Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church have no power unless the media gives it to them.
Most Kansans are familiar with the name Fred Phelps. Most Kansans wish Fred Phelps wasn’t a Kansan. Kansas senate candidates this year promised to “crack down on Fred Phelps’s protests.” I hate to tell them, but they can’t crack down on Phelps. Maybe they could restrict protests to a certain distance from a cemetery to create a larger buffer for mourners, but they can’t stop Phelps from spewing his ridiculous opinions because, like it or not, he is protected by the First Amendment.…
Article comments
76 - roger nowosielski
U haven't, Alan, just a cautionary tale where blind patriotism can lead.
If you doubt my sense of allegiance, I invite you to read some of my earlier pieces on BC, on American Exceptionalism, and The Disappearing Americas - only a year or so old. Sorry to say, though, my thinking has since evolved. You may believe we're still in Paradise; well, I've come to the conclusion that we've been expelled.
Pleasant dreams.
77 - zingzing
f. scott fitzgerald? hrm. there are a few of his books i haven't read, but i'd say he's pretty critical of the american dream at times. or liked to display its emptiness at least.
78 - roger nowosielski
One of the first prophets of doom and gloom and the loss of the American Dream - The Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon.
Even Hemingway and the "lost generation," Gertrude Stein, Henry Miller, etc, could well be included.
Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls aren't exactly pro-American novels.
79 - Alan Kurtz
"America," writes Roger (#74), "is and ought to be an idea in the tradition of Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Norman Mailer." He subsequently expands on this (#78) by calling Fitzgerald "one of the first prophets of doom and gloom and the loss of the American Dream." He also cites Hemingway, whose A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls "aren't exactly pro-American novels."
America, then, is and ought to be a place of doom and gloom where the American Dream has been lost and where literary giants are revered because their works are not pro-American.
If that is Roger's ideal America, no wonder he hates his adopted homeland, believes "we're in chains" (#49) and looks "forward to times when we'll be cut down to size" (#62). What a dismal, unrealistic view of the United States by an embittered outcast.
80 - zingzing
well, i don't think we should be fooling ourselves. fitzgerald wrote a perfect novel. and his critique of the american dream is purely because it is a dream. it's fleeting and ultimately less than fulfilling. but it says something that it's called that. it's a self-critical notion. which, i would hope, makes it very american. it's just too bad that sometimes that's not true.
nationalism is a curse and always has been. it's as responsible for as much death as religion or any other ism.
81 - zingzing
just out of a little curiosity, i looked up who coined the phrase "the american dream." surprisingly, at least somewhat, it was an american. from brooklyn. in fucking 1931.
82 - Alan Kurtz
What could be more American than a guy from Brooklyn, right, zingzing?
As for your preceding comment, though, aren't you confusing nationalism with jingoism?
83 - roger nowosielski
Wow, we're getting melodramatic here, Alan. Is this for your benefit, to convince yourself of your rightness, or for mine.
Hate was a word I never used. Nor do I consider myself an outcast. But tell you what, friend, I'd rather stand with the literary giants - you must have used this term pejoratively though you had good enough sense not to put it in scare quotes - then with the small-minded, petty people such as you.
84 - zingzing
alan: "aren't you confusing nationalism with jingoism?"
not really. jingoism is an extension of nationalism. without the latter, the former would not exist. i can be proud of my country, like during the olympics or hopefully, one day, the world cup. but nationalism's dark side includes things that jingoism does not. jingoism, supposedly, is about foreign policy, but nationalism can cause its own excessive pride, including ethnic cleansing.
85 - roger nowosielski
Right, my disenchantment with America is part and parcel of the evils of nationalism, but it had come first. It's only later that I traced it, conceptually and emotionally to nationalism.
I think your insights about Fitzgerald are spot on.
86 - Alan Kurtz
Ethnic cleansing! Are we still talking about America?
87 - zingzing
no, nationalism. a racial or ethnic conflict that results in cleansing would be an utter clusterfuck in america. luckily.
88 - Clavos
"Nominal American," eh? Nobody's ever called me that before, but I must admit it has a certain ring to it...
And yet...all the libruls hereabouts accuse me of being a conservative...
Go figure.
89 - Dr Dreadful
all the libruls hereabouts accuse me of being a conservative...
Not all.
I have in the past accused you of being a liberal: a charge to which, as I recall, you confessed.
90 - Clavos
Ah, Doc. As is so often the case, you are absolutely right...
91 - roger nowosielski
Well, I've accused you of being a closet intellectual, and I haven't heard yet a direct rebuttal.
92 - Dr Dreadful
Well, of course. Clavos isn't really a redneck: he just plays one on TV...
93 - Clavos
...And plays him well, even if I do say so myself...
94 - Gayle
Everyone is trying to treat Phelps like he treats everyone. The best weapon in this case is prayer. We need to be praying that Phelps comes to recognized the love and mercy of Christ and he can turn his ministry to one of love and mercy.
95 - Lucas
The WBC is full of sick minded people! In my opinion, THEY are the ones going to Hell. How can anyone have the nerve to hold up a sign displaying utterly vulgar trash such as "God hates F---" or "God hates soldiers" or whatever and tell the families of those soldiers that their son or daughter is going to Hell?
96 - Jamaica
Quote- "Afterwards, the Westboro protesters found two of the tires on their minivan slashed and a town unwilling to help repair them. Smells like Karma."
Smells like money to me. This is exactly what Phelps and his family want to happen. When they hold up one their hateful, provocative signs designed to create fury in passers-by, they want violence and they want people to physically attack them. Then they can sue the town for failing to provide proper adequate protection from the mob just because they were exercising their rights to free speech.
Phelps is not a religious man at all, he's a fraud who uses his phony church to dodge taxes, that's all. He has a gripe to pick with the gov't and this is how he gets back at them for being disbarred years earlier.
Kansas needs to take Phelps religious license away, and force him to pay taxes.
The media should definitely ignore him, refuse to give him the soapbox and attention he craves. He is not newsworthy in any sense of the word.