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Originally Posted by SmokeyTheBear
tell that to the mothers of soldiers who died in iraq who had to listen to children tell them they pray to god that their sons died and they will burn in hell as the mothers attend their sons funeral.
dont get me wrong i am not saying i disagree with you entirely, just wanted to get a discussion going to see what other people thought.
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That is a tough one. If it were my brother or son they were picketing I may just end up hitting a few of them, but that is probably what they would want so they could sue me. I'm a little more of the type that would bite my lip, find out who they were and where they lived and do my best to make their lives miserable.
Free speech can be ugly and I think in this particular case you can restrict it to public places or force them to stay a certain distance away because they are actually holding a protest or assembly and there are laws in many places regulating where and how these can take place. At least that way they won't be 20 feet away screaming at you.
I don't know what I would say to the mother other than to try to ignore them and rest on the reality that her son was a good person who died defending his country and that these people will live the rest of their lives in misery because they are so full of hate and fear they know nothing but that. She can walk proud knowing that her son lived his life with courage and honor and he died protecting all of us. Some of us (like the protesters) are scum and are not worthy of his sacrifice and those scumbags will never understand that. She can know that because of men like her son they have the right to do what they are doing, but they will never understand strength, honor, courage or real happiness and if that is how they choose to live their lives so be it. Fuck them and let them preach their hate and fear to other scum, they are not worth this mother's tears or anger. The best way for her to strike back at them is to walk past, proud and defiant and live a good life.
I guess, ultimately this is why battles of free speech are fought mostly in court where much of the emotion of the subject can be taken out of it. I'm sure you can't fully convince a mom who's son as died in Iraq that these people have the right to protest. But you can convince a jury that for all speech to be free, you have to include that which you don't like or understand.