Public_Domain Public_Domain:
And nothing of value was lost!
See Maiden, Iron "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" for a different perspective:
$1:
The Mariner's bound to tell of his story
To tell his tale wherever he goes
To teach God's word by his own example
That we must love all things that God made
Like Gandalf said to Frodo on the pity of Bilbo to spare Gollum's life, there are some that deserve to die that live on and there are some that die early when they deserved a longer life. It is not our place, we who all have so many flaws of our own, to judge the worthiness of others. That right of judgement belongs to a higher power, and all of us get to face it one day ourselves. Not just a sad and terrible little man like Fred Phelps, but all of the rest of us too will be found wanting in our own way.
And all of us, without exception, will be found guilty of the sin of pride. I've passed the mid-way point of my own life. I've fucked up enough in my time that any "right" I had to look down on others has long since been revealed to be just an illusion of my own mind, blinded by an undue pride I never earned, much less ever innately deserved to have. Fred Phelps was an asshole who hurt other people. So am I. So is everyone else in their own way. I admit it readily, because I've long since grown tired of denying it, and tired of lying to myself about it. It might be much less harm than others have done, especially someone like Fred Phelps, but it's still there. I hurt others unjustly and without cause. Phelps has had his time and faced his own judgement and gone on to whatever else the universe has in store for him. My judgement is yet to come. When it comes all I can offer to that judge when I'm obligated to is that I also did my best most of the time not to be bad, and that I hope I have the courage to admit what I did was wrong, and not engage in some half-assed justification for it.
That's the way I see it anyway.
CKA Uber 
![[B-o]](./images/smilies/drinkup.gif "Drink up")
