Your God Given Right to be Wrong.

I am about to tangent in epic proportions. EPIC.

I love social networking. My facebook page is the first and last thing I check online, everyday. I'm on and off of it all day, too. Yet, I'm always on the edge of just deleting my account and walking away from such a breeding ground of rampant stupidity, as well.

For example, a few of my 'friends' had this little number posted today: So the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that you have the right under the First Amendment to protest military funerals... I invite you to stop and protest in my front yard and we can see if your first amendment is better than my Second Amendment...Repost if you feel the same. Now, in and of itself, while childish, this statement doesn't bother me much. I understand the sentiment behind it. However...

One of my friends felt the need to add this particular tag to their status: only our dumbass non-american president would do something like this to the men and women serving our country!

This folks, is just a statement made out of anger and ignorance.

First, let's get through the obvious. The President has absolutely no participation or sway over the rulings of the Supreme Court. If he did, he would be a dictator not a president. Our government is divided into separate entities that can not influence each other for a reason.

Also, taking shots at Obama's heritage is weak, and it's getting fucking old. You must be American by birth to hold the office of our leader. If the American populace were going to turn a blind-eye to this particular law, Arnie would be sitting in the Oval Office smoking a fat fucking cigar.

Okay...moving past the information that any random fifth grader could provide you...

The Supreme Court had no choice but to overturn the decision of Snyder v. Phelps. The First Amendment has no grey area. It is black and white. Either we have absolute freedom of speech, or we do not. We can not ever justify allowing our emotions to remove one of the basic principles of this country. If you want to live in such a police state, feel free to pack your shit and head on out. Personally, I like being able to say whatever free-formed thought is rolling about my head without living in fear of gestapo pulling me from my bed in the wee hours of the morning and disappearing me.

I doubt very much that the crotchety old fucks that sit behind the bench of our highest court of law enjoyed the responsibilty of permitting protests of military funerals. Unfortunately, they had no choice but to uphold the law. It's kind of their fucking job.

So here we are again. We have an American public that is so disenfranchised with a failing economy that they created through their own apathy, they are once again turning their government into a whipping boy for something that is religious in origin.

Yes, religious. Relax, I'm getting there. Try and follow the bouncing ball of etheral light, would ya?

The problem isn't that the government stood up for your right to freedom of speech. Which, is what happened, even if you're too pig-headed to acknowledge it. The right of every pornographer, journalist, artist, and every other citizen of this country was defended. You still have the right to wake up tomorrow and bitch about what a lousy job the President you probably couldn't be bothered to vote for is doing. Hoo-rah for democracy.

The problem is The Westboro Baptist Church and their insistance on abusing our right to freedom of speech in about the most heinous manner possible. Because, as Americans, the only right we hold more dear than our freedom of speech (and right to bear arms) is our right to worship whatever God we choose. As long as that God is Christian. And intolerant of all other gods. And white. Americans love a white Jesus.

Now, this group of redneck, bigoted fuckwads have the right to protest military funerals. The soldiers lying in the coffins died defending that right (in theory, anyway. Most of them actually died over the price of oil, but we'll defer and respect the integrity of their service to this country). What they haven't bothered to ask themselves is the age old question of; just because we can, does it mean we should?

No. I can fry bacon naked in the comfort of my home. I don't, because it's fucking stupid.

Personally, I hope the next batch of planes that terrorists drop on our heads lands on the their church. I'd love to see a group of veterans in ski-masks with tire irons show up to their next protest. And, I hope they don't spare the rod on the 12 year old kid holding the sign that says: AIDS KILLS FAGS DEAD. I'd kill for five minutes in a locked room with Fred Phelps, a blowtorch and some salt. No shit.

So...we have a group of religious zealots abusing the system to meet their own agenda, and who is at fault? The government. Um, okay. Makes perfect sense. To a mentally challenged functioning alchoholic, I guess.

In God We Trust.

Yet, no matter who you want to lay the blame on, the reality is that it's over. Protesting military funerals is legal. The End.

So, how do we deal with it? Learn tolerance for morbid fuckbags like the Westboro Baptards? Actually, no. We handle it the way we handle everything else. With complete apathy.

You want this shit to end? Solve it in the tradition of American problem solving. Ignore it. If we stopped paying attention to these morons, if we stopped feeding the fires that build their brimstone style posturing, if we stopped adding the spotlight to their media... They would just dry up and go away.

Organizations like the WBC come and go through the annals of American history. Eventually, their shock value winds up with all the value of the American dollar in Japan and they get replaced by some other group of vapid assholes.

But, it becomes our responsibility to just ignore them. Your facebook post may seem harmless, but it isn't. Every fire starts with a spark. As long as you are paying attention to them, as long as you are willing to place the blame on the wrong people, you are doing nothing more than empowering these home-grown terrorists.

We can agree. We can disagree. We can even agree to disagree. But, until we can just learn to turn a blind eye to blatant stupidity, we're doing nothing more than adding to the shallow end of the gene pool. Of course...if we keep adding to the shallow end of the gene pool, I guess we'll displace it enough to make it the deeper end, huh?