Logical Holes
May 2nd, 2006Fred Phelps is the notorious right-wing nutjob who leads a movement that can be called the “God Hates” movement. Essentially, Phelps finds things he finds unpleasant morally, decides that certain people or nations approve of it, and declares that God hates them. Originally, he made a name for himself chanting “God hates fags” but since, he’s made a name for himself chanting “God hates fags” at the funerals of dead solders from Iraq. You see, his logic is that, because the military doesn’t round homosexuals up, soldiers deserve to die. Recently, some states have passed laws curbing these people from being able to protest at cemetaries and funerals, and now, the ACLU is joining the fight. On behalf of Fred Phelps.
I’m not a Civil Liberties absolutist, nor am I a strict constructionist of the Constitution. One of the things that I find quite ironic about absolutists and civil libertarians is the hole in their logic and an obvious lack of intellectual honesty. Let’s look at those who argue that the First Amendment is absolute and freedom of speech complete, those who would take their lawyers into court to argue that Fred Phelps should have the right to assail dead soldiers at their funerals because the First Amendment says so. These are the same people who would stretch the Constitution beyond its literal text in regard to things like, oh, the right to privacy. Don’t get me wrong — I am a supporter of Griswold. I just believe that none of the Amendments should be taken to their literal extreme. I guess that makes me more like David Souter than Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Robert Bork, and that’s fine by me.
Iran sent a message to rest of the world today, and it was clear, unequivocal and ridiculous, per usual. “America attacks Iran, and we will attack Israel.” From that, a quick question must be asked. What if Germany attacks Iran, would the Iranians then attack Israel and blame the violence on the Germans? Because that would be ironic and absurd rather than just absurd. It would be ironic because, regardless of who attacks them, it appears that the Iranians are intent on committing the Holocaust they deny ever happened.
A half-century year old woman is being deployed to Iraq to fight the War. It might just be a mistake to send a woman on the verge of retiring from the military to Iraq, but who am I to second-guess the decisions of the Donald (Rumsfeld)? For that matter, is it really in my place to criticize the Supreme Court for not only hearing Anna Nicole Smith’s money-grubbing appeal and ruling in her favor while ignoring plenty of valid cases? Maybe there’s a hole in my logical thought process, but I don’t think real cases should be turned down for this.
Unless David Suiter thinks he suits her and wants to use the Court to court her, then that suits me just swell! Actually, it doesn’t. The Supreme Court dropped the ball in taking this case instead of a different one. End of story.