A remedy for Westboro: Let them duel!

David Bentley Hart

So I thought I might modestly propose a means of redressing the imbalance between liberty and freedom that now exists, if only as a conceptual experiment. Perhaps the answer to our current conflict between civilized values and the nihilism of pure “negative liberty” (to use Isaiah Berlin’s phrase) is a revival of dueling. This may seem like an extreme solution, I grant, but only because we have allowed so many of the charming customs of the Old World to lapse into desuetude that we have lost our sense of solemnity and etiquette. Dueling is really a very polite and efficient way of dealing with an intolerable impasse, and one that has almost everything to recommend it.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/03/a-modest-proposal