My $0.02

I've seen a lot about the Westboro Baptist Church and the Supreme Court ruling and all kinds of things happening and have remained pretty quiet about it.  But while I wait for the wood cookstove to get hot enough to bake bread, I will take a few minutes to address this and a couple of other issues.

I despise the WBC and what they do.  They are a bunch of hateful people who spew garbage in the name of religion.  They take any opportunity they can to get in the news to feed that spread.  The Supreme Court ruled in their favor.  I was actually surprised and pleased.  Why?  Because as hateful as they are, they are practicing freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom as long as it is in line with my beliefs or is all pretty sunshine and flowers blowing out of someone's butt crack.  It also means hearing the garbage that comes out of other people's mouths.

Someone can stand on a mountain top and say all women are nothing but chattel and should act as such.  As much as hearing that would enrage me and I will argue against that, I will also fight for that idiot's right to say stuff like that.

Some of the fall out of this is tires being slashed.  That is criminal behavior and that I can not defend.  However, I can laugh myself silly over shops in the area refusing to do any kind of repairs. 

The Wisconsin teacher issue.  The posts and comments on other blogs do better than I could.
http://supportyourlocalgunfighter.com/2011/02/wi-teachers-students-cut-school-to-protest/
http://supportyourlocalgunfighter.com/2011/03/scott-walker-king-of-the-verbal-smackdown/
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-much-respect-did-demonstrators-show.html

There is no money.  What do they want the state to do?  Cut police and firefighters?  Do rolling blackouts for firehouses?  That is working well in other places.  You can read about it here.
http://firstin.wordpress.com/  Read about response times, deaths, and the fact that nothing is being done to stop it.  I'd rather have teachers pay more for health care (where they would end up paying about the national average) and have a fire department ready and able to help than give into the temper tantrums of teachers who exude incompetence and start closing down fire houses and have people die.

But then again, that's just me.