Anonymous strike again.
A couple of articles back I went into detail about the whole computer hacking/Anonymous scenario (View Here), and made it quite clear that I supported them wholeheartedly. I don’t particularly want to completely fanboy over them every single time something happens but, since I wrote it, they’ve been too awesome to ignore.
Now, I’m sure most people are familiar with those friendly folks over at the Westboro Baptist Church. If you’re not, you’re one of the lucky people who haven’t had to witness what the scum of humanity looks like. Basically these are the guys who turn up to soldier’s funerals to protest, the ones who are sitting there with the ‘God hates fags’ signs and the general inbred community of America. Truly horrible people. The worst. The people who even the Ku Klux Klan refuse to be associated with. The group of lynching, white supremacists are actually sickened by these people. That is one hell of an achievement.
And, for once, Anonymous agree with the old wizard dressing racists. The feud between Anonymous and the Westboro Baptist Church has been going on for quite some time now, with quite a few hacking attacks attempted. Some have succeeded, with Anonymous actually hacking the church during a live confrontation, attacking the website. But Anonymous are, essentially, freedom fighters, and they are very much for the whole ‘never give up’ policy. They want to destroy Westboro, and it looks unlikely that they’re going to stop until they do.
This is what led to the most recent attack. A couple of days ago Anonymous launched an attack on Westboro’s Facebook page and tore every value the bastards had to pieces. The page is full of pictures about tolerance, a post to the Devil Wikipedia page ‘if you want to understand the Westboro Baptist Church’, peaceful messages and also their own pictures and general gloating. Because if you’d hacked these people’s page, you’d damn well be gloating too. I advise everyone to look at it, because it is quite possibly one of my favourite things ever.
Once you’ve all basked in the glory of that, come back to this. I fully support what they’ve done, I don’t think anything’s wrong. But.
But isn’t one of Anonymous’ aims for free speech? For freedom of people, upholding the first amendment of the United States, right? The problem with this amendment is it means that scumbags like the Westboros are allowed an opinion. What’s more, they’re allowed to express it, and nobody can do anything to really stop it. You can argue, sure, and shout at them, but it won’t change anything. But by attacking their own right to free speech, Anonymous seems to be undermining one of their own policies, which is kind of difficult territory to be in.
What I need to make clear is that I do not agree with the first amendment. The right to free speech is every racists’, every sexists’, every homophobes’ and every general dicks’ clause to get out of being punished for being a horrible person. I don’t believe everyone has the right to free speech if their speech is to the extent of protesting at soldier’s funerals. I’m not going to tell everyone to be a nice person, but if you are doing something that is truly causing pain to people then you should not be protected. I’m almost arguing that if you’re intolerant, you don’t get to speak. But it’s not just intolerance, it is intolerance very vocally aimed at these people and it’s just. It’s not nice. Free speech is too much of a way out. You can’t censor what people say, and you can’t censor what they think either, because as soon as anything like that happens everybody freaks out about how we’re all being controlled, but the general rule of society should be made simple. Don’t be a dick, and learn to get along with other people for fuck’s sake.
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Leo Thorncroft writing for Idle Scribe
Now, I’m sure most people are familiar with those friendly folks over at the Westboro Baptist Church. If you’re not, you’re one of the lucky people who haven’t had to witness what the scum of humanity looks like. Basically these are the guys who turn up to soldier’s funerals to protest, the ones who are sitting there with the ‘God hates fags’ signs and the general inbred community of America. Truly horrible people. The worst. The people who even the Ku Klux Klan refuse to be associated with. The group of lynching, white supremacists are actually sickened by these people. That is one hell of an achievement.
And, for once, Anonymous agree with the old wizard dressing racists. The feud between Anonymous and the Westboro Baptist Church has been going on for quite some time now, with quite a few hacking attacks attempted. Some have succeeded, with Anonymous actually hacking the church during a live confrontation, attacking the website. But Anonymous are, essentially, freedom fighters, and they are very much for the whole ‘never give up’ policy. They want to destroy Westboro, and it looks unlikely that they’re going to stop until they do.
This is what led to the most recent attack. A couple of days ago Anonymous launched an attack on Westboro’s Facebook page and tore every value the bastards had to pieces. The page is full of pictures about tolerance, a post to the Devil Wikipedia page ‘if you want to understand the Westboro Baptist Church’, peaceful messages and also their own pictures and general gloating. Because if you’d hacked these people’s page, you’d damn well be gloating too. I advise everyone to look at it, because it is quite possibly one of my favourite things ever.
Once you’ve all basked in the glory of that, come back to this. I fully support what they’ve done, I don’t think anything’s wrong. But.
But isn’t one of Anonymous’ aims for free speech? For freedom of people, upholding the first amendment of the United States, right? The problem with this amendment is it means that scumbags like the Westboros are allowed an opinion. What’s more, they’re allowed to express it, and nobody can do anything to really stop it. You can argue, sure, and shout at them, but it won’t change anything. But by attacking their own right to free speech, Anonymous seems to be undermining one of their own policies, which is kind of difficult territory to be in.
What I need to make clear is that I do not agree with the first amendment. The right to free speech is every racists’, every sexists’, every homophobes’ and every general dicks’ clause to get out of being punished for being a horrible person. I don’t believe everyone has the right to free speech if their speech is to the extent of protesting at soldier’s funerals. I’m not going to tell everyone to be a nice person, but if you are doing something that is truly causing pain to people then you should not be protected. I’m almost arguing that if you’re intolerant, you don’t get to speak. But it’s not just intolerance, it is intolerance very vocally aimed at these people and it’s just. It’s not nice. Free speech is too much of a way out. You can’t censor what people say, and you can’t censor what they think either, because as soon as anything like that happens everybody freaks out about how we’re all being controlled, but the general rule of society should be made simple. Don’t be a dick, and learn to get along with other people for fuck’s sake.
----------------------------------------------------------
Leo Thorncroft writing for Idle Scribe