Westboro Baptist Church are professional (money-making) trolls

Last night, I was listening to a radio interview with one of their members (Shirley I believe, who I think is the spokesperson for the organization), where they admitted to two things:

1. They're not "spreading the word" in order to get people to agree with them, or to get people to repent and be saved or something. That could still be considered well-intentioned extremism. But no, they're admitting that their antics are there PURELY to tell people "YOU'RE GOIN' TA HELL!!!111".
2. Among their numbers are extremely adept lawyers who know just how to game the system in order to be as obnoxious as they can and still get away with it—and this baiting people into suing them is used by them to turn a profit from collecting court fees and such.

Congratulations; hope you enjoy your upgrade from B to A on the scale of jackassery.

edited 3rd Mar '11 1:46:29 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

There's a scale?

But yeah - can't stand them, either.

I suppose that's topic #3 on the frontpage of On-topic on the topic of the Westboro Baptist Church.

But yeah, if there is a hell  ^*

edited 3rd Mar '11 1:54:11 PM by Kayeka

Oh, I made a scale for jackassery/douchebaggery/assholery/whatever you want to call it.

The lower grades apply to small-fry people with disagreeable attitudes. B is for people who are big names, but whom you can still feel fine about not taking seriously at all. A is for those that you DO have to take seriously because their jackassery actually has significant consequences. S is for legendary jackasses.

And a suggestion for locals who have to put up with this: Don't sue them. Counter-protest them, and mock them.

Also, don't let them get to you. They are not Christians, and they are not good people at all; they are trolls, and it has now been confirmed beyond doubt.

edited 3rd Mar '11 2:08:56 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

I don't see how this is evidence that they aren't Christian. Evidence that they're doing it wrong, maybe, but I think most Christians would agree that we already knew that. And I mean, would you argue that Muslim extremists weren't Muslim, or that people who murdered religious people weren't atheist? Kind of a Double Standard.

But yeah, if they're not trying to help people, they're pretty much just going "you're going to Hell, neener-neener".

edited 3rd Mar '11 2:23:28 PM by BobbyG

As most religious people are murdered by other religious people, I'd say yes.

They're doing it very wrong, to the point I think they're not even trying to do it at all.

So yeah, trolls. And we all know not to feed the trolls.

(For clarification, "it" being defined as reaching the lost in an attempt to reconcile the lost with God, otherwise known as spreading the gospel message.)

^^ Don't be pedantic. I meant atheists doing it, obviously. E.g. Stalin.

And no, we are not having that debate here.

You know, I do think they actually believe in what they're saying. At least most of them and especially Shirley.

I've listened to lots of interviews with her. The WBC's interpretation of 'love thy neighbor' is telling them that their sins are taking them to hell. Acoording to them, that's all they care about since they see that as their duty. Following their logic, they don't hate gay people, but God hates them. That's what they're telling them. Now I do think that they themselves hate them too, but I also think that they actually believe in what they're saying (even if there's a lot of internal psychological conflict, which I'm sure is present in a lot of the members). Whether people's beliefs are actually changed is up to God. I can't remember what they were, but apparently they use a bunch of different Bible verses as 'evidence'.

There you go. That's basically their justification.

I want to see a musical adaptation focusing on the internal struggles of someone who leaves.

We can make it a Brand X if we don't want to get sued.

Quick, let's commission it.

^^ I still call shenannigans.

Doing all of that, fine, well, and good, but then they're doing it for lawsuit money.

(Which may fall into the whole 'love of money is the root of all evil' blurb, anyway.)

Cutting people off in traffic may not be explicitly illegal, but if you're doing it for the sole reason of wanting to get hit so you can haul them off into court and sue them, then... You're no longer merely a bad driver, you're a real-life troll looking to game the system to your advantage.

I can excuse ignorance, but I cannot excuse obfuscating ignorance and crying foul in order to gain advantage. It's similiar to Wounded Gazelle Gambit only worse. Or something.

IIRC, didn't they once claim that all suffering in the world is a punishment from God for our wickedness?

So I guess they feel justified in being jerks to other people because those are bad people.

Which isn't supported by scripture, but that doesn't mean they don't believe it.

Guys, the WBC is initiating the most well-thought-out (and insidious) attack on First Amendment rights I've ever seen. We can't attack what they're doing without also attacking our right to free speech, other than to say "they're being dicks", which does nothing.

Either we allow them their hateful behavior, which hurts people...or we step on them, and cut our own throats in the process.

I'm sure that Fred Phelps was actually disappointed when the Supreme Court upheld his church's right to protest. Because if he had been muzzled, he would have turned around and sued anything and anyone he thought was "obscene", citinghis own defeat as precedent.

Yeah. I'm almost glad he won.

It may sound crazy on the face of it, but I firmly believe the WBC is actually trying to attack people's faith in the First Amendment by misusing it horribly (considering free speech is something us liberal leftists cherish and conservatives traditionally don't like). Thoughts?

^^ Yeah, there is that angle to consider...

^ Scary thought. I hadn't considered that. I'll take it a step further. If they really are sincere, they coudl be trying to engineer the social collapse of the country by way of having our rights eroded so that the nation ends up... falling apart, basically.

Hey WBC dudes? God really doesn't need any help making End Times stuff go down, aight..?

edited 3rd Mar '11 6:22:32 PM by pvtnum11

Conservatives traditionally don't like freedom of speech? Only the crazy ones-and the same is true of the leftists as well.

edited 3rd Mar '11 6:24:52 PM by PDown

But, I like freedom of speech - I must not be trying hard enough to be a conservative.

Self, I am dissapoint.

^^^^^Yes. They think that every single thing that happens in the world is a marvellous act of God. So when something bad happens, they thank God for it. Hence 'Thank God for 9/11', 'Thank God for dead soldiers' etc. They are literally thanking God for everything. Shirley likes to call it God's perfect hatred.

To be honest, I'm not convinced that they sue people to get money and that that's their entire scheme. As far as I know, they have a law firm. The only cases they won't do are first time divorces, by the way.

A serious country would just ban the WBC and be done with it, but alas, this is America.

Just because someone's evil doesn't mean that it's good to destroy them. People's definitions of evil vary. Yes, most agree that the WBC are evil, but Evil By Popular Vote is not valid logic. Someone must be HARMFUL in a provable way to detain with force.

And as far as I know, trolling is not yet a crime.

Just... really aggravating.

I don't know if they're evil, but ordering up a good old-fashioned ass-kicking for Mr. Phelps would not be out of line.

^ I don't think you're allowed to conspire to commit assault.

However, that said, I would not be very sympathetic to the victim if such a crime took place.

^^^ Then how is evil defined? And I'm pretty sure it's generally agreed that psychological torture is still torture.

GMH: No one is conspiring were just simply exercising our rights and expressing our frustration in a manner we choose.

I am sorry I do not believe for a second that they are not in it for the money. They sue every chance they get and as many agencies and people as they can get.

Between Westboro Baptist Church and the RIAA, I'd say we badly need tort reform, so that people cannot use lawsuits to turn profits.

I like the idea of making it so that the loser must always pay the winner's legal fees. That way, if nine out of ten are lost horribly but the last one actually wins somehow, you've still lost money.