What part of “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” did the left think was optional? Hmmm. I’ll take “All three” for $500, Alex
President Donald Trump promised to sign an executive order for the Born-Alive Infant Abortion Survivors Act.
The legislation requires medical care for babies who survive abortion. Continue reading “”
BLUF:
One gets the sense that a certain kind of liberal arts education is, for some extremely sensitive far-left students, no longer preparing them for the real world, or at least not in the sense this was traditionally intended.
Indeed, the real world had better be prepared for them.
Students Demand Skidmore College Fire an Art Professor for Observing a Pro-Cop Rally
David and Andrea Peterson didn’t even participate in the rally—they just watched it. The students don’t care.
David Peterson is an art professor at Skidmore College, a private liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. In late July, the professor and his wife, Andrea Peterson, attended a “Back the Blue” rally—not as supporters of the cause, they say, but as curious spectators.
“Given the painful events that continue to unfold across this nation, I guess we just felt compelled to see first-hand how all of this was playing out in our own community,” he later told the student newspaper.
They stood on the edges of event, watching pro- and anti-law enforcement demonstrators argue with each other. After 20 minutes, the Petersons left to eat dinner.
But unbeknownst to Peterson, the couple’s attendance at the rally was noticed. Now Skidmore students are demanding that both Peterson be fired for “engaging in hateful conduct that threatens Black Skidmore students,” according to Times-Union columnist Chris Churchill, who wrote about the controversy.
Andrea Peterson is not an employee of the college, according to Churchill.
“The Petersons weren’t wearing pro-police T-shirts,” notes Churchill. “They weren’t carrying a banner, holding a sign or waving a black-and-blue flag. They appear to just be listening. But merely listening to an opinion that some Skidmore students find objectionable is apparently enough to get a professor in hot water. Continue reading “”
BLUF:
It is fatuous to dismiss concerns over the rinsing-out of religious freedom as the overwrought fretting of culture warriors. The commitments in the Democratic platform are plain, and there can be no reasonable doubt that those commitments will be given legislative and regulatory effect by a Democratic administration in league with a Democratically-controlled House of Representatives and a Democratically-controlled Senate.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: BLEACHED, BLANCHED, AND RINSED OUT
Father Richard John Neuhaus put two Big Ideas into play in American public life. The first was that the pro-life movement (of which Neuhaus was an intellectual leader) was the natural heir to the moral convictions that had animated the classic civil rights movement (in which Neuhaus was also deeply involved). The second was that the First Amendment to the Constitution did not contain two “religions clauses” but one religion clause, in which “no establishment” (i.e., no official, state-sanctioned Church) was intended to serve the “free exercise” of religion. Neither of those Big Ideas is welcome in today’s Democratic Party, in which Neuhaus (then a Lutheran pastor) was once a congressional candidate, and of which he remained a registered member until his death in January 2009.
Those who point out that the 2020 Democratic platform has the most radical pro-abortion plank in American history, and that the same platform promises to hollow out religious freedom in service to lifestyle libertinism, risk being labeled “culture warriors.” Well, so be it. “Culture warrior” is snark masquerading as thought. Facts are facts. And one of the sad facts of this unhappy political moment is that Neuhaus’s effort to rescue the Democratic Party through two Big Ideas was frustrated because those two ideas got linked—and then rejected, thanks to the corruption of rights-talk that preceded, made possible, and was then accelerated by Roe v. Wade and its abortion license. Continue reading “”
If the woman arrested for a Facebook post in Australia has you shook, remember that America’s Bill of Rights is what separates us and makes us great and the rioting Marxists, the establishment, media, billionaires, & Hollywood are actively trying to overthrow it.
— Fiery but mostly peaceful Josie™ (@TRHLofficial) September 2, 2020
Woman Arrested For Facebook Post Promoting Anti-Lockdown Protest in Australia
Police in Australia arrested a 28-year-old woman on Wednesday for publishing a Facebook post that promotes an anti-lockdown protest in the country’s state of Victoria. Footage of the arrest was captured by her partner and shows police officers handcuffing the woman and saying that she’s being charged with “incitement.” The woman’s phone and computers were also seized.
The video, which was livestreamed on Facebook, has gone viral and shows the police eventually taking possession of the phone that was broadcasting the encounter. Over two million people have watched the video so far.
“It’s in relation to a Facebook post, in relation to a lockdown protest you put on just that day,” detective Adrian Smith with the Victorian Police told the woman as she was handcuffed in her home.
“I wasn’t breaking any laws by doing that,” the woman said, explaining that she had an ultrasound scheduled in an hour because she’s pregnant.
“You are actually. You are breaking the law,” Smith responded. “That’s why I’m arresting you.” Continue reading “”
The Natural Law as a Restraint Against Tyranny
Virginia Militia rallies in Richmond to protect gun rights
RICHMOND, Va. — An open carry rally organized by the Virginia Militia marched through downtown Richmond on Tuesday.
They then rallied outside the Siegel Center, on the campus of VCU, where state lawmakers were holding a special session of the Virginia General Assembly.
They’re speaking out against potential action lawmakers might take that they see as an infringement to their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“The tyrannical head of Virginia’s current legislation continues to infringe and chip away at our rights,” the group posted on Facebook. “Calling multiple special sessions within one fiscal year to pass law after law of new restrictions against the law abiding citizens of our state. We must not give them an inch, we must not take our attention off for a second.”………
Megachurch holds service in defiance of Los Angeles order
Los Angeles megachurch Grace Community held indoor services Sunday in defiance of a local public-health order, just hours after an appeals court blocked a ruling that would have allowed the evangelical services to go forward legally.
Pastor John MacArthur, who has led the congregation in Sun Valley for 50 years, told worshipers who packed the 3,500-seat sanctuary that “the powers of the city were not happy” about the church’s decision to file a lawsuit Friday challenging the novel coronavirus mandates.
“They don’t want us to meet, that’s obvious,” Mr. MacArthur said from the pulpit. “They’re not willing to work with us. They just want to shut us down. But we’re here to bring honor to the Lord.”
He said it was “hard to figure out exactly what the city is trying to do with us and to us,” but insisted “we’re not meeting because want to be rebellious, we’re meeting because our Lord has commanded us to come together and worship Him.”
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant rejected Friday Los Angeles County’s request for a temporary restraining order to stop the church from holding indoor worship, and the church agreed to have parishioners practice social distancing and wear facial coverings until the full hearing Sept. 4.
“They were going to be asking us to do two things, social distance and wear masks,” said Mr. MacArthur. “We agreed, [saying] look, we’ll comply for a few weeks. They asked that for three weeks. We’re not wanting to be defiant. We will do what is reasonable. That was not enough for the city. They went to the appellate court Saturday late, and had that order removed.”
The California Court of Appeal issued a stay of the judge’s order, ruling that the dangers of COVID-19 outweigh the right to hold services at the popular church, where Sunday attendance has in pre-pandemic years topped 8,000. Continue reading “”
California County Declares Itself “Sanctuary County” For Church Gatherings
The district attorney for San Luis Obispo County, California, has announced it to be a “sanctuary county” for churches and worshippers.
Even people who are against our RKBA are concerned about this.
New York’s attorney general shouldn’t dismantle the NRA
The attorney general of New York has sued to seek the dissolution of the National Rifle Association, alleging fraud and abuse in the way the NRA’s chief executive and other officials ran the operation. Given that the NRA has played such a powerfully destructive role in U.S. politics, fighting against gun regulations that demonstrably save lives, it’s tempting to react with applause.
Yet even liberals who oppose the NRA’s mission should take a deep breath and ask: Do we really want an elected attorney general to try to destroy a prominent nongovernmental organization that is arrayed on the other side of the political spectrum from her? What if this were Alabama and the organization were the NAACP? Or Tennessee and the ACLU?
If an organization has really fallen into a condition of fundamental corruption, a state attorney general can demand that it get new leaders, or replace its board of directors and its management in their entirety. Maybe New York Attorney General Letitia James is prepared to settle the case against the NRA with that sort of an organizational overhaul. Continue reading “”
When even anti-gunner, Dershowitz is concerned…….
I see it as 1/2 concerned about the 1st amendment and 1/2 about
‘Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander’
The case against the NRA must be politically bulletproof
By ALAN DERSHOWITZ
The announcement that the attorney general of New York has filed suit against the National Rifle Association and looking to shut it down raises potentially serious constitutional concerns. I am no fan of the NRA. Politically, I think it wields too much influence against reasonable gun control, which I support as consistent with the Second Amendment. It is too closely connected with the profitability of gun manufacturers. It advocates positions and supports candidates, even if indirectly, that I believe undercut our safety.
I will never contribute to the NRA and I will generally vote against candidates it supports. But to paraphrase Voltaire, I will strongly defend its right to be wrong. The NRA is entitled under the First Amendment, to advocate these views and to petition the government for what it regards as a redress of grievances under the Second Amendment. Continue reading “”
Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif., announced on Friday that it would continue to hold in-person services despite a new edict by Gov. Gavin Newsom shuttering churches, restaurants, bars, fitness centers, hair salons, and barbershops in dozens of counties “indefinitely.”
“We cannot and will not acquiesce to a government-imposed moratorium on our weekly congregational worship or other regular corporate gatherings,” the church, led for the last half-century by Pastor John MacArthur, explained in a statement on its website. “Compliance would be disobedience to our Lord’s clear commands” to meet together for worship. “The church by definition is an assembly,” the pastors and elders of the church explained. “That is the literal meaning of the Greek word for ‘church’—ekklesia—the assembly of the called-out ones.” As a result, “no earthly state has a right to restrict, limit, or forbid the assembling of believers.”
“Therefore, in response to the recent state order requiring churches in California to limit or suspend all meetings indefinitely, we, the pastors and elders of Grace Community Church, respectfully inform our civic leaders that they have exceeded their legitimate jurisdiction, and faithfulness to Christ prohibits us from observing the restrictions they want to impose on our corporate worship services,” they wrote.
“History is full of painful reminders that government power is easily and frequently abused for evil purposes,” the church argued. “Politicians may manipulate statistics and the media can cover up or camouflage inconvenient truths. So a discerning church cannot passively or automatically comply if the government orders a shutdown of congregational meetings—even if the reason given is a concern for public health and safety.” Continue reading “”
Your Rights Come Before Politics
Politics are real. Politics sets priorities between competing public interests. The process is never perfect. It gets ugly when existing political interests work against your individual rights.
Let’s take an easy example first. Suppose you want to gather people together and voice your opinions. The government says you need a permit for a public gathering. The rationale is that we don’t want several groups trying to use the same space at the same time. Now you learn that there is a permit process, a required interview, and an application fee. The bureaucrats say they are busy and schedule your interview for nine months from now due to Covid-19. Clearly, your right of free speech has been infringed. Continue reading “”
Only in the pea sized brains of idiots and tyrants.
DO AMERICANS HAVE EXCESS FREEDOM?
Amazingly, a new “study” is making headlines, despite the fact that it relies on obviously faulty assumptions, irrational methodology and has not been peer-reviewed.
The authors cite themselves as support for spurious statements like “Surges in firearm purchasing…have been well documented in association with mass shootings and significant political events and are followed by population-level increases in firearm violence.” Crime data for the most recent months isn’t available yet, but we know history proves otherwise.
Sure, Americans tend to buy more of something they think will soon be scarce. Just as there was an increase in toilet paper buying during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, adults are more likely to legally purchase a certain firearm they have been thinking about when there is a political discussion of banning that firearm. Does that mean those purchases are, as the author argues, “excess” firearms?
Any chef will tell you they require different types of knives for different kitchen tasks. Any hunter will tell you they would not rely on the same firearm for self-defense as they would in the field. All guns are not the same and do not meet the same needs for law-abiding citizens that choose to exercise their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms. The difference is, although there are more homicides each year committed with knives than with Modern Sporting Rifles, no one seems to argue seriously against owning any knives or for limiting the number that a home may possess because more than one is excessive.
Intrusive snoop apps on the phone? Not if Ich Bin can help it.
Survey Finds Americans Skeptical of Contact Tracing Apps.
Confusion and skepticism may confound efforts to make use of digital contact tracing technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. A recent survey found that just 42 percent of American respondents support using so-called contact tracing apps—an indication of a lack of confidence that could weaken or even derail effective deployment of such technologies.
Most contact tracing apps generally try to collect some form of information about a smartphone user’s encounters with other people and notify those users if they were potentially exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 case. But each app has its own approach to privacy and can differ in whether it collects more specific location data based on GPS or merely records close encounters with other smartphones based on Bluetooth radio-wave transmissions. Those differences, coupled with public misunderstanding of different apps, can make it tricky to assess public opinion of specific digital contact tracing technologies.
True Revolutionaries Believe in Freedom, Not Power.
……….Care of neither the old nor the young can be considered to be punishment for the able, not even the care of the un-dead old or the unborn young. These beings, regardless not only of race, creed, and color but also of size, situation, or ability, must be treated as equals, and their rights to life not only recognized but defended!………….
Actually the prosecutor probably determined that further prosecution persecution would be detrimental to his political future.
Charges dropped against Florida pastor who held church services despite coronavirus restrictions
Prosecutors in Florida have dropped misdemeanor charges against a Florida pastor who defied the state’s stay-at-home order to continue church services.
Evangelical megachurch leader Rodney Howard-Browne of the River at Tampa Bay Church had the charges of unlawful assembly and violating quarantine orders during a public health emergency dropped Friday. Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said the arrest was appropriate that it only came “after repeated efforts to gain cooperation in other ways were not successful.”
Warren said that since the pastor was arrested, he has “maintained responsible social distancing” and has engaged with community leaders about how to move forward during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our office has determined that further prosecution or punishment would not provide increased protections for our community and is not needed to achieve any additional change in Pastor Howard-Browne’s behavior,” he said.
Howard-Browne was arrested in late March after he repeatedly flouted Florida’s social distancing restrictions and continued to hold crowded church services……….
The Shutdown Is The Largest Infringement Of Rights In A Century
Right now all of us have decisions to make about how much freedom is too much freedom.
On the national lockdown loosening in some states and stubbornly persisting in others, Americans are very much of two minds. For some, including most of the media, it is an inconvenience, but a righteous one that saves lives. For others, often with smaller megaphones, it is a powerfully destructive force economically and socially. But we should be able to agree that, whether justified or not, the lockdown has been a massive infringement on Americans’ basic rights.
At least since women received the right to vote there has been no time when so many Americans have had so many basic rights limited by the government. Yes, millions have been drafted, during World War II the entire country was made to ration goods, and there have been horrible incidents like Japanese internment. But never have the vast majority of Americans — hundreds of millions of people — had so many rights stripped for so extended a time with no end in sight.
Let’s look down the list of rights that are currently being denied by the state to the vast majority of Americans. Most may not leave their houses except for essential travel. Most may not operate their businesses. Most may not attend church or host even small gatherings in their homes. Most may not receive even potentially life-saving medical procedures such as cancer screenings. Whether one supports or opposes the lockdown, this deprivation of rights in unprecedented in modern American history.
America was founded on the principle that God gives us inalienable rights, specifically to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. State-imposed shutdowns of basic medical services threaten life. Restrictions on travel and what we may do in our homes threaten liberty. Banning all gatherings such as church, entertainment, social gatherings, and sports threatens happiness. The lockdown hits the trifecta.
Those in favor of the state-mandated restriction of rights argue that it is only temporary and is needed because of the grave medical emergency we face. Even though many, including Attorney General William Barr, have expressed serious doubts as to whether a pandemic supersedes the Constitution, let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that it does and see where this idea takes us.
The first thing to note is that this unprecedented attack on basic rights is open ended. Many believe that at least some of these restrictions must stay in place until the Chinese virus is no longer with us. This may never happen. Will “the new normal” be one in which we sacrifice freedom for safety? And if so, what is the limiting principle?
For that matter, what constitutes a public health crisis sufficiently deadly to “temporarily” suspend people’s rights? In 2017, about 40,000 people were killed in incidents involving guns. To date, about 70,000 people have died from coronavirus. These figures are not wildly different. If the state may take such drastic measures to deny Americans rights during the pandemic, why couldn’t tens of thousands of gun-related deaths qualify as a public health crisis that supersedes the Second Amendment and leads to gun confiscation? Where is the line between these causes of death?
What about free speech? Surely nobody would suggest that this most basic and precious liberty be a casualty of the Chinese pandemic — or would they? In The Atlantic, Jack Goldsmith and Adam Keane Woods have this to say” “In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the [Internet] network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong. Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing Internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the Internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.” Yikes!
The longer this lockdown goes on, the more accustomed Americans become to a deprivation of their God-given rights by the state in the name of saving lives, and the flimsier the parchment of the Constitution becomes. Governments always have “good reasons” for denying rights. Nobody ever says, “I just want to be an awful fascist.” There’s always a threat, usually a very serious one, that supposedly justifies such illiberal actions.
Beyond the death, sickness, economic ruin, and inconvenience of this crisis, we must also be jealously guarding the rights protected by our founding. We do this not merely to defend the liberties that have been bequeathed to us, but protect them for those to whom we must pass them.
These are not esoteric, ivory tower constitutional questions; they literally strike at the birthright of every American. They must not be waived away under the pretense of an emergency situation. The government does not grant us rights, it protects them. Right now, all of us have decisions to make about how much freedom is too much freedom. On this question, we must never err on the side of caution, but always on the side of liberty.
Thousands Of Californians Protest Gov. Newsom’s Stay-At-Home Order, Beach Closures
Huntington Beach protests against Gov. @GavinNewsom’s draconian closure of beaches.
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) May 2, 2020
Fear is an opportunity for tyranny
And ’twas ever thus.
One of the many lessons of the COVID-19 response is how easily public official embrace tyranny, and how many people accept it because of fear.
I’m afraid of COVID-19. I’m in a relatively high-risk group, and I’m laying very low. I’ll probably lay low for longer than my state tells me to, but that’s my decision. I didn’t like the initial 2-week shutdown, but I thought I understood the reasons – flatten the curve and keep the health care system from being totally overwhelmed – and I knew it would buy us time to learn more about the illness.
Mission accomplished. It’s been far more than two weeks, and the damage from the shutdown itself has gotten to the point that it becomes crystal clear it needs to be removed. The benefits have been less clear, too. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that shutdowns mattered all that much in the curve of the COVID-19 toll in various states and various countries. We understand more than we did, but although we don’t understand enough, we have to take a few leaps because one thing we do understand (and was clear from the start, actually) is that the shutdown itself is causing tremendous damage. And that damage is not limited to economics; it involves mental and physical health as well.
Almost six weeks ago I wrote this:
So here’s my question for all you epidemiologists and infectious disease experts out there –
Wouldn’t it be better to have only high-risk people stay home? People over 60 and those with pre-existing conditions? That way, if all those at low risk kept mingling, a lot of them would get a mild flu and herd immunity will be achieved fairly quickly, to the benefit of all, without overwhelming the health care system.
I’m not suggesting this as an actual policy right now, but I’m just wondering if my logic is flawed. I suppose the question is how long would it take for it to run its course and achieve sufficient herd immunity, and when would it be safe for us old folks to finally emerge. Also, would there be a lot of deaths among the younger ones in the meantime?
I just don’t see the end game for the current mitigation strategies.
It wasn’t rocket science to question what was happening back then. And that was before the worst of the draconian measures were put in place by governors such as Michigan’s Whitmer, which are not only startlingly strict but seemingly unrelated to any public health goal or logic involving such goals.
What’s going on? People in power like more power, particularly people on the left. Tyrants of all stripes have long used emergency powers to increase their control over the people. Sometimes those emergency powers become semi-permanent or even permanent. It certainly doesn’t surprise me that some governors are trying to stretch it out for as long as possible.
I believe that’s one of the reasons the MSM is trying to stoke fear, and has been doing so from the start. There’s plenty of fear to be had, of course, just from the basic facts of the matter without trying to increase it further. But the MSM is strongly motivated in various ways to do just that: in order to get Trump, to give petty tyrants like Whitmer more reasons to clamp down, and to increase traffic because “if it bleeds it leads.”
The real wild card in all this is how long the people are going to take it. Spring is stirring even in northern climes, and it’s fully flowering further south, and people are ready to burst forth from their own enforced isolation. Some people’s livelihoods depend on it, and a lot people feel their sanity does as well.
And some people are just tired of being told what to do without seeing sufficient reason to obey, when all they’re asking for is the freedom to go about their normal lives – or as near normal as possible, taking precautions to protect the most vulnerable.
“Democrat governors are demonstrating every single day that what happened in Venezuela could happen here. “For the common good we are taking away your civil rights but trust us, you’ll get them back some day.””
Louisiana pastor breaks house arrest to hold Sunday service amid coronavirus stay-at-home orders
The embattled Louisiana pastor who repeatedly flouted social distancing measures defied house arrest by hosting a large gathering of congregants for a Sunday service in defiance of orders to stay at home to limit the impact of the coronavirus.
Pastor Tony Spell of the Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge was seen on a live stream Sunday walking among more than 100 congregants, often repeating the phrase, “I’ve just got to get to Jesus. … Come on America, let’s get back to Jesus.”
Nearly all parishioners were not wearing face masks, and social distancing was not being practiced, The Associated Press reported.
Spell had been placed on house arrest at 9 a.m. Saturday morning after refusing to tell a judge if he’d continue to hold Sunday services.
A Facebook Live video shared by Central City News showed the pastor playing the piano surrounded by family members inside his home. A man wearing personal protective equipment had Spell sign paperwork before fitting him for an ankle monitor.
“Tomorrow at 12 o’clock, my voice will be silenced for several months,” he said, referring to his normal Sunday service. “You will not hear from me again. I promise you, I will continue to do what I do. This is not about me. This is about our religious liberties.”
Spell, who has also been accused of nearly running over a protester with his church bus, appeared before a state district judge Friday but refused to clarify whether he would continue to hold in-person religious services over the weekend in defiance of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ stay-at-home order, The Advocate reported.
Judge Fred Crifasi of the 19th Judicial District Court asked Spell if he would comply with the order that’s required all non-essential businesses, including churches, to shut their doors, and has limited gathering to no more than 10 people.
Citing Bible verse 1 Peter 3:14, Spell responded: “But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled,” according to District Attorney Hillar Moore III.
When Crifasi asked a second time, Spell remained silent, something the judge interpreted to mean the pastor would once again fail to adhere to social-distancing measures.