If you are a habitual lawbreaker, that might be the case. But while that does happen in certain cases, I think we have seen enough murderers get away because a policeman, while throwing up after finding multiple corpses, failed to Mirandize in accordance with the law.

I really don’t believe we live in a land that violates rights. On the other hand, we probably live in a land where rights have changed into rights for everything — good, bad and ugly.

The Phelps family has climbed on a bandwagon that sports the likes of the ACLU as well as every conservative and liberal wacko that can be pried out of the woodwork to lay claim to freedom of speech — a freedom that they espouse has absolutely no responsibility attached.

As the lawyerly Mrs. Fred Phelps said to the cameras, “If you don’t like what we are saying, just turn away!” I guess that I could apply that to the words of Osama bin Laden and any member of Al-Qaeda, Baader Meinhof or The Red Brigade.

If you don’t like what they are saying, just turn aside. In those cases, turning aside might mean being caught off guard when they incinerate you with a roadside bomb or hit you in the face with shrapnel; but keep in mind that this is just another expression of freedom of speech — terrorist style.

A clear idea of what terror is might help me separate the people who simply are expressing their freedom of speech and the total dirt bags who kill and maim people.

I found some very simple and interesting words. Terror as defined on the web is “panic: an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety.” It is “a person who inspires fear and dread.” And finally it is “the use of extreme fear in order to coerce people (especially for political reasons).”

It doesn’t say anything about lobbing a bomb or shooting through my window or cracking me upside the head with a baseball bat. Everything relates to how the behavior of one person or group affects another person or group.

Creating overwhelming fear, inspiring dread and coercing people. Yes, that pretty clearly defines the behavior of Al-Qaeda and bin Laden.

It also clearly defines the sick and perverse behavior of Phelps and his vitriolic wife who try to hide their pernicious behavior behind one of our most cherished freedoms.

It is time for all conscientious U.S. citizens, visitors to the U.S. and anyone who is contemplating becoming a U.S. citizen, to think about the loss of freedoms as they relate to the printed page, television screen and the ever-increasing web.

It isn’t freedom of speech that is at the core of the argument, it is the same kind of terrorist behavior that seeks to open up cracks in our society and aims at the destruction of our United States of America.

Let us stop following the magicians of the law who constantly are waving one hand so we don’t notice what they are doing with the other hand.

We have been bamboozled into believing that if we don’t let a group of sick and perverted characters defile a funeral, we will see the complete destruction of our rights.

I believe it is the other way around. If we continue to allow the fringe crazies on both sides of the spectrum to do whatever they choose, we eventually will rot down to the core. We need to demand that everyone “tells it like it is.”

Terrorism is not simply the throwing of a bomb, it is the throwing of words.

To the worthless saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” I say, “B.S.”

Craig Gunn is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at gunn@egr.msu.edu.