Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Down The Rabbit Hole

Lewis Carroll couldn't have made up something so backwards and ludicrous for Alice even under the influence of the most potent of psychedelic enhancers. This is so incredibly backward that the future response of individuals faced with similar situations at the hands of these warped miscreants can only resort to less civil responses.

Funeral of Hero Disrespected Even in US Courts

Maybe a court in which justice were blind and a devotion to the First Amendment shielded the most egregious insults would say the half-witted homophobes who use the Bible to justify their hatred were entitled to protection of their speech. But in no perverted form of justice would victims of their outrage be asked to pay for the court costs.

Let's say for an instant that interfering with a funeral honoring a family's war dead was Constitutionally allowed and the court found in their favor. It seems that a reasonable justice would say their reward was not having their lights punched out or worse and nothing more. They wouldn't have their court costs paid by the victim.

But, there is a significant body of First Amendment law that has set a precedent that "fighting words" are not protected speech. Demeaning a son's sacrifice for his country and fellow soldiers to spew hatred over gay policy in the military can be nothing else but fighting words.

In a nation with justice there is no justification for violence. In a nation with demonstrated disrespect for justice there can be few alternative left. I know a couple of hundred fat old guys, combat veterans all, who are simply too old to engage in physical altercations with fanatics who are much younger than us. That's why we look to that famous saying about a great invention: "God made men, but Samuel Colt made them equal."

When you reach a certain age there isn't a very distant horizon. That's why dying in a worthy cause gets so much easier.

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