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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.'"
I smell a conflict of interest.
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"Anonymous is now recognised as a serious force to be taken seriously..."
C'mon, "a serious force to be taken seriously?" Who wrote that?
Is there anything ironic about the self-appointed "voice of free speech" trying to bully an admittedly annoying and vocal cult into silence?
The average mental age on the Internet is at least 13 and the 85th percentile is at least 15.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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.
Prayer: How to do nothing and still feel like you're helping.
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!
Similar to the upcoming US election results
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.
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.
...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.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
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.
--
make install -not war
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.
Sorry, but you are wrong.
When two groups of retards attack each other, everyone wins...
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
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.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I think the idea is to overwhelm the target websites with love.
Something like 100,000 kind prayers a second.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Sorry, that was the work of the *middle* easter bunny.
But... the future refused to change.
Not that I pity Westboro at all (hypocritical demon warshipers)...
Fuck me, who let that crazy church build demon warships?!?!
'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.
"I find that those who pray experience more coincidences..." - C. S. Lewis
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
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.
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.
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.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
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.
John
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.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.