Normally I ignore Ann Coulter completely, but this is just too priceless to pass up. See, it appears that Ann is terribly, terribly upset by the evil deeds of the Westboro Baptist Church.
…[The Westboro Baptist Church is a] Kansas-based cult, consisting mostly of members of a single family, traveled to Maryland in order to stand outside Matthew’s funeral with placards saying things like, “God Loves Dead Soldiers,” “God Hates You,” “You’re Going to Hell,” “Semper Fi Fags,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Thank God for IEDs” and “God Hates Fags.
..Unlike many legal concepts, the tort of IIED is not an obscure legal doctrine written in pig Latin. It means what it says: speech or conduct specifically intended to inflict emotional distress. The usual description of the tort of IIED is that a reasonable man viewing the conduct would react by saying, “That’s outrageous!”
The Second Restatement of Torts (1965) defines IIED as conduct “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”
…Thanks to idiot lawyers, who think it makes them sound smart to say “Black is white” and “Up is down,” one of the biggest problems in society today is the refusal to draw lines. Here’s a nice bright line: Holding malevolent signs outside the funeral of an American serviceman who died defending his country constitutes intentional infliction of emotional distress.
(…excuse me, I’m having a wft?! moment..?)
This from the woman who has stated publicly, several times, that four specific women whose husbands died horrible deaths as firefighters trying to save the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack, areself-obsessed witches who enjoyed their husbands’ deaths?
Oh, but she does anticipate this. She, you know, only participated in the exact same outrageous, extreme, atrocious behavior while “publishing [her] views in a magazine, announcing them on a…radio program, proclaiming them on…”Countdown With Keith Olbermann”. Which makes it perfectly okay; the reason the Westboro Baptist Church should be slammed by the forces of Justice but she should be allowed to drip venom without so much as a hiccup is because, you know, the Westboro protesters were standing outside the soldier’s funeral doing it. All she did was list her targets’ names on national TV, public radio and in published print…over and over and over again…which is clearly much less specifically and personally directed with intent to inflict emotional distress!
Sorry, Ann. I can’t tell the difference between you and the Westboro Baptist Church, frankly. But maybe you could genuinely help the rest of us stop their insane, disgusting behavior–if you could tell us what would stop yours, then maybe we could put that information to good use shutting them up, too.
I’m all ears.
The difference is Ann did one and some people that aren’t her did the other one.
That’s pretty much it, when we’re looking at how Ann determines her ethos, so far as I can tell — as is true for a large part of those in her political party (cf IOKIYAR, etc).