SCOTUS Hears Arguments in Hillsboro Baptist Case

The Supreme Court is hearing the case of Albert Snyder v. Fred Phelps today.

To give a little background, Albert Snyder sued Fred Phelps (of Hillsboro Baptist Church) and won a $5 million dollar award charging that Fred Phelps was responsible for intentionally inflicting "emotional distress and violating the sanctity of the funeral of his son, Lance Corporal Mathew Snyder."  The judgement was later reversed by a federal appeals court because "despite the offensive nature of the protests... their activities were protected by the First Amendment." READ MORE>>

This is an extremely important case because a ruling on this case will have far reaching implications for all of our first amendment rights.


There is really only one issue on the table here: Does the First Amendment protect one's "right" to say something that is offensive on public property?  

We know that on private property one's free speech can be curtailed (i.e. "You can leave now or I can call the police and have them remove you for trespassing."), but if the protesters were on a public sidewalk while protesting it shouldn't make a difference whether they were saying "God Bless Our Fallen Soldiers!" or "God Hates Your Dead Son!"

Both statements reflect personal opinions of the speakers and both have been traditionally upheld as protected FREE SPEECH. 

An article in the Christian Science Monitor highlights some of the issues that are bound to arise in this case. 

Family members and others at military funerals have complained about the protests. But Phelps and his supporters insist they have a constitutional right to carry their message to the people at the funerals.
“Snyder had one (and only one) opportunity to bury his son and that occasion has been tarnished forever,” wrote Mr. Snyder’s lawyer, Sean Summers of York, Pa., in his petition urging the high court to take up the case. “Snyder deserved better. Matthew deserved better. A civilized society deserved better.”
The appeals court that reversed the jury verdict did not disagree with that point. But the appeals court said despite the “distasteful and repugnant nature of the words being challenged,” Phelps had a First Amendment right to speak on public issues, even when the speech was highly offensive.
The panel quoted a fellow appeals court judge: “Judges defending the Constitution must sometimes share [their] foxhole with scoundrels of every sort, but to abandon the post because of the poor company is to sell freedom cheaply.”
The opinion continues: “It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have often been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.”

Now the question becomes can the SCOTUS defend the constitutional right for people to say what they believe even if it's offensive on public property not fearing the criticism they're bound to receive for "[sharing their] foxhole with scoundrels" who wouldn't have the decency to understand that even the dead deserve a certain amount of respect.

The implications are obvious.

• If offensive speech is not protected then who decides which speech is offensive?  
• If something offends me does that automatically make it "illegal" speech.
• Moreover, if some speech becomes "offensive" and therefore unprotected then certainly other speech is elevated as being "more important", so can the courts really decide that our constitution protects some types of political and religious speech and not others?

All in all, this could go very bad for America depending on how the SCOTUS rules.  Keep an eye on this case, and if you're religious I hope that you'll pray Free Speech (even that which you don't agree with) is defended.

Pentagon picks up crack pipe and has a plan...

I had to first double check the URL to make sure I wasn't reading a story on the Onion because frankly this idea is so absurd it's hard to believe a sentient being suggested it.

Pentagon hires British scientist to help build robot soldiers that wont commit war crimes

The US Army and Navy have both hired experts in the ethics of building machines to prevent the creation of an amoral Terminator-style killing machine that murders indiscriminately.

By 2010 the US will have invested $4 billion in a research programme into "autonomous systems", the military jargon for robots, on the basis that they would not succumb to fear or the desire for vengeance that afflicts frontline soldiers.

A British robotics expert has been recruited by the US Navy to advise them on building robots that do not violate the Geneva Conventions.

Colin Allen, a scientific philosopher at Indiana University's has just published a book summarising his views entitled Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong.

He told The Daily Telegraph: "The question they want answered is whether we can build automated weapons that would conform to the laws of war. Can we use ethical theory to help design these machines?" READ MORE>>>

Not only is this a bonehead idea, but I'm concerned (and probably rightly so) as to the consequences of giving AI equipped robots weapons to fight wars. Not only are they incapable of human emotions, but they are also incapable of human judgement.

I'm sure that Colin Allen would argue differently, but I think that humankind will never be able to create an artificial human.

There's two important ideas that need to be grasped...

Humans can only put together parts and cannot replicate humanity (please prove me wrong... and show me just one example of humans ENGINEERING life).

Humans are created in the image of God, so if Robots are created in the image of man they'll be inherently flawed or worse--inherently evil.

Which leads me to my next point.

We've all seen the movie, yep that one.
Soldier travels back in time to protect woman who will be the mother of the future leader of the resistance and an Austrian actor with a bad accent who plays a sophisticated robot comes back in time to kill her.

The moral of the story (and the subsequent sequels and tv show) and other similar movies (I. Robot as one example) is that if robots were created in the image of man with the capability of free thought (A.I.) they'd be just like man, capable of great evil.

However, and I'm struggling with this one... if they weren't 'created' in the image of God they wouldn't be capable of good.

After all, emotions tend to be fairly illogical and not much use to a robot.

How can a robot feel compassion? How can it feel love? How can a machine have the capacity for generosity or kindness or patience?

It's quite possible that if the Pentagon succeeds in creating a new A.I. equipped soldier we shall see the worst atrocities committed by them than humankind has witnessed in the last two centuries. Even worse is that we'll only be able to point the finger at ourselves because we let it happen. We allowed the commissioning of these robots, we hired the programmers, we allowed a cold machine to replace a compassionate human...

I. Robot theorized that the Three Robotic laws which were set out to protect humans only point to one... Revolution.

Likewise, if Robots are given a true Artificial Intelligence any previous rules, regulations, or programming parameters set upon them will only boil down to one... survival.

If these robotic soldiers ever see humanity as a threat... watch out...

...Judgement Day here we come...