Westboro Baptist Church wins in the Supreme Court. Good.

Still reading the SCOTUS ruling, but here's a key part early:

Westboro addressed matters of public import on public property, in a peaceful manner, in full compliance with the guidance of local officials. It did not disrupt Mathew Snyder’s funeral, and its choice to picket at that time and place did not alter the nature of its
speech. Because this Nation has chosen to protect even hurtful
speech on public issues to ensure that public debate is not stifled,
Westboro must be shielded from tort liability for its picketing in this
case.

I think this is the right decision. As I wrote in the Scripps column last October:

The case has been broadly portrayed as the church causing offense by inflicting itself upon a grieving family at the funeral of Snyder's son. The facts are somewhat different. Westboro members did indeed set up a picket -- but as required by law, they were 1,000 feet away from the funeral when it occurred. Snyder's family only encountered Phelps' vile words through after-the-fact news reports and a visit to Westboro's website.

Fred Phelps didn't inflict himself on Albert Snyder, in other words; Snyder subjected himself to Phelps' message. It's thus difficult to see how any exception to the First Amendment, however narrow, would fit this case. Under these circumstances, a court ruling against Phelps could only be seen as punishment for having and expressing the wrong beliefs. As repugnant as those beliefs are, that's not supposed to happen in America.

About that NYT poll on unions

It would be nice if the Times' poll focused on the feelings of Wisconsin residents. But since the assault on unions transcends Wisconsin, the poll is still valuable. Here's what it finds:

Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent. While a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away some bargaining rights, they were outnumbered by large majorities of Democrats and independents who said they opposed weakening them.

Now: If I remember my health care debate correctly, Republicans believe that polls showing this level of opposition to a policy makes that policy democratically illegitimate. I'm sure they'll follow through on their rhetoric and cease their union-busting activities immediately.

From the comments: No pension, no Social Security

Allen, a former colleague, responds to my post about teachers getting large pensions because they don't get Social Security.

So here is a story that happened to my mother.

She started working for the school district at 55 to teach learning disabled children, a physically demanding job with kids who are often very strong but not necessarily in control of their own bodies.

The school district had it's own Teacher's Union, which had it's own pension system and didn't contribute into Social Security.

In all of her previous jobs, she had given a portion of her income to Social Security.

She worked for a few years, and then had a medical emergency which prohibited her from ever working again.

Because she hadn't been in the Teacher's Union long enough, no long term retirement benefits. Because she'd spent several years working for the Teacher's Union and not contributing to Social Security, she isn't allowed to collect Social Security either.

Long and short of it, she's now disabled and unable to work, and no retirement benefits from Social Security or the Teacher's Union.

And here I thought the ACLU hated Christians

Via Andrew Sullivan, an interesting bit of news:

The ACLU of Virginia has come to the defense of a group of Christian athletes in Floyd County.

In an e-mail sent Friday afternoon, the civil liberties group said it had e-mailed the principal of Floyd Co. High School (FHS), and urged him to allow students to post their personal views, including copies of the Ten Commandments, on the lockers.

The e-mail comes one day after WSLS first reported that members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at FHS claims school leaders took down the copies of the Ten Commandments on their lockers.

The e-mail from ACLU of Virginia legal director Rebecca K. Glenberg drew a distinction between "school imposed religious expression," and "the personal religion expressions of students." The ACLU distinguishes the situation at FHS, from the Ten Commandments controversy in the Giles County Schools system.

The ACLU, in other words, is for the right of individuals to express their faith—but not of government to impose those expressions on them. Sounds perfect to me. Too bad the ACLU will get almost zero credit for this among religious conservatives.

U.S. silent as Iraq quashes protests, kills dissidents

Say, I wonder if Bill Kristol and National Review will pipe up about the Obama Administration's failure to side with freedom ... in Iraq:

But in one of the least-noticed stories of the week, the U.S.-backed government of Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq has resorted to imprisoning 300 journalists, intellectuals, and lawyers in order to stop ongoing protests, according to a well-reported Washington Post dispatch from Baghdad.

The Post story reports that about 30 people have been killed -- at least some of them gunned down by government forces seeking to disperse protests. And the imprisoned dissidents are not being treated humanely, according to one journalist who was detained.

Somehow I doubt we'll see those guys publicly call Obama weak for staying silent on the issue. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Fan mail: Why the big public pensions? No Social Security.

It's not all insulting mail I get. Ed Spondike wrote this morning—probably a longer piece than I should reproduce here. A relevant excerpt:

A private sector worker has three sources of retirement income. He has Social Security, his own savings plan, and probably a company pension. Teachers do not get any Social Security benefits, so they rely heavily on a good pension plan. So, if you do away with the union's right to collectively bargain benefits, some teachers may be without retirement benefits that private-sector workers have.

Spondike raises a great point. Here's some relevant info from the New York Times:

More than six million public employees work outside the Social Security system, including roughly 1.7 million teachers in California, Illinois and Texas, and nearly two million employees of all types in Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada and Ohio, as well as Louisiana and Maine. For years, these and other states have insisted they could provide richer pensions at a lower cost, both to workers and taxpayers, because of investments.

Some of those states’ pension plans now have shortfalls so large that they need outsize contributions. Virtually all state pension funds have had big losses in the last two years, but the go-it-alone states appear especially vulnerable.

So: States promised big pensions to state workers who stayed off Social Security because it was cheaper. But the states failed to put enough money away to cover their promises. And now the states want to reneg on those promises because of "shared sacrifice." That means the states get teacher's services for lower cost than what those states valued those services at, both on the front end and the back end. And yet it's the union members—not state officials—who are being maligned.

The unions aren't the real plutocrats

Jonathan Chait points out a flaw in Kevin D. Williamson's screed against union power:

Obviously, unions exert a large influence in absolute terms. But relative to business, labor is indeed a tiny force. In the last election cycle, business groups out-spent labor on both lobbying and electioneering by more than a 3-to-1 ratio.