Dissident Veteran For Peace: Snyder v. Phelps Goes to the Supreme Court

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Snyder v. Phelps Goes to the Supreme Court

I've been following the lawsuit of Albert Snyder against Fred Phelps et al. since 2007. Most of the online coverage following the US Supreme Court's decision to grant certiorari to hear Snyder's appeal has been crap but I have found one thoughtful article. Although tainted by her tedious pro forma denunciations of the Westboro Baptist Church as "obnoxious," Harriet Robbins Ost's article, "U.S. Supreme Court: Will distress trump the First Amendment right to free speech?" is the most thorough treatment I've seen so far of the important constitutional issues in the case.

Labels: civil liberties, Fred Phelps, Supreme Court