Phelps Crew About To Picket/question.

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Phelps Crew are Westboro Baptist Church for those not familiar. They were supposed to picket a liquor store here yesterday, never showed up. They had no permit, either. Today, they do have a permit and are scheduled to protest at 2:00 at a different location.

My question is, how is it they are never charged with inciting riots?
If they say what people think they will today, it might cause the locals to strike back under extreme duress is the same those in riots do so how is it these people are never charged?
Once, in Midwest City, the cops told them flat out they wouldn't be able to protect them from the crowd if they riled them. With this kind of talk from cops, I am mystified why towns refuse to charge them. Is it because the riot hasn't officially broken out?

This is what their protest looked like today in front of a school that suffered heavy casualties due to a powerful tornado last year. This is the school's temporary location. I ask, how is this not inciting a riot? When does the line between freedom of speech and inciting a riot get crossed? I almost witnessed a riot earlier. A man crossed the picket and attacked Westboro. The cops came. The National Guard was already there. What do you all think?



This is when the fight broke out:

I recall a theory that much of their carrying on was a front for funding through litigation - provoke people into physical attack or confrontation or obstruction, sue them, rinse and repeat. Don't know if that holds up.

If they get hit by someone they should be the ones charged if they are at a location where people died or something got destroyed and the location isn't a center of contention, like a funeral or a school. That's just basic logic.

I mean, the way I see it is this. If someone is anti gay they go protest in front of a gay bar and that is a peaceful protest. Or, they protest government offices that are responsible for passing bills they disagree with. That is also peaceful protest. Protesting gays in front of a funeral of a soldier or a place where a natural disaster took place is not a peaceful protest. It's inciting.

Recently a grocery store was going to give the food it has to throw out to a church to feed the hungry (there's rules on how long they can keep food, so even unopened crates of green bananas will get tossed). Well, the church didn't show up so the bank who owned the grocery store ordered truckloads of perfectly edible food to be dumped in the landfill in spite of the crowd of hungry Americans who were only looking forward to surviving one more day. One officer on the scene, who was doing his job of protecting the food from being eaten, said: “a potential for a riot was extremely high.” (link)

Every time Westboro, anti-gay, or anti-whatever groups make it into the news, it's at the expense of stories like the one I mentioned. There are bigger problems in this country than a small group of street performers with picket signs. What do I think about the possibility of inciting a riot over this nonsense? It think it quite clearly does not serve either cause, but it does serve the cause of less civil liberties, restrictions on free speech, more police control and surveillance. "A right lost to one is lost to all." It's called divide and conquer.

Everyone's heard you cannot yell FIRE in a movie theater even though under the first amendment, it is implied that's legal but they tell you don't do it. Same principle. Protesting in itself is protected under the first amendment. Protesting a funeral saying someone deserves to die just because another person is gay or divorced or promiscuous is kind of like yelling fire in a movie theater.

here's a video of what happened

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=29 ... =2&theater

Now, wouldn't you say Westboro crossed the line into inciting when they stomped and kicked the flag around considering where they were and who they were in front of, an charity organization called America's Disaster Relief?
That's why they got in their vehicles so fast and got out. They knew they would be blamed and they couldn't sue anyone after doing something like that. Who would agree?

Nah Westboro's just religious fanatics. Strange thing is every last one of them has a law degree.

I think groups like this should be charged for every minute of time invested in protecting their right to free speech.

If, like these sad people, you have the unshakable need to share a message. And that message requires the police force and army to turn out to defend your actions then bill them for all of the costs involved. They can have all the permits they want if they take responsibility.

I have the same feelings about people who call out ambulance crews for no real reason, take responsibility and pay for your actions.
Drunk drivers causing accidents should not only lose their license but have to cover the costs too, every penny.

I am still trying to wrap my head around what occurred here yesterday and why the city lets it happen. The only reason I can think of is this liquor store has the freedom to put a sign up insulting Fred Phelps so his family say they should have the same right to protest and that's why Moore lets them even though it is dangerous. Either that or the cops don't care if they get beat to death but the cops did protect Westboro.
Basically they are trapped in this cycle of tormenting the suffering. Sure the Phelps are suffering over the death of Fred Phelps and they feel vindicated this time but remember, they are the ones who started this entire thing with their insane rhetoric, that God is angry over gays and He is in the whirlwind.
It's very mythological and Biblical, these people's thinking.
Really Moore gets a lot of storms every year and in May they have tornadoes. It's just because Moore gets a lot of storms. It's a stormy place. It's got nothing to do with wrath of God.
It just seems a couple places in Oklahoma get more storms than others, Osage and Cleveland counties. They are in the storm zone.