Could the freedom of speech we hold so dear ever be taken away?

What possible reason would there be to ever take the freedom of speech we all hold so dear away from us?

Could it be that due to behaviours such as we see exhibited by the Westboro Baptist Church, protesting funerals with obnoxious words, terrorizing the families as they go one last time to say good bye to their loved ones?

I found this article from the Great Falls Tribune online via my Google homepage under news:

Montana’s State House Committee has a bill before it that will limit protesters to being able to do thier thing one hour before a funeral, and they would have to stay 1500 feet away from the funeral. Now, in my mind, these idiots do NOT deserve one iota of the freedoms given to good American citizens, but my Constitution states it is for ALL who come here, ALL who are Americans; and so I have to rethink this whole process. To my mind, they ( the Kansas HATRED CLUB aka Westboro Baptist Church) as disgusting as they are, as low and devoid of any humanity as they seem to be, have the same rights to free speech as we all do.

So this begs the question – When is it too much free speech? Where is the line drawn? What will the catalyst be , the final ” you’ve gone to far”? Did the writers of these freedoms ever sit down and consider a time when these same freedoms would be tested beyond their original intent?

In their day, such behavior was cause for both punishment on a legal arena and a moral arena. I am not even sure that this type of “protest” has ever been done before these religious fanatics came along. If there are any sociology majors out there who could enlighten me with statistics, that would be great.

My biggest fear is that because of these people, the freedoms I hold dear, the freedoms that people have died for, will be taken away, because these types are using our own Constitutional Rights against us! In order to stop them legally, will it be necessary to take the freedom of speech away completely, or the freedom to practice religion?

In some of the Native American tribes, a formal legal system was not needed, all the control of behavior was done by the group as a whole, through such means as turning their backs and ignoring the offender. This was usually enough to control the behaviors of the whole, as no one wanted to be ignored especially when it was time to share in the resources of the tribe.

Can these people be controlled by such means? Obviously not, and they are smart. The entire family, from what I can gather are Lawyers. The man who started the church Fred Phelps himself was a lawyer. He and the rest of the family knows enough to be able to work around the law pretty well.

If we can not find a different way than through legal routes, we will be staring the loss of our rights right in the face! Now, I feel the pain of those who fight for the right to have guns. I have to wonder, there are two freedoms now on the table as targets, what freedoms will be next?

Free Speech is losing its battle even on blogs

Wow, so this evening while I was making dinner, I see that I not only had a comment here on my post about the Koran being used in a swearing in ceremony, I had a ping back……..which I removed. The funny thing is , I had expected to have some come here and tell why they either agreed or not, and that is what this and most blogs are about…. discussions back and forth.

But to have someone leave a nasty comment about white penis, well that is just to much for me.  I cant think of a time where I could be comfortable in leaving such a comment. Sure, call me an idiot, uninformed or even slightly neanderthal for my views; this I can handle. But to go to someones blog and start off with such idiotic comments, well it did not put me into a “Christian frame of mind” to say the least.

2995

That is the number ofAmerican Soldiers who have died in Iraq as of 6:13 pm on December 29th 2006.