in this one!

Re:Hate meets hate?

[morari]

No, love doesn't work. If history has taught us anything, love doesn't work for or against Christianity...

Re:Hate meets hate?

[guspasho]

Anonymous Coward may have a point. Anonymous is an Internet Hate Machine, after all.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[tautog]

Nothing fails like prayer. Dan Barker, Freedom From Religion Foundation

Re:Hate meets hate?

[zolltron]

The most impressive counter protests I've seen have involved soliciting donations. The Topeka symphony (I think) put out a person who was asking people to pledge $1/hour that WBC spent protesting to the Human Rights Campaign. That way every hour they spent protesting gave money to anti-homophobia organizations.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Yvanhoe]

I think the idea is to overwhelm the target websites with love.
Something like 100,000 kind prayers a second.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[ZankerH]

Wouldn't praying for them in a spirit of love work better?

Nope, praying is just a way of doing nothing and feeling like you're actually helping.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Yvanhoe]

Wouldn't praying for them in a spirit of love work better?

You mean it would stop them from being assholes at the funerals of homosexuals ? How exactly would it achieve that ?

Re:Hate meets hate?

[The Wild Norseman]

And here-in lies one of the problems of the Constitution. Its all about rights, but nothing about responsibilities.

Duh. The Constitution was written so as to define and limit the powers of the federal government. The rights listed were only to hold out examples of what the government was explicitly told to back off from.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[gnasher719]

The problem is all speech can be called hate speech, so where to we draw the line?

We don't need to know where to draw the line. Well, you do, because apparently you cannot handle uncertainty. But we only need to know which speech is clearly on one side of the line, which speech is clearly on the other side of the line, and the speech that isn't quite clear we just don't worry about.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[ocdscouter]

Pray for them? So your solution to a bunch of sky wizard fanatics is to implore their own sky wizard to get them to stop?

Why not ask the easter bunny for peace in the middle east?

That would seem to imply that they worship the easter bunny in the middle east. This seriously challenges my preconceived notions of the region. That's what I get for sleeping through those Social Studies classes, I guess.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[trapnest]

Just another form of slacktivism common these days. Like changing your facebook picture to help abused children or "sleeping in" for Autism.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[dkleinsc]

Actually, the best tactics are, in order:
1. Completely ignore them. Don't feed the trolls.
2. Have a positive, uplifting experience in response to their antics. For instance, organize a pride party (colorful fun for all), or hold up American flags between the WBC and the families attending military funerals.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[h4rr4r]

Why not?
If other people do not like what they are saying they are not being forced to listen. They are on public property, they can do as they like so long as they do not make a public disturbance or some sort of noise issue.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Requiem18th]

Sorry, that was the work of the *middle* easter bunny.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[h4rr4r]

I do not believe that is the case, they seem to worship a similar sky wizard. Just he is in a worse mood. I merely meant to imply that asking any fictional creature for assistance is unlikely to be useful.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[VortexCortex]

The problem is all speech can be called hate speech,

Why, you Speech Hating Mute!

How dare you write words of hate about speech!

Re:Hate meets hate?

[superdave80]

I'm pretty sure they could pray in private. I think God could figure out who they are...

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd be far better to attack Focus on the Family, if they want to punch the aspects of the Church that abuse gays to the point where teens are trying to kill themselves. WBC if anything reminds the world what the extreme end of groups like Focus on the Family leads to, if you really want to make a public attack, and take on someone who you could hurt in the pocket book, go after Dobson and his ilk.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[IICV]

These tactics sound like hate meets hate.

Wouldn't praying for them in a spirit of love work better?

About as well as an anti-hate homeopathic remedy would, I imagine. After all, we've tested both, and both have equivalent effects on the real world.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[kevinNCSU]

Hopefully you don't already realize this and are making a joke about dead soldiers (really poor taste) but they aren't protesting at the funerals because the soldiers were homosexuals, they are protesting at the dead soldiers funerals because it's such a despicable thing to do it inevitably garners media attention. Their "statement" is that the soldiers (whatever their sexuality) died because America has gays in it and God is punishing us for it. It's very convoluted, and completely ridiculous.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Seumas]

As an atheist, I recognize that posting in threads on the internet and prayer are very similar. :)

Re:Hate meets hate?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Indeed. How is it that they (anon) fail to see the hypocrisy here? (emphasis added)

'We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People – have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism,' says Anonymous, stating 'Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS.'"

I don't like anything that Westboro has to say either -- but they damned sure have the right to say it.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[shutdown -p now]

You mean to say, religion is basically God trolling everyone else? ~

Re:Hate meets hate?

[PRMan]

"I find that those who pray experience more coincidences..." - C. S. Lewis

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Xyrus]

Pray to Chuck Norris. He may answer your prayers. Or he may kick your ass.

Either way, your problems will be solved

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Trigun]

If you were in the USA, would the deaf boy have prayed for you?

Re:Hate meets hate?

[denzacar]

Which god(s)?

As in your, boy's and doctors'?
Also, if possible, which doctors? I'm sure many would like to be able to avoid them. Either cause are really bad doctors, or cause god obviously hates them.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Seumas]

As do people who believe in numerology and astrology.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[SanityInAnarchy]

That's the problem here, WBC has been exploiting this loophole in the U.S. Constitution

Sorry, no. This was the entire fucking point of the bill of rights. It's the opposite of a loophole -- the ooriginal intention is and always has been to allow unpopular opinions to be expressed -- to allow anyone to say anything they want, unless there's a very good reason. "My feelings are hurt" isn't a good enough reason.

So here, for example:

Is it REALLY still free speech if your oppressing others in the process of making it?

How is the WBC "oppressing" anyone? The right approach for dealing with them is to ignore them. I hate that I'm defending the WBC in any way here, but calling what they do "oppression" is laughable -- it implies that they have the power to do anything other than piss people off, which they don't, not until people like you give it to them.

An absolute worst-case scenario here isn't that the WBC gets to keep spreading its hatred. It isn't even that people try to silence them and watch it backfire, allowing the WBC to play the "oppressed" card as they're illegally silenced (and they do know their law). The worst-case scenario is when freedom of speech is taken away from the rest of us because we couldn't deal with someone saying something we don't like.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Sir_Lewk]

Show it's repeatable in anything approaching reasonable rigorous scientific conditions, and perhaps I'll consider doing something other than laughing in your face about what a gullible idiot you are.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Dachannien]

I guess we'll find out whether or not there is such a loophole, probably in the next month or two, since Snyder v. Phelps is awaiting a Supreme Court decision.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[shutdown -p now]

BTW, try working for a government institution sometime and learn what besides civilization your tax dollars buy. Most of it is wasted.

Excess waste is a hallmark of civilized things in general. ~

On a more serious note, this depends on the country (US doesn't fare well in that department though, and that's where I pay mine these days), but overall I still vastly prefer functioning extensive government services, even with overhead, over their complete absence (see: large parts of the Third World). Of course, if you pay taxes as a matter of principle, then you should also logically seek to expose inefficient use of tax funds as a matter of principle, and change it. Which is as it should be in a democratic state.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Doctor_Jest]

While it's admirable that people stand up to the bigotry... the first portion of Anonymous' open letter is rather telling "The Voice of Free Speech...." Uhhh... yeah. As bad as their speech is... it's the freedom to express that speech, however distasteful, that Anonymous is inadvertently subjugating...

Anonymous? Meet Irony. *wiggle*

Re:Hate meets hate?

[FiloEleven]

What constitutes disrupting others? Should protesting at a funeral be illegal in addition to tasteless?

I like how good-hearted people step in to neutralize WBC protests. Most of the time it's a dedicated group of flag-waving bikers who stand in between the protesters and the funeral-goers, screening them from view. My favorite countermeasure has to be the group who dressed up like angels with huge wings, formed an outward-facing ring around WBC, and sang songs that drowned out their nonsense.

Just goes to show you that the force of law isn't always required--the community can step up when it wants to.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Man Eating Duck]

As an atheist, I recognize that posting in threads on the internet and prayer are very similar. :)

Except for this: when you post in a thread, somebody will get your message :)

In either case nobody will care.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Man Eating Duck]

so long as they do not make a public disturbance

I don't know how you regard funerals over there, but where I live it would be considered a cause for calling the police (and they would come) if someone deliberately disrupted a funeral service, as WBC reportedly do on a regular basis. They would be taken into custody and fined.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Grog6]

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

I figure the next earth-destroying meteor will hit about when we found a new religion over a certain stupidity threshold.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[RealGrouchy]

Sure, a prayer is like a prediction that something will happen. Pray more and you'll experience more coincidences that your predictions are right.

Still doesn't mean your prayer caused it.

(Also I think your quote is misattributed and/or misquoted)

- RG>

Re:Hate meets hate?

[KaiUno]

They were planning to go after Mubarak. They just missed their window of opportunity. Also, there were internet difficulties and such.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[ArcherB]

You have a Constitutional right to petition your government. You do NOT have the Constitutional right to petition the grieving families at a soldier's funeral.

Sorry, but even free speech is not absolute.

However, even though I'm straight, I would certainly pitch in a few bucks to fly some gay men to WBC for a nice love-in on the steps of the church. I say that as both a Christian Baptist and a veteran.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Psychotria]

Show it's repeatable in anything approaching reasonable rigorous scientific conditions, and perhaps I'll consider doing something other than laughing in your face about what a gullible idiot you are.

Miracles are not repeatable, mainly because they're coincidences. It doesn't make the person a gullible idiot though --- sometimes people want to believe in faith and a coincidence occurring bolsters their belief. As long as they accept that I and others will not believe them then no real harm is done.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[ildon]

You need to do some research on the subject of "trolls trolling trolls".

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Killjoy_NL]

I would pray really hard in their face with a baseball bat, they deserve no less.
Often I hear about cancers in societies, this is one of them and a bad one, the need to be excised.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[millennial]

That's purely a coincidence.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[kiddygrinder]

all speech can be called hate speech, but it's pretty clear that not all speech is hate speech. ignoring that, these guys are like that kid 4 years younger than you that used to taunt you in high school then run to a teacher when you even looked like you were gonna do something about it: ie bitchslap those fuckers and then look innocent

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Schadrach]

Not entirely true -- they also protest at the funerals of people who they feel are either homosexual or who "further the homosexual agenda" and have any notoriety whatsoever, assuming there's not a more convenient military funeral at the time. As well as select non-funeral things.

See http://westborobaptistchurch.com/schedule.html

Re:Hate meets hate?

[slackbheep]

I'm a Canadian, but I really really like the idea of the patriot guards. It doesn't have to have anything to do with supporting war just being a decent human being who doesn't believe the families of these people deserve to remember their loved ones alongside with those fools waving around their banners.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[bondsbw]

Still doesn't mean your prayer caused it.

True, but that's not really how prayer works anyway.

If I call you and ask you to get me a burger, and I get a burger, was it because of the phone call or because of your generosity? You could have said no, or you may have brought me a burger anyway since you know I like burgers. Or perhaps, I like burgers because you always bring them to me.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[synthespian]

How can you be sure of that diagnosis? Russian doctors are notoriously famous for their absurd medical practices.
I doubt they ran all the tests with proper equipment. As a matter of fact, I even doubt they had the equipment.

Enjoy reading the Roving Russophobe's article on Russian doctors.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[synthespian]

They say the soldiers died because "America worships the rectum". LOL :-)

That has got to make it into a Top 10 crazy shit list.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[jmnugent]

> "Most of it is wasted."

That's not universally true, it varies over time, from administration to administration, state to state and department to department. I work for a local city-gov, and we've consistently (3 times in 10 years) won placement on the nationwide "Best Place to Live" list.. while simultaneously drastically cutting budgets and laying off staff and closing programs citizens voted as lower-priorities. That's not to say there's ZERO WASTE... of course there is inefficiency in any human endeavor, but to say "most of it is wasted" is probably hyperbole. (IE = if governments threw away 90% of the money they got, then you'd be right). From what I've seen at a municipal level, most employees genuinely understand the power of keeping money local, and go out of their way to support local businesses and volunteer for local projects. (helping build a sense of "community"). .......of course that may be different on a Federal level, where the potential exists to be a little more "detached" from the programs a staff member might administrate.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[tabrnaker]

Could be, could be, though the bible leaves the return of christ open for such an interpretation.

In the return, the Christ (translation Messiah, no, it's not Jesus' last name) comes not as the lamb but as the lion, and justice will be meted out by his right hand (the hand of aggression) carrying a sword.

Of course, that can always be interpreted that the returning Christ was Mohammed and we are in the midst of seeing the conflict between those who follow more strictly the teachings, and not the church which wrote a new set of rules and threw out all the old ones.

May we live in interesting times.

BTW, i belong to no religion. I do find it important to keep on eye out for what all the religions are doing (including the religion of science) because there are always wackos who will go to extremes, and regardless of whether i believe, THEY believe, and that's all that's needed to make it 'true'(self-fulfilling prophecies and what-not).

Re:Hate meets hate?

[guyminuslife]

As far as I'm concerned, the issue with Westboro's protests is a matter of proximity. Of course they have a "right" to carry their signs and spout their bullshit, and of course a grieving family should have their privacy and be able to avoid that at their son or daughter's funeral. The question is where do you draw the line---and in this case, not just a metaphorical line, but a physical line between protesting *at* a funeral and protesting *about* a funeral.

For instance, if they're carrying "God Hates Fags" signs around the San Francisco area (and I'd like to see what would happen if they did), and there's a soldier being buried in Virginia, nobody would say that their protest interrupted the funeral. If they're dancing on the coffin, it's a different matter altogether.

In the recent Supreme Court case, the police had (I believe) known beforehand that Westboro was coming, and set up a perimeter around the cemetery. Westboro's signs or chants were not visible/audible from the grave site. It was, effectively, a "free speech zone" that began just far enough away from the funeral to not actually disturb it. Is that far enough? Would they need to be in a different state?

Re:Hate meets hate?

[MysteriousPreacher]

It'd be more useful to conclusively disprove the existence of Darth Vader. The sky wizard did some pretty nasty things, but he stopped short at blowing up an entire world.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[sumdumass]

lol.. well, as far as we have imagined to know anyways.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Jedi Alec]

Indeed. How is it that they (anon) fail to see the hypocrisy here? (emphasis added)

'We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS â" the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People â" have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism,' says Anonymous, stating 'Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS.'"

I don't like anything that Westboro has to say either -- but they damned sure have the right to say it.

Indeed they do. And Anonymous has the right to say they're a bunch of nutjob jesushumping bigots for doing so.

Freedom of speech means people(generally in the form of some sort of government) can't restrict what you say. It doesn't say *anything* about not having to face the consequences of what you say...

Re:Hate meets hate?

[NovaHorizon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra_fAYl4Th4 Michael Moore did that for you already actually.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[ynp7]

There is no action less useful or productive than praying. Nobody wins by encouraging such foolish delusions.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[ynp7]

At least the homeopathic remedy would marginally increase hydration.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[geminidomino]

God dammit!

*goes to move his damn teapot. AGAIN. Fucking loose-lipped ACs...*

Re:Hate meets hate?

[SecurityGuy]

Your point has merit, it just struck a chord with an argument I hear too often. Simply put, taxes pay for things I care about, therefore taxes are good. It's ends justifying the means, and is wrong. Civilization is good. Taxes pay for civilization, sure, but the conclusion that taxes are good, or the more pernicious variant, that MORE taxes are good, is false. Taxes are a necessary evil. My counter example, which is based on personal experience, is that your tax dollar buys civilization, and a bunch of stuff you don't want.

I like civilization, and accept paying taxes as the price of that, but only at the level truly necessary. I do not like buying waste, or someone's friend/nephew/political donor a high paying job.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[nomadic]

They're the poster child for how the US has gotten "free speech" wrong. Take a look at Canada, or most European countries. We enjoy essentially free speech as well, but what WBC is doing would be seriously illegal, as hate speech, and picketing a fallen soldier's funeral with signs like they have would land them in jail in Canada.

No, this is the poster child for how the US has gotten "free speech" right, and Canada and most European countries have gotten free speech wrong. If you're not willing to protect vile speech, then speech is not free.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Indeed they do. And Anonymous has the right to say they're a bunch of nutjob jesushumping bigots for doing so. Freedom of speech means people(generally in the form of some sort of government) can't restrict what you say. It doesn't say *anything* about not having to face the consequences of what you say... --

I agree completely - they should have to face any legal consequences (civil and criminal) that their speech incurs. (Some light research has shown that they have, in fact, done so.) What does anonymous have to do with that process again?

Re:Hate meets hate?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

You have a Constitutional right to petition your government. You do NOT have the Constitutional right to petition the grieving families at a soldier's funeral. Sorry, but even free speech is not absolute.

Agreed. And in cases where their actions violate laws (civil or criminal) they can and should pay the penalties associated with that -- whether those be financial or incarceration. Getting ye ol' virtual smack-down from anonymous isn't on the list of acceptable punishments.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[Elbowgeek]

One thing I do have an issue with is that Anonymous actually uses the word 'fag' in a derogatory context whilst replying to WBC's challenge to them. It's a bit bizarre really...

Re:Hate meets hate?

[jarlsberg71]

Should I give you my paypal? LOL Oddly I don't think my partner and I would consider vacationing in a flyover state.

Re:Hate meets hate?

[h4rr4r]

You don't know that unicorns are fictional.

The default is that something does not exist.

Bit dramatic..

[RightSaidFred99]

Heart's in the right place and all, but I don't know that dramatic pronouncements from Anonymous nerds on the internet is going to scare a bunch of hillbilly douchebags like WBC. "vicious retaliatory arm".. seriously? I think they can narrow down Anonymous a bit as either being 12, or having the mentality of a 12 year old.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[DurendalMac]

Exactly. It seems that the WIkileaks coverage has inflated someone's head to grotesque proportions. Anonymous isn't an "advocate of the people" or "the voice of free speech". Quite the contrary. Anonymous has fucked around with largely random people for years and is a poster boy for the abuse of free speech, quite possibly engaging in activities that will make politicians call for further limitations to free speech. Anonymous is...well, Anonymous. They're a huge group of people who spend too much time on the internet and have engaged in a wide variety of activities, from protesting Scientology to DDoSing Wikileaks to a multitude of lower-profile activities, like screwing people over the internet as hard as possible just for the lulz. And "super-consciousness"? Gimme a fucking break.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[Requiem18th]

Anonymous wasn't DDoSing Wikileaks.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[DurendalMac]

Bleh, hasty typing. Shoulda said "DDoSing sites that refused to process donations to Wikileaks".

Re:Bit dramatic..

[trapnest]

Thank you. Back in the day "Anonymous" ment something. Now it's a buzzword used to represent any random group of idiots.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[Will.Woodhull]

For a time it might direct their praying energy toward getting their sky wizard to smite a group of evil doers that doesn't really exist. That might give their usual prey (persons who are burying some kid who died in the SE Asia wars) a bit of respite. I'm rather for that. Fight fire with fire, and weird hate-filled fantasy cults with fictitious anarchists.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[icebraining]

When was that exactly? How is this any different from four years ago, when a group of Anonymous took Hal Turner's website down because of racist speech?

Re:Bit dramatic..

[Sir_Lewk]

There is no such thing as "the abuse of free speech". The whole concept of protecting speech is to ensure that speech you don't like is protected.

This all said, I wish anonymous the best of luck, though still believe that nothing short of a good rifle will ever shut the WBC up.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[DurendalMac]

So shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, screaming death threats, and publishing blatantly libelous material as though it were fact is protected as free speech? That's news to me.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[DurendalMac]

/b/ was never good.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[Requiem18th]

Well anyone misses one or forty three characters.

I'm sure you won't appreciate the irony that none of the people who actually DDoSed Wikileaks got persecuted. They, *they* are the real defenders of free speech, the people attacking Wikileaks, the corporations suffocating it's lifelines, pressing Wikileaks to shut up and retire. They are the real victims.

I also feel for the poor victims of anonymous, those righteous Scientologists harassing ex-members for talking and suing anyone who discloses their religious text, and the poor church ministers who are having their free hate speech disturbed. They are the real victims, our prayers and our hearts are with them!

God bless America!

Re:Bit dramatic..

[Dan541]

"We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS - the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People"

This right here is a joke. Anonymous are crusaders against Freedom of Speech. Anyone who doesn't agree with them is targeted by their minions of script kiddies. Not only do anonymous attack anyone they don't agree with but they are also absolute cowards. I don't agree with the Westbro Baptist Church but I have allot of respect for them voicing their opinions and beliefs without hiding behind their keyboard; although that's where any respect stops.

The WBC may be a bunch of assholes but they have as much right to Free Speech as anyone else.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[udoschuermann]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater

Some speech has the potential to cause direct harm. Inciting panic for no good reason is malicious, and not protected.

As shabby and mean-spirited as it is for these ass warts to spoil funerals and spread their ill will, it would be equally shabby for others to show up at their church services and cause serious mayhem with a display of exactly the kind of stuff that they fear so much. It wouldn't solve anything, it would only provide fuel for them to do worse.

"I may not like what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it." -- Yes, it does allow certain groups to vomit hate, but if we can just rise above these rats, and ignore them, they will have no ship on which to sail.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[DurendalMac]

I wasn't referring to Anonymous going after WBC. I was referring to their past exploits, which has included such lovely instances as hijacking FB accounts to spread scat porn to friends, hijacking a forum for epileptics to redirect to a page with flashing lights and music, posting kiddie porn. raiding people in all sorts of awful ways, etc. That's a wanton abuse of free speech because none of it is legitimate.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[TheRaven64]

None of that is an abuse of free speech, because none of it is an exercise in free speech. That's plain and simple violation of computer misuse, harassment, and child pornography laws. I'm not aware of any jurisdiction on Earth that would protect these actions as free speech.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[DurendalMac]

If you think the only raids that Anonymous has done were DDoSing people who refused to donate to Wikileaks, HBGary, and Scientology, then you know NOTHING about them. I posted to a lot of chan sites for a while (not just 4chan), and I saw PLENTY of raids unfolding. I have seen PLENTY of people who absolutely did not deserve it get screwed over by these guys. They aren't warriors for freedom or justice. They do it for the lulz, and that could mean going after some assholes or it could mean going after random people on Facebook and Youtube.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[synthespian]

I just read the part about the Schenk case. "Potential to cause harm" is ill-defined. Inciting illegal action is well-defined, except that you can't forget that every single revolutionary - and that includes the American patriots who fought for independence, and people like Gandhi and Mandela - were outside the law at some point. So both are stupid concoctions for you to "beg the argument" (that is argue as a premise that which you are to demonstrate). I have to mention how "nonplussed" I was at the Supreme Court judge's line of reasoning.

It appears to me that shouting falsely fire is first of all, not expressing any opinion or idea. Furthermore, it is an act of communicating, in fact, an act intentional miscommunication of a danger to all, with full knowledge of the consequences (stampedes, etc.), unless if it's a case of mental illness.

Hate speech, it seems, when not convoking people to "hang niggers", is probably expressing an opinion. Problem is when that opinion is "reasons why we should send Jews to the gas chamber." I would say, however, that an opinion is different than an instruction. Clear and present danger alone is ill-defined, and Justice Holmes' use was, in fact, a political use of the term (so much that it was overruled later). Saying the instruction is geared towards committing an imminent lawless act is probably more on the mark, but still vague (can you pass legislation that protests are illegal?).

I would define hate speech as an "act" when: it's not an opinion, that is, it's a call to action.

What we need, therefore, is more Grammar Nazis. LOL:-) Oh. My. Head. Hurts.

Thanks for that link, BTW.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[synthespian]

sorry about the long underline...

Re:Bit dramatic..

[Requiem18th]

Considering there isn't just one anonymous, the magnitude of their attacks a.k.a. trolling. Is proportional to the number of people committed to a target. Anyone can take a photoshop an embarrassing pic of their neighbor, post it to /b/ and call himself anonymous. The big fights, the kind that make it to news sites are companies that definitively had it coming. Medium mobilizations like those related to animal abusers are still pretty much justificated. The only people I remember they targeting that didn't completelly absolutely deserve it was Habbo Hotel, and that's just trolling..

Re:Bit dramatic..

[synthespian]

See also the concept upheld in some Supreme Court decisions: Fighting words. (It's the concept I came up with in the other reply to your post).

Re:Bit dramatic..

[synthespian]

That's terrible...But Anon doesn't look like "a group". It's a porous container, a fluid, moving gathering of individuals. It's a new group each time it gets "together". This is something the press never seems to get.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[DurendalMac]

I've seen a lot of Anons hacking into Facebook profiles so they can post scat porn and get reactions from the friends of said account. I remember some assholes from 7chan essentially hijacking a forum for epileptics and posting redirects to sites made with flashing lights and blaring noise, an act that did get covered by numerous media outlets. I've seen plenty of Anons going after people on Youtube that they felt were annoying. I've seen people get mercilessly raided who may have been dickish, but didn't deserve what they got, ie, Adam Goldstein. I've seen them DDoS minor news sites and blogs for simply making an article on them. The problem is, like you said, that Anonymous is so disparate that it's really impossible to label them as much of anything, but it's safe to say that one of their few uniting factors is the lulz, and unfortunately, too many think that lulz are boundless, and telling them otherwise makes you a moralfag. They certainly cannot be described as champions of the people and warriors for free speech, though.

Re:Bit dramatic..

[Dan541]

Of course you are free to do all of those things. Just don't expect to be popular, and people are free to disagree with you.

Unfortunately they do

[davidwr]

I won't glorify them by posting their web site here but I will post a counter-site:

www.godlovesfags.com

Unfortunately it's a bit dated.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[oliverthered]

I thought they'd banned advertising smoking?

Re:Unfortunately they do

[drsmithy]

www.godlovesfags.com

For the life of me I cannot comprehend why people do this sort of thing.

The solution when your chosen religion conflicts with your lifestyle and biology is not to try and reinterpret and redefine that religion's beliefs to align with yours, it's to stop believing in that religion and choose another (or none at all).

The motivations of women who wish to be ordained as priests are similarly mystifying.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[painandgreed]

Because not everybody interprets the bible the way you do.
Because not everybody gives the same importance to the parts of the bible that you give.
Because not everybody thinks the bible is the be all end all of what God wants, but rather the place to begin thinking about it.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[FrootLoops]

I'm not so sure. If I disagree with constructivist logicians (very roughly, mathematicians who don't let you say "not not X is X"), I don't throw out all logical reasoning--I just allow proof by contradiction and go on my merry way. The opposite also holds. If I'm a constructivist, I just have to make sure your proofs didn't use the forbidden rules before I accept them.

In a sense splits in religion are the same. They didn't want to throw everything out, so they just excised pieces and went on their merry way. To assume your religion has to be 100% consistent for you to believe in it is tempting, but ultimately silly. It's unclear if number theory itself is consistent, and that's probably the best shot we humans have at a nontrivial consistent set of beliefs.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[ADRA]

Which is precisely why people should stop fighting broken old religious organizations that the GP was mentioning instead to start a new church where their religious hopes and aspirations can be realized. Hell, why be a part of -organized- religion at all? If you're passionate about a given religion then you should be quite capable of being religious for and with yourself (No, this wasn't a joke about masturbation, but in retrospect it could've been...).

Re:Unfortunately they do

[t2t10]

Because not everybody interprets the bible the way you do. Because not everybody gives the same importance to the parts of the bible that you give. Because not everybody thinks the bible is the be all end all of what God wants, but rather the place to begin thinking about it.

If that's what you believe, then you have already stopped being a Christian, you simply don't want to give up the label.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[Killjoy_NL]

Ah he does not believe in the bible as you do, so that makes him !christian.
That's very accepting?

Re:Unfortunately they do

[FrootLoops]

Having objections to Christianity is different from saying people who disagree with some point (possibly a large point) of their religion should throw it away wholescale. To be clear, that was the point I "wasn't so sure" about:

The solution when your chosen religion conflicts with your lifestyle and biology is not to try and reinterpret and redefine that religion's beliefs to align with yours, it's to stop believing in that religion and choose another (or none at all).

Your argument seemed to be that if your beliefs are at all inconsistent with your religion, you should throw the entire religion's beliefs away and start anew (or not at all). I gave an example from math (which most people agree is a logical discipline) where that behavior is too extreme. Fundamentally, you seem to just want to encourage people to get away from Christianity by coming to some realization that Christianity is wildly inconsistent / made up, and allowed that desire to fudge your thinking in general.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[donscarletti]

The bible saying homosexuality is a sin does not mean that God hates homosexuals. It says quite clearly in there that God loves everyone, including "fags" and even those crazy Westboro idiots, even if the rest of us don't. Fred Phelps has got his theology muddled up with his personal hatred of homosexuality, he sees a few passages in there where it says to avoid homosexual activity and in his own hypercalvinist way of thinking, that means that the people who commit these homosexual acts are forever damned to hell after taking others with them. The standard evangelical fundamentalist position however is just that sodomy is against Gods will and condoning it is rebellion from God. To an atheist these two positions sound similar, but in actual fact they are quite different. Mainstream evangelical gets upset with gay marriage, recognition of homosexual civil union, etc because it puts man's laws and Gods laws into contradiction, thus it represents rebellion from God. Phelpsian belief is that the homosexual him or herself is an abomination, not born as God's child but as something to pass through this world to hell, subhuman at best, demonic at worst. In most theologian's minds, this is not supported pretty much anywhere in scripture.

Thus, "God Hates Fags" is simply a biblical untruth. "God Loves Fags" does not represent Christian modernism, liberalism or any re-interpretation of scripture to follow one's own belief, in fact, it kind of sits with the whole "repent of your faggotry, God wants to save you!" line that fundimentalists have been pushing for decades.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[blackbear]

Ah he does not believe in the bible as you do, so that makes him !christian.

Actually, in the context of the GP, that's correct.

The Christian Bible (bible is a generic term, we are referring to the specific Christian Bible) is the basis on which the Christian Church (The Church) is organized. The Church specifically does believe that The Bible is "the be all end all of what God wants." Failure to believe that makes one something other than Christian. This has nothing to do with acceptance, it is a specification of the definition of Christian.

Ironically, a large segment of modern Christians fit the same category.

You could claim that a Christian is anyone who believes that Jesus is divine. However, the Christian Church (all Catholic and protestant faiths) is the originator of the definition, and says otherwise. It's sort of like saying that an atheist is anyone who doesn't follow an organized religion.

That's very accepting?

You're no better. You confuse the fact that the GP is making a factual statement with the impression that it is being done in a disparaging way. Call the poster an ass hole if you think that to be the case, but he most specifically cannot be accepting or tolerant of this and many other beliefs among others of his faith. Otherwise, he would not be a Christian either.

Perhaps, as a Deist, I should start calling myself an atheist. That way I could go around telling other atheists that they are intolerant for not accepting atheists who believe in God.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[drsmithy]

Your argument seemed to be that if your beliefs are at all inconsistent with your religion, you should throw the entire religion's beliefs away and start anew (or not at all).

No. My point is simply that if you don't subscribe to all the beliefs of a particular religion, then you cannot say you belong to that religion.

It's like saying you're playing soccer, then decide that not using your hands is too hard/boring/whatever and pick the ball up.

Anything else is hypocrisy. You're just trying to get the supposed benefits and rights without having to deal with the consequences and responsibilities. Not only is it dishonest, but in the case where said beliefs are dramatically inconsistent (say, endangering your life), it's stupid as well.

Fundamentally, you seem to just want to encourage people to get away from Christianity by coming to some realization that Christianity is wildly inconsistent / made up, and allowed that desire to fudge your thinking in general.

And you sound like someone who wants to be in the club even though there are some of its rules you find distasteful and/or restrictive.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[drsmithy]

Because not everybody interprets the bible the way you do.

People "interpreting" is the whole problem.

Because not everybody gives the same importance to the parts of the bible that you give.

It would be difficult for me to overemphasise how little importance I place on all parts of the Bible.

Because not everybody thinks the bible is the be all end all of what God wants, but rather the place to begin thinking about it.

If you don't want to follow all the rules, then you should either play a different game, or none at all.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[JAlexoi]

I can picture God with a cigarette in his moth....

Re:Unfortunately they do

[tabrnaker]

Actually, the bible doesn't say sodomy is against god's will. It says that God considers it a SIN. The original definition of sin was not that the act was evil (evil being an invention by the church as well as the personification of 'enemy'[satan] into the devil) but that the act could lead to undesirable effects.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[lessthan]

It comes back to interpretations. Religions are inspired by gods, but is filtered through man. In that mindset, that we can never truly "know" the mind of god, doubt can be introduced. Was the prohibition on gays and women priests part of God's divine revelation or was it a prejudice of the period that wormed its way in? To put it another way, were these commands from God or were they a result of the corruption of men? If they were a result of corruption, they need to be excised. That the prohibitions were a corruption, is the stance that the homosexual community has taken. The Bible has been "re-translated" and "reedited" many times with many agendas involved. I don't know about the women priests supporters.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[t2t10]

Your argument seemed to be that if your beliefs are at all inconsistent with your religion

Come on, pay attention! That wasn't my argument.

I was merely pointing out that your response to it was totally bogus: Christianity and the Bible have extensive and proven linguistic, historical, and logical inconsistencies; that just isn't the case for number theory.

Fundamentally, you seem to just want to encourage people to get away from Christianity

No, I just want people to be clear about what they are. You can't claim to be a Christian but then try to come up with your own theology that differs from what Christianity stands for.

and allowed that desire to fudge your thinking in general.

Why don't you worry about your own "fudged" thinking, OK?

Re:Unfortunately they do

[t2t10]

Ah he does not believe in the bible as you do, so that makes him !christian.

I don't believe in the Bible at all.

That's very accepting?

Why should I be "accepting"? The Bible and Christianity are full of inconsistencies and falsehoods, and they are being used to discriminate and oppress people. And the main reason that's still happening is because most people who call themselves "Christian" and give this religion its power don't have the slightest idea of what it actually says.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[geminidomino]

Far be it from me to appear to defend any of those groups, but I think you have it backwards. Biblical literalism is a fundamentalist trait, who are generally protestants. Hell, all the pope has to do is say something "officially" (can't remember the Latin phrase) and it essentially overrides the bible as far as Catholics are concerned. /Recovering Catholic

Re:Unfortunately they do

[donscarletti]

The standard evangelical fundamentalist position however is just that sodomy is against Gods will

Is what I said there correct or not? Are you seriously claiming that evangelical fundamentalists do not consider sodomy to be against God's will? My impression was that they very much did. The bible does not so much say "this is a sin", Leviticus 18:22 calls homosexuality an "abomination" or "detestable" depending on the translation, Romans 1 refers to it as a "perversion" (i.e. saying it is unnatural, rather than saying it is prescribed). You can of course debate the bible's true meaning all you want, but in stating a position about what I will call "mainstream fundamentalists" I think I have done so accurately.

Personally, I consider the whole issue is a matter between homosexual Christians and their pastors and certainly not a matter that slashdot is interested in. However, I intended to contrast mainstream evangelical (Calvinist) and Westboro Baptist (Hyper-Calvinist) and I think I have done that fairly.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[jandersen]

The solution when your chosen religion conflicts with your lifestyle and biology is not to try and reinterpret and redefine that religion's beliefs to align with yours, it's to stop believing in that religion and choose another (or none at all).

Wrong. The solution is to realise that religions - and gods - are created by humans, not the other way round, and that they have to evolve with society to remain relevant. Personally, I don;t feel the need for religion, but I can't condemn those that do.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[tabrnaker]

I agree with you. However, i sense a certain amount of unecessary vehemence in your words. i could be wrong, text and all that, or it could be an issue very dear to your heart. In which case, i hope those you love and hold dearly haven't been affected by the naive ignorance of the crazies of the church world.

After all, i understand as some one who had been called 'son of satan' since i was about 7 to 18 just because some kids claimed to have seen me levitating on certain occassions during my meditations.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[FrootLoops]

You didn't respond to my point. I'm sorry I made you defensive. There's no point in continuing this thread. Best of luck in life.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[FrootLoops]

I'm sorry, I didn't check authors and assumed you were the author of both the great-grandparent and great-great-great-grandparent posts. My "Fundamentally, ..." comment was directed at the great-grandparent's author and not you.

I still think you're being too extreme with your clarified point. "Christianity" doesn't have a well-defined set of beliefs to subscribe to. Many self-described Christians disagree on what defines a Christian. This differs from your soccer example, where it's very clear to everyone that you can't use your hands and the rules are written down and agreed upon. I would agree with your point ("if you don't subscribe to all the beliefs of a particular religion, then you cannot say you belong to that religion") if each religion had a well-defined set of beliefs to subscribe to. In some particular cases I agree: a Catholic woman who tries to be a priest does seem to contradict a well-enough-defined belief of Catholicism that she shouldn't call herself Catholic anymore. A "Christian" who rejects the book of Hebrews is much less clear; some people would presumably require belief in the usual non-apocryphal books for someone to qualify as "Christian", while some wouldn't care.

Re:Unfortunately they do

[t2t10]

I did respond to your point: I do not think that a little inconsistency in a religion is reason enough to give it up. But Christianity is totally inconsistent, in its history, theology, actions, and moral teachings. It preaches love but has condoned acts of unspeakable cruelty and intolerance, and its theology has changed again and again over the past 2000 years.

Furthermore, I pointed out that your analogy with mathematics is dead wrong. In mathematics, you only have a choice to include an axiom as long as it is not known to make the theory inconsistent. As soon as an inconsistency is discovered in a theory, the theory is rejected. In mathematics (unlike religion), even a tiny inconsistency must lead to rejection.

At LEAST it's better...

[Bananatree3]

Tactically, Westboro is a bit better target than just saying "hey! let's DDOS Amazon.com!"

Do I condone all their techniques? No. But it seems they've come to realize multi-billion dollar corporations are a bit too big to attack for them. Not that I pity Westboro at all (hypocritical demon warshipers)...

Re:At LEAST it's better...

[oliverthered]

Amazon have jobs right?

Re:At LEAST it's better...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon have jobs right?

No, that's Apple.

Re:At LEAST it's better...

[oliverthered]

In Christian Apple Jobs has you.

Re:At LEAST it's better...

[kevinNCSU]

Not that I pity Westboro at all (hypocritical demon warshipers)...

Fuck me, who let that crazy church build demon warships?!?!

Re:At LEAST it's better...

[IrquiM]

The details of the warships are in the Bible (Noah's Ark) - Just add weapons like bolts of lightning and brimstone

Re:At LEAST it's better...

[badkarmadayaccount]

Do you spit or swallow?

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anonymous is now recognised as a serious force to be taken seriously..."

C'mon, "a serious force to be taken seriously?" Who wrote that?

Re:Seriously?

[_Sprocket_]

Someone who wasn't being serious?

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious force is serious.

Re:Seriously?

[trapnest]

If only I had mod points.

Re:Seriously?

[EdIII]

C'mon, "a serious force to be taken seriously?" Who wrote that?

Probably someone who watched Yellowbeard too many times as a kid. Tommy Chong talks like that through the whole movie with Cheech. Hilarious.

Re:Seriously?

[TopSpin]

Who wrote that?

Don't know, but I doubt anyone will praise them with great praise.

Anyhow, does this mean 'anonymous' should no longer be qualified with 'coward'?

Re:Seriously?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

"Anonymous is now recognised as a serious force to be taken seriously..."

C'mon, "a serious force to be taken seriously?" Who wrote that?

Yeah, seriously.

Re:Seriously?

[jeepien]

Anyhow, does this mean 'anonymous' should no longer be qualified with 'coward'?

No, because it is actually 'coward' that's being qualified as 'anonymous'.

Re:Seriously?

[trytoguess]

Oh, honey... I know we tease and call you a coward and all, but that's no reason to have a low self-esteem.

Re:Seriously?

[Osty]

Trolling is a art

Re:Seriously?

[Dan541]

You can see how serious they are in this screenshot: http://s3.danscomp.net/anonops/Screenshot-15.png
Command prompt is a powerful hacking tool :D

Re:Seriously?

[andrea.sartori]

Anonymous is srs bzns.

Ohhh the irony...

[j4ckknife]

Is there anything ironic about the self-appointed "voice of free speech" trying to bully an admittedly annoying and vocal cult into silence?

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[MightyMartian]

Yes, it's extremely ironic. The fact of the matter is that most activists usually reveal themselves to be wannabe-autocrats. I can understand attacking PayPal or Visa websites over the Wikileaks thing, but trying to silence Phelps and his gang of attention whores demonstrates that, at the core, they have that unique activist capacity for not really getting the underlying point of freedoms.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[IKillYou]

Thanks, I was about to say the exact same thing.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[CannonballHead]

Most people really only like free speech that does not offend them. They tend to claim some sort of right to not be offended or something like that, too.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Omnifarious]

Mod parent up.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[anagama]

Absolutely there is some irony and there is an understanding of this expressed in Anonymous' letter, but it seems pretty thin (though long winded), and boils down to something like, "we are proponents of free speech, but we don't like the ideas you espouse or the way you express them, so we oppose _your_ speech."

Anonymous should review the ACLU's defense of Nazis in the Skokie case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie

For freedom of speech to work, unsavory speech must be protected. Indeed, it is bottling up unsavory speech, that makes it so dangerous.

Anyway, this is Anonymous' reason not protecting speech:

Being such aggressive proponents for the Freedom of Speech & Freedom of Information as we are, we have hitherto allowed you to continue preaching your benighted gospel of hatred and your theatrical exhibitions of, not only your fascist views, but your utter lack of Christ-like attributes. You have condemned the men and women who serve, fight, and perish in the armed forces of your nation; you have prayed for and celebrated the deaths of young children, who are without fault; you have stood outside the United States National Holocaust Museum, condemning the men, women, and children who, despite their innocence, were annihilated by a tyrannical embodiment of fascism and unsubstantiated repugnance. Rather than allowing the deceased some degree of peace and respect, you instead choose to torment, harass, and assault those who grieve.
Your demonstrations and your unrelenting cascade of disparaging slurs, unfounded judgments, and prejudicial innuendos, which apparently apply to every individual numbered amongst the race of Man - except for yourselves - has frequently crossed the line which separates Freedom of Speech from deliberately utilizing the same tactics and methods of intimidation and mental & emotional abuse that have been previously exploited and employed by tyrants and dictators, fascists and terrorist organizations throughout history.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[TexVex]

trying to bully an admittedly annoying and vocal cult into silence?

Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. What those people do is not just speech. They take deliberate offensive action targeted at specific people and do them harm. They are bullies, and Anon are bullies, and is bullying a bully ironic? I don't see how.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[clarkkent09]

Not only are Anonymous tactics morally repulsive (you cannot advocate openness and free speech while staying hidden and engaging in selective censorship) but they don't work. This Westboro "church" is a tiny (just one family I believe) group of fringe fanatics that everybody laughs at. Rather than silencing them, Anonymous is just giving them free publicity they don't deserve.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[binaryseraph]

Funy their kind of speech actually reminds me of the start of something that went out of control once... but i just dont remember what it was... Oh! That's right! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkpm4fPBMso&feature=related

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[sjames]

There will always be a dividing line to be found somewhere. I'm all for free speech, but do find protesting at a funeral to be over the line.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[cpt kangarooski]

I dunno.

Certainly the WBC has the right to say what they like. But that doesn't mean that anyone has to sit there and politely listen to them; counter protesters have just as much of a right to say what they like, and if the volume of the counter protesters drowns out the WBC, I'm not sure that I see the problem, or at least a problem to which there is a solution that protects both groups.

If the counter protesters can convince the WBC to change their minds, or shame them into silence, or simply make it clear that WBC protests won't work, causing them to change their tactics, then the end result is that they're silenced, but so long as they were not forcibly compelled, is that bad?

The usual online tactics of Anonymous seems to be DDOSing. This isn't a very hostile attack and it doesn't necessarily silence the target. It's not hard to see parallels between that and, say, protesters surrounding a building, or holding a sit-in. And WBC can always mount a similar attack right back.

We'll have to see how this all shakes out, of course. But just because you support free speech, that doesn't mean you can't have an opinion, and can't aggressively exercise that freedom yourself.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[geekoid]

it's a little more then that. Westboro invade privacy, threatens people lives, and, quite frankly, pretty damn rude.

I don't think the idea of free speech meant picketing and blocking access to funerals. A certain level of civility is assumed.

It's not like they do it in there own place where you can chose to not hear it. They go to funerals and shout there vitriol and stupidity and people trying to grieve.

What if I stood outside you house and chanted god hates fags? DO you really think that is what free speech is about?

I am an Atheist, but if the most ardent evangelical was burying there children I would wait for an appropriate time to discuss the fact that the bible in not inerrant.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[TubeSteak]

I can understand attacking PayPal or Visa websites over the Wikileaks thing, but trying to silence Phelps and his gang of attention whores demonstrates that, at the core, they have that unique activist capacity for not really getting the underlying point of freedoms.

The fundamental problem with what you're saying is that it presumes Anonymous should, could, would, or even wants to maintain a consistent ideology or set of morals.

Anonymous is legion and so are its motivations and goals.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Howitzer86]

What's so wrong about making an exception in this case?

Idealistic human rights aside, if a small group is being grotesquely obnoxious to everyone else (to the point of making the grieving so sick that they barf between wails and tears) - and *everybody* else hates them and what they do - it would not be unreasonable for the vast civilized population to shut them up. It's not even mob rule, it's common sense. You can't yell fire in a theater, you can't threaten another human being, and you certainly can't sexually harass a woman. A lot of that has to do with how other people would respond to it. The panic, the fear, the awkward silence and anger... How is this any different? The list of reasonable exceptions to our great free speech rule is very large, and we're already used to having laws that limit it.

So why not make it illegal to protest a funeral? Who will be disenfranchised by that? Oh boo hoo, some hill-billy backwards family of lawyers isn't going to be able to make the family of the diseased cry. How will they ever make money, once they are unable to sue people who react in extreme but totally understandable ways to their troll-like behavior? Poor Fred Phelps, now that his right to be obscene and grotesquely obnoxious is taken away, what ever will he do? Maybe the family will have to take up real jobs, I bet some clansman ax-murderer would love to have one of them to represent him.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Kjella]

Most people see that even free speech needs to have some border towards slander, intimidation, harassment and other related topics. I may be far out there on the "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" scale but I wouldn't take any accusation, any threat or any treatment.

Calling me once is not harassment. Calling me hundreds of times at all hours of the day, even after I've told you to stop is harassment even if you've used nothing but speech. Threatening to bust my kneecaps should obviously be a crime. Lying about me to my employer so I get fired likewise.

The question is one of sensibilities as some could feel slandered, intimidated or harassed for practically nothing. I see the problem, but I can't really go to the other extreme that nobody should ever feel that way. And between the clearly legal and clearly illegal I do see shades of gray.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Kryos]

You had to invoke Godwin, didn't you?

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Will.Woodhull]

I rather like the idea of baiting Phelps and his cult into tilting at an Anonymous windmill. I would rather have them do that than doing their psychic vampire[1] thing at the funerals of American war dead.

[1] Does English have a succinct term for persons who feed their egos on the anger and loathing they generate in their victims? Like vampires, these persons are parasites. That the life force they suck out of others is not corporeal like blood does not diminish the damage they do to their victims.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[binaryseraph]

Hmm that wasn't the sesame street link was it? damn hate when that happens.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[clarkkent09]

I don't know what you mean. I don't remember Thomas Paine trying to silence people he disagreed with or to send them belligerent "warnings" by damaging their property.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[FourthAge]

Anonymous are worse than the WBC.

On the one hand we have this fairly hateful little cult that goes around upsetting people, apparently for religious reasons. On the other hand, we have another hateful little cult which also goes around upsetting people, apparently for fun. Sorry, "lulz".

The difference? We know who WBC are. We know where they are and who their leader is. This makes them better than Anonymous, because they operate in the open. If the WBC commits a crime, then they can (and will) be arrested. And if you have a reason to sue the WBC, then you can.

Hell, even the Church of Scientology is better than Anonymous. Same reasons. CoS may be a creepy cult, but again, it's all out in the open. The key thing is that CoS and WBC can be forced to take responsibility for bad things they might do. It is the same for all normal, civilised people.

With Anonymous, there's nothing to applaud. They are not activists or protesters, any more than the KKK were. They are bullies, operating under the cover of anonymity which frees them from responsibility for their actions. They are an exclusively destructive force: there is no positive achievement of Anonymous.

Anyone siding with them here should carefully consider their position. Association with Anonymous, even defending them here, will turn out to be to their disadvantage in the future. The organisation will not only be thoroughly discredited, but also shown to be thoroughly evil in nature: capable only of destruction. The mass media will not need to invent anything to do this, just as it was not necessary to invent anything about Nazism to discredit the Nazis. Pure presentation of the facts will be enough. Everyone would be well advised to have nothing whatsoever to do with Anonymous, because such involvement will certainly be regretted in the future.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[echucker]

Elwood - Illinois Nazis. Jake - I hate Illinois Nazis.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[allcoolnameswheretak]

No. I'm very pro free speech, but not everything that is said is legitimate and worthy of tolerance. Free speech is fine if you can base your opinions on facts or some kind of rationality. Simply slurting slogans against a minority without sense or reason is not free speech. That is just hate mongering and generally behaving like retarded idiots.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[MightyMartian]

Or to put it simply, Anonymous really stands for nothing at all. It's a rebel with too many causes. It has about as much meaning or philosophical underpinning as a wet bag of shit.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[MightyMartian]

I wasn't aware that freedom of speech had some sort of time limit.

Yes, there are limits to it, but the idea that any group can possibly have said all it should say and then needs to be shut down? Look in the mirror my friend, and you'll see a wannabe tyrant staring out.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[MightyMartian]

To whatever extent that Phelp and crazy klan can be limited in where they march by public order laws, I have no problem with that. If the idea, as with any group, is to assure peaceful assembly, then that fits within the idea of liberty. But shutting them off the Internet because you don't like what they say. No, that's the work of people with an autocratic streak. People like Anonymous sometimes achieve power, and that's where we get the Maos and Pol Pots and Stalins from.

As to your Neo-Nazi bogeyman, the Weimar Republic put a helluva lot of effort into shutting down the Nazis in the 1920s to no success, and even the modern German Republic has done all it can to make Neo-Nazism illegal, and yet there it is. Hate doesn't get killed by censorship, hate eats censorship like fuel. I'd argue that guys like the Nazis needed censorship to give them their mystique.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[MightyMartian]

If you try to do that, you'll end up getting it tossed out in the Supreme Court. There's no way that a blanket ban on protests at funerals would ever hold up.

I'm afraid liberty requires that we sometimes put up with some genuinely vile people.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Caraig]

Well, let me throw in a total hypothetical.... So, yeah, this is going to be batshit.

Say that somehow in the US (or your Western nation of choice) there is a real asshole of a politico. As in, all but ate kittens on television. Doesn't matter what his party or politics were. Did the whole hypocritical politician thing with regards to his religion. Went to Christian church, accepted communion, had the blessings of his minister, yadda yadda. In short, total asshole hypocrite.

Said politician dies. His church for whatever reason is still singing his praises as the best leader EVAR and are planning a big, elaborate, ostentatious religious funeral for him. Epitome of his faith, model to look up to, he will be properly interred with all the honor due to such a great man. Folks might have some other thoughts about the 'great man' part. They may see such a thing as an affront, a tawdry display, a mockery of all the church supposedly holds dear.

At that point, I can see a protest of the funeral being pretty fitting, no matter what your politics. But this was a contrived exampled, albeit one I can see, sorta. I vaguely recal this happening in a couple of nations that made a very rocky transition from autarchy to something slightly more egalitarian.

That being said... yeah, the WBC are obnoxious douchenozzles. I admit if the dropped off the face of the memesphere tonight, I wouldn't miss them.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[aarggh]

So you would suggest that WBC should just be able to keep doing what they do best, victimise and harass people and families during the time of their greatest despair? I guess this is okay seeing as they are just a "tiny (just one family I believe) group of fringe fanatics that everybody laughs at"? At what point does anyone have the balls and the decency to stand up and say "heaping so much hatred and stress to bereaved familes because it's freedom of speech is a crap excuse for being a worthless human"? Well regardless of their good or bad intentions as some say, Anon have done just that. I'm sure the families victimised by Jennifer Petkov (seriously google it) could just "brush off" the torment they received as Jennifers right to free speech! The right to free speech ends when it is war or hate mongering as in WBC, and/or targets people in a victimising or harassing way, again as in WBC. So to all those who think WBC has every right to continue their harrassment, instead of it being some unknown individual copping it, just picture it being YOUR mum or dad, or sister or brother, being on the receiving end, and then see if you still think "free speech' is fine?

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[SanityInAnarchy]

And the WBC isn't taking that choice away from anyone. They'd like to, but they aren't. Attacking them for saying they'd like to is, in fact, an attack on freedom of speech.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Apparently, so are the motivations and goals of the single anonymous member which posted that story.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[MightyMartian]

People stand up to the Phelps' gang all the goddamned time. They show up to shield grieving families as they bury their sons and daughters. They show up at Phelps' disgusting little protests and have their own counterprotests. What those who march out against Phelps and his gang of twisted monsters, and indeed even Phelps and his gang of monsters don't do, is hide behind masks like cowards. I'll give that evil bastard Phelps his due, he's got the courage of his twisted convictions, unlike those pathetic worthless Anonymous members.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Caraig]

Well, it's more complicated than that.

Mind you, I don't think Anony will accomplish much with this other than deface their website, claim victory, and call it a day. Though I'm curious as to if they're thinking of doing more, there's just not that much you can do to the Phelps clan. They're not really a small family, though -- they're about 30 people, almost all of them related to Patriarch Fred by blood or by marriage. And they are all, apparently, lawyers. It's probably part of their home-schooling curriculum.

The further problem is that not everyone is laughing at the Phelps clan. There are quite a few conservative religious groups which either agree with them or agree with their message that 'God hates fags.' Pat Robertson tried to distance himself from him but he was doing the same thing that they were: Blaming things like Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti disasters on homosexuals. Patty is not really representative of fringe Christianity.

The fact is, American Protestantism is becoming increasingly radicalized. The Phelps clan may look like they're 'out there' but only because they are shouting at soldiers' funerals what a lot of congregations and churches and so on, have been quietly saying all along. You see it in part in their statements, filled with 'we regret their delivery,' 'we cannot condone disrupting the funerals of our dead soldiers,' 'they were unwise in their method of communication.' If ultraconservative Christians In Name Only are decrying the way the Phelps clan is delivering their message, they certainly aren't decrying the message itself.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[eiiiI'monslashdot]

if what u say is true it seems too me that the system is not working properly. Liberty does not require that we put up with someone messing with you psicologicaly. in fact it is refraining you from your freedom of not being messed with psycologicaly.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Caraig]

While I agree that counter-protests are the only real answer, they don't work with the Phelps clan. These are people who have constructed a reality for themselves that is utterly impregnable to what everyone else calls 'reality.' Protesting them just makes them more convinced they're right; but not protesting them causes them to be disruptive and, yes, emotionally harmful at, for example, funerals.

Besides... duelling protests within hearing distance of a funeral is... rather tacky.

But the Phelps' clan lack of engagement notwithstanding, you are absolutely correct: Supporting free speech doesn't mean you have to be a doormat and let every intrinsically wrong statement pass without a reality check.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Maestro4k]

Is there anything ironic about the self-appointed "voice of free speech" trying to bully an admittedly annoying and vocal cult into silence?

I don't think they're actually trying to bully them into silence. Anyone who knows even the tiniest bit about the Westboro Baptist Church assholes knows that they're not going to shut up, short of dying (and even they'd probably find some way to be assholes after they were dead). This is just going to end up with the WBC getting some consequences for exercising their free speech in a manner that is almost universally reviled. Remember, you have the freedom to say whatever you want, but that also means you get the consequences of what you say. If you piss off the wrong people you're going to get attacked, or even killed. Since the WBC jerks are quick to sue anyone who (unsurprisingly) attacks them physically, this is probably the best thing that can happen. It'll be damn near impossible for them to sue Anonymous.

In any case this is one instance where I just can't feel sorry for the target of Anonymous. The WBC people have proven repeatedly that they're just absolute first class assholes. They should consider themselves lucky they're just going to get attacked online. I'm honestly surprised someone hasn't tried to kill them yet.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[misexistentialist]

You are suggesting that a law be passed to protect people from "awkward silence"...by telling everyone to shut up? Funerals themselves would have to be illegal, because what else are they but demonstrations?

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[NotPeteMcCabe]

Maybe.

But if Phelps has the right to stand on the street corner to yell their asinine ravings, don't Anonymous have the right to stand right next to him and yell even louder, so no one can hear him? Or maybe to crowd the street with people who aren't listening, so no one else can get close enough to hear?

Isn't this basically what a DDOS attack is? Soak up all Phelps' available bandwidth filling requests from people who aren't really listening, so no one else can be exposed to his hateful rants.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Rakshasa Taisab]

What's ironic here? Isn't Anonymous making use of their 'free speech' rights in picketing WBC's websites.

And I find it rather amusing how willing Americans are to infringe on innocent people's human rights in order to protect the 'right to free speech'. Is it really so holy a right that it cannot be limited when it's main goal is to cause pain and suffering?

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[rolfwind]

If Freedom of Speech only protected popular speech, you wouldn't need an amendment.

I believe most sexual harassment laws stem from having a superior position where you have power over that person. You can't just sexually harass a woman, you can't sexually harass a person. Take the sexual out of it, harassment is illegal. This has nothing to do with speech alone.

Some jurisdictions make it illegal to protest within 500 feet or so in response to Phelps. However, you can't make his ideas illegal.

Be really careful of implementing permanent and wideranging laws in response to sporadic and shortlived nuisances.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[cpt kangarooski]

Association with Anonymous, even defending them here, will turn out to be to their disadvantage in the future.

Out of curiosity, had you been around in the 1930's, which side would you have supported in the Spanish Civil War?

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Music2Eat]

What anonymous don't seem to get is that popular speech doesn't NEED protection. No ones going to stop you from saying something they agree with. It's unpopular speech, be it scientific, political, or religious that the laws are there to protect. As disgusting as the WBBC people are, they have a right to show the world just how big a bunch of douche bags they are.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Chewbacon]

I think you're missing the point. Anonymous calls themselves a voice of free speech but seeks to punish a group exercising theirs. Anonymous is clearly pursuing personal interest in this case. Sadly, people like these idiots aren't exempt from freedom of speech, but then I'm also clearly biased. And not everyone hates everything they do or they wouldn't have members. Just sayin.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[cpt kangarooski]

There were groups of patriots during and prior to the Revolutionary war who would burn down the houses of loyalists, tar and feather their enemies, steal their property, whip them, etc. Notable figures of the era were involved with this, such as Samuel Adams in Boston, though I do know that Paine opposed at least some of that sort of behavior.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[mevets]

So consistency is the cornerstone of morality, philosophy and understanding? Tell me more of this little world you live in, and how I can join.

The article summary has a very poor choice of words in describing these lunatics as "controversial". Controversy requires that there are at least two sides to the issue. A group of self obsessed media whores using outrageous tactics to direct attention to themselves isn't controversial. They just want the spotlight, but lack the talent, cleverness or beauty to attract it any other way. They are the Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan of the bible thumpers, and should be ignored. No controversy at all.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Anonymous Coward]

While I understand The Westboro groups rights to say things like "God hates fags" or whatever else they want - I find it hard to understand how freedom of speech guarantees the right to disrupt events in protest. There is no doubt that they should be allowed to say that soldiers deaths are caused by fags, I really dont see freedom of speech being intended to disrupt a solemn funeral service.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[localman]

Yeah, you know - I'd rather be a hypocrite about free speech than justify what the WBD does. Ideals are great, but in the real world you can always find cases where you'll get run up against them. I support the WBC in saying what they want as long as it's not right in the face of those who don't want to hear it. I'd be totally fine with a completely hypocritical law aimed directly at keeping them away from the mourners. I have my idealist streak, but humanity comes first.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[MightyMartian]

I agree. This need by so many to give Phelps and his whacko gang attention is the root of the problem. You don't need to ban them or try to stop them, you just need to ignore them. It's a publicity thing for Phelps, and people just keep giving into his bizarre form of emotional blackmail.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[jgrahn]

What's so wrong about making an exception in this case?

Idealistic human rights aside, if a small group is being grotesquely obnoxious to everyone else (to the point of making the grieving so sick that they barf between wails and tears) - and *everybody* else hates them and what they do - it would not be unreasonable for the vast civilized population to shut them up.

And call yourself the "Voice of Free Speech" while you're doing it? Give me a break.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[aarggh]

People stand up to the Phelps' gang all the goddamned time. They show up to shield grieving families as they bury their sons and daughters. They show up at Phelps' disgusting little protests and have their own counterprotests. What those who march out against Phelps and his gang of twisted monsters, and indeed even Phelps and his gang of monsters don't do, is hide behind masks like cowards. I'll give that evil bastard Phelps his due, he's got the courage of his twisted convictions, unlike those pathetic worthless Anonymous members.

There's the problem, why should people not only have to endure hateful groups like WBC, AND also have to use their own tactics against them? I couldn't think of anything worse than having to deal with burying my son, and then having to hire or get groups to protect my family against groups like the WBC during the funeral, turning what is absolutely the worst day in the life of a parent into a circus, forever destroying the emotional release and diginified celebration of a life which is a large aspect of funerals and the healing process! Free speech be damned, this isn't at all about free speech, this is entirely about hateful groups that get away for some reason by knowing how to push the boundaries of human decency, to further their own despicable agenda inflicting horrific mental pain and hurt at others just trying to cope with life during traumatic events. Under no circumstances should behaviour like this be tolerated or justified.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Zephyr14z]

Free speech still means being responsible for the words that fall from your lips. If you spew enough hatred for long enough, someone will come take you out for it. It just can't be the gov't according to our constitution, although even the first amendment has an exception for "fighting words." I would consider the sort of venomous hate speech these people are known for to constitute fighting words.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Killjoy_NL]

With all the hatred they spew, it's a miracle that other people haven't attacked/killed/maimed phelps and co yet.
How long until someone is fed up enough that he does something about it?
Free speech is fine, but it does have consequences.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Ihmhi]

When someone who everyone thinks is a pretty big asshole punches another guy in the nose and says, "MAN, that guy is a fuckin' asshole!", wouldn't that give you pause for a moment?

It'd be like Mike "The Situation" Sorentino calling someone a douchebag, Ballmer telling someone not to throw a chair, or (in one of those cases where life is stranger than fiction) Charlie Sheen telling Lindsay Lohan, "Work on your impulse control. Try to think things through just a little before you do them."

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[FourthAge]

In that particular conflict, neither side was especially likable. Both revolutionary and radical, not particularly civilised, and both with their own "Anonymous" army.

The best approach would have been to avoid involvement if at all possible. And if that was not possible (for example, if I were Spanish and living in a conflict zone) then my "side" would have been chosen for me.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Maelwryth]

So why not make it illegal to protest a funeral? Who will be disenfranchised by that?

Err....I dunno.

I am not saying that America is Bahrain. I am merely using it as an example of how you may be shooting yourself in the foot with a law like that.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[millennial]

Mod parent up +1, Totally Gets It.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[epine]

And between the clearly legal and clearly illegal I do see shades of gray.

What people often fail to understand is that the shades of grey are usually small potatoes. You have to cut somewhere as a practical matter. The large potatoes are touchy quibbles over intent, but I tend not to think of these as shades of grey.

Clearly illegal: I think everyone in group X should be exterminated.

Free speech: I would be happier if group X didn't exist.

Clearly illegal: I would also be happier if group X didn't exist [and I'm pleased to join your movement to bring this about].

Sometimes you have to bust people on unspoken subtext.

Clearly legal: I also have an irrational hatred of group X.

Someone might use this dodge to advertise a hate campaign if it was the best they could get away with, but I have trouble imagining it as effective without also crossing the line somewhere else. Self-illuminated hate speech doesn't really work, does it?

There's no algorithm to decide this without making judgements within a theory of mind. Yes, surely some pompous ass will show up to advocate a wacko theory of mind to construe black as white. So what? Any good decision in life is made inside a pompous ass rejection field. I don't actually like Sam Harris's objective morality, but neither do I think it's turtles all the way down.

The question is one of sensibilities as some could feel slandered, intimidated or harassed for practically nothing.

Like engineering without a license?

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Schadrach]

Anonymous isn't a rebel with too many causes. It's the infinite monkey approach to activism -- throw an infinite number of anons an infinite number of causes, and see which are lulzy enough to stick.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Schadrach]

If "free speech zones" are legal, then it's legal to cage people into a fixed area who want to protest a given event. So why not simply "free speech zone" WBC somewhere "out of sight, out of mind" from the mourners. Either that lets the funeral go on in peace, in which case everyone wins, or they successfully fight the legal battle and find "free speech zones" unconstitutional in a sufficiently high court, in which case everyone wins. I'm having trouble seeing a downside to this plan...

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Schadrach]

Actually, I think "psychic vampire" is the appropriate term. At least it was the term popularized by Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan -- though the term was originally coined in something like the 1930's it wasn't "widely" used before that.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Raenex]

Let's continue the irony with your post:

I can understand attacking PayPal or Visa websites over the Wikileaks thing [..] not really getting the underlying point of freedoms.

PayPal or Visa have the freedom to not do business with Wikileaks. Criminal interference with their websites is not an appropriate response.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Raenex]

There will always be a dividing line to be found somewhere. I'm all for free speech, but do find protesting at a funeral to be over the line.

Emotionally, I agree. Legally, I don't.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[DrVomact]

So consistency is the cornerstone of morality, philosophy and understanding? Tell me more of this little world you live in, and how I can join.

The article summary has a very poor choice of words in describing these lunatics as "controversial".

A peculiar response. Of course we can't expect an amorphous, anarchic mob to be consistent. But we can—and should—expect individuals to be consistent in the goals they pursue, and the beliefs they hold. That doesn't mean intelligent people don't change their minds, but it does mean that they change their minds for good reason.

By the way, it's not clear just which lunatics involved in this imbroglio you are referring to.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[DCheesi]

Is this comment serious?

You can stop them from protesting on private cemetery grounds, but you can't stop them from protesting *outside* the funeral, on public property. There's no fundamental difference between what they're doing and a political protester in any other situation. Just because you (or even "everyone") disagree with them doesn't mean that you can interfere with their right to speak their mind freely.

Yes, they're bat-$#!+ crazy, and yes, their ideas are hateful and nonsensical, but that doesn't mean that the First Amendment ceases to apply to them. If it did, then the government could just declare, say, Green Party activists "offensive loonies" and censor their speech as well.

Political protest is the heart of what the First Amendment was designed to protect, and that's not something to be trifled with. Just ask the reform protesters being gunned down in Bahrain and elsewhere...

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a very hostile attack and it doesn't necessarily silence the target. It's not hard to see parallels between that and, say, protesters surrounding a building, or holding a sit-in. And WBC can always mount a similar attack right back

Yes they do have similarities. What you fail to reason through though is that they also are both activities that will land you in jail. A sit-in is fine to do but the protestors of say the 60's American Civil Rights movement were under no illusion that they were not trespassing and would be arrested. Needless to say, they were also doing this very publically. There's a vast difference in being morally right and legally in the right.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[sjames]

We're not discussing a matter of law here! As far as I know Anon is not a government agency!

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[sjames]

Awwwww, poor wittle compooter is bwoken!

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Raenex]

We are talking about law. Anonymous is acting illegally to shut down somebody practicing free speech. If this free speech was "over the line", as you suggested, then you could argue it shouldn't be legally protected in the first place.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[DaFallus]

Most people don't want to face the consequences of their free speech either. People like Phelps are nothing but trolls who use the law to protect them from the inevitable violent repercussions of their hateful speech.

That said, Anonymous has no creativity or imagination. What they should have done is filled the ranks of a protest led by Phelps' church with homosexual men and women as well as transgendered people. Imagine the reaction of Phelps and his followers when at a specific point during the protest/sermon half the group "spontaneously" turns gay and start making out with and feeling up members of the same sex.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[synthespian]

It's not even mob rule, it's common sense.

Mob rules and common sense are two things that have no place in legislation when you live under a democratic state. That's the very stuff Nazis and Christofucks are made of.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[synthespian]

Charlie Sheen is trying to fuck her. Do not be fooled by his apparent good intentions.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Fourpole]

What happens if you end up in the group that the "vast civilized population" decides it's ok to shut up? Sexual harassment or yelling "fire" in a crowded theater can potentially cause direct harm to a person. The worst this tribe of assholes can do is hurt peoples' feelings. I'm not a fan of the slippery slope argument but the protections on speech are nearly absolute for a reason. We can't start carving out exceptions to them just because the broader society doesn't like what some people have to say.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[bstender]

i have mod points but i would mod it down, not up! (if i was one of those chicken-shits who use mod points to disagree (or agree)) i think MM's analysis of the group and the point of freedoms, with some out-of-the-ass statistical reference to "autocrats" to be simplistic, badly formed and inciteful, not in any way insightful.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[clarkkent09]

It doesn't actually matter if other groups agree with them or not, it is still wrong to try to silence them. In how many countries can you see someone show up at soldiers funerals with signs "thank God for dead soldiers" (or whatever) and have the police there, not to take them away, but to defend their right to free speech, however disgusting it may be (and it hardly gets more disgusting them them). This is actually a sign of strength of our society, trying to silence them is a sign of weakness. The Phelps family are like a living test of how strong America's commitment to free speech really is, and so far , in this case at least, America is passing with flying colors. If Anonymous want to fight those who would really undermine free speech they need to look at Washington, not at what is basically a freak show.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[drgregoryhouse]

Don't think the fight here is regarding free speech. Those WBC freaks actually taunted the families of dead soldiers at their funeral. Remember what the soldiers die for.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Dan541]

If that argument were supported then all freespeech would be abolished overnight. We all ready have a society full of pathetically fragile people who get hurt by all sorts f things. Just use the word "Cunt" in casual conversation and you'll probably see what I mean.

Such fragile people should be in an institution getting help. Censoring every scrap of speech and communication for fear of hurting them is not the way to go.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[SanityInAnarchy]

When the consequences are physical violence, the speech isn't free. Otherwise, it's like saying I have the freedom to kill people so long as I'm alright with the consequences.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Phelps die horribly. I just can't accept the collateral damage. Restricting his speech by, say, preventing protests at funerals, that might make sense, but deciding that it's sometimes ok to respond to speech with physical violence is to stoop to the level of Islamic extremists who actually do kill people for drawing comics.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Killjoy_NL]

I don't advocate violence either, but if I go up to a guy and keep yelling "It is my opinion that you are an asshole", chances are that he will punch me in the face and I would not blame him for doing that.
That is what I meant with consequences.

Again, yay free speech and all that.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[MightyMartian]

Even more unlikely than a blanket ban on funeral passes getting past the First Amendment is a constitutional amendment to that effect.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[jarlsberg71]

Still, I am no fan of Hitler, but I can't see anyone PROTESTING a funeral. (someone had to invoke godwin with this thread)... The only way I could see protesting a funeral in your batshit example is if he/she were being buried in an outlandish way using gobs of taxpayer money. Then I could possibly see it. But in the end, a life is lost, It is no time for anyone to have an opinion on that person from when they were alive, as they are a day late and a dollar short, What good will it bring? Maybe they could meet elsewhere? But still, even if I were to protest Regan's grandiose funeral, where the gubmint shut down, I wouldn't have done so within visibility of those who mourned him. It's just not right.

Re:Ohhh the irony...

[Drugmath]

I bet some clansman ax-murderer would love to have one of them to represent him.

Amusingly, even the KKK wants nothing to do with Westboro. When even the Klan thinks you're nuts, you must be doing something special. The KKK is not down with Westboro

Good choice of targets

[electron sponge]

These inbred wackos are a great target for derision, but what exactly does Anonymous propose to do to them? A DDoS? An email hack? Does the Phelps clan have a website? If they do, does anyone actually go there? Do they even use email? I think unless they go out to the sites where these troglodytes are harassing grieving families and directly confront them, they're wasting their time.

Re:Good choice of targets

[gknoy]

The Anonymous attacks on the church of Scientology showed that many of them are willing to stand on the street with signs.

Re:Good choice of targets

[h4rr4r]

They could do what they did to Scientology. Wear masks and hold up signs about how god does not exist, he likes homosexuals or all hail xenu.

Re:Good choice of targets

[Anachragnome]

"Do they even use email?"

Emails can be the end of anyone if they are stupid enough to incriminate themselves. If it is found that emails outline a concerted, targeted effort on the part of the Westboro Baptist Church with the goal of committing a civil rights violation against any one person, then conspiracy charges and RICO can be applied.

From Wikipedia:

"Pro-life activists
RICO laws were successfully cited in NOW v. Scheidler, 510 U.S. 249, 114 S. Ct. 798, 127 L.Ed. 2d 99 (1994), a suit in which certain parties, including the National Organization for Women, sought damages and an injunction against pro-life activists who physically block access to abortion clinics. The Court held that a RICO enterprise does not need an economic motive, and that the Pro-Life Action Network could therefore qualify as a RICO enterprise. The Court remanded for consideration of whether PLAN committed the requisite acts in a pattern of racketeering activity."

Granted, the emails themselves wouldn't stand a chance in court if they were first acquired illegally by Anonymous (I hope they realize this...), but may be sufficient to start further inquiry into these thugs.

Re:Good choice of targets

[DurendalMac]

Phelps and his cronies have met with plenty of counter-protests. It doesn't faze them.

Re:Good choice of targets

[h4rr4r]

I thought they were just in it for the lawsuits anyway.

Re:Good choice of targets

[WrongSizeGlass]

They probably already have some of their email. Why would they give them a warning and allow them to circle their wagons and reinforce their firewalls? They've probably already got the goods, have a backdoor into the servers, etc.

Re:Good choice of targets

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I would argue than when your goal is suppression of another person/group's right to free speech (however offensive you may find that speech) there is no such thing as a "great target".

Re:Good choice of targets

[electron sponge]

Unlike the actions against the Scientology cult there is no locus for protest. The Phelps cult travel all over the country to shit on the funerals of decent people, whether those people are dead soldiers or gay people or anyone else who disagrees with their myopic view of the world. There are other groups who oppose the Westboro crowd, I hope the Anon people coordinate with them if they are going out to protest. And, if it should happen in my neck of the woods, I am sure someone will be there who looks like me but who is not me because it's anonymous.

Re:Good choice of targets

[electron sponge]

I would argue than when your goal is suppression of another person/group's right to free speech (however offensive you may find that speech) there is no such thing as a "great target".

I'm not for suppressing anyone's free speech. I'm for shouting these hate mongers down. And yeah, maybe chin checking a few of them in the process.

Re:Good choice of targets

[Caraig]

Lawsuits, lulz.... this should be interesting.

Re:Good choice of targets

[billstewart]

Yup. Now, if Anonymous can start sending them fake announcements of *lots* of funerals of dead gay soldiers, maybe that'll make it hard for them to find the real ones, but simple antagonism isn't going to interfere with them, because they thrive on that stuff.

Re:Good choice of targets

[quantumphaze]

How is this any worse than a counter-protest? I also thought your (assuming you're from the US) constitution was about preventing your GOVERNMENT from passing laws and prosecuting people for their speech. Nothing stopping another group from downing you out with louder free speech including a wilful DoSing.

Hacking into their servers to grab data and vandalise is a completely different problem.

WBC protesting at funerals is harassment and should not covered by any free speech laws. Just as much as telling a female co-worker that she has a great arse and you want to follow her home to rape her. If the law says otherwise then show me where I can file a bug report.

Re:Good choice of targets

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

also thought your (assuming you're from the US) constitution was about preventing your GOVERNMENT from passing laws and prosecuting people for their speech. Nothing stopping another group from downing you out with louder free speech including a wilful DoSing.

I am indeed from the US; and you're right in that this is the intention of the 1st amendment. The concept, though, is one that underlies the foundation of this country. Summed up by EB Hall's paraphrasing of Voltaire - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,"

If they were stepping outside and peacefully (if loudly) assembling across the street from the church, I'd support them 110%. But when their method of "protest" is to a) take data that isn't theirs b) vandalize property they don't own and/or c) prevent the people they dislike from speaking in the first place (in the medium of the Internet), it's just a pathetic attempt at bullying. And in this case, I suspect, a way for a couple of big egos to grab some press for themselves.

Re: harassment. Nobody said that freedom of speech comes with freedom from consequences or responsibility. The members of that church have been arrested for their activities numerous times. And if the members of "anonymous" were willing to do the things they do without being... well... "anonymous", I might be a bit more supportive -- because then they, too, could face the consequences of their actions.

Re:Good choice of targets

[bstender]

i'm thinking they already gots the goods and has cleaned up behind themselves...they get to watch the fun as the WBC spend a lot of energy closing the barn door...then wait for the announcement telling anon to fuck themselves...then anon dumps their steaming pile on the internets...lulz!

Re:Good choice of targets

[Dan541]

The mask wearing protesters are a different group of anonymous individuals. They do get rallied under the same banner, but the street protesters were engaging in legitimate demonstration. While the script kiddies on irc.anonops.ru are mostly just morons, there probably is some cross over between the two but it's impossible to put all anonymous "members" in the same basket.

Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[davidwr]

I think they can narrow down Anonymous a bit as either being 12, or having the mentality of a 12 year old.

That being said they are still at least twice as mature as the group they are protesting.

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[MightyMartian]

When two groups of retards attack each other, no one wins...

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[natehoy]

Sure, they keep each other busy enough that the rest of us can get on with our lives.

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Sorry, but you are wrong.
When two groups of retards attack each other, everyone wins...

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[WrongSizeGlass]

When two groups of retards attack each other, no one wins...

You've obviously never seen Timmy vs Jimmy

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[Seumas]

Sorry, but you are wrong.

When two groups of retards attack each other, everyone wins...

Yes, but we're not talking about Digg versus Reddit, right now.

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[_KiTA_]

When two groups of retards attack each other, no one wins...

Wrong. Who wins? The audience.

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[Doctor_Jest]

CRIPPLE FIGHT!!!!!!

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[techno-vampire]

When two groups of retards attack each other, everyone wins.

Correction: everybody else wins.

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[RealGrouchy]

When two groups of retards attack each other, everyone wins...

Tell that to the dwellers in the forest:

And each new sign signified the same thing - that the Princes of the Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides were about to beat the hell out of each other again.

This in itself wouldn't be so bad, except that the Princes of the Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides always elected to beat the hell out of each other in the Forest, and it was always the Dwellers in the Forest who came off worst in these exchanges, though as far as they could see it never had anything to do with them. (Life, the Universe, and Everything, Chapter 34)

- RG>

Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic..

[ArcherB]

When two groups of retards attack each other, no one wins...

No, we all win! Well, except for the retards, of course.

Oh my

[Aeyan]

A serious force to be taken seriously? It almost sounds like.... the internet is serious business. ...I hate myself for spending too much time on the internet, now.

Re:Oh my

[Bobfrankly1]

A serious force to be taken seriously? It almost sounds like.... the internet is serious business. ...I hate myself for spending too much time on the internet, now.

Yes, it's all YOUR fault.

Re:Oh my

[Caraig]

As (ironically) an AC said above: "Serious force is serious."

The Internet has grown up a bit Re:Bit dramatic..

[davidwr]

The average mental age on the Internet is at least 13 and the 85th percentile is at least 15.

kind of a boring target, isn't it?

[Trepidity]

The Westboro Baptist Church fills an odd role where they're so extreme and, possibly more problematically, rude, that they have very little support. Will damaging them in some way actually change anything? Even people way on the right already dissociate themselves from them, and they have basically no actual influence on anything.

It's sort of the same with Actual Nazis imo. I'm worried about a certain kind of intolerant right-wing strain in the U.S., but I think Westboro types and swastika-flag-waving types are mostly distractions and not where the real problems lie; the right-wingers who aren't actively shooting themselves in the foot like those two groups do are bigger problems.

It'd go the other way too. Say you were a conservative worried about leftism in the U.S. You could attack the Communist Party USA, but would that be a good use of your time? They're a sideshow.

Re:kind of a boring target, isn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will damaging them in some way actually change anything?

Yes! It will either dramatically boost the local pizza economy or disrupt it, depending on how aggressive the pizza delivery guys on collecting their fees for the mountain of pizza that is being ordered.

Frankly, I wouldn't want either group targeting me.

Re:kind of a boring target, isn't it?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Indeed. Westboro is the Jack Thompson of the moral right.

Re:kind of a boring target, isn't it?

[hedwards]

There's a significant difference between the communists on the left and the fascists on the right. Body count. The fascists on the right have killed far more in the last decade than the communists on the left have since the inception of the US. Right now the toll since 2000 stands well into the tens of thousands in terms of innocent civilians that are dead because the right wanted to start a war.

Trying to make a comparison here is just not accurate. I'm sure it's really dangerous having those commie pinkos forcing everybody to get health insurance. I'm sure a lot of people are going to die because they had to get affordable and effective health care.

That in a sense is the difference. A lot of people in the US and abroad have died as a result of the politics being advocated by the right wing nutjobs.

Re:kind of a boring target, isn't it?

[synthespian]

There's a significant difference between the communists on the left and the fascists on the right. Body count.

Bullshit. No one killed more than communists. Stalin sent 20 million to the Gulag, and probably killed around 5 million. Add to that Khmer Rouge's body count (4.8 million - see Wikipedia), plus Fidel's "paredon" executions, you have probably twice or threefold the body count of the right.

Nothing justifies these body counts on the right and on the left. But what I absolutely loathe about communists is how they pose as the liberators of mankind with their lofty goals when, in fact, they're dangerous wolves in sheep's clothes.

Re:kind of a boring target, isn't it?

[synthespian]

Add 6 million Ukranians (in something they call "the forgotten Holocaust", known as Holodomor), in a soviet-engineered famine of an entire country, and 2 million Germans, all courtesy of Josef Stalin. 100,000 due to operations of the Polish NKVD.

http://www.ukemonde.com/genocide/margolisholocaust.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_operation_of_the_NKVD

Re:kind of a boring target, isn't it?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

There is nothing "moral" or even "right" about Westboro. They claim it, much as many of Islam do...but, we do know better in both cases, now don't we?

Rather missing the point entirely, aren't you?

OT: Sig

[davidwr]

If I don't think about it, is the rest of your signature any less true?

Re:OT: Sig

[Flyerman]

It would have no effect on whether it was true or not. That's fairly basic logic.

Re:OT: Sig

[Stregano]

Oh sorry, were you typing something out. I wasn't paying attention since I got distracted while watching porn

Do not fall for the trolling

[Kaboom13]

WestBoro Baptist Church is just a media whore stirring up trouble to provoke a reaction. Whoever claims to speak for anonymous is the same. "anonymous" is just a group of people, in the loosest sense of the term, with no leadership or agenda. You can not declare a warning from something you have no control over. As the wikileaks DDOS attacks have shown us, most of them barely even qualify as script kiddies, and are ridiculously easy to catch. There are some that know enough to do SQL injection attacks, or brute force passwords (or use the built in password reset) but super hackers they are not. The mainstream media is laughable in how clueless they are about it. They can't seem to understand that the internet makes it possible to have a group with common goals who is coordinated through group-think instead of a firm leadership. There is no monolithic entity, no membership, no initiation ritual or brotherhood. It's a loose group whose actions are dictated by a herd mentality.

Re:Do not fall for the trolling

[MightyMartian]

So what you're saying is they're two whores fighting over the same street corner.

Re:Do not fall for the trolling

[Troll-Under-D'Bridge]

There is no monolithic entity, no membership, no initiation ritual or brotherhood. It's a loose group whose actions are dictated by a herd mentality.

Kind of reminds you of a certain site we visit now and then (well, except maybe for the membership part). Or maybe you're talking of something else?

Re:Do not fall for the trolling

[Anachragnome]

"As the wikileaks DDOS attacks have shown us, most of them barely even qualify as script kiddies, and are ridiculously easy to catch..."

The problem with this statement is that it is already outdated--Anonymous has changed significantly since those attacks. Their methods are more refined, the tone of their announcements have changed in subtle ways. I think some fence-sitters saw what they were trying to do, were sympathetic and joined them. The efforts of Anonymous in regards to Wikileaks are front page news and I think they shared the beliefs of many of those fence-sitters--Wikileaks was getting shafted, not only by the government, but by corporations...publicly. The end result was, I think, an influx of talent.

Ask the CEO of HBGary. He and his company got MULCHED by Anonymous. It is not important how it happened, just that it happened. Give them a little credit--HBGary was a security company (...true, that's debatable now).

And besides, it's not about what they do, but who hears about it...any coverage is good coverage when the idea is to bring attention to something. The folks at WBC are about to find out that it is possible to have TOO much attention.

Re:Do not fall for the trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't for lack of a car analogy, that would be perfect.

Re:Do not fall for the trolling

[Dan541]

The funny thing is that Anonymous does have leaders. The leaders are the one's who co-ordinate the attacks by setting the commands for LOIC, they also run the IRC network and often outsource the botnet command and control to another network that's also owned and operated by an anon leader.

Last time I checked their control channel there was only 12 or so bots in it. Hardly a force to fear.

Hypocritical?

[Rivalz]

Not that I really care one way or the other, but shouldn't people who are "The Voice of Free Speech" not really make threats upon other groups use of free speech?
I didn't take the time to look into any of their claims against whoever they are accusing of whatever today.

Re:Hypocritical?

[VortexCortex]

Not that I really care one way or the other, but shouldn't people who are "The Voice of Free Speech" not really make threats upon other groups use of free speech? I didn't take the time to look into any of their claims against whoever they are accusing of whatever today.

You give Anonymous more credit than is due. Both GodHatesFags.com and Anonymous use "free speech" to piss off people they don't like. Sit back, Get some popcorn: It's all about trollin' for the sake of LOLs. The "free speech" gibberish is part of the troll.

If this childish crap is uninteresting to you, the best thing to do is ignore both parties (Don't feed the Trolls!).

Y'Know

[MightyMartian]

You know, as much as I completely agree with a lot of what "Anonymous" is against (though not the methods, for the most part), is it necessary that they talk like some fucking robot from a 1950s sci-fi flick? They sound like fucking morons.

Anon is not so anon anymore

[Stregano]

Hmm, I think the ego of people calling themselves anonymous have gotten to their head. Seriously, when did they start talking so damn much? Yes, I think the idea behind them is very cool, but all this talking is pretty dumb. Stay anonymous, do what you are going to do, and stop trying to bully your way around. They sound like a bunch of teens trying to act tough now.

How about instead of talking shit, just go do it. That's right, talking trash gets you noticed and put in headlines. If they want to truly be anonymous, maybe they should shut up about their plans, because now whoever gets busted from what they to do this website is going to get an even harsher penalty because of how planned this is. It has left the, "Oh, I am bored and I support this cause" to "Look at me! I am the almighty anonymous. Bow before me or else I will smite you." If you don't like somebody, just go tear their world apart. Leave your ego at the door and do it instead and trying to act all tough, because if you get pinched, since you opened your big fat mouth, even if it was 1 single teen that was told about it, every person that gets pinched is going to get hit so much harder since everybody knows who they want to go after now.

Good job guys. Way to wave that red flag around and then just sit there.

Unless God says so Re:Unfortunately they do

[davidwr]

After reading about the pillar of fire by night and a pillar of smoke by day, I think there may be some truth to this web site's name.

A medical question:
If each cigarette you smoke takes 5 minutes off of your life, but you are an eternal being, how does that work?

Re:Unless God says so Re:Unfortunately they do

[oliverthered]

5 minutes off of your life in hell.

it's in the small print.

Re:Unless God says so Re:Unfortunately they do

[Psychotria]

If each cigarette you smoke takes 5 minutes off of your life, but you are an eternal being, how does that work?

Yes, what is infinity minus one (or five)?

Re:Unless God says so Re:Unfortunately they do

[nzap]

The same as the fourth root of tomato.

Re:Unless God says so Re:Unfortunately they do

[rts008]

A medical answer:
(Xx5)-âz=ACD

Whereas X= number of cigarettes you smoke,
and
âz=infinity,
and
ACD= Acute Cranial Dispersion (Head A splodes!)

A 'pillar of fire by night and a pillar of smoke by day' sounds like a dandy navigation reference points to use back then!

*mutter disparaging remarks*
'âz'? WTF? az? Damn /code strikes again!

Re:Unless God says so Re:Unfortunately they do

[synthespian]

Can't you use proper Unicode?

Re:Unless God says so Re:Unfortunately they do

[oliverthered]

would that be a potato? they look pretty similar above ground.

WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[Dhalka226]

WE ARE ANONYMOUS, VOICE OF FREE SPEECH. OBEY US OR BE SILENCED.

Only twats as self-important as they obviously are could write this sort of thing and not even realize what they're saying. Or perhaps they do realize and just think that they're so great that their hypocrisy doesn't matter. I believe we've seen this sort of thing in history before. It starts with a religion and ends with lots of dead people. But hey, maybe this time it will be awesome.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[MightyMartian]

Maybe they should swap their Guy Fawkes masks for Darth Vader ones.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[MightyMartian]

I'd prefer that no one ever think I was trying to silence any group or deprive them of their right to express their views, or that I in any way approved of any group doing so, or wanted any such group to believe that somehow they were doing it on my behalf. Anonymous has effectively become more depraved than even Fred Phelps, and that is one helluva an accomplishment.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[h4rr4r]

Or maybe they are doing it "4 teh lawls".

I bet on that actually. They know what they are saying and they know it is hypocritical. These are trolls kiddo.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[ShakaUVM]

>>Only twats as self-important as they obviously are could write this sort of thing and not even realize what they're saying

They? It was probably one person that wrote this, hoping to get people to sign on to his crusade against the "Love Crusade" (which is one of the worst-named movements in history for an anti-homosexual group).

When people say "if you chop down one anon, another will take his place"... well... who wrote this screed?

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[Adam Appel]

Yup, I remember a grad student; her shirt read "I hate Democracy". She did not get the irony of it.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[Antisyzygy]

Well, throughout history its always been one group infringing upon another one so I fail to see how this is different than our present or any past situations.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[shutdown -p now]

Don't worry - she got the t-shirt after being explained about how America Is Not A Democracy But Is A Republic on any of the more delusional Republican or libertarian blogs.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[The Living Fractal]

Translation of "the lulz": Having a laugh at someone else's expense.

Real mature, that.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[MightyMartian]

Perhaps if Anonymous's knowledge of history hadn't come from a Natalie Portman bastardization of a good British comic, they'd probably know that too. I think we're looking at some fundamentally immature people.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[hedwards]

Free speech isn't that broad. I can't threaten to kill somebody, or print false allegations about somebody and expect to get away with it. Nor can I advertise a produce that does something and have it be completely ineffectual without a lot of amazing fine print.

Phelps crossed the line of what free speech actually protects a long time ago, it's just that he happens to have some really good attorneys that allows the bigot to keep on gay bashing.

Anonymous isn't exactly known for having stellar morals, but in this case they are arguably more vigilante than bully.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[FrootLoops]

To be honest, I don't think the message is serious. For reference:

'We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People – have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism,'

"super-consciousness" is more silly than descriptive; the caps remind me of terrible New Age books trying to make everything seem important; the tone is high and mighty in a way that it's almost a charicature of God talking to Moses; and the diction is like a teenager trying to sound important by using a thesaurus. It's just over the top. I think this is a cry for attention more than a serious statement of (sucky) principles.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[Cameleopard]

A. I'm pretty sure the manifesto was written with tongue placed firmly in cheek.

B. What some person or small segment of Anonymous writes is not representative of the way all of Anon feels. Indeed, there have been many attempts to rouse Anonymous into attacking WBC over the years and most of the little Anon-lings out there have responded negatively with the reason that it's just not lulzy enough.

C. By virtue of what Anonymous is, any time a group of Anons take to a cause they are in some way split from the nebulous body of Anonymous in general. Anonymous is just as apt to deface a young cancer patient's website as to do something that could be interpreted as defending freedom. Anonymous can do any number of contradictory things without committing the cardinal sin of hypocrisy simply because it is not an organization and it has no ideals. So, any subgroup of Anons that start acting with a coherent agenda such as defending freedom have begun coalescing into a more traditional organization of people.

Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS

[bstender]

sorry, i don't think ideological purity regarding 'free speech' is really the point. this is an ad hoc gang who is taking on another gang's real world activities. Reformatting Anon's statement, then suggesting it is a quote (shame) would only be valid if "free speech" was the point of this announcement. but it wasn't. Disagree with their target and/or method if you want to be relevant.

GodHatesFags.com

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Wow! Just wow! Anyone with enough homophobia to register a domain like that, and put up that website. Really needs to be taken to a bath house, and left there for a couple of days.

Re:GodHatesFags.com

[Black Parrot]

Anyone taking bets that Phelps turns out to be gay?

Re:GodHatesFags.com

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Personally, I will pay for his next rent boy.
I say next because I doubt it would be his first.

I would enjoy posting up the footage of that encounter onto the net. :)

Re:GodHatesFags.com

[Rary]

Anyone taking bets that Phelps turns out to be gay?

Gay, not quite. Bisexual, almost certainly.

All the really vocal anti-gay fanatics turn out to be bisexual. That's why they're all so convinced that homosexuality is a choice. For them, it literally is, and they assume it's the same for everyone else.

Re:GodHatesFags.com

[ThePeices]

Phelps is so homophobic, he eats hot dogs sideways.

Re:GodHatesFags.com

[guyminuslife]

No offense, bro, but have you been living under a rock? Westboro Baptist Church has been a mainstay of news stories for some time now.

Re:GodHatesFags.com

[ArsenneLupin]

Only problem, nobody would want to dirty their dick with these twats' shit...

Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[jbeach]

I get that Anonymous has presented itself as a collective direction that any one person can join. But I doubt this is an initiative of their core members. It seems off the reservation and out of the plan. Phelps is a complete ass doing his best to spread hate and stupidity; but he's not oppressing the poor or breaking the law.

Banks, corporations and oppressive governments are far more worthy targets. This is random time-wasting crap. I doubt it's a false-flag, 'cause there's no way an attack on Phelps would inspire any sympathy from anyone; but I do expect it's a teenager wanting to be a bad ass and not bothering to apply intellect towards finding more important targets.

Re: Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[Nidi62]

Or it's an image thing. Remember, Anonymous has had several attacks against major US corporations attributed to them. Their presentation in the media is certainly not favorable to Anonymous. Now, where does Westboro "church "protest at? The funerals of dead soldiers, dishonoring them and pissing off their families, basically pissing off anyone who's ever known a soldier or just supports the soldiers. So, what better way to get back something of a favorable reputation than to go after people that pretty much everyone agrees needs to shut up and go away?

Re: Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[trapnest]

>but he's not oppressing the poor or breaking the law.
Oh for fucks sake. "Anonymous" isn't some group of activists.

Re: Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[jbeach]

Um, what?

] A group of people doing activist things like busting open HB Gary, shutting down the Tunisian government websites and protesting Scientology - what else could they be but a group of activists?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

Re: Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[VortexCortex]

Um, what? A group of people doing activist things like busting open HB Gary, shutting down the Tunisian government websites and protesting Scientology - what else could they be but a group of activists?

Anonymous is a "group" only inasmuch as the folks who are "doing activist things" all claim to be Anonymous.

The only reason they "group" themselves together is to hide within the larger group...

There is no "leader" there are no agendas, there are just a bunch of folks, many are pissed off about different things. Sometimes people who are pissed off about the same thing get together, claim: "We are Anonymous and [some statement here]!"

Much like how the citizens in "V for Vendetta" hid behind the Guy Fawkes masks, some activists hide behind the name "Anonymous" (this is why they use that mask as their symbol).

That's the rub, they have no unified banner to uphold. There is no "group" until some unknown set of like minded individuals decides to protest something under the name...

When there is no protest going on, there is no "group" called Anonymous.

Re: Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[icebraining]

Once I put out a small fire, am I a fireman?

They are not more a group of activists than the group 'citizens of North America' or 'people with blue eyes'. Some days, a subset of them which share common goals will perform what we call as activism, and in the next day, a different subset - with more or less overlap with the first - will do something completely different like uploading porn to Youtube.
There's no overall goal that guides their actions, like in an activist group. They're just random people.

Re: Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[jbeach]

This is not an apples to apples comparison of course. Activist groups are not like fireman groups. Not like I feel like continuing to go into the weeds over this, but a fireman is a specific job with specific and formal acceptance regulations, training, physical base of operations, rank, etc. etc.

Even within that, the personnel of a fire department can change quite a bit and it will still be the same group, "Ladder Company # 23" or whatever.

Or consider the music group King Crimson. Over the past nearly 40 years there's only been one consistent member, Robert Fripp. But it's still the same musical group. Fripp himself has referred to the band as a "way of doing things". One might consider Anonymous the same. It may have only a few consistent members or it may even have none. It still has activists doing what they think of as activist things, within a group of similar-minded activists. Therefore it's a group of activists. Q.E.D.

Re: Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[icebraining]

You've missed my point. A fire department or King Crimson are defined as groups by their goals; in the latter case, they're defined by such "way of doing things".

Anonymous has none of that. It has no common goals or methods that define the organization. Their goals are completely arbitrary, temporary and may be accepted by only a few members to be valid.

Re: Real Anonymous activists stick to big targets

[jbeach]

I didn't miss your point. I'm saying that your point has no relevance to whether or not Anonymous is:

1. a group, i.e. a number of people that have something in common.
2. of activists, i.e. people who are attempting to agitate in the public to create change

You can not like them, think they're too sloppy, should be more organized etc. etc. in order to be a "real" group. But this is a subjective opinion on your part, which has nothing to do with the fact that they are a group of activists.

Westboro Baptist Church and lawsuits

[Wyatt Earp]

The Westboro Baptist Church lives off suing people for infringing on their right to free speech, assembly, etc. If the IRC and 4chan douche bags attack them, then WBC isn't going to have anyone to sue, but will try and waste capital in their attempt.

And yes, they have computers, website, businesses associated with them, so there is crap for anonymous to attack.

Is it too much to hope for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it too much to hope for for this to end up like the "Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat" story? It would be so nice to be rid of both cabals of sociopathic jackasses.

I don't normally condone vigilantism....

[GeneralEmergency]

...and I cherish the First Amendment above all the others.... ...but just this once....I'm gonna be spending all my time looking in another direction.

And -Damn you to Hell- Fred Phelps, and your inbred collection of Olympic class haters, for pushing me to this hypocrisy.

Re:I don't normally condone vigilantism....

[DNS-and-BIND]

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It's nice to hear freedom-hating bigots come out and admit that they're hypocrites once in a while.

Re:I don't normally condone vigilantism....

[geekoid]

Freedom of speech has limits, something that has been shown time and time again. Phelps crossed that line.

Re:I don't normally condone vigilantism....

[Antisyzygy]

Actually..... Freedom of Speech has no limits if you actually mean "Freedom of speech". That includes threats, solicitation of murder, etc. etc. It stops short of actions. I.e. if I actually follow through on anything I say related to murder/solicitation/threats then I am punished.

Re:I don't normally condone vigilantism....

[sco08y]

...and I cherish the First Amendment above all the others....

Hang out with the Guard long enough and #3 starts looking pretty damned important. Not to mention the fact that there are some pretty important parts of the original constitution. You can't, for instance, be all for big government without loving that commerce clause, though by now it's gotten so much love it makes goatse look puckered.

...but just this once....I'm gonna be spending all my time looking in another direction.

Sorry, but you should just turn in your badge and gun. You're not fit to call yourself Defender of the Internets any more. /sarc.

While the government has an absolute duty to not actively infringe on your rights, it has a very finite duty to prevent others from infringing on your rights. I have a right to be secure in my person, but that doesn't mean the government should hire a cop to babysit me. (That's what 2A is for.)

And while I'll defend your right to free speech to the death, that doesn't mean I'm going to jump in with you if you decide to do performance art in the lion's exhibit.

As free speech goes, I have no problem with the WBC holding a rally. I'd rather their views be aired so that everyone knows we heard what they had to say and rejected it. But this guy wants to do it over and over again, in the most offensive way imaginable, and in such a manner that it's as outrageous as he can imagine.

Our system of law is not perfect and, given that he's making his living off it, he knows damned well it's not perfect. If someone is going to knowingly push the law past its ability to protect their rights, my reaction is, "pass the popcorn." In a nutshell, there's no particular line he can cross that should make us stop upholding it, that is, there's no magic formula that says, "okay, that's too much, we're going to withdraw the cops and let the mob at you."

What's going to happen is that the city budget will run out, or a cop will be distracted, or the mob will be too big. Basically, our finite resources will run out and since, so far, Phelps *hasn't* gotten his wish to be a martyr, this means we are truly rich, as a nation, where it counts.

Re:I don't normally condone vigilantism....

[artor3]

That's never been the case. Words can harm, and they can kill. You can't shout fire in a crowded theater. You can't hire a hitman, and then claim you were just exercising your first amendment rights when you told him you'd give him a thousand bucks to kill your wife. You can't commit fraud and claim it was just free speech. Mind you, I don't think the Phelps clan has actually crossed the line, despicable as they may be.

Re:I don't normally condone vigilantism....

[Antisyzygy]

You are right, there has never been free speech because some asshole comes along and imposes what he thinks it means on another person. You can shout fire in a crowded theatre, and promptly get banned from ever coming back. Such is the nature of freedom. Burn your bridge of credibility, and its like the "Boy Who Cried Wolf". As far as I can tell, its not illegal to NOT murder people but talk about doing it. The circumstances where it is illegal to talk about murder seems completely subjective and easy to bend to ones own agenda. That is not justice. How can you say if someone actually would do something or if its just talk? If you need a hypothetical lesson, see "The Minority Report" by Phillip K. Dick (not the shitty movie). People talk about killing people all the time. Look at any violent film we let teenagers watch. They talk about killing people that are not fictional characters some times. Why can't I do it? As long as I intend not to it doesn't matter. As soon as I try to, it does matter. Fraud, by definition, is not free speech. Fraud is trying to close an agreement with false provisions or promises (SEE lying AND social contract). Maybe you should consider coming up with a rational, and definitive line between what constitutes "Too free" speech and "Just-enough free" speech rather than arbitrarily assigning one without any consideration of the philosophical ramifications of it while failing to list rational reasoning behind your argument.

Re:I don't normally condone vigilantism....

[TrekkieGod]

Freedom of speech has limits, something that has been shown time and time again. Phelps crossed that line.

Freedom of speech shouldn't have limits, despite the disagreement from the courts. The only way to cross that line is to by moving to action beyond speech, i.e. violence. The best way of dealing with Phelps and his church isn't by curtailing their freedom of speech, it's by making use of that right yourself.

The people at comic-con had an incredibly peaceful, classy, and humorous way of making the WBC's protest irrelevant. When people show off their ridiculous intolerance, demonstrate to others how ridiculous they are by making fun of them. It works, and nobody's rights get trampled on.

At some point they might just DDoS themselves

[blair1q]

At what point will they realize that they are a threat, a nuisance, and an extragovernmental tyranny, and implode in a DDoS of self-awareness?

And will they have the power to do it by then?

How to Defeat Westboro

[Anonymous Coward]

Westboro is an attention-whoring organization. Attacking them seems somewhat counter-productive.

I can't say I approve of vigilante justice...

[asdf7890]

I can't say I approve of vigilante justice, but in this case I could most certainly consider making an exception.

Re:I can't say I approve of vigilante justice...

[seriesrover]

It seems you do approve of vigilante justice - the determining factor is whether you agree with the cause or not.

Re:I can't say I approve of vigilante justice...

[asdf7890]

I don't approve as such. I just wouldn't take my usual stance of not turning a blind eye. Though I appreciate that this is a very fine imaginary line I've just made up to defend my thought process...

God Hates Fags?

[JSG]

Over here (UKoGB) the anti smoking lobby is pretty strong but even they don't invoke a deity in support.

Sounds catchy - even if I am a confirmed tabber.

Cheers
Jon

Re:God Hates Fags?

[JSG]

I've found Anonymous - they are here on /.

Look, you can even see their leaders here - they are called Anonymous Coward and if I lookup Coward on that interweb I find a bloke called Noel - but he was a famous homosexual - hmmm something must be wrong.

My interweb must be broken or something.

Re:God Hates Fags?

[nolife]

I got a kick out of the "SMOKING KILLS" label in 1 inch bold block letters on every carton of cigarettes I saw on in the UK

Re:God Hates Fags?

[JSG]

Actually that is now EU law. Buy your fags from Poland and never have to worry!

Unless I get my Polish employee to translate - bugger 8)

I'm sure the US or wherever you are from will soon have similar "dis-incentives" that don't do much but placate the lobby.

Cheers
Jon

Re:Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. They have the internet in caves now?

Streisand effect

[Kjella]

Pardon me for saying so, but why in hell would Anonymous give PR to this weird little cult? Apart from being grossly disgusting they seem fairly few and harmless and their sole power is the outraged press they garner.

They're the kind of religious nuts you can't reason with because they see everything as proof they are right. Hell, isn't this the same creeps that wanted to show up in the funeral of that 9yo girl that got shot? I think these people are going for martyrdom and hoping someone will open fire on them. I'd be tempted.

Re:Streisand effect

[Immortal Poet]

To be fair, the only reason Fred Phelps did not protest the funeral of that nine year old girl is because he posthumously held her hostage. In exchange for not protesting at the funerals of Christina Green and John Roll, the Westboro Church was granted 30 minutes of uninterrupted air time on the Mike Gallagher Show.

Re:Streisand effect

[CompMD]

Their power comes from intimidating those who have been emotionally weakened by tragedy. Look for what they do at funerals.

They also like to try and hurt people when they succeed. At every commencement ceremony for the University of Kansas Law School, all of them stand outside and picket. I confronted them once when they were picketing the Engineering School commencement and asked why they were doing so. "Oh, this is the Engineering commencement? Oops, we didn't mean to be here for that. We thought this was the Law School commencement."

They are purely nuts. They have no interest in martyrdom, because they aren't truly religious Christians and they believe that regular people believe in their constitutional rights enough to not harm them. Typically, this is true, as none of them have been killed yet.

True story: a woman driving a pickup in Topeka tried to run over Fred. Police arrested her, she was charged with various crimes. Case went to trial, in less than 10 minutes she was found not guilty on all charges.

They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[Doc Ruby]

Phelps and his gang of Christianist assholes are in the business of provoking angry responses to their hellish displays that Phelps' gang will claim in court violated their rights or damaged them. To blackmail their targets, usually municipalities with the ability to pay, into settling the lawsuit and paying off Phelps rather than pay the extensive legal fees and possibly damages. That's why Phelps' gang is pumped full of lawyers trained at "Liberty" "University", the Christian crusade madrassa.

In this fight, it's Anonymous that's on the side of the angels.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[MightyMartian]

The Phelps Gang tests the extreme end of free speech. I despise them with all my being, but if it came to push and shove and I had to either choose whether Phelps and his gang of vile hatemongers or Anonymous lived or died, I'm afraid I'd stand on the side of Phelps. Anonymous is attacking Phelps' right to freely express his views, no matter how noxious. Anonymous is wrong on this one, and should be ashamed of themselves, if they weren't, of course, a bunch of halfwitted scriptkiddies with as much of a hard-on for getting attention from the press as Phelps and Co.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[gnasher719]

The Phelps Gang tests the extreme end of free speech. I despise them with all my being, but if it came to push and shove and I had to either choose whether Phelps and his gang of vile hatemongers or Anonymous lived or died, I'm afraid I'd stand on the side of Phelps. Anonymous is attacking Phelps' right to freely express his views, no matter how noxious. Anonymous is wrong on this one, and should be ashamed of themselves, if they weren't, of course, a bunch of halfwitted scriptkiddies with as much of a hard-on for getting attention from the press as Phelps and Co.

I don't mind at all if you stand on the side of Phelps, as long as god gives us a sign in form of a huge lightning that burns the lot.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[Prien715]

I have no problem with creating a website devoted to hate. What I do have a problem with are their funeral protests.

If someone gives their life in service of the country, the least the country can do is give them a dignified funeral. We already have limits on Free Speech (screaming "fire" in a theater) and I'm not quite so sure adding an additional restriction would lead to repression. I am however, equally happy, that the counter-protesters always outnumber their filth.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[DeadCatX2]

I support the right to free speech. However, these rights have limitations (fire in a crowded theater, etc). Harassment is one such limitation. Going to funerals and waving signs celebrating the loss of life with the intent on causing emotional distress for their specifically selected targets is definitely harassment and does not deserve free speech protections.

They can sit in their church and preach all the hate they want, and I will support their right to do that. They can post as much hate as they want on their blog, and I will support their right to do that. But when they take the step of going to a funeral with the specific intention of inflicting emotional harm on the family of the deceased...I do not support that.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[Antisyzygy]

I don't understand how people say there are limits to free speech. There are no limits outlined in the constitution. I could threaten you, and as long as I don't do what I said I would do, It is still free speech.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[drinkypoo]

If someone gives their life in service of the country, the least the country can do is give them a dignified funeral.

On one hand I think Phelps is an evil tool. On the other hand, if you want dignified funerals have them someplace where Phelps can't protest. If those who join the military deserve a special funeral then by all means have it on a military base and utilize the security.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[Pharmboy]

The people in the military who die are no different than you or I. They have fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and it is these people who decide where and how to have the funeral, just like any normal person. The military does not, and legally can not, tell someone where to hold the funeral.

If you are saying that person's who die in the service of their country should have funerals in restricted areas, well, then you are daft. They have the exact same rights and expectations of respect that you have. Not less, not more.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[drinkypoo]

If you are saying that person's who die in the service of their country should have funerals in restricted areas, well, then you are daft.

The option could be made available. The notion that someone should receive respect because they died "for their country" is just that.

They have the exact same rights and expectations of respect that you have. Not less, not more.

Actually, they have less rights than I do. I agree with you about the respect thing, though. And that is to say, I do not expect anyone to respect me any more than the law demands, and there's really no guarantee there, only the potential for penalties for those who fail to measure up to the published standards.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[MightyMartian]

Anonymous is just a depraved philosphically barren bunch of malcontents. They are effectively no different than Phelps. Two disgusting vile peas in the same pod.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[eiiiI'monslashdot]

that was just brilliant! well maybe not god, but a random spark could just light up the whole place

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[eiiiI'monslashdot]

that is the kind of thinking that was ok in the past and present. not in the future. future is not about granting u the ability to do wrong to others. anonymous is not the best answer, obviously, but is way better than doing nothing. at least they put up the fight instead of hide behind established wrong ideas.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[Maestro4k]

The Phelps Gang tests the extreme end of free speech.

To some extent, many believe they're already passed it however. Their funeral protests, which are (quite deliberately) done in a manner to provoke violent responses (so they can sue) are essentially an incitement to riot in order to personally profit. I don't consider this free speech, and neither does the law. Inciting a riot is a crime. No one's stood up to them enough to get this kind of verdict so far however, so they continue to do it.

There's a big difference in saying what you think, however hateful it is, and deliberately trying to provoke people to attack you. One is exercising your freedom of speech, the other is a crime, and WBC falls into the latter category. The whole reason they do this is so they can sue people and live off the money. It's a freaking business model for them!

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[shadowbearer]

Anonymous is attacking Phelps' right to freely express his views, no matter how noxious. Anonymous is wrong on this one, and should be ashamed of themselves, if they weren't, of course, a bunch of halfwitted scriptkiddies with as much of a hard-on for getting attention from the press as Phelps and Co.

  I agree with you for the most part about Anonmymous, although it seems to me this is probably just some members making noise, rather than any sort of consensus of "Anonymous" (is there such thing? )

  However, I am wondering how else they should have responded other than with publicity to something that is carefully borderline public hate speech?

SB

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[GoCats1999]

While you're right about Phelps and his good-for-nothing self-promoting lawsuit-wielding practices, please remember that he and his so-called church are a cult, and what they preach should not be confused for true Evangelical Christianity.

Liberty University (and other Bible-based universities) graduates thousands of devout Christians every year whose faith and practice of faith resemble absolutely nothing of Phelps' and his family's. There isn't a single passage in the Christian Bible that gives believers the right to hate, judge or condemn. Period. And in fact, Jesus's Great Commandment for his followers was the exact opposite -- followers are to love God and to love each other, no matter what... quite the opposite of Westboro "preaches".

Now, are there crazies that graduate from these places who practice otherwise? Of course there are. But that's the case with almost every college in the country. But to attribute the craziness of a minority of alums to the university as a whole would be misguided... otherwise, one could say that Virgina Tech is a madras because Nidal Malik Hasan graduated from there.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[dch24]

Can someone please mod this comment up?

It turns out I disagree, but this is a great discussion point amid all the static. (Took me a while to find it.)

I believe the freedom of speech is a legally protected right, but as a right it precedes laws. Check this out:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Specifically that last part: deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. In this case, what the law decides, we all have to live with.

Social justice is an indistinct phrase, and therefore dangerous because it does not mean the same thing to everyone. So I look at the freedom of speech this way: posting on an internet site is freedom of speech. Disrupting a funeral is not freedom of speech. Applying the law equally and without prejudice, WBC must either allow all the protesters to follow their private lives everywhere -- and harass them, or they must leave these private religious ceremonies (funerals) and stick to posting on the internet.

WBC can post their ideas on their website. Anonymous should not attack their website -- they should stand on public sidewalks and tweet every little private detail of the lives of the WBC members that they can discover (without trespassing, etc.)

WBC must consent to whatever the law ends up deciding -- but it must apply equally both ways. That's where Anonymous seems to have a good idea: paybacks. But don't break the law.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[CSMatt]

That's why Phelps' gang is pumped full of lawyers trained at "Liberty" "University", the Christian crusade madrassa.

Right. Which is why WBC didn't protest at Jerry Falwell's funeral. Oh wait, they did.

No one on the Christian right supports WBC. Even if they agreed with WBC, they have everything to lose by associating themselves with these people. WBC isn't even associated with any Baptist organization. They stand alone.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[houghi]

In this fight, it's Anonymous that's on the side of the angels.

That is a far cry from " I disagree with what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it".

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[FlatEric521]

I have no problem with creating a website devoted to hate. What I do have a problem with are their funeral protests.

Agreed. We all need to remember that no matter how disgusting their website is (or was) we all had the ability to ignore it. Their right to free speech didn't interfere with any of our rights, so we shouldn't be interfering with their right to free speech. However, when they turn up physically to protest something, they very well may be violating someone else's rights (private property, privacy, etc.). Your right to free speech ends when it starts to violate my rights.

Let them publish whatever crap they want and ignore it. That was the people who wrote the first amendment would probably have wanted us to do.

Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements

[MightyMartian]

Denial of service attacks are not speech. They are criminal acts, you fucking retard.

Re:Media, this is your fault

[MightyMartian]

The problem is slow news days. The temptation, when little enough is happening that the average TV viewer is going to give a damn about, to give the Phelps Gang airtime is too great. It's either the latest Phelps cemetery protest or a story on Fluppy the Three-Legged Dog saving his owners from eating bad wieners. Put yourself in the news department's shoes for a moment.

anonymous

[Chaseshaw]

an "anonymous" reader linked this?

Pleeeease.....

[bickerdyke]

godhatesfags.com?

That sounds like something I'd expect anonymous to START in the first place!

Re:Pleeeease.....

[JSG]

Familiar with them are we Sir?

Please step this way ...

Re:Pleeeease.....

[Anonymous Coward]

godhatesfags.com?

That sounds like something I'd expect anonymous to START in the first place!

I suspect this expectation derives mostly from uninformed opinion. Anonymous is not evil, randomly hateful, and retarded. They are "the little guy", they are nobodies, but they gain strength from numbers. They seek a power balance where there is none. They don't exert power over other nobodies. Persecuting homosexuals would be a step backwards.

godisafag.com maybe... godhatesbaptists.com, baptistsarefags.com... these I could see them doing.

Besides... op is a fag, always, no exceptions. And we're all op from time to time, so anyone who says god hates fags is spreading hate against all of us.

So much for WBC's nightly Hamster Dance

[gatkinso]

I don't think these folks have much exposure to the net, but their email WOULD be fascinating to a psychologist I am sure,

Re:So much for WBC's nightly Hamster Dance

[geekoid]

read their forums some time.

Those people are ignorant, deluded and crazy.

Free Publicity

[Skidborg]

You know, I hadn't even heard about that website until Anonymous vowed to take it down.

Re:Free Publicity

[JSG]

There's a female singer who learnt that lesson some time ago and gave her name to the "Effect"

Re:Free Publicity

[Skidborg]

The internet is a big place these days. I guess I just don't hang out in the hate-mongering loons region enough.

Re:Free Publicity

[ewieling]

It has been around for years and years. I always liked the satire site godhatesfigs.com, but it does not seem to exist anymore.

Re:Free Publicity

[martinux]

So the next time someone claims that religion provides the moral framework for our lives you can refer them to godhatesfags.com
Or perhaps the next time someone mentions Fred Phelps and his followers you'll have some idea of who they are and what they do.
I can't see any negative aspect to knowing about this site unless one was to follow their repugnant stupidity.

The idea of any publicity is good publicity doesn't really float.

thanks but no thanks

[binaryseraph]

The Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People

I am more than capable of fighting for my own advocacy, thank you. That being said- Westboro will get NO sympathy from me.

Isn't it ironic?

[gujo-odori]

Isn't it ironic that "The Voice of Free Speech" would tell another group that if they don't shut up, they will have their free speech DDOSed off the face of the earth?

C'mon, Anonymous, I don't like the tactics of the Westboro people any better than you do, but you either believe in free speech or you don't. If you don't, and you want to go ahead and DDOS them, fine, but let's be consistent.

Of course, DDOSing them won't stop them from shoving up at funerals and inflicting pain on innocent, grieving families. It might make you feel like you're Doing Something, but you won't be, really.

Re:Isn't it ironic?

[JSG]

It is also ironic that you address an entity calling themselves Anonymous as though they should have a consistent approach to politics.

Surely the meme we know as "AC" hasn't escaped your notice?

I come from a land where irony means more than "has less carbon in it than steel" - you?

Cheers
Jon

Re:Isn't it ironic?

[Moridin42]

There isn't much hypocritical about it. If free speech is totally free, then it is permitted to usurp another's platform to spread your speech. These pseudo-christians seem to believe it, because they certainly have no issues seizing funerals as their own platform to spread their speech. So, by their own behavior, it is permissible for Anonymous to seize the group's website to make their own statements.

If free speech isn't totally free, then the voice of free speech is at least the most motivated choice to impose the consequences of speech on the speaker. Being a douchebag at a funeral has consequences.

Re:Isn't it ironic?

[Moridin42]

Reading comprehension fail.

I said that as the self-proclaimed voice of free speech there was nothing hypocritical about their actions. If speech is totally free, then this is a permissible action. It is speech. It is totally free.

If it is not totally free, then there are consequences to your speech and you bear them in proportion to the aggravation your speech causes others.

And, I am not at all wrong in "my" assertion that speech need be totally free, even though I didn't assert that speech need to be free or tightly controlled or anything between. But political speech isn't totally free, and religious speech is even less deserving. Although you should post any and all social media accounts you have, so that any political or religious entity can use it to spread their message. After all, such speed must be utterly free, yes?

Somehow, I don't think you'll dehypocrite yourself by doing so. And I'm going to go on living a happy life under the premise that anybody sticking political signage in my yard or attempting to preach to me in my office will be summarily bounced. No speech has any business being utterly free. And such a thing is functionally impossible anyway. So, thankfully, no speech is actually utterly free.

Re:Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a horrible person and I wish personal suffering upon you.

Re:Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

"If, however, they choose to cling to their homosexuality"
Implying homosexuality is a choice, yes? Which it isn't.

"At first they enjoy sex, then they learn that they are able to use sex to get what they want..."
Hoorah for ridiculous over-generalizations!

"God does not hate."
But it's perfectly fine for people to hate in God's name.

The question that always bothers me is this: where does anyone get off saying that any given group is inferior to another simply because they are different? Especially when the basis for it is what some guy way back when wrote down in a book claiming to be written by God.

I hate to be callous or rude here, and please tell me if I'm misunderstanding you, but the statements above as I understood them bother me.

Anonymous = Liberal version of Militiamen

[Saint Stephen]

I wonder how long it will be before some Anonymous fan decides to kill a few people to prove a point. I always said during the Bush years that I was glad that the paranoid nutjobs (the 9/11 truthers) all appeared to be on the Left this decade. It was such a drag when the militia idiots were in the news all the time.

Re:Anonymous = Liberal version of Militiamen

[TubeSteak]

I wonder how long it will be before some Anonymous fan decides to kill a few people to prove a point.

Anonymous has called down the police on their own members before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan#Threats_of_violence

They want lulz, not a body count.

Re:Anonymous = Liberal version of Militiamen

[Antisyzygy]

You apparently do not understand that Anonymous is composed of activist nerds. This means they probably have a variety of contradictory personality traits like agreeing with gun control and being pacifists, while having no problem DDoS'ing websites, hacking bank accounts, and mass-libeling people in their moms basement.

WBC has done more for free speech than Anonymous

[makubesu]

I hate to say this since I despise WBC. But when WBC goes out and tests the limits of free speech, and our courts set firmly in place that no, you cannot stop someone from saying something, just because it's "offensive", they do more to protect my free speech than a bunch of script kiddies do DDOSing company websites that hardly anyone even goes to.

And just like that, Anonymous jumps the shark.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying I like Phelps and his gang of douchebags, but seriously? The wording of that message? Might just as well type "MUAHAHAHA!" down at the bottom, and then twirl your eloquently waxed mustache in a menacing fashion.

Bad Manners

[Anonymous Coward]

You used the critical word: rude. Their message is ugly but protected as free speech. It is the deliberate bad manners exhibited by Westboro that is unforgiveable!

They don't really have any effective tactic

[bigsexyjoe]

Phelps just loves attention. What are they going to do? DDOS his website? It'll be down for a day but that will just give him plenty of publicity. He's not a huge company that needs a website up 24/7. I don't believe he has any other IT infrastructure for them to attack.

Trolls trolling trolls.

[SpeZek]

The only question is who are the bigger trolls?

Against all expectations...

[caywen]

And against all expectations, a group of them will decide it's easier to put on ninja outfits and burn down the church. Hack the planet!!

God hates fags, jocks, kittens and stupid people

[WaffleMonster]

Anonymous should change their name... Anyone using the loic client to launch a ddos is neither anonymous nor intelligent.

Help me out here

[mikein08]

Anonymous is an advocate of free speech, if I read their website correctly. Yet they are threatening to take action against an organization whose "speech" and actions they do not approve. Which means, Anonymous is philosophically no better than the organization whose speech and actions they do not approve. Which means that Anonymous does not advocate free speech: Anonymous advocates free speech ONLY for those organizations and causes of which it approves. But I'm only an old codger who believes in free speech for EVERYONE, even if I do not approve of their agendas or ideas.

O RLY

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anonymous is now 'recognised' as a serious force to be taken seriously"

LOL This sets up the article perfectly.

golfclap

[goodmanj]

Way to go, ANONYMOUS, way to pick the tough battle, to go against the grain and stand up against the weight of public opinion.

Almost everyone hates the Westboro Baptist Church. It's easy, and also cowardly, to attack people whose beliefs are repugnant to the majority. But it takes true bravery to stand by and respect their right to say repugnant things.

Re:golfclap

[goodmanj]

Sticks and stones... Pushing is not the same as shouting, and children are not the same as adults. Analogy fail.

Re:The key phrase

[MimeticLie]

That's a bit of a non-sequitur, isn't it? Since when have Anonymous been progressives? If you want to call them anything, they're various flavors of anarchist. Leave it to a conservative to blame everything on progressivism. Every. Time.

Re:Correction

[WrongSizeGlass]

Wow. They have the internet in caves now?

That free WiFi goes places we never imagined.

Re:Correction

[WrongSizeGlass]

To quote Don Henley's If Dirt Were Dollars: Evil's still evil, in anybody's name

Freedom is not a vacuum

[Adam Appel]

It's easy to take the high road and say "oh, yea they have the right to say what they want. First amendment and all that". But what you say has repercussions. So sure you can scream " I hate fags!". Just don't be surprised when someone punches you in the face at some point.

Ah the cowards reasoning

[SmallFurryCreature]

What this coward says seem to make sense. But can be easily shown its cowardly nature by changing the names a bit.

Is there anything ironic about the self-appointed "guardians of freedom" trying to bully slavers out of existence? No, there absolutely IS NOT.

Only people that prefer for nothing ever to be done about anything because they are scared shitless of ever having to take a stand try to find silly excuses like this.

Re:Ah the cowards reasoning

[icebraining]

How are they 'slavers'?

I would Anonymous if they were to show up at the soldiers' funerals and keep these dipshits at a reasonable distance, if the legislators won't do it, but anything else seems to me as an unjustified violation of free speech.

Re:Correction

[cptdondo]

Over time the homosexual is no different than women. At first they enjoy sex, then they learn that they are able to use sex to get what they want, then they find that they get stuck in situations where they no longer wish to have sex with someone (or feel obligated to be directed to have sex with someone else), but they need to continue to do it because their director/partner has significant control over their social and financial lives.

Damn I sure wish your mom had been celibate.

Fine with me

[SmallFurryCreature]

We got enough bullets, there is room for one more at the well. No cigarettes though, you guys hate fags.

No it doesn't

[SmallFurryCreature]

No it doesn't. It only takes the cowards way out. "Oh I believe in free speech as some kind of right to say absolutely anything anywhere to anyone so I never have to take a stand for what I believe in because it might upset someone so I can sit safely at home feeling good at myself while filth roams the street".

Bravery is fighting for what you believe, not rolling over on your back for everyone with some hate speech.

godhatesfags.com

[dtobias]

As a noncommercial organization, they should have put their site up at godhatesfags.org instead of the .com address. I hope Anonymous gets 'em good for that!

Re:The key phrase

[VortexCortex]

Scratch a progressive, find a fascist. Every. Time.

Dealing with Chaotic Neutrals -- it's a real bitch sometimes, but I wouldn't call them fascists (there's no unified agenda, labels do not apply).

Every anonymous unit thinks a different way. Anonymous is not really "united" at all. Please, re-read these statements and remember that very few (perhaps only one?) of those calling themselves Anonymous actually give a damn about the statement, fewer still care enough to take any sort of action at all. It's strange when you think that such a small portion of their numbers has any impact at all...

If they really were organised and unified in their agenda perhaps Anonymous really would be "a serious force to be taken seriously" -- I'll LOLed @ that.

Kid Rock?

[raftpeople]

"...with the sunshine shining"

Well, mostly serious

[Shivetya]

unless their target has real money and knows what its doing...

I guess in their world of high profile targets this hate Church is one step below Amazon in the realm of evilness. I don't know where you go from here, to BobbysLemonadeStand.com?

Their new method of operation seems to be , groups that can't kick our ass or embarrass us are preferred.

Re:Well, mostly serious

[Thing 1]

Their new method of operation seems to be , groups that can't kick our ass or embarrass us are preferred.

Isn't that how all bullies operate?

Laughing Man!! (GITM: SAC)

[killfixx]

I am blown away by the Vernian accuracy of Gibson, Sterling, et al... Was it truly prognostication, life imitating art, or an inevitable outcome....

I know The Laughing Man isn't character by either of those authors, but a character of a similar vein none-the-less...

Re:Laughing Man!! (GITM: SAC)

[killfixx]

Edit: GITS:SAC.
Damn you! Delicious, delicious beer! Slowing my wits and editorial skills...

Re:It takes one person to send and email

[aboniks]

Thank jebus someone else pointed this out. It's like slashdot has collectively decided to stop going to a club because one douche flubbed a joke at open mic night. (Sorry I couldn't come up with a car analogy.) Most of the Anons posting on anonnews think this WBC raid is a stupid idea, even though they wouldn't piss on Phelps if he were burning to death.

Pointless Target

[Steauengeglase]

Watched a BBC documentary on them a month ago. After years of despising them, I couldn't help but feel bad for them, the family. Phelps himself, could take a flying leap for all I care.

That said, Anon has either jumped the shark (well, there isn't an Anon, so it could be anyone, so perhaps the concept of Anon has jumped the shark) or has picked a losing fight. By their own rules feeding a troll only ends in failure and I can't think of a bigger, or at least purer troll than Westboro Baptist.

Re:Pointless Target

[Steauengeglase]

That said, something about this does seem right. "Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People"? Doesn't sound like the people I've been reading about over the years. Heartless, cruel bastards, sure. Vigilante? Yes. "Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People"? No.

Re:Really Anonymoyus?

[Steauengeglase]

Pretty sure it wasn't. Just doesn't fit the general MO.

Re:The key phrase

[artor3]

Scratch a progressive, find a fascist. Every. Time.

Right! I sure hate all those progressives outlawing abortions, giving lengthy prison sentences to non-violent drug users, demanding we invade foreign countries to spread our views, insisting that creationism be taught in the classroom, setting up "free speech zones" on campuses, outlawing flag-burning, protesting construction of mosques, and so on.

Oh, wait. That's the conservatives.

WBC are Professional Trolls

[billstewart]

It's not just "in some fashion". They're professional trolls, finding the most offensive messages they can come up with so people will attack them and towns will ban them, and they can sue for civil rights violations and win. It's kept them in business for a long time.

If Anonymous can interfere with their cash flow and encourage the press not to publicize them, great. But if Anonymous gets them more publicity, which is more likely to be the case, they fail. WBC aren't like the Scientologists, who need to keep their real nature secret to avoid scaring away suckers; they're a family business that doesn't need to recruit new converts, and the suckers are town governments that unconstitutionally ban their demonstrations, lose lawsuits, and have to pay them. Anonymous isn't going to win by revealing their secret beliefs - if the public isn't offended enough to get into a fist-fight with the WBC, they haven't done their job, and they'll think up something new to say that'll tweak people even more.

Re:WBC are Professional Trolls

[hairyfeet]

But there is an easy way for the Anon guys to win this thing if they are willing to put in the effort like they did with Chanology. Hey Anon guys, you out there? Listen to your old pal Hairyfeet and he'll give you the scoop:

The key to defeating the WDC is to take away their power not through DDoS or bans (which as you pointed out as pro trolls just gets them $$$ from lawsuits) but to turn everything they do into a farce ala classic Yippie absurdist theater. Imagine having members of Anon, complete with the Guy Fawkes masks, perform ballet in a circle around the WDC when they protest. Or do scenes from Shakespeare while just writing in the stupid slogans the WDC chants. In other words strip the power of hate from them by using the right of free speech and assembly to make the WDC look like the fools that they are.

The WDC ONLY has power if they can stir up hatred and by turning their entire "performance" into one big absurdist piece of performance art Anonymous can strip that power away from them. think of it as "fighting fire with marshmallows" as only the Anonymous group can. Not only would it help to get rid of the ass cancer known as WDC, it would be good for the lulz!

Re:WBC are Professional Trolls

[fatphil]

No.

"My son should have been buried with dignity, not with a bunch of clowns outside."

Adding more clowns does not improve things in any way at all.

Re:WBC are Professional Trolls

[arb phd slp]

"My son should have been buried with dignity, not with a bunch of clowns outside."

Adding more clowns does not improve things in any way at all.

Yes. The counter-protests at funerals need to be handled more respectfully.

However, WBC are going to be at Portsmouth New Hampshire's Seacoast Repertory Theater picketing their production of The Laramie Project later this week. Some street theater to accompany the theater happening inside would be great lulz. Portsmouth loves street theater.

I heard rumblings of a God Hates Shrimp counter-protest. I don't know however, if there will be too big of a showing as Seacoast Rep's response was to half their ticket price for this show, with the rationale that getting everybody inside to actually watch the play is the action most contrary to what WBC wants.

Re:WBC are Professional Trolls

[tabrnaker]

Shouldn't that be God Hates Shellfish? Though i think the translation is more along the lines of creepy crawly that lives in darkness.

Re:WBC are Professional Trolls

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh..you DO know the WBC protests more than just funerals, yes? They protest movies and plays, TV and pretty much anything that doesn't spew their militant BS.

Although if the asshats of the WBC are gonna picket a funeral personally I'd rather have Anonymous handing out flowers and drowning out their bullshit with happy slogans than needing a bunch of bikers to surround the WBC and practically hand them another lawsuit on a silver platter, wouldn't you?

Look at it THIS way: One way or another the WBC WILL show up and act like douches, whether or not Anonymous shows up. is it better to let the WBC act like douches unopposed, or to do everything in one's power to take away any abilities the WBC has to be douches and thus hopefully one day run off the WBC for good? We've tried fighting fire with fire with the WBC and all it does is give them lawsuit bait and help them stay afloat. it is time to fight fire with marshmallows and take away any power they had to spew hate.

As long as the press covers them...

[billstewart]

As long as the press covers them, they don't need to run websites themselves. They *need* publicity, but they don't care how they get it, as long as people hate them and do things that they can sue them for.

too much hyperbole?

[garompeta]

It is hard to take seriously when someone comes with grandiloquent statements, showing pompously delusions of grandeur. "Collective super-consciousness" my ass.

HERD MENTALITY + Anonymity= diffusion of responsability^impunity

i love phelps' videos

[retchdog]

i look forward to his proclaiming "4chan: land of the sodomite damned!" it may be the first time his judgment is received enthusiastically.

Re:I wouldn't do that if I were you...

[WrongSizeGlass]

Thanks for the tip (I'll skip his journal and take your word for it). If his sense of humor measures at least as much as 1% of his faith then we all should be OK.

Counter-protesting trolls misses the point

[billstewart]

"Change their minds"? "Make it clear that WBC protests won't work"? They're professional trolls, and if you're not offended by what they say, and you've got deep enough pockets to be worth a lawsuit, they'll come up with something that'll offend you too, so you can attack them and violate their civil rights and lose in court. They're not trying to convert you, they're trying to piss you off. They don't actually care how you feel about gays, God, or America's Brave Troops - those are merely popular enough topics to get people to fight over so that town councils will try to run them out of town in ways that are slam-dunk unconstitutional interference with free speech.

"Shame them"? A couple of the kids have left the family business, or never gotten into it, but Fred and at least one daughter don't seem susceptible to shame.

Re:Counter-protesting trolls misses the point

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, I am something of an optimist. And in any case, the alternatives are what?

Having the state censor them would violate their civil liberties, and as much as we may all despise WBC, their rights should be protected. (Plus it's nice when hateful people out themselves; saves a lot of trouble exposing them)

Ignoring them would be okay, to the point where they're basically outcasts from society and commerce. But they could probably get a rise out of some people, sometimes; in the absence of opposition, some people might fall for their crap; and some people would be too spineless to maintain such an embargo. Plus pithy quote by Burke.

What would you suggest? How effective do you think it would be?

Regarding lawsuits, if they're just trying to find deep pockets, I doubt that Anonymous will have them. We're basically talking about high schoolers, college students, and parents' basement dwellers, mainly, as I understand it. Plus they may be a pain in the ass to track down and get jurisdiction over. And I think we've all seen recently that it's not a great idea to antagonize them.

What next an attack by the branch of the Salvation

[PDX]

What next an attack by the militant branch of the Salvation Army? Or are they trying to hate all hate evenly across the entire spectrum. These hate groups often start in points of isolation. The solution is increased broadband and internet addiction for their descendants. Egypt's current situation could not have happened as easily without the training that the Egyptian Army received from the United States. Remaining impartial and knowing your own limits is useful training that is obviously lacking in the hate speech movement.

There's a much better way.

[techno-vampire]

There's a much better, easier way to deal with these insensitive fanatics, one that doesn't run foul of the law. Simply picket their church, every Sunday, during services. Make it loud, make it hard for them to hear themselves and, if possible, make it impossible for them to reach the building because of the crowds. Let them see what it's like from the other side and watch them call for the police to arrest the picketers because to people like them, Freedom of Speech only means freedom tor them to speak, not for their opponents.

head far up own ass

[systematical]

so the defenders of free speech want to take someone elses
free speech away, right.....

Let me see if I understand this

[hargrand]

Anonymous claims to be "the Voice of Free Speech" while simulataneously attempting to supress the free speech rights of Phelps and his "Church"...? Shouldn't they try for a little internal consistency, or do they expect "the People" they are advocating for to just suspend their disbelief.

Why so serious?

[Rizimar]

Anonymous is now recognised as a serious force to be taken seriously

that's how Christianity works

[t2t10]

The solution when your chosen religion conflicts with your lifestyle and biology is not to try and reinterpret and redefine that religion's beliefs to align with yours, it's to stop believing in that religion and choose another (or none at all).

You're falsely assuming that Christianity is some fixed set of beliefs, but it isn't. For 2000 years, Christianity has kept changing its dogma and beliefs for political, moral, and theological expediency, and for about a millennium before that, the Jews were doing the same. I mean, Paulus took an apocalyptic Jewish preacher ("the world is going to end within my lifetime; Jews, give away your possessions and obey Jewish law") and turned his message onto its head in order to create a new religion appealing to a wide audience.

For the simple reason that many men want to be ordained as priests: it is a quick-and-easy way to gain moral authority over others.

Christianity isn't a consistent set of beliefs, it's a symbol and placeholder that is (falsely) perceived to stand for morality and compassion in our society.

Re:that's how Christianity works

[synthespian]

You're absolutely right. Today's Roman Catholic Church accepts the Big Bang and the Theory of Evolution.

Re:that's how Christianity works

[t2t10]

You're absolutely right. Today's Roman Catholic Church accepts the Big Bang and the Theory of Evolution.

You say that as if it's a good thing. What about the millions of people who suffered under some Catholic doctrine that the new "enlightened" Catholic church has abandoned when the only alternative was irrelevancy?

Catholicism claims absolute, universal truth, and it hasn't delivered that for 2000 years. It's a sham and a bunch of lies.

As a Kansan...

[B33RM17]

I fully condone this act. I am proud to call myself a Kansan, not proud to share this state with the likes of Fred Phelps. He gives the rest of the decent people in this state a bad name. Homosexuals are people too and he has no shred of common decency in his body, nor does any member of his "family", if they choose to persecute others as they do. At funerals no less. It really does warm my heart to hear that Anonymous has gone after Fred Phelps and his "gang". They try to spread a message of peace and "God's love", but all they do is spread a message of hate for their fellow man. F@&king hypocrites.

Sorry if I sound like troll or just a plain hatemonger. But if you were born and raised in a state where a guy like him came from, I would hope you would understand.

Re:you don't understand the Constitution

[sumdumass]

It's not a matter of what they say, it's where they say it at. And within that, the right to petition your government is completely within play.

for instance, you cannot enter my home and preach about my fish tank needing cleaned without my permission. You can however, stand on the court house steps and preach about needing to clean your fish tank. Now we have noise ordinances and laws about holding events and such. and that's a sovereign right of almost any political subdivision in any state.

Phelps has a case in front of the supreme court right now that deals with this specifically. The WBC is claiming that by serving as a soldier in a war, those fallen soldiers have placed themselves into the public spectrum. the counter argument is that these are private people and their disruption of a private event is not only criminal but tortuous and they own them money. Now most areas have more strict laws concerning the dead and most civil laws pertaining to them are construe liberally (in a literal sense) in favor of the grieving person(s).

If it's about a private event, the WBC is screwed and not allowed to disrupt it. If it's a public event, then there is a lot more they can get away with. But by all means, your right to free speech does not carry a right to be heard or a right to a place to be heard at. Except at public (read civil, not I can see you) event and places.

Blessed are they...

[StoatBringer]

Fundie nutjobs would like nothing better than to be martyred, or at least "persecuted" for their beliefs.
"Blessed they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

If someone did physically attack one of Phelps' mob, they would just see it as a Sign From God that they were doing his work.
1) Make outrageous comments, or be generally vile. In the name of Jesus.
2) Notice that people are really angry with you and object to everything you say.
3) Claim "persecution" and sit back with a smug grin on your face, knowing you've scored lots of Jesus-points and will get a better seat in Heaven.
4) GOTO 1

Who the hell are they kidding?

[ThunderBird89]

[quote]We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People[/quote]

Who the hell are they kidding, "Advocate of the People"? They're nothing more than a bunch of 16-years-old script kiddies with IRC to coordinate them. Granted, quite a big bunch, but they're still only immature assholes.

And I'm willing to bet quite a number of them are also homophobic, just like their current target...

Re:Most people don't understand free speech.

[Raenex]

You don't understand free speech either. Getting fired is one thing. Criminal actions taken against you is another. The laws just don't fly out the window because somebody got offended.

Not that I'm any fan...

[bwcbwc]

of the Westboro Baptist Church, but it's kind of sad that "the Voice of Free Speech" doesn't see the irony of attacking people for speaking their views, however idiotic and bigoted.

Anonymous collective gets to define "free speech"?

[synthespian]

As much as I think the Westboro Baptist nutjobs are straight out of the middle ages, I think Anonymous isn't protecting free speech at all by attacking those religious fanatics. Then the next step for Anonymous would "I don't like you, so I'll DDOS the fuck out of you." In this digital age, they argue that their DOS attacks are the equivalent of a crowd sit-in. How exactly *do you* effectively obstruct a bank in, say, Zurich, when their customers can do on-line transactions, and people don't really walk to the bank much for anything (I don't. Do you?).

The concept that "hate speech" is an actual act of hate (hence, not free speech at all) is kinda of a slippery slope... A hate group is a self-delimited group. They single themselves out, so it's immediately obvious who one is talking to. You can just turn your back. As long as hate groups (Westboro, Arian Nations, Nation of Islam, etc.) don't actually commit to physical violence, maybe it's better to keep them in open shouting their stupid ideas rather than having them plot in the dark.

The Anonymous collective is a bunch of very smart and articulate people, but I think they are taking their hacktivism in the wrong direction. Their Litmus Test for attacks should be: "If I woke up as an ACLU lawyer, what would *I do in this case."

It's kind of sad that, in America and Europe, protests are so sanitized, and furthermore, monitored by the police (cameras, databases, etc.) to an extent it really is kind of fascist and Orwellian. Americans in particular don't really seem to have the guts to go out and protest, due to all the laws (Patriot Act, No Fly list, police brutality and arrests) their previous right-wing government has advanced - they can claim their Constitution is grand, but you really need to have a very well-paid lawyer...In that kind of climate, it's only natural that a group of activists prefers anonymity to open spaces. Suck it up, "civilized" nations. Anonymous is just your own backyard blowback to so much crowd control (in America, thought control is called "patriotism") and so little respect for dissenting voices.

And so it is ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... that power doth insidiously corrupt. Imagining themselves supremely noble in their quest, the taints of hypocrisy or malice shall not stay their collective hand.

Pseudo-Darwinist argument

[synthespian]

Here's the counterpoint to your very uneducated Darwinian argument:

A substantially (large) proportion of the human population (~10%) keeps popping out with this particular behavioral trait, i.e., homosexuality (there are others traits, but let's leave it at that.). Much to religious people's chagrin, it just doesn't seem to go away, as much as they pray and curse. It has been so for millenia.

Contrary to what you argued, instead of it being "unnatural" as you claimed, it would seem that there must be some Darwinian explanation for that trait to remain in the human population gene pool, because otherwise, if it weren't so, it would already have been eliminated, for precisely the reasons you pointed out.

Re:Pseudo-Darwinist argument

[sumdumass]

Here's the counterpoint to your very uneducated Darwinian argument:

A substantially (large) proportion of the human population (~10%) keeps popping out with this particular behavioral trait, i.e., homosexuality (there are others traits, but let's leave it at that.). Much to religious people's chagrin, it just doesn't seem to go away, as much as they pray and curse. It has been so for millenia.

That's if you actually believe they were born that way and it's not a choice they tend to make because of a predisposition. And of course, there is a difference there. You can be genetically predisposition to like both the color red, and the sleek curves of a corvette yet never buy a red corvette or even drive one. It also doesn't mean you will never be happy if you don't have or drive a red corvette, it just means you won't get what you want.

Well, the evidence for homosexuality being a genetic disorder or weird mutation is pretty weak too. For one, it would kill itself out of the gene pool given enough time and we know it has existed since the beginning of recorded history almost. I for one refuse to accept that homosexuals (which the term in and of itself is descriptive of an act, not a preference), are genetic mutants destined to remove their genetic information from the gene pool. In fact, I know several who are very smart and articulate and appear to actually enhance the gene pool if they were to ever reproduce. I don't buy the genetic mutation for homosexuality just as I don't buy the concept of a genetic mutation causing people to rape others. It's a nonstarter because a choice to do the defining act has to be made. And I will say right now, one of those acts is perfectly legitimate between consenting adults, the other isn't.

Contrary to what you argued, instead of it being "unnatural" as you claimed, it would seem that there must be some Darwinian explanation for that trait to remain in the human population gene pool, because otherwise, if it weren't so, it would already have been eliminated, for precisely the reasons you pointed out.

well, yea. there is a Darwinian explanation, It's that these people are not genetic freaks at all, they have certain preferences and choose to act on them. But in doing so, they are removing their genes from the gene pool unless they act differently from their preferences and reproduce or use man made interference in the process.

Anyways.. I think the point I was trying to make is especially exemplified within your comment. and kudos for being the only person out of 6 so far to reply that actually caught the evolutionary part of the comment and kept your comments in line with that. But the point I was trying to make was that substituting one absurdity for another is in no way cause to make fun of the other absurdity. We may disagree on the mechanics of evolution_and_homosexuality, and of course I think the fact that it hasn't bread itself out of the gene pool is support for it being just a choice based around a predisposition for something in particular (it may not even be about sex either). But in the end, doing what they are doing as the GP applied isn't really any way to stop what they are doing.

just ignore WBC

[hyperion2010]

Anon would do alot better to just remain silent about this and systematically remove all reference to Phelps et al from the internet. The only reason they keep it up is because of the attention. If you ignore them and erase their existence from the media it doesn't matter what they say, no one will hear them and they will be like a kid throwing a tantrum in a soundproofed padded room where no one is watching and no one cares.

Re:Correction

[bstender]

look man, you can do this, no need to be coy Roy, life is too short, just drop off the keys...

Re:you don't understand the Constitution

[t2t10]

But by all means, your right to free speech does not carry a right to be heard or a right to a place to be heard at. Except at public (read civil, not I can see you) event and places.

They were on a public street. They didn't disrupt the funeral, in fact the funeral goes couldn't see them at all. They just saw recordings of the picketing afterwards on television and then filed their lawsuits.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-10-06/news/bs-md-snyder-arguments-20101006_1_sean-e-summers-westboro-baptist-church-protests/4

And even if they had been visible from the funeral, as long as they stayed on a public street and kept a reasonable distance, it should have been OK. You do not have a right to be protected from speech that offends you, funeral or not.

you're ignorant

[t2t10]

there's not nearly as many contradictions as you make it seem. I'm betting most of the things you consider a contradiction comes from your lack of basic understanding of the bible.

It's not what I "consider"; these are extremely well studied and documented facts, starting with Thomas Paine's "Age fo Reason" (which I recommend) to modern historical, theological, and linguistic studies.

Re:you're ignorant

[sumdumass]

You are suffering from confirmation bias associated with your lack of comprehension of the bible. A lot of what Thomas Paine wrote suffered from this to a great extent too.

I mean his critique of inconsistencies in proverbs basically consists of "we have better ones available". His critique of the old testament is completely based on "I can find no proof". Disbelief and doubt are not inconsistencies, it's disbelief and doubt. Like any competent atheist (in which there are quite a few incompetent ones), he puts for an argument that more or less runs the line of, the Church and State are one empire destine to take freedoms from man, I can't find proof so I'm not going to believe, and well, we have better ideas now.

In fact, there are many counters to Paine's work out there- most of which ignore his "I don't believe" line of reasoning and completely focus on where he got things completely wrong.. Some almost as old as his own work. Many of the point to Dr. Strong's concordance for accurate and meaningful translations which sort of stop Paine's interpretations cold. Unfortunately, this was publish about 100 or more years after Thomas Paine's work. Dr. Strong's concordance is something I recommend too.

Re:you're ignorant

[t2t10]

Like any competent atheist

Paine wasn't an atheist at all; he strongly believed in God and wrote The Age of Reason in defense of religion. He merely believed that the Christian religion and the Bible had become corrupted. And personally, I'm an "atheist" only in that I reject theism (mainly, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) as false, but I don't reject religion.

You are suffering from confirmation bias associated with your lack of comprehension of the bible ... Many of the point to Dr. Strong's concordance for accurate and meaningful translations which sort of stop Paine's interpretations cold.

If my understanding of the Bible is incorrect, then so is the understanding of one of the largest Protestant denominations: I grew up Protestant, went to Sunday school and was confirmed. I've read KJV, NIV, Luther (in German), and the Catholic Bible (in Latin). I reject the teachings of the church and the Bible because I consider many of them morally wrong and reprehensible, in addition to being logically inconsistent. And those Christian and biblical teachings that I agree with are not unique to Christianity.

Besides, Protestantism has the doctrine of "sola scriptura", which includes the claim that the veracity of the Bible ought to be self evident and does not require complicated interpretation. Well, it is self-evident to me (just like it was to Paine, Jefferson and many others) that the Bible is corrupt and that the lunatic and vengeful God it describes just doesn't make sense.

Re:you don't understand the Constitution

[sumdumass]

I'm not sure how you can claim some assertive rules from that news article. IT says that a jury found against the WBC to the sum of 3 million dollars but it was overturned on appeal.

The disconnect between the stated reasons why it was overturned and what happened was in that even though the WBC might have had a legitimate right to protest, they didn't have a legitimate right to protest this one person's funeral. That is why the supreme court picked it up and is going to decide on it.

You do have a right to conduct your life and not be bothered by other people regardless of their right to free speech. This is supported by legal noise ordinances that have been completely upheld by the courts as well as zoning laws and rules requiring strip clubs and bars to be located so many feet away from schools, parks and other public places of interest and even zoning regulations requiring commercial businesess and other non-residential entities, and even the practice of that to be conducted in zones other then strict residential zoning. The point of contention here with this case is whether the dead soldier's funeral was a default place of public interest or a private matter altogether. If it's found to be one, the WBC had a right to be there. If it is private, they are subject to the laws regulating against it and any liability that might come from it.

Please do not pretend that something is absolutely true when that very truth is being decided in the courts as of right now.

"Suicide" vs. "Altruism" - group dynamics

[zooblethorpe]

For any species to survive, they need to reproduce. According to natural selection, the strongest traits that give the most advantage survive. It is not natural in this sense, that a portion of the gene pool would intentionally commit suicide.

I'm coming in partway through this argument having read only some of the posts, but this line above caught my eye.

Your point here may apply well enough when considering a purely atomistic species, i.e. some lifeform that is entirely non-social. However, once you begin to look at group dynamics, other factors come into play. With humans, for instance, social behaviour is key to how we function. In this perspective, a portion of the gene pool that does not reproduce does not necessarily mean suicide per se, as these individuals would be free to engage in other behaviours aside from direct child rearing with all the costs associated with that, and these free agents may instead increase the survivability of the group as a whole. These genes, although not reproducing themselves directly, would thereby be positively selected for within the group.

Cheers,

Come out...?

[jandersen]

The controversial if monotone message of the "Love Crusade" seems to be to blame everything that is wrong in the world on homosexuality

When a guy is so eager to demonstrate to the world that he is not at all gay, whatever people say, then perhaps he has some personal issues he should work with; such as deciding to come out of the cupboard.

Since corporations are "people"

[woboyle]

If Anonymous were to register as a US corporation, then just think - we could vote for Anonymous for Congress/Senate/President! Works for me, and it couldn't be any worse than what we have had for the past... well a LONG time! :rolleyes:

It is a FAKE and not Anonymous at all!

[akayani]

http://anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=494

Anonymous have denied this in no uncertain terms. You can read the link it is rendered as a bitmap and I'm too lazy to retype the response.

Re:you don't understand the Constitution

[t2t10]

I'm not sure how you can claim some assertive rules from that news article.

I'm not claiming anything "from that news article", I'm just pointing you to it because it summarizes the facts. You can get those facts in lots of other places, but are apparently too intellectually lazy to do so.

And the facts are that WBC did not "disrupt" the funeral, they did not interfere with the funeral, and they were not on private property. Snyder himself testified that he couldn't see the WBC protesters from the funeral.

You do have a right to conduct your life and not be bothered by other people regardless of their right to free speech. This is supported by legal noise ordinances that have been completely upheld by the courts as well as zoning laws and rules requiring strip clubs and bars to be located so many feet away from schools, parks and other public places of interest and even zoning regulations requiring commercial businesess and other non-residential entities, and even the practice of that to be conducted in zones other then strict residential zoning.

Yes, and the WBC complied with all ordinances. They did not disrupt the funeral. At issue is their public speech away from the funeral, that is their statements about the funeral.

The point of contention here with this case is whether the dead soldier's funeral was a default place of public interest or a private matter altogether.

No, that is not a "point of contention" since they weren't even visible from the soldier's funeral. The point of contention is whether their speech was so offensive and vulgar that it didn't fall under the First Amendment, and whether people may use someone's personal (if publicly known) events as part of political and religious speech. "Invasion of privacy" here doesn't refer to a physical invasion of some event, it refers to publishing something related to a (supposedly) private event.

Please do not pretend that something is absolutely true when that very truth is being decided in the courts as of right now.

Bullshit. The courts are not deciding what you are claiming they are deciding. You apparently read a few headlines and jumped to conclusions without getting the facts, and in the process, you don't hesitate to trample on fundamental Constitutional principles. You're a disgrace as far as I'm concerned.