Anonymous Goes After GodHatesFags.com 744
An anonymous reader writes "Anonymous is now recognised as a serious force to be taken seriously, but its activities aren't confined to mass global protests, as the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, is discovering, according to p2pnet. Says the Examiner, 'Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for their "Love Crusades," obnoxious displays of insensitivity and homophobia at the funerals of fallen American soldiers. The controversial if monotone message of the "Love Crusade" seems to be to blame everything that is wrong in the world on homosexuality. The crusades are part of a hate-based mission started in Kansas by the WBC and Fred Phelps.' In an open letter on AnonNews, 'We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People – have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism,' says Anonymous, stating 'Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS.'"
Hate meets hate? (Score:2, Insightful)
These tactics sound like hate meets hate.
Wouldn't praying for them in a spirit of love work better?
It would either make Phelps & Co. see The Light or at the very least it would annoy the Hell out of them.
Either way society wins.
Ohhh the irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet has grown up a bit Re:Bit dramatic.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The average mental age on the Internet is at least 13 and the 85th percentile is at least 15.
kind of a boring target, isn't it? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Westboro Baptist Church fills an odd role where they're so extreme and, possibly more problematically, rude, that they have very little support. Will damaging them in some way actually change anything? Even people way on the right already dissociate themselves from them, and they have basically no actual influence on anything.
It's sort of the same with Actual Nazis imo. I'm worried about a certain kind of intolerant right-wing strain in the U.S., but I think Westboro types and swastika-flag-waving types are mostly distractions and not where the real problems lie; the right-wingers who aren't actively shooting themselves in the foot like those two groups do are bigger problems.
It'd go the other way too. Say you were a conservative worried about leftism in the U.S. You could attack the Communist Party USA, but would that be a good use of your time? They're a sideshow.
Do not fall for the trolling (Score:5, Insightful)
WestBoro Baptist Church is just a media whore stirring up trouble to provoke a reaction. Whoever claims to speak for anonymous is the same. "anonymous" is just a group of people, in the loosest sense of the term, with no leadership or agenda. You can not declare a warning from something you have no control over. As the wikileaks DDOS attacks have shown us, most of them barely even qualify as script kiddies, and are ridiculously easy to catch. There are some that know enough to do SQL injection attacks, or brute force passwords (or use the built in password reset) but super hackers they are not. The mainstream media is laughable in how clueless they are about it. They can't seem to understand that the internet makes it possible to have a group with common goals who is coordinated through group-think instead of a firm leadership. There is no monolithic entity, no membership, no initiation ritual or brotherhood. It's a loose group whose actions are dictated by a herd mentality.
Re:Hate meets hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Prayer: How to do nothing and still feel like you're helping.
WE ARE ANONYMOUS (Score:5, Insightful)
WE ARE ANONYMOUS, VOICE OF FREE SPEECH. OBEY US OR BE SILENCED.
Only twats as self-important as they obviously are could write this sort of thing and not even realize what they're saying. Or perhaps they do realize and just think that they're so great that their hypocrisy doesn't matter. I believe we've seen this sort of thing in history before. It starts with a religion and ends with lots of dead people. But hey, maybe this time it will be awesome.
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it's extremely ironic. The fact of the matter is that most activists usually reveal themselves to be wannabe-autocrats. I can understand attacking PayPal or Visa websites over the Wikileaks thing, but trying to silence Phelps and his gang of attention whores demonstrates that, at the core, they have that unique activist capacity for not really getting the underlying point of freedoms.
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bit dramatic.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They Do It for the Lawsuit Settlements (Score:5, Insightful)
The Phelps Gang tests the extreme end of free speech. I despise them with all my being, but if it came to push and shove and I had to either choose whether Phelps and his gang of vile hatemongers or Anonymous lived or died, I'm afraid I'd stand on the side of Phelps. Anonymous is attacking Phelps' right to freely express his views, no matter how noxious. Anonymous is wrong on this one, and should be ashamed of themselves, if they weren't, of course, a bunch of halfwitted scriptkiddies with as much of a hard-on for getting attention from the press as Phelps and Co.
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only are Anonymous tactics morally repulsive (you cannot advocate openness and free speech while staying hidden and engaging in selective censorship) but they don't work. This Westboro "church" is a tiny (just one family I believe) group of fringe fanatics that everybody laughs at. Rather than silencing them, Anonymous is just giving them free publicity they don't deserve.
Re:Hate meets hate? (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing fails like prayer. Dan Barker, Freedom From Religion Foundation [ffrf.org]
Re:Even so Re:Bit dramatic.. (Score:5, Insightful)
When two groups of retards attack each other, everyone wins...
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno.
Certainly the WBC has the right to say what they like. But that doesn't mean that anyone has to sit there and politely listen to them; counter protesters have just as much of a right to say what they like, and if the volume of the counter protesters drowns out the WBC, I'm not sure that I see the problem, or at least a problem to which there is a solution that protects both groups.
If the counter protesters can convince the WBC to change their minds, or shame them into silence, or simply make it clear that WBC protests won't work, causing them to change their tactics, then the end result is that they're silenced, but so long as they were not forcibly compelled, is that bad?
The usual online tactics of Anonymous seems to be DDOSing. This isn't a very hostile attack and it doesn't necessarily silence the target. It's not hard to see parallels between that and, say, protesters surrounding a building, or holding a sit-in. And WBC can always mount a similar attack right back.
We'll have to see how this all shakes out, of course. But just because you support free speech, that doesn't mean you can't have an opinion, and can't aggressively exercise that freedom yourself.
Re:WE ARE ANONYMOUS (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd prefer that no one ever think I was trying to silence any group or deprive them of their right to express their views, or that I in any way approved of any group doing so, or wanted any such group to believe that somehow they were doing it on my behalf. Anonymous has effectively become more depraved than even Fred Phelps, and that is one helluva an accomplishment.
Re:I don't think they care (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse, I doubt anonymous cares about Fred Phelps. heh
Anonymous must fundamentally be about the lolz. You're welcome to credit anonymous if you get even bigger lolz by inciting Fred Phelps. Yet, I'm not sure that's possible, meaning any normal reaction will already involve lolz. Don't let me stop you from trying! Just please make sure your shit is actually funny before you take on the anonymous label.
If otoh you're just looking for some good ol' internet vigilantly action [encycloped...matica.com], may I humbly suggest Muskegon MI Prosecutor Tony Tague [google.com]. Our dear public servant Tony has clearly got a full plate what with a serial killer on the loose in his town [google.com]. Yet, he find ample time to prosecute a youtube comedian for tasteless editing [mlive.com]. Yes, that right, he's sending some poor kid with a guitar up the creek for 20 years over bad taste in editing.
I'd never call harassing Tony Tague, or the parents that put him up to it, an Anonymous action, well no epic here, maybe if the kid was a funner singer, but meh. I'm confident however that many people feel rather annoyed by grandstanding prosecutors and retarded paranoid parents. And clearly this prosecution goes beyond the pale. So here's your chance to vent some frustration and take a stand against stupidity. Just call Tony Tague's office tell his secretary what an ass hat he is for abusing due process like this.
I'm sure they'll be posting the complaining parent's telephone numbers all over /b/ too, but honestly I doubt America's breeders will gain any collective intelligence just because some get bitch slapped by /b/, something awful, etc.
Bad Manners (Score:2, Insightful)
You used the critical word: rude. Their message is ugly but protected as free speech. It is the deliberate bad manners exhibited by Westboro that is unforgiveable!
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand attacking PayPal or Visa websites over the Wikileaks thing, but trying to silence Phelps and his gang of attention whores demonstrates that, at the core, they have that unique activist capacity for not really getting the underlying point of freedoms.
The fundamental problem with what you're saying is that it presumes Anonymous should, could, would, or even wants to maintain a consistent ideology or set of morals.
Anonymous is legion and so are its motivations and goals.
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's so wrong about making an exception in this case?
Idealistic human rights aside, if a small group is being grotesquely obnoxious to everyone else (to the point of making the grieving so sick that they barf between wails and tears) - and *everybody* else hates them and what they do - it would not be unreasonable for the vast civilized population to shut them up. It's not even mob rule, it's common sense. You can't yell fire in a theater, you can't threaten another human being, and you certainly can't sexually harass a woman. A lot of that has to do with how other people would respond to it. The panic, the fear, the awkward silence and anger... How is this any different? The list of reasonable exceptions to our great free speech rule is very large, and we're already used to having laws that limit it.
So why not make it illegal to protest a funeral? Who will be disenfranchised by that? Oh boo hoo, some hill-billy backwards family of lawyers isn't going to be able to make the family of the diseased cry. How will they ever make money, once they are unable to sue people who react in extreme but totally understandable ways to their troll-like behavior? Poor Fred Phelps, now that his right to be obscene and grotesquely obnoxious is taken away, what ever will he do? Maybe the family will have to take up real jobs, I bet some clansman ax-murderer would love to have one of them to represent him.
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people see that even free speech needs to have some border towards slander, intimidation, harassment and other related topics. I may be far out there on the "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" scale but I wouldn't take any accusation, any threat or any treatment.
Calling me once is not harassment. Calling me hundreds of times at all hours of the day, even after I've told you to stop is harassment even if you've used nothing but speech. Threatening to bust my kneecaps should obviously be a crime. Lying about me to my employer so I get fired likewise.
The question is one of sensibilities as some could feel slandered, intimidated or harassed for practically nothing. I see the problem, but I can't really go to the other extreme that nobody should ever feel that way. And between the clearly legal and clearly illegal I do see shades of gray.
Re:Hate meets hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
'We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People – have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism,' says Anonymous, stating 'Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS.'"
I don't like anything that Westboro has to say either -- but they damned sure have the right to say it.
Re:Hate meets hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hate meets hate? (Score:3, Insightful)
As do people who believe in numerology and astrology.
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:5, Insightful)
To whatever extent that Phelp and crazy klan can be limited in where they march by public order laws, I have no problem with that. If the idea, as with any group, is to assure peaceful assembly, then that fits within the idea of liberty. But shutting them off the Internet because you don't like what they say. No, that's the work of people with an autocratic streak. People like Anonymous sometimes achieve power, and that's where we get the Maos and Pol Pots and Stalins from.
As to your Neo-Nazi bogeyman, the Weimar Republic put a helluva lot of effort into shutting down the Nazis in the 1920s to no success, and even the modern German Republic has done all it can to make Neo-Nazism illegal, and yet there it is. Hate doesn't get killed by censorship, hate eats censorship like fuel. I'd argue that guys like the Nazis needed censorship to give them their mystique.
Re:Ohhh the irony... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you try to do that, you'll end up getting it tossed out in the Supreme Court. There's no way that a blanket ban on protests at funerals would ever hold up.
I'm afraid liberty requires that we sometimes put up with some genuinely vile people.
Re:Hate meets hate? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's the problem here, WBC has been exploiting this loophole in the U.S. Constitution
Sorry, no. This was the entire fucking point of the bill of rights. It's the opposite of a loophole -- the ooriginal intention is and always has been to allow unpopular opinions to be expressed -- to allow anyone to say anything they want, unless there's a very good reason. "My feelings are hurt" isn't a good enough reason.
So here, for example:
Is it REALLY still free speech if your oppressing others in the process of making it?
How is the WBC "oppressing" anyone? The right approach for dealing with them is to ignore them. I hate that I'm defending the WBC in any way here, but calling what they do "oppression" is laughable -- it implies that they have the power to do anything other than piss people off, which they don't, not until people like you give it to them.
An absolute worst-case scenario here isn't that the WBC gets to keep spreading its hatred. It isn't even that people try to silence them and watch it backfire, allowing the WBC to play the "oppressed" card as they're illegally silenced (and they do know their law). The worst-case scenario is when freedom of speech is taken away from the rest of us because we couldn't deal with someone saying something we don't like.
Re:Unfortunately they do (Score:5, Insightful)
For the life of me I cannot comprehend why people do this sort of thing.
The solution when your chosen religion conflicts with your lifestyle and biology is not to try and reinterpret and redefine that religion's beliefs to align with yours, it's to stop believing in that religion and choose another (or none at all).
The motivations of women who wish to be ordained as priests are similarly mystifying.
Re:Bit dramatic.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think they care (Score:5, Insightful)
The WBC are definitely not loons. They're barrators with a money stream that looks like this:
1. Select a sign guaranteed to offend people in a 100% legal fashion, and chant carefully worded slogans trolling for a reaction.
2. Receive reaction in the form of ??? (a punch in the nose, or a city council bannination, either works)
3. File lawsuits and profit !!!
What anonymous seems to be failing to understand is that they're just a bunch of amateurs, while the WBC are *professional trolls*. They make their living by trolling. They will not be stopped by other trolls, as they are simply too disciplined to fall for a troll. It's like trying to con a con-artist.
Some of the other God Hates $(foo) groups may be loonies who believe the hateful crap they're defecating on the world, but do not count the WBC in that group. There is actually little chance the WBC believes their own crap. They just substitute the value for $(foo) that looks like it will offend the local crowds the most.
Re:Hate meets hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a Constitutional right to petition your government. You do NOT have the Constitutional right to petition the grieving families at a soldier's funeral.
Sorry, but even free speech is not absolute.
However, even though I'm straight, I would certainly pitch in a few bucks to fly some gay men to WBC for a nice love-in on the steps of the church. I say that as both a Christian Baptist and a veteran.
Re:Unfortunately they do (Score:1, Insightful)
If that's what you believe, then you have already stopped being a Christian, you simply don't want to give up the label.