r/AskReddit • u/DrCompenomics • 12h ago

Who’s the best real-life example of “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and what happened?

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u/arcodash 8h ago

I really wonder if he truly had a change of heart in his last years (he was excommunicated from the church for this) or if it was just dementia.

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u/CaptainAwesome06 7h ago

Fred Phelps? How did he get excommunicated from his own church?

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u/showyerbewbs 7h ago

When you build a product that is fueled by hate and run out of things to hate on, you have to start eating your own.

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u/CaptainAwesome06 7h ago

Couldn't have happened to a better man...

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u/smellyjerk 2h ago

He softened and wanted his church to have a kinder approach. That's what was why they gave him the boot.

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u/CaptainAwesome06 2h ago

That makes sense. You wouldn't want your pastor to espouse the teachings of Jesus or anything. Especially any of that "be nice" crap.

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u/Kalse1229 32m ago

Pretty sure that was a Twilight Zone episode.

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u/arcodash 7h ago

His own children excommunicated him and isolated him from everyone else, iirc we only learned this when one of his grandchildren who isn't associated with the church wrote this in a book.

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u/TVCasualtydotorg 6h ago

Wasn't it his son in laws?

I know his daughter, who was prominent in all the docs, has been sidelined as they've taken control of the church.

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u/arceus555 7h ago

He suffered from dementia in his final years. His behavior lead to the other members believing he was condemned

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u/McJohnson88 2h ago

Allegedly, very close to the end of his life, he had a moment where he looked out at the Equality House across the street from the church & muttered "you are good people." The rest of his church considered this blasphemy & kicked him out.

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u/CaptainAwesome06 2h ago

I'm not sure I'm read to believe that one. Looking at Google Maps, Westboro Baptist Church is across the street from some houses. There's nothing near there called Equality House.

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u/BrotherChe 1h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_House

The Equality House is a rainbow-colored house in Topeka, Kansas, that is situated on the corner of 12th and Orleans Street, across from Westboro Baptist Church, an anti-LGBT hate group. 

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u/CaptainAwesome06 1h ago

Got it! It's weird that it has it's own Wikipedia page but isn't named on Google Maps.

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u/calilac 41m ago

Might've been named on the maps at one point and then removed, I know they got targeted for vandalism quite a few times and something is easier to target if it's on a map.

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u/unassumingdink 5h ago

I mean, it's fully possible to believe in Civil Rights for black people and still hate and fear gay people. Source: the entire 1960s, '70s, and '80s.

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u/tophernator 6h ago

I never really understood the logical consistency of their policies. They hated gay people, but also protested the funerals of dead soldiers, often combining the two waving homophobic placards at funerals of people who as far as we know weren’t gay. The whole thing seemed quite dementia coded to me.

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u/MostlyWong 6h ago

They hated gay people, but also protested the funerals of dead soldiers, often combining the two waving homophobic placards at funerals of people who as far as we know weren’t gay.

They were trying to make the point that Don't Ask/Don't Tell (gays in the military?!? Oh no!) and the growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in the United States and our government policy was the reason those soldiers were dead. That the United States was being "punished by god" for the acceptance of gay people, and the deaths were directly linked to that. Certainly couldn't be starting an unprovoked war in the Middle East was a bad idea across the board and maybe their god was upset about that rather than gay people existing.

It's not logical in any way, but that was the point those protests were trying to make.

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u/drainbamage1011 6h ago

They were also notorious for provoking angry/violent responses from the public so they could sue and use the settlements to fund more protests. So there may not be a consistent logic other than being provocative.

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u/Sea-Emotion6710 5h ago

Yep they protested a catholic highschool near me once. Its a wealthy all-boys school so the game was pretty obvious, provoke the boys and sue the parents for money

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u/IAMATruckerAMA 4h ago

I'm sure you're right but I'm enjoying the idea that your all-boys Catholic school didn't host a gagging gaggle of giggling gays

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u/Pyrhhus 6h ago

Dementia coded… or part of me always wondered if the whole thing was a deeply committed False Flag. The Westboro Baptist Church being so completely unlikable, so detestable to anyone remotely sane was a huge part of what really started to break the cultural default away from the low grade homophobia that used to be the background norm.

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u/Malphos101 6h ago

I wonder if he got a tumor.

So many cases of people changing personalities that turn out to be brain tumors....its obviously a low percent but over a few billion people? Makes you wonder