swingset

I explained it, but you chose to ignore everything I said except the quote you could make your point with. I'm fine with what people have to say. I support Westboro's freedom to picket and call soldiers names, tell us that God hates fags all day long....just not at a funeral. I support the KKK's freedom of speech, of NAMBLA's, even Magleys freedom to be a retard. Just not for any of those folks to go to a funeral and fuck with the grieving. It's this weird compassion and empathy thing, somehow it's more important than your rights to protest anywhere, no matter the consequences. If I erect a billboard of scat porn and put it within view of your child's bedroom window, is that my freedom of speech being exercised or your freedom being impaired? In your view, it's the former apparently. But, in truth it's both. You may not like my viewpoint that funerals are private affairs that a humane society will not impede with offensive protests, or support those that do, but I see the freedom to lay one's relatives in peace and with dignity being trampled. You see the Westboro folks freedom being stopped. For such an intellectual heavyweight, I'd be ashamed if you couldn't wrap your head around what I'm saying...even if you disagree with the difference. I will never argue for a law where there's a choice in the matter. For instance I never support censorship where you can opt to change a channel, or shop somewhere else, etc. But, this is something very different. This is you targeting a funeral and harassing the grieving. If it takes a law to stop such ugly behavior, great....the funeral goers don't get to flip the channel and you're not being denied any meaningful freedom by being told to protest elsewhere. If a societies bedrock of freedom rests on the ability to show up and insult dead soldiers while their parents bury their son or daughter, then I'm not sure we need more freedom frankly. Is that what those same soldier's fought for? Wouldn't that be a sick irony. Sorry, disagree if you like but don't be obtuse and tell me that I'm supporting the legislating of morality or censorship. No one is being muzzled, they're just being directed away from a funeral. This isn't a slippery slope, no one's opinion or voice is being suppressed. No signs or slogans banned. It's just demanding that people can bury their loved ones without being fucked with. I'd rather live in THAT society than the fucked up one you want. Think about this. When we were a younger nation, and our freedoms much less restricted by laws and copious restrictions, this kind of act would have never been tolerated. It was a law that never entered anyone's mind to invent, because no one in their right mind would have committed it, let alone supported it.

The Amish pay taxes. The only thing they are exempted from is paying social security tax, but they also receive none. They're waiving it, and only the unemployed Amish get this exemption. They pay no fees or registration on a horse-drawn vehicle, but then neither do you if you buy one and go to work clumping along the highway. Bicycles don't pay gas tax either. I would guess this has to do with the fact that neither horse nor bicycles run on gas. The same portion of Amish taxes that does pay for infrastructure is the same as yours. They also make signifigantly less impact on the roads and use them less than most, if you want to talk "put in/take out" on the social scale of justice. The more you know. I hate you for riding a more fuel efficient vehicle than I have, because you pay less gas tax on the same roads that I do. See how silly it sounds?

Discourse I approve of. Free speech, protest, even insult or injury....but there's always been a limit to that speech from the outset of our nation. Just as you can't walk into my house and show my kids anti-abortion photos as it impedes on my rights of privacy, I believe that a funeral is just as private and just as worthy of protection. I would fight to protect your free speech, but this isn't free speech as much as it's targeting and insulting the families of the deceased for something completely unrelated to the purpose of their private affair. It's disgusting, and for once a law (that's not open-ended, that's not open for abuse) pleases this libertarian. We've proved nothing else will stop it, certainly not when folks like you seem to think it's worthy of defense. There are a litany of worthless laws, I object to most of them. But, this one makes sense. I don't believe in legislating morality, or stifling freedom. I'm not seeing this as a freedom. You haven't been denied anything, except the chance to ridicule the grieving as they lay their dead to rest. You can still protest, still address grievances, this law doesn't affect any of that. Again, you see it as an offense against freedom, and I see it as protection. If someone's right to call dead soldiers names has been stomped on, the freedom to bury your son or daughter without people ruining the affair has been recognized. I don't know why you're so hostile about this issue, but it's a different viewpoint and mine is born of someone who's laid to rest friends and family in the armed services.

Yup.

That's not a negative. A funeral is not the place to protest. The dead are gone, you're attacking the innocent families instead of whatever societal or personal ill you perceive. Your right to protest does not trump the right of the family to bury their loved ones with some dignity and in peace...even if you believe them to be bad people, or having done bad things. Maybe you don't believe that, but I want no part of a society that values the right of the agitator and those seeking to harm over the innocent. It was awful what happened at My Lai, but if there's a way to make it worse it's to take your pain and visit upon people who weren't there, who had no part in it, and try to injure them too. Sorry, this is where "free speech" is being warped into a perversion. I'm even a libertarian about most things, but where you see a right being taken away, I see one being protected. If we can't respect the innocent people who in a time of pain and loss are beseiged by insult and ridicule, yet will bend over backwards to speak for the right of those who insult them, we're truly lost.

No, if you protest a soldier's death with disgusting slogans while his family is as their lowest, they should be able to punch you in your smug little manpleaser, and society should applaud such actions. You have the right to purposely offend and degrade the fallen to their families, and they should have the right to knock your weird ass out. There's no other meaning to what I said, no other arena, no mention of rights and protests. If you show up to a dead soldier's funeral and make an ass of yourself, you deserve a beating. Any "civilized society" would understand that. Unfortunately, net-tards who haven't seen a working vagina since health class movies do not.

I'm compensating for my tiny elbows with guns.

Good point. You couldn't have found a court in this nation that would have convicted a guy for punching someone out for that then. Now? You couldn't find a court that wouldn't. How far we've fallen, and what's worse is we all know it.

I blame the gun culture.

How so? What possible negative social outcomes will result? What freedoms will be infringed if you're not able to protest at a dead soldier's funeral? You can still protest whatever action he was engaged in, can you not? Just not at his funeral. Seems completely fair and reasonable, frankly. How could this harm freedom? It's too specific to snowball or "slippery slope", it's just about protesting military funerals. The law is from an alien perspective stupid, on that I agree, but it's in response to a wrong so egregious and sickening that I can't imagine that a society would have tolerated it to begin with or have no recourse other than "Well, let them mock the dead people's family". If you want a sane solution, protesting in view of families of dead soldiers should exclude you from any police protection, arrests for anyone assaulting you, or civil suits resulting from these actions. Let's see who wants to protest then.

Unfortunately for you, who has probably never cracked the spine of a good history book, we know a lot about what the Founding Fathers intended. Not only did they argue these issues in the Federalist Papers, the arguments leading up to the ratification, but also in numerous speeches and letters to each other about these very things. The 2nd, for instance, was not about retaining a standing army with muskets. It was about the personal security and right of the individual as well. That's why it says "the right of the people" and not "the right of the militia". But, their letters and opinions (even taken from their individual states constitutions themselves) backs this up. And, just the same with the 1st amendment. Largely, it was meant to protect the right of peaceful protestation at the hands of the people and the press to address grievances, and to protect religious practices. It most assuredly was never even dreamed to protect mocking the dead in front of grieving families of the soldiers. If you honestly have read a word from Paine or Adams, and come away thinking they would have dreamed it could come to this, you're even dumber than I thought (and that's nearly impossible).

I don't pull guns on people, especially not retarded people. I'm not violent, you see. But, if some person inclined to violence with reasonable gun-handling skills did pull a gun on you, you'd get shot and that would be about the end of it.

What helps me sleep at night is knowing there is still a shred of common sense left in this nation, held by people who are nothing like you. The Founding Fathers didn't write the constitution and address the right to protest and speak freely for the purpose of insulting the grieving at their most weak. That's not a freedom. And, for a guy who argued today about a civilized society, you sure don't seem to understand the word "civility" or have an inkling what it takes to achieve it.

Yeah, it's really too bad you can't go protest a dead person in front of their grieving family. Clearly this is an important right being signed away. Way to be wrong about everything in life. Failure.

Thank you. You proved precisely and without any real cajoling that when cornered, your arguments are emotional, personal, based on a myopic and childish worldview and arrogantly so at that. You are terrified of men with guns, and your manic arguments in these threads is a fucking neon sign that you're bent on this issue.

And we're back to the Israel/Switzerland argument. If it's the prevalence and availability of guns that has fuckall to do with gun violence rates, why aren't those countries awash in it? Well, because guns have fuckall to do with the root causes of violence. They don't create it. <Magley's head spins, ignores this question for the 23rd time, insists that violent Palestinians somehow make my argument null, wets himself, tries to eat his own fingernails, insists he's not emotional about guns>

Welcome to Magley's (and many irrational anti-gunners) brains. Push them enough, give them enough keyboard time to lay it out for you, challenge their infantile assertions long enough and they'll come right out and say it. He said, in bold and certain terms, shooting a gun is practicing for murder. He meant it. He believes that's what we all do when we shoot, whether it's shooting for pure pleasure, target practicing, competing, he thinks that evil and malice emanate from holding a gun....because they're only for killing (his words). And then here he is saying his blathering is intellectual and not emotional. He denies that fear and hysteria compel these beliefs. Olympians, trap shooters, Zimmerman, Rhodes, all just varying degrees of murderers. Fucking whackjob.

I've already explained it to you, multiple times in fact, not going to burn any more calories telling you what you refuse to hear. I cannot possibly insult or damage you as well as you do with your own keyboard and goofball musings.

You can't reason with Magz. He's working off of emotion, off of fear. He'll admit it, over and over, just keep him talking. But be careful. If he's cornered, he'll give you the elbow.

Magley's brain: Both guys used a guns. Guns are tools of violence and death. Only cowards and hate-mongers carry guns. If you shoot someone, you're the aggressor. Death is the inevitable result of a man carrying a tool designed for death, as it forces you to act on its inherent design. Thus, equal and comparable acts. Sane person's brain: Magley is scared of guns.

Cool. About 10 years ago a C130 went over our field and dropped a bunch of reservists on parachutes. Apparently they were on a flight to drop south of there and the plane had electrical problems so they dropped the guys (about 20 of them, IIRC) and flew on to land safely. Guys hung out for a while till some trucks came and picked them up. I have some pics of it somewhere, have to scan 'em tho. Last year I heard some motors overhead and looked up and saw this...don't see 4 blimps in the sky at once very often.

My big lab...getting old and gray, but still happy and healthy.

And your take was, from the outset, completely the opposing view based on nothing but your emotions...that Zimmerman was the aggressor and initiated the violence. Pot, meet kettle, who is scared of people with guns but can't face it.

Obama helping businesses, who didn't build that btw, sell lots of guns and ammo.