Comments:Hackers target Westboro Baptist Church website, Twitter account

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It is reassuring to find such neutral (unbiased) reporting at Wikinews, applauds and thanks. Peaceful and happy Holidays to all.Kdarwish1 (talk) 07:38, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Censorship by local newspapers and by Internet forums is one factor that forces people with unpopular viewpoints, and in particular the anti-queer viewpoints, to use less effective and more harmful methods to express their views. The Westboro Baptist Church exemplifies this. They use an innovative and effective, yet very "high nuisance" method.

If we really had a free press, including an open minded population willing to tolerate and seriously consider and vigorously debate all viewpoints, including the anti-queer ones, then the expression of surprising viewpoints would result in progress and unification rather than hostility and polarization.

When listening to someone who sees things differently from you, try to look for the common ground. What unites us is often more important than what divides us. In many cases, we agree on the basic values and goals, and only disagree about how to "get there".

Ideafarmcity, thank you very much for the insight and advise, will earnestly endeavor to follow it.

There are people here saying that these pieces of scum, the WBC, should be allowed to bring up their "points" in the name of "free speech." The truth is that that implies these people have anything to actually say. They don't. It's just spewed out hatred, abuse, and slander. Unless I'm mistaken, there are people who prosecuted for statements that fall under these categories. Not only that, but our First Amendment extends the right to free speech only up until said speech is obscene. Well, having signs that say "God Hates Fag" and "Thank God for 9/11" seem pretty obscene to me.

Good God, people, there is no "free speech" in demonstrating in front of a ceremony dedicated to the shooting victims in Connecticut (celebrating the deaths as "god's judgement"). It's simply abuse and nothing more. There is something seriously wrong with our society when it's acceptable for people with actual valid points, like the Occupy movement, to get maced, tased, and arrested and yet these scumbags get the benefit of the doubt. (Maybe the powers that be only allow free speech to those who aren't actual threats)

How is there anything about this abusive hate group that allows them to be taken seriously in anyway?? There is nothing contributive about the points these people bring up; they're simply illogical, irrational, and unreasonable hatemongers. If they wanted validity, they would civically bring up points such as low morality or health in a homosexual lifestyle. But they don't, they just spew hatred.

Abuse and hate speech is not a right, and is not something to be tolerated. No, I won't favor prosecuting them for being bat-shit-crazy wingnuts, but there is nothing wrong in barring them from dishing their disruptive hatred. Honestly, would any of you allow the Ku Klux Klan to prodce their own public TV show from which they can spread their views? By y'all's logic, they should have the right to make TV shows for children that is accessible across the nation.

This story is hilarious, I couldn't stop laughing when I first saw it on the news.

This action violates all of our First Amendment rights and contradicts other Anonymous activists who proclaim the freedom to speak. The people of the Westboro Baptist Church have a right to speak their viewpoint, and the rest of us have a right to hear it. This is not just my opinion. It is the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court, as recently stated in a case involving Westboro:

Snyder v. Phelps (2011) http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2981429692939250360&q=%22Westboro+Baptist+Church%22&hl=en&as_sdt=4,60

It's an interesting question what specific legal code one might expect Anonymous to adhere to, but perhaps even more interesting to realize that in this case, Anonymous appears to have specified what standard it is holding WBC to. According to the statement by Anonymous, they're holding WBC to the code WBC itself claims to adhere to, namely Christian values and scripture.

Anonymous is not an entity that can "adhere" to a legal code, can "specify" anything, or can make a "statement". When used as the subject or the object of any sentence, "Anonymous" should be interpreted as shorthand for "Individuals acting in the name of Anonymous, the latter being nothing more than a synthesis of prior similar acts."

So, following your lead, an even more interesting question is, what kind of thing does the proper noun "Anonymous" refer to? My answer is that what we have here is a new linguistic or semantic innovation that is comparable to "fiat money". The proper noun "Anonymous" does indeed refer to an entity, but that entity exists only because of the fact of its prior use in referring to the same entity. Perhaps we can call this a "fiat entity" or a "fiat group". Like "fiat money", the (semantic) value of the proper noun "Anonymous" is determined in the way that is illustrated by the solution to a differential or difference equation.

Thank you for responding to my comment, Pi zero.

Any 'entity' consisting of an open set of people is, at some level, illusory. Look at it closely enough and there is no singular entity, just a lot of individual people choosing, perhaps, to behave as if there were an entity there. Pretending the entity into existence. Governments are like that too. http://xkcd.com/967/.

I'm a newbie so do not know whether I should treat this as a place to converse with you. Your page indicates that you are very involved and do lots of work for Wikipedia. Thank you for that. Wikipedia has changed my life. I am 58. I am stunned by what you all have done.

I do not know how to get notified when someone like you replies to a comment that I post. If you want to continue this conversation, you can send me email from IDEAFARM.COM. (My email is listed at the top.) I don't expect you to do that; I'd rather that you keep working on Wikipedia! But you're welcome to contact me. Bye.

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