As much as I wish these cretins every ill, I agree with the court. I read the carefully argued decision and Justice Alito's strong and passionate and well-argued dissent. Emotionally, I'm with Alito and the great majority of Americans. And though I am no Constitutional scholar, I can see that both sides paid close attention to the facts of this particular case.
This is one of those occasions where, as Justice Alito once pointed out elsewhere, the Constitution sometimes keeps one from acting on one's own less civilized private convictions. Everyone wants freedom for themselves and those like them, but the hard part of it is tolerating the freedom of others whom one does not like, or worse. But without that, liberty is just a privilege for some. The American experiment really is, in many way, an opus contra naturam.
The real reason I am in favor of this decision is that America may now be the only country in the world with such broad freedom of speech and anything which creates ground for the vile hate speech laws that muzzle pro-Western dissent --and these laws ONLY benefit the Designated Victim Classes-- is to be avoided.
In Holland, France, Austria, Britain and Canada, free speech is abrogated when if might offend the feelings of a designated "minority".
In Europe, people are jailed for denying the Holocaust. And telling the unpleasant truth about Islam in Holland will put you on trial. Preaching traditional Christianity in England will get you hauled into the police station. As for the Canadian "human rights" commissars, they are what Orwell warned us against. A restriction added now here for the noblest of reasons is very likely to be used later on by evil men against the very people who set it up.
So I take a longer view. For the sake of our continuing freedom to express ourselves, I am sadly willing to put up with the Westboro thugs, a temporary ill. And if something terrible happens to them, I will not shed a single tear.
And this, at least, as a result, is good news.
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