Westboro apologies

[Crackpot]

So if they really don't believe that their actions will bring about any change (because pretty much everyone but them is damned regardless of what they do), then how can their completely indiscriminate spewing of hatred be "well intentioned"?

Doing the equivalent of chanting "nyeh, nyeh, we're the elect who are going to be saved, and the rest of you will burn in hell" seems far from well intentioned.

Most does not equal all. Are you being willfully obtuse here?

[Scooter]

If you mean, am I unable to see anything of redeeming value about what that bunch of nutcases stand for or choose to do in order to express it, or do I find it completely inconceivable that anyone of rational mind could essentially characterize all of the evil those freaks perpetrate as merely the work of some misguided folks who really do mean well, then yes, I guess I am.

Perhaps you should try out your explanation of their behaviour on the parents of the next kid whose funeral they decide to picket, and see if they are any less "obtuse" than I am proving to be.

[Scooter]

I wish you didn't have the need to personalize everything.

Gee, what in the world could POSSSIBLY make me take this topic personally?

It couldn't be the fact that I am a fag, as the Westboro bunch so quaintly refer to me.

It couldn't be the fact that I am a fag with AIDS, a group they particularly like to target for their vitriol.

It couldn't be the fact that, when I die, it could be my funeral they are picketing, and it could be my mother who has to expose herself to their disgusting taunts while she is trying to bury her son.

Nah, none of that could POSSIBLY be a reason for why I might take this personally.

Far better that I should follow more dispassionate example, and fawn all over them for how "well intentioned" they are.

[TPFKA@W]

Scoot I understand your ire, but I also understand her pov. My family, seen through your eyes, would have been hateful, etc, etc, and I could see why you would see them that way. In retrospect my grandmother was very much like those in this church, but she was also the woman who baked bread for me, read to me and organized scavenger hunts for the neighborhood kids. The little girl who lives on in my mind thinks she was a wonderful grandmother. The adult who posts this before you now understands there was a horrible darkside to her and resents being brainwashed to hate, by her. It is much easier to think that she was well intentioned rather than that she was an evil nutjob. It's a difficult thing to reconcile.

[Joe Guy]

I wish you didn't have the need to personalize everything.

Gee, what in the world could POSSSIBLY make me take this topic personally?

I'm not talking about taking the topic personally. I'm referring to how you personally criticize individuals on this BBS when they don't agree with you.

[Lord Jim]

It is much easier to think that she was well intentioned rather than that she was an evil nutjob. It's a difficult thing to reconcile.

@W, I think your post really hits the nail on the head, as regards the complexity of emotions that are likely in play...

These are young adults, who have taken what must have been the very difficult and courageous step of separating themselves from the only families and home they have ever known...

Families who they still love (the Westboroites have been investigated by the authorities up the wazoo, and aside from teaching them their odious philosophy of hate, there has never been any allegation that they have ever "abused" their kids)

I'm sure these kids who have left have very mixed emotions...leaving their parents and the life of the cult must carry a lot of pain for them...

And I'm sure they also must feel that by leaving they have caused their parents pain as well....

The fact that they don't want to add to this pain by denouncing the parents that genuinely loved and cared for them (regardless of how hateful their philosophy may have been towards others) is perfectly understandable...

Scooter, like @W, I certainly understand your anger towards this group and why you would take it personally...(I also have nothing but contempt for them)

But as far as these kids are concerned, who have left the group over the past few years, I'm prepared to cut them a little slack if they don't feel prepared to denounce their parents.

They've already shown a lot of courage and good judgement just by leaving....

[Scooter]

The only thing I said wrt to the kids was this:

Ms. Phelps-Roper either hasn't quite seen the light yet, or she has a misguided sense of loyalty.

I don't see that I was unduly harsh.

Towards those who are not carrying her baggage and still insist on seeing the Phelpes as "well intentioned", however...

[rubato]

One could be well intentioned and completely wrong Scoot

Ah, how does that work, exactly?

A great deal of evil done in the world is performed out of confusion of one kind or another but I cannot call it "well intentioned". It is relatively rare that people whose lives and acts are evil are self-aware about it.

“Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world.” (Werner Herzog).

yrs,
rubato

[TPFKA@W]

But chickens are very good mothers.

[Joe Guy]

“Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world.” (Werner Herzog).

So, being the intelligent creatures that we humans are, we eat them.

[Crackpot]

If you mean, am I unable to see anything of redeeming value about what that bunch of nutcases stand for or choose to do in order to express it, or do I find it completely inconceivable that anyone of rational mind could essentially characterize all of the evil those freaks perpetrate as merely the work of some misguided folks who really do mean well, then yes, I guess I am.

Perhaps you should try out your explanation of their behaviour on the parents of the next kid whose funeral they decide to picket, and see if they are any less "obtuse" than I am proving to be.

What's this redeeming value you speak of? What I'm talking about is perspective. Understand the delusion and you better armed to combat it. It's convenient to see them as evil incarnate but it does nothing to stop it. In fact in only serves to feed their delusions.

[Lord Jim]

It's convenient to see them as evil incarnate but it does nothing to stop it.

The thing that is going to bring a "stop" to this group is the passage of time...

The old ones will die off, and the young ones will leave....

This group never had more than 300 members and now they have fewer than 200; they have no affiliation with any major religious organization...they represent no one and nothing beyond their own tiny psychotic group....

They apparently no longer have the resources or energy to engage in their vile "protests" much beyond the boundaries of Topeka Kansas, (whose unfortunate residents have no choice but to put up with them) they garner media attention by threatening to protest at every high profile tragedy, but most of the time they don't show up...

They have been very successful at gaining attention for themselves far beyond what they really represent...

This success has been largely the achievement of not Phelps himself but his daughter; Shirley Phelps-Roper:



(Any resemblance to The Wicked Witch Of The West is purely coincidental)

Mrs. Phelps-Roper is the mother of 11 children; (including one she had out of wed-lock but who she acknowledges as her child, and who was adopted by her husband...though she refuses to identify his biological father....there's some speculation that it might be good old Fred Senior himself) she is also a lawyer in good standing:

Phelps-Roper received a B.A. in Criminal Justice from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas in 1979 and a J.D. degree from Washburn in 1981.[6] She practices for Phelps-Chartered Co., the Phelps family's law firm established by her father in 1964,[7] and is currently licensed to practice before all Kansas courts up through the United States Supreme Court.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Phelps-Roper

Being a vile and disgusting asshole is apparently not grounds for disbarment....

Shirley Phelps-Roper is the one who has principally orchestrated the media-savvy strategy that vaulted this tiny group of kooks to the status of "international phenom"...(Had she chosen to lend her talents to Madison Avenue, she would no doubt be a millionaire many times over)

She has been assisted in this of course, (as she no doubt knew she would) by a media establishment that is largely cynical (if not hostile) towards organized religion and Faith in general, and that has been more than happy to inflate her cult's antics far beyond their significance, and to hint that they are somehow representative of Christian Evangelicals in general...(which they manifestly are not)

She also makes herself very available to the media; she has been on Ellen, Oprah, and given numerous interviews; here's one she gave six years ago that I posted when it took place, back at the CSB:



Groups like the "Westboro Baptist Church" (much like the American Nazi Party, or the KKK) test the outer boundaries of our adherence to the principles of the First Amendment regarding free speech .

This adherence doesn't require, as I've pointed out before, that Nazis have the right to march down the street in front of the homes of Holocaust survivors, or that these nutjobs have the right to protest at funerals of soldiers, or the funerals of anyone else...

But they do have a right to exist, and to spew their putrid venom somewhere,...

It is part of the price we pay for having a free society....

[Crackpot]

I have doubts that the group will last much longer than Fred himself. I've personally seen the fallout after the death of a domineering patriarch.

[dales]

Yeah, look what happened to the Manson Family.

[Joe Guy]

Yeah, and the Palin family.....

[Crackpot]

Yeah, look what happened to the Manson Family.

Manson is still alive

[dales]

Meaning to say he might as well be dead as he no longer heads that little band of murderers.

[Crackpot]

You underestimate the power of will they submit to. No one would dare succeed him while be lives.

[dales]

Huh?

[Crackpot]

Who would claim to be the successor to Manson? especially when he lives?

Or am I missing your point?