Talk show host baits Phelps away from Amish murder victim funerals with attention-whore bait.

GreatTeacherMacRoss

This guy did a pretty smart thing. Phelps and his seething, puss-oozing brood were going to head to Penn. to protest at the funerals for the Amish girls murdered last week. His reasoning was that God had killed the girls through the man becasue the Governer of Penn. made disparaging comments about his psycho-church on Fox news.

Mike Gallagher offered Phelps an hour of air time to make him stay away and Phelps took the bait. While he still gets to spew his filth, at least those Amish families can get some peace.

http://www.townhall.com/TalkRadio/Show.aspx?RadioShowID=2&ContentGuid=81b1f528-adf1-4357-ab43-bf8e6330744e

Rym

Frankly, I wasn't worried. The Patriot Guard Riders have a wonderful way of dealing with Phelps. He has his right to yell on public property. They have their right to ride motorcycles on public property. Motorcycles are louder than old asshats yelling. pwn.

belarm

so, their little flash audio player didn't work for me in firefox & linux, so here is a direct download of the mp3

Frankly, I wasn't worried. The Patriot Guard Riders have a wonderful way of dealing with Phelps.

Those guys have much more restraint than the bikers I've hung out with...most of them would beat the holy bejesus out of this moron, and I can't say that I blame them.

Rym

See, Mr. Phelps is one of the truest tests of the first amendment and freedom of speech. There are few people on this Earth I find more despicable, detestable, and undeserving of both life and liberty. At the same time, I support 100% this man's right to speak his mind freely, no matter how horrible the things he says.

I would have to greatly resist the urge to deliver a swift cockpunch were I ever to meet him in person, but striking him would strike down everything in which I believe.

Every freedom comes with a price. If we want to have a freedom, we have to accept that price. The price of freedom to speak is the freedom to speak up as an asshat.

/he SO deserves a cockpunch

Jason

I think we should form a militant branch called GeeKnights to beat the shit out of ignorant cocks like Phelps. I'm with belarm's biker friends.

baltmatrix

This whole incident has really hit home with me. I lived in Lancaster, PA for 10 years. I know where this church is. One of the girls killed was the daughter of one of my Dad's customers. My father is going to be attending the funeral. I can tell you this, the Amish are people who have gained the community's respect and admiration in more ways than I can remember. They are kind, honest people who are hard workers. I can also tell you that the officials of Lancaster, PA would not stand for the shit that Phelps pulls.

Apreche

Here's the strategy guys. When Phelps does a protest we go out there and antagonize them in every legal way possible. We don't stop until they are so pissed off that they initiate the violent conflict. As soon as this happens we can all get our hits in. Then the bikers get a few hits in defending us. Then we let the cops move in with the beating sticks. Everyone gets a fair slice, and the wackos go to jail where they belong.

GreatTeacherMacRoss

Every freedom comes with a price. If we want to have a freedom, we have to accept that price. The price of freedom to speak is the freedom to speak up as an asshat.

See, he has the liberty to say whatever the hell he wants, but there IS protection for freedom of assembly. You are not allowed to interject yourself into someone else's legitimate gathering with the intent to disrupt and cause a disturbance. THAT is what Phelps does that makes me furious. He knows people would otherwise ignore him, so he has to go screaming at innocent people on their worst day to get attention. It would be the same as if someone walked into anime club and just talked real loud during the showing about how much anime sucked.

To me, violating the right to freedom of assembly and then crying 1st amendment rights certainly deserves the cockpunch.

Rym

We don't stop until they are so pissed off that they initiate the violent conflict

It won't work. A lot of people don't realize that Phelps' church is a business and nothing more. There's a lot of evidence that none of them believe a word of what they're saying, and that it's all for the money. Rather than dig up all of the evidence, read this random Farker's comment.

How do I know that Fred Phelps is suing people? I can tell you I just have too much experience around him. I am a journalist in Nashville, TN, and work at a television station that works the Ft. Campbell area. As a television photographer and journalist, I have been trained in all of the rules of private property, verbal conversation, what is legal and what is not legal, etc. (what you can and cannot say, what you can get away with). Honestly, in the last few months, I have seen waaay too much of Mr. Phelps and his crew. Since the war began, I believe they think this is the moneymaking source of a lifetime.

So how am I sure? After the third run in, and not one slip, not one piece of paperwork out of line, I knew something was fishy. My newsman skepticism left me with the idea later that something was more phishy than fishy.
I will tell you where I got this truth about Phelps. I looked him in the eye. I saw that he was way too calm and collected for what he looked like in the media.

I noticed that he never made personal statements against a person, which is verbal assault, and an out against a lawsuit. Also, for a religious fanatic, a group of people who pride themselves on personal attacks, he was running a protest so terribly by the books that I was impressed by it.

He will not bait a person, ever. He will not make personal attacks. He will make blanket statements. He will look at a person in the crowd that he thinks is gay, walk over to his stack of signs, pull out the appropriate, well designed, easily read, laminated bright board, and hold it up and loudly proclaim that "gays are going to hell" or some such nonsense, and make eye contact, but he will never cross the line of telling that person that they're going to hell. That would be the part that would screw up the lawsuit. He just wants to get them after him, but wants to appear utterly blameless for damages.

They run too tight of a ship to slip up, and at that point, I realized that the objective of the group was not anything religious at all. Someone told me along the way that they were all turned into lawyers after he got disbarred. After that, the stench was just too intense for me. He makes money off of this. He does this so much he has everyone around him do the legal legwork so he doesn't have to pay anyone else.

The last time confirmed everything I suspected about them. A few weeks later, I saw them again (they LOVE to come to big name funerals) and after I saw the laminated signs change for the audience, I knew EXACTLY what they were doing.

His 'crew' isn't a 'church' as you and I would know. The 'church' are more of a motley crew of family members. Some of them are six year old children that are doing what they're told. I have spoken to them, and they have a lawyers sensibility on them on how they speak to the public. They never make personal attacks. They never verbally assault anyone. For a group of people that are accusing damn near every group of people around them for going to hell, wouldn't that seem odd to you? Do you know any religious fanatics that don't make personal attacks? I don't.

They also don't stick around after the cameras roll. They have an itinerary like a semi truck driver. For them to get cleared for all of these press event protests they're doing, then they have to have someone at home doing all of the setup. For you to get the press clearances by the prescribed times? That's a lot of professional legwork. I should know, I've coordinated a newsrooms credentials when the President comes to town, and that's a lot of phone calls and faxes.

They probably file a load of civil rights violation lawsuits. If a police department looks them up and says, "we're denying your protest right," BOOYah. They just got to sue a police department for the very thing that Americans can't stand, rights violation. I am assuming that this is where they get almost all of their money.

Jason

Every freedom comes with a price. If we want to have a freedom, we have to accept that price. The price of freedom to speak is the freedom to speak up as an asshat.

But with great power also comes great responsibility, grasshopper. That there is a first amendment freedom of speech doesn't guarantee immunity from the repurcussions, or from persecution if you make asshat comments. You can't speak with impunity; and the GeeKnights are ready to, uh, pune... WITH A VENGEANCE.

Kilarney

Here's the strategy guys. When Phelps does a protest we go out there and antagonize them in every legal way possible. We don't stop until they are so pissed off thattheyinitiate the violent conflict.

That plays right into their hands.
A) they are trained not to use violence;
the more reaction they get, the more attention they get.

The best thing for these people is to simply ignore them.

GreatTeacherMacRoss

My vote still rests with cockpunch.

Apreche

My vote still rests with cockpunch.

Right in the mean bean machine?

baltmatrix

/he SO deserves a cockpunch

The Amish have horses. They may be aganist violence, but those horses can get really spooked/pissed off rather easily.

Horsecockpunch

Sparkybuzzed

I would like to point out that this event has both sides of the "religion" argument: Phelps and his bunch of space-wasters and the Amish. Obviously the Amish are good folks who abide strictly by the tenets of their religion. Phelps' people are manipulative scum. Just saying.

Jason

The Amish are the worst hypocrits of any religion. I live in the civilized area near Cleveland, about an hour north of Amish country in Ohio. Of course, you know about the Amish ban on using electricity. But while they refuse to dial telephones, they'll use them if someone else dials for them. They refuse to drive cars, but they'll hitch rides. They won't use power tools that run on electricity, but they'll use big tools that run on steam. They are horrible drunks and often beat their wives and children. They have terrible problems with incest, and there are frequent genetic deformities that propogate because the Amish gene pool is simply too small. I'm not sure why you would think the Amish are such great examples of religion gone right.