Hooray for the Teamsters
No, I’m serious. Funeral services are beginning for those killed in the Boston bombings, and when there is a high profile funeral, there may be Westboro Baptist cretins. Enter the Teamsters:
There was concern members of the Westboro Baptist Church, known for their hate speech, would picket the funeral, but the Teamsters Local 25 stepped in to make sure Campbell’s family would be shielded.
“We had the place pretty much locked down,” Local 25 President Sean O’Brien told ABCNews.com. “There is no place for anybody that was going to disrupt someone’s funeral.”
O’Brien estimated 1,000 Teamsters stood outside the church, ready to take care of business in the event there was a problem. It’s not clear if any protesters showed up.
I think we can all support this.
Thumbs up.
Pamela (443d0f) — 4/25/2013 @ 6:46 amthey’re still thugs
happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/25/2013 @ 6:52 amGood for the union thugs in this case. You have to admit the unions are pretty effective at restricting first amendment rights when they want to get involved. But they aren’t the only ones that take on this task. The Patriot Guards have done this much more often than than the union organizers. Maybe you should add a link to a picture of the home that has been purchased across the street from the Westboro compaound in Topeka that has been very colorfully painted in a rainbow motif.
phaedruscj (dc2574) — 4/25/2013 @ 7:06 amEverybody, left or right, is against the Westboro church.
CrustyB (69f730) — 4/25/2013 @ 7:27 amIn a less civilized society, the Westboro freaks would have coated in tar and feathers years ago. Ah, nostalgia for the days of yore.
Bar Sin ister (b48c12) — 4/25/2013 @ 7:36 amthey’re still thugs
— True dat. But I’d pay good money to watch one of them take away a Westboroite’s “God Hates Fags” sign and shove it up the guy’s (or girl’s) ass sideways.
Icy (1d544c) — 4/25/2013 @ 7:47 amGive credit where credit is due. Three cheers for the teamsters!
aunursa (7014a8) — 4/25/2013 @ 8:02 amMy parents were not thugs. And my mother would not have needed the other 999 Teamsters.
nk (875f57) — 4/25/2013 @ 8:09 amLet us not forget that the Mas Grande DoucheNozzle at Westboro is an algore supporting Democrat.
JD (b63a52) — 4/25/2013 @ 8:17 amWho wins when Teamster heavies clash with Westboro morons?
Popcorn salesmen.
Pious Agnostic (6ff605) — 4/25/2013 @ 8:23 amIt’s not an easy thing to be alone, unarmed, and unafraid.
Or just alone. Which is what you are, when you get down to it.
Apropos of almost nothing, and I mean no disrespect, would your Mom not like the help of the other 999 Teamsters preferably heavily armed when she’s about to be burned alive and dangled off a bridge in Iraq?
That still burns, no pun intended.
Steve57 (da9e0e) — 4/25/2013 @ 8:50 amIt was hyperbole as to how tough my mother was, Steve. Also, if you wish, a joke about featherbedding (union contract requiring more workers than needed to do a particular job).
nk (875f57) — 4/25/2013 @ 10:30 amGood for the teamsters in this case.
On the other hand, being hated by Westboro is a badge of honor, and I suspect the sooner we stop letting those sickos upset us, the sooner they go away. Primarily I’m talking about a media that rewards the westboro losers with the tremendous coverage they need to effectively horrify tons of people.
There are plenty of jerks in the world every bit as vile. It wasn’t long ago that I saw someone say he would sew the mouth of a blogger’s wife to the blogger’s ass, because this sicko was upset at criticism of a domestic terrorist. These people try to shock us into paying attention. They want to insert themselves into our lives without doing anything of value.
The press needs to pretend Westboro doesn’t exist.
Dustin (2da3a2) — 4/25/2013 @ 10:44 amWatch the Teamsters try to unionize Westboro and have Uncle Vito collect dues from them.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 4/25/2013 @ 10:53 amAs I’ve mentioned many a time, the Westboro types are a legal racket.
Their goal is to get someone to take a swing, and then sue them for damages – and sue the city/state/township for not protecting them appropriately.
Whether they believe the BS they spout or don’t is immaterial.
luagha (5cbe06) — 4/25/2013 @ 11:02 amThat’s what they say. Reportedly, Mr Phelps was actually a civil rights lawyer for the NAACP, where he learned how to use the courts to protect rights, and learned he could get legal fees for those who interfere with the first amendment. One way to increase business would be to use the first amendment to say things that were more likely to be interfered with.
Sadly, I think some of them really do buy it, given that some of the younger family members have left the group in order to observe a strict Christianity that lacks the hatefulness.
Dustin (2da3a2) — 4/25/2013 @ 11:07 amI meant no disrespect. But since the subject came up I’ve attended more funerals than I care to remember when these Westboro jackwagons showed up. And 999 union thugs could have come in handy.
Or your Mom. Again with all respect. She sounds like a real lady.
Steve57 (da9e0e) — 4/25/2013 @ 11:10 amthey’re still thugs except for nk’s mom and dad
happyfeet (c60db2) — 4/25/2013 @ 11:19 amBloom in his book Closing/American Mind makes a good point about free speech. The free speech originally was to be speech based on reason, which was the founding principle of our government. I don’t think it included yelling fire in a theater or tormenting the bereaved.
Patricia (be0117) — 4/25/2013 @ 11:36 amluagha is right: You have to be very careful with the Westboro creeps. The live for physical confrontation, which they then use for the nussiance suits that fund all of their obnoxious “ministries.” I prefer the tactic used by motorcycle groups who just rev up their motors whenever those stupid motherfelpsers start up with their chants, thus drowning out their awfulness.
JVW (42c055) — 4/25/2013 @ 11:48 am@ Dustin,
Sadly, I think some of them really do buy it, given that some of the younger family members have left the group in order to observe a strict Christianity that lacks the hatefulness.
A “strict Christianity” that lacks the hatefulness would seem to just be more of the same. When the sacrifice of God is the greatest gift and mercy covers a multitude of sins, the believer lives in grace, not a strict set of rules and laws. That’s where freedom is found.
Now back to your regular programming.
Dana (292dcf) — 4/25/2013 @ 12:14 pmwell said, dana.
dustin (e97607) — 4/25/2013 @ 3:35 pmOh, boy. Looks like I gotta be the ant at the picnic.
Before we get started: I am a Christian. I can’t STAND Westboro because I am a Christian. They twist, mangle, and molest the context of Scripture beyond recognition and serve as a foil for radical homosexual activists. They are hateful, abusive, and proud to be called bigots. Everything they are, Jesus was not.
However…One thing the members of Westboro are NOT is stupid.
Whenever you see the WBC — which is at its core the sprawling family of its patriarch, Rev. Fred Phelps — flying from Topeka, KS to parts all over the United States to disrupt funerals, ask yourself: How the devil can they afford this? Answer: Most of the adults in the clan (including Fred himself) are attorneys. Phelps fathered thirteen children, eleven of whom passed the bar. Who wants to be represented by a WBC attorney? C’mon — how many people are picky-choosey about an attorney when they really need one?
But as we all know, just passing the bar doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good lawyer. When I read that a Phelps daughter (Margie) would represent WBC in the Supreme Court, I went to the supremecourt.gov site thinking I’d laugh my yazz off at the ruckus, expecting something like when Hustler publisher Larry Flynt shouted insults at the Supremes and was ordered out of the chambers. I envisioned a scene similar to that of the legendary hostile interview Shirley Phelps-Roper had with Fox News’ Julie Banderas. Instead, I was floored by how cool, calm, and logical Phelps was.
Even WBC’s fiercest foes concede this. From AOL News after the 8-1 decision in the Phelpses’ favor (Alito dissenting):
Snyder vs. Phelps was about a Maryland court (heh) placing millions in sanctions on WBC members when they protested a soldier’s funeral in their usual vile fashion. I could be on board with that if the church violated local laws specifically designed to keep them away from funerals. They CLEARLY did not violate the law. The lawyer representing the Snyder family pretty much made an ass of himself admitting that not only did the Phelpses fully cooperate with police beforehand, the Snyder family members didn’t really detect the WBC protest until they saw TV coverage of it on the local news.
Many people repeat the phrase “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (Evelyn Beatrice Hall, not Voltaire), but when it comes to REALLY offensive speech, they don’t really mean it. In my humble opinion, that’s what Snyder v. Phelps came down to: Lance Corporal Snyder died in the defensive of America’s freedoms (just accept it, for brevity’s sake), but his family seemed to the Phelpses were an exception because of their opinion that he died for nothing. As someone who has lost two close family members in 2011, I understand the pain of their loss, but they trivialized their loved one’s death by not just accepting this fact: Enduring the speech of the ghouls of Westboro — some of the most revolting speech imaginable — is the price of the First Amendment.
The Phelpses were in blissful ignorance of the 2011 death of my father — a Korea veteran — but had he somehow had garnered the fame necessary for them to show up at his funeral, I would have simply ignored them. They will gain no converts for such actions; everybody hates them as much as they hate everybody else; the more people display their hate, the more they believe they’re being selected by a hateful God to stand athwart unsaved America. But what we do know about Westboro is that they are NOT a physical threat. They don’t buy guns, bombs, or build compounds; they are out in the open and extremely vulnerable. They are not terrorists; the only thing they hurt are people’s feelings, and we’ve all gotta get over that. The media coverage our reciprocal hatred gives them is their oxygen, and wish we would deny them so they will suffocate and disintegrate to meet whatever heavenly reward they’ve got coming — or otherwise.
That brings us to the Teamsters, who, like Westboro, like to gather and hold signs and make noise and piss people off. The difference is that the clowns of Westboro, for strategic reasons, always make sure they are within the law when they express themselves. Teamsters, not so much. We discovered that in 2009 when Tea Party protesters were roughed up for not clearing out from Town Hall meetings where they had a perfect right to be, and in 1998, when siblings Don and Teri Adams were beaten for protesting a Bill Clinton appearance in Philadelphia, to the delight of then-Mayor and future Pennsylvania governor/Democratic Party heavyweight Ed Rendell. It was over a decade before they finally got the relief they had coming for state-sponsored mob violence. Such thuggery is intolerable even if it’s aimed at someone I don’t like.
Teamster Sean O’Brien is quoted above as saying “There is no place for anybody that was going to disrupt someone’s funeral.” Within the bounds of the law, uh, yeah, Sean, there is such a place. It’s called “The United States of America.”
L.N. Smithee (836432) — 4/25/2013 @ 4:37 pmIt doesn’t have to be a bike. I had a ’71 El Camino and still have a ’76 Scout that will shout them down.
I once had a late sixties Dodge Dart with a slant six that could have gotten the job done. I did my best to reproduce the old Hyper-Pak. It wasn’t fast, but it was loud.
Steve57 (da9e0e) — 4/25/2013 @ 5:19 pmif the Westies had come the stalwart Boston first responders could’ve just arrested them
for whatever reason
or for none
at the barrel of a gun
for spite or just for fun
cause it’s how they roll in beantown
cause in boston hearts abound
with devotion to authority
with eagerness to please
those what once threw a tea party
now grovel on their knees
happyfeet (c60db2) — 4/25/2013 @ 5:45 pmTouching. Poignant.
JD (b63a52) — 4/25/2013 @ 6:04 pmDays that LN Smithee comments are good days.
JD (b63a52) — 4/25/2013 @ 6:46 pmLN is a greatfor sure.
I wonder where the line of speech crosses into not being.
Speech intended to be of a deliberate tort – such as Teamstersgathering at a low level executives house to shout curses and act in a threatening manner or the Latin Kings who somehow wanted to speak at a New Orleans housing project, or that Ouran buring paster wanting to travel across country to a muslim neighbor
E.PWJ (bdd0a6) — 4/25/2013 @ 7:27 pmLN is a greatfor sure.
I wonder where the line of speech crosses into not being.
Speech intended to be of a deliberate tort – such as Teamstersgathering at a low level executives house to shout curses and act in a threatening manner or the Latin Kings who somehow wanted to speak at a New Orleans housing project, or that Ouran buring paster wanting to travel across country to a muslim neighbor
E.PWJ (bdd0a6) — 4/25/2013 @ 7:27 pmLN is a greatfor sure.
I wonder where the line of speech crosses into not being.
Speech intended to be of a deliberate tort – such as Teamstersgathering at a low level executives house to shout curses and act in a threatening manner or the Latin Kings who somehow wanted to speak at a New Orleans housing project, or that Ouran buring paster wanting to travel across country to a muslim neighbor wanting to spread a divisive msg of hate and contempt.
Is this really speech as defined by the constitution or speech defined by courts insulated from the real world consequences of their ivory tower prognostications
E.PWJ (bdd0a6) — 4/25/2013 @ 7:30 pmsorry I have the hiccups
E.PWJ (bdd0a6) — 4/25/2013 @ 7:31 pmCan someone explain the difference between E.PWJ and EPWJ? And why? I’m old and it’s hard to keep up.
Ag80 (19f299) — 4/25/2013 @ 8:45 pmL. N. Smithee,
That was a logical and well-stated comment, and I agree the Westboro followers have a First Amendment right to protest funerals as long as they comply with the law.
IMO the Teamsters have chosen to counter-protest at this funeral so they are also exercising their free speech rights, just like the Westboro followers. Thus, we can appreciate that both groups are able to exercise their free speech rights in America, as long as they comply with the law. But we can also appreciate the Teamsters’ acts seem more humane and Christian.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 4/25/2013 @ 9:05 pmThe irony of the Westboro slime is that for all their hatred of the USA, it is only the law that keeps them alive. The only reason someone has not snapped and killed the lot of them is the law of the country they despise. Legal skill is nothing without the rule of law.
My only hope for the WBC is that they die in such a manner that their organs can be harvested. At least then they might accomplish some good in their lives.
I fully condone all possible methods within the bounds of the law used to frustrate, humiliate, and punish them. Set Team Kimberlin on them for all I care – they deserve each other.
OmegaPaladin (f4a293) — 4/26/2013 @ 12:50 am