Slight Sympathy for the Deranged

Fred Phelps represents the worst of human decency.  He has perverted a doctrine of salvation, forgiveness, and healing into his own form of personal judgment.  His entire family and a several others are in on his deranged doctrine, so much so that he has them going out and protesting at the funerals of fallen war soldiers with signs like “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and the like.  Not even the radical leftist moonbats are doing that.
While Phelps is a blight on this nations and represents the worst of humanity with his arrogant, prideful rants of judgment which is not his to give, his church’s recent lawsuit left me with mixed feelings and a slight internal conflict.  You see, a fallen marine’s father had sued Phelps’ church and won the initial civil trial.  The appeals process, however, didn’t turn out that well.  In the process of losing the case, the court also ordered Albert Synder to pay the legal fees of Phelps’ legal team, which as far as I can tell is his own family.
The conflict I have is not whether I support Phelps’ freedom of expression, which is not in the Constitution, but the fact that the court did something I agree with.  They made the plaintiff who lost pay the legal fees of the defendant.
It is incredibly insane that our nation does not have a loser pays system.  Our current civil court system is the most backwards system in the world, where most other nation do not employ such a barbaric and downright anti-free market system.  Whenever you mention this to politicians, they sneer at you and say that it’s an old English system.  The truth is, it’s a modern day European system.
The loser pays system would prevent so many corporate monopolies that are enforced by government, it would ensure that the jerks don’t get to wield the power of the courts over the hapless, and best of all, it would ensure that people like John Edwards don’t do more real case work rather than ambulance chasing.  As an added benefit, the prices on many consumer goods and services would go down because companies that get sued only pass the costs of the lawsuits down to the consumer.  I don’t know exactly by how much or what products, but I’m sure there would be some noticeable difference eventually.
So while we don’t have a loser pays system yet, the court’s decision to have Synder pay the legal fees of Phelps’ legal team was the right one.
And it sucks to have hold fast to my own principles sometimes.  I believe that what Phelps’ group was doing was wrong.  Their freedom of “speech” ends at the ears of those mourners and they should have been escorted off the premises by private security.  Better yet, have a bunch of LGBT protesters rally around Phelps’ group with the gayest outfits they can wear.  If they can put on a dance show, that’d be even better.
I think Phelps is probably one of the craziest people out there.  He is a hardcore hatemonger and has enough followers to raise a ruckus.  And sometimes, he bites people hard.  I hope that the Supreme Court realizes that property rights trumps freedom of speech in this case and reverses the legal fees bill.  I also hope that Phelps learns what God is truly about.  For now, he remains a bent person in the service of lord of this world, whether he realizes it or not.

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