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[EnigmaticHat]

Why not just decouple it from the author entirely? 20 years, dead or alive. Maybe even less.

Because that would be simple, rational, and benefit all mankind. The only allowable copyright reform is to make is increasingly destructive to the public good. 

I just think there's some form of bureaucratic or political aversion to making things simpler. I'm not big into how things work, but there never seems be be something along the lines of "Just scrap what we're doing right now and do it again from scratch", instead it's just tacking more things ontop of eachother until it's a labyrinthine mess whose original intentions are obfuscated by generation after generation of tinkering and revisions.

Its because a lot of policy (at least in democratic nations) is the result of some compromise politicians made with their opponents or lobbyists.  If its in there someone probably has a strong stake in making sure it remains the way it is.  If you start cutting swathes of policy, you start stepping on people's toes.  In the case of copyright law, its corporations that make boatloads of money from milking the same IPs for decades.

[Nadaka]

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legally-recognize-westboro-baptist-church-hate-group/DYf3pH2d

Petition to have the Westboro Baptist Church labeled a hate group.

[10ebbor10]

Considering that's the same page where there were petitions for and against building a death star by 2016, I doubt it'll matter.

What did they do wrong anyway. I don't follow American cults.

[Nadaka]

Considering that's the same page where there were petitions for and against building a death star by 2016, I doubt it'll matter.

What did they do wrong anyway. I don't follow American cults.

They harass and intimidate people who are grieving at funerals with hate and damnation. They hate the gays, and the muslims, and the government, and pretty much everything and everyone.

[GlyphGryph]

They aren't a cult, they are a business built to abuse the law to separate people from their money, and they make their money through antagonism and harassment that fall juuuust this side of legal, followed by suing those who respond in a questionably legal manner in response. Their dominate tactic recently is picketing the funerals of people who've been killed in terrible tragedies, to get the family members so upset and enraged that they engage in some sort of violence against the group and they can pull off a big payday by adding insult to injury.

It's doubtful they actually hate everyone - but acting like they has proven incredibly profitable.

Currently, they are picketing the funerals for the Connecticut kids.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, they're really a cult. They're also really abusing the law for their benefit.

That their feelings are genuine are made clear by the defectors. One of their kids (now an atheist) talked about how Phelps would tear his wife's hair out and beat all of his children with an axe handle for "displeasing god".

[Nadaka]

No, they're really a cult. They're also really abusing the law for their benefit.

That their feelings are genuine are made clear by the defectors. One of their kids (now an atheist) talked about how Phelps would tear his wife's hair out and beat all of his children with an axe handle for "displeasing god".

AKA, why I am an atheist.

[Helgoland]

beat all of his children with an axe handle

If only once he did it with the other end, we'd get rid of several problems at once!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You can remove the axe head, which is what he did. As I recall, he actually gave them bone fractures with it more than once.

[10ebbor10]

No, they're really a cult. They're also really abusing the law for their benefit.

That their feelings are genuine are made clear by the defectors. One of their kids (now an atheist) talked about how Phelps would tear his wife's hair out and beat all of his children with an axe handle for "displeasing god".

AKA, why I am an atheist.

4 posts before a Holier-Than-Thou less-Holy-than-thou post.

Got to be a record.

[scriver]

No, they're really a cult. They're also really abusing the law for their benefit.

That their feelings are genuine are made clear by the defectors. One of their kids (now an atheist) talked about how Phelps would tear his wife's hair out and beat all of his children with an axe handle for "displeasing god".

AKA, why I am an atheist.

4 posts before a Holier-Than-Thou less-Holy-than-thou post.

Got to be a record.

Dude, Nadaka and his mother (and sister?) escaped from a violent Christian church (and the only reason I do not use sect here is because he has not made clear how sect-like it was) themselves, so it is literally why he is an atheist.

[Reelya]

You can remove the axe head, which is what he did. As I recall, he actually gave them bone fractures with it more than once.

They also aren't allowed to use the toilet by themselves until they were adults, IIRC.

What?? Was Phelps scared that toilet-goblin babysnatchers would suck them to hell.

More realistically, it's some perverse anti-masturbation thing I think. Your whole life without letting one off? I can see how I'd be enraged too.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I know some (marginally) less crazy people will limit their children to five minute cold showers for the same reason.

[Nadaka]

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/revoke-tax-exempt-status-westboro-baptist-church-re-classify-westboro-baptist-church-hate-group/tNVz4V7Q

oh. This one would actually productive at shutting down the westboro baptist church is it was actually acted on. Declaring them a hate group will probably have little effect, but removing their  tax exempt status will hit them in the pocket book.

[Helgoland]

Declaring them a hate group will probably have little effect, but removing their  tax exempt status will hit them in the pocket book.

It's the same reason they're trying to ban the German Nazi party[1] right now: You can't make these people better, but you can limit their potential to do harm by taking away their money and putting them in gulags prison, if possible.
Maybe a more general law should be passed, one that prevents any person or organizations that endorse views that are against the fundamental principles of the state from receiving government aid and lowering the barriers for preventive action, i.e. bans and penalties.


[1]: No, not that one; it's called NPD, and if you ever see one of them, kick them in the head until they stop moving.