evolution

A week ago I wrote about Fred Phelps and his latest disgrace, protesting at the funeral of a soldier who was killed in action in Iraq. I mentioned my theory about him, namely that he is a sadomasochist.

Many people believe that he is a garden-variety charlatan, who provokes people into assaulting him and then suing them for huge amounts of money. While it is true that he does that, I don’t believe that money is the sole reason he acts the way he does.

His hateful protests, wherein seven-year-old girls are holding graphic depictions of sex between two men, are both his form of sadism and his form of masochism. He brings this down upon himself for the sheer pleasure of it. The money is a nice benefit, to be sure, but I think that for him, the pleasure is the thing.

Well, Phelps went to Massachusetts to protest at another soldier’s funeral. His interest in Massachusetts should be obvious — it’s the only state in the Union where gay marriage is legal. His interest in this particular soldier (whom you’ll learn more about in a bit) is incomprehensible at first: he wasn’t gay and had never crossed the Phelpses. His interest in this soldier’s funeral or any other when considered in view of the sadomasochistic assumption is obvious: it’s a way to inflict as much pain on as many people as possible when as many people as possible are watching. A giant thrill for him.

But, on this particular day, he violated an important principle: don’t piss off a paratrooper. Blackfive writes that the best way to squelch him is to ignore him, and he’s almost right. It’s the only to squelch him. He needs angry people coming after him to get off.

Blackfive doesn’t plan to let him off unchallenged, however. He has a few nonviolent and quiet counter-measures, “pies in the face” if you will. Just to help us laugh a little bit until the day finally comes when Fred Phelps takes his place in the eighth circle of Hell.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 30th, 2005 at 11:35 and is filed under devolution, kansas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.