Just Making a Comparison...

A friend of a friend posted this picture a few days ago -
The picture itself is fairly offensive - showing our current sitting President, elected by a majority of the voters, alongside a list of some of the worst dictators of the last century. In fact, the poster got called out on that, but defended herself with the claim that this was only showing leaders in the two categories. It wasn't meant to imply that Obama himself is a murderous megalomaniac...it just happens that his opinions and policies regarding personal weapons place him in the same group as all those horrible people.

Yeah, right. Just a coincidence. Okay, let's look at this a bit.

First, of course, is the obvious - these names and faces were not chosen at random. If we're looking at world leaders associated with gun control...where's Tony Blair, who got the 1997 Firearms Act passed in the UK? Ronald Reagan, who endorsed the Brady Act? Angela Merkel, who signed a measure in Germany that even bans Tasers? I'm guessing that they weren't considered scary enough - especially Reagan. Including him on the list would have confused the target audience severely, I suspect. It is fairly obvious that this list was designed to provide a group of absolute villains specifically for the purpose of ranking Obama alongside them. Showing that some reasonable people support certain gun control measures would have been counter-productive to this Orwellian hatefest.

Second, to be a fair comparison, Obama's policies have to actually qualify him as a leader looking to strip citizens of their right to own guns. Does he have that sort of record? I haven't seen much on that from him. Back in June, he apparently put out some executive orders that would result in computerizing background checks, increased enforcement of existing laws, and improving interstate cooperation. None of which sounds quite like prying guns out of peoples' hands - and I haven't even found confirmation that the orders were issued. Even the NRA says he hasn't done anything on the issue - though of course that only means it's a conspiracy to do more later. But before you go lumping our President in with a bunch of dictators...shouldn't you be able to point to something he's actually done?

Third, the others in the group really ought to belong there, too. Some of them, sure. Stalin, yep. He instituted gun control in the Soviet Union. Amin, Castro? Couldn't find anything on them. Though Uganda seems to me to have been a failed state under his rule, so I wonder just how effective any gun laws really were...and I suspect that it isn't all that relevant in Cuba, where most of the populace can't afford food, let alone a handgun. But Lenin? Gun control in the Soviet Union appears to have started under Stalin, not Lenin. And Hitler? It turns out the 1938 German Weapons Act completely DEregulated long guns and ammunition, as well as liberalizing the rules on licensing. (In fairness, it also made it illegal for Jews to own any guns at all - but considering all the other antisemitic legislation of the time, it hardly seems fair to characterize that as gun control.)

So tell me again - is this really a picture showing the category that Obama's actions have placed him in, alongside all these historical villains? Or is this yet another attempt to demonize the President with lies, half-truths, and innuendo?

Of course, if you wanted to do it right, you could leave the picture exactly the same, and merely change the captions - the pictures in the bottom row are all leaders who believed that they had the right to murder their own citizens purely on their own word. But the people who put out this sort of thing seem to be just fine with that.

Semper Fi, Mr. Snyder

Apparently, the father of a Marine killed in Iraq is suing the Westboro Baptist Church for protesting at his son’s funeral. According to this story in the Baltimore Sun, his chance of success is pretty low – but I think it is certainly worth a shot. The invasion of privacy portion of the suit is almost certainly not going to work – apparently, the protesters stayed on public property. According to various lawyers, the defamation issue is also going to fail – not because the church’s statements were true, but because the church has so little credibility that people’s opinions about LCpl Snyder have not been changed by them.

That’s where I think there’s a legitimate question. Certainly, MOST people’s opinions were not changed by the outrageous and stupid claims. I’d go so far as to say that no RATIONAL person was influenced. But some people certainly were. At the very least, the 75 members of that church had to take it seriously. I feel sure that a thorough search of the Internet could come up with comments on message boards in support of the church, their preacher, and their message - and perhaps the authors of those comments could be found. Does the law require that a LOT of people were influenced? My best wishes go to Mr. Snyder for the success of his suit. I hope it is a jury trial.

There’s something that surprises me about the Westboro Church. Every time they protest at a military funeral, they are directly attacking about a million and a half men and women currently in uniform. Plus several million more veterans who served honorably and remember that service with pride. That’s a whole lot of people trained to kill. With a certain fraction trained in special skills – sniper, demolitions, infiltration, police procedures. The fact that the church still exists and there have been no attacks on their protests or their homes could be considered a sign of our honorable nature and our respect for the Constitution and the First Amendment – but in all honesty, we know that some members of our military aren’t all that stable and well-adjusted. I, myself, DO respect their First Amendment rights to protest, and would not condone an attack on them – I’d much rather see them taken down by legal means. But I admit to surprise that everyone else is as patient as I.

In the meantime, I’ve thought of another legal way to attack them – I only wish I had the time and finances to make it happen. Get a few hundred or few thousand people together in Topeka, Kansas. Surround the Westboro Baptist Church – preferably right at the start of one of their services. Pass out sheet music. Start singing. I recommend a very short song list – “The Army Goes Rolling Along,” “Anchors Aweigh,” “The Marine Corps Hymn,” “Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder,” “Semper Paratus” and possibly “The Star-Spangled Banner.” No other songs – just those that are nearest and dearest to those of us in the military. All the verses. Over and over. For hours. Days. Weeks. With enough people involved, we could set up shifts, bring people in for a week at a time on their vacations, replace them when they had to leave. I expect even a couple dozen would be enough to capture media attention – which would probably bring in help from all over the country.

I don’t think it would stop the Phelps family and their few additional followers. But it would annoy them, interfere with their hate-filled message, and might goad them into making mistakes, stepping across the border of legality – and allow us to get rid of them once and for all.