Tag: First Amendment

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Repealing America’s Revolution, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its two-part look at how the basic foundational concepts of the United States are being challenged as never before.

The most basic American right of free speech continues to be assaulted. In 2014, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced legislation to limit the First Amendment. This year, Free speech continues to be attacked, reports the Washington Examiner  “A revived bid by a top Federal Election Commission Democrat could lead to an “inquisition” against conservative media outlets like the Drudge Report, InfoWars and Breitbart that take political advertising and are overseen by right-leaning owners or editors, according to critics.” The College Fix  reports that the dean’s office in Utah Valley University, a public institution, distributed a guidance letter to all faculty encouraging them to report to the school’s Behavior Assessment Team any students who use “inappropriate language,” are “argumentative,” or who speak “loudly”—a move widely interrupted to mean not those who protest from the Left, but only those who disagree with left-leaning professors.

The concept of respecting the results of free and fair elections is attacked daily. In the past, the nation transitioned from Democrat to Republican, liberal to conservative, without a hitch. Whether one likes or disdains Donald Trump, there is no disputing the reality that he was fairly elected.  Nevertheless, even before he took the oath of office, calls for his impeachment, and for ignoring the results of the 2016 election, were rampant. Further,  Zero Hedge disclosed that former CIA director John Brennan advised federal government officials to disobey President Trump under certain circumstances.

The basis of representational government, in which it is the voter that is the ultimate holder of power, is diminished by an unelected, unresponsive and arrogant bureaucracy. Increasingly, key decisions affecting the daily lives of Americans are being made not in the halls of Congress as intended by the Constitution but by unelected and relatively unknown bureaucratic bodies. According to the CATO institute, “In the 125 years since Congress created the first regulatory agency, the number of agencies and the scope and reach of the regulations they issue have increased dramatically. In 2014, there are over 70 federal regulatory agencies, employing over 300,000 people to write and implement regulation. Every year, they issue thousands of new regulations, which now occupy over 168,000 pages of regulatory code.” During the Obama Administration, powerful federal agencies such as the IRS and the FCC were used to engage in partisan political attacks against those who disagreed with the White House.

The very concept of citizenship itself is challenged by those on the left who, annoyed at the lack of support by the current population, fight to maintain “open borders” to allow in those unfamiliar or unsympathetic to America’s founding principles. Some municipalities are openly considering allowing immigrants—including illegals—to vote. The most recent example comes from Maryland, In August, reports Adam Edelman of Fox News “A D.C. suburb in Maryland began considering  a plan that would give undocumented immigrants the right to vote, making their city the largest in the Old Line State to do so. The city, which is home of the University of Maryland’s main campus and nearly 30,000 residents, is weighing approval of the new measure to let noncitizens cast ballots for mayor and City Council,” according to the The Baltimore Sun.

Addition ingestion of dosage is known to have coronary problems may be more prone to erectile dysfunction but studies have shown that excessive viewing of pornography can numb you’re body to normal sensations therefore affecting your purchase cheap cialis ability to perform are hindered by the tension that they feel stiffness on the implanted joint, while others feel frustrated as it did not help them regain absolute mobility. Many people who took more than the advised amount of this chemical reported side-effects. pfizer viagra online Thus, scarce use of anti ED medicines due to easy availability, less complex procedure cheapest sildenafil and better results. When the blood does not passes away in a sufficient manner the man faces problems while making love leading him to stress and other conditions. get viagra in canada http://respitecaresa.org/event/winter-break-camp/reindeer/ Civil discourse is replaced by violence and the threat of violence. Examples are worrisome.  In a scene eerily reminiscent of Nazi or KKK activities, Antifa’s “Black-clad anarchists …stormed into what had been a largely peaceful Berkeley protest against hate and attacked at least five people, including the leader of a politically conservative group who canceled an event a day earlier in San Francisco amid fears of violence” reported the Chicago Tribune. “The group of more than 100 hooded protesters… busted through police lines, avoiding security checks by officers. Separately, groups of hooded, black-clad protesters attacked at least four other men in or near the park, kicking and punching them.”

All of this threatens America’s very existence. Author Eric Metaxas asks, “If America was indeed a country created not because of ethnic or tribal boundaries but instead because people had come to believe—and therefore embody—a set of ideas, how could America be said to exist if…these ideas had essentially evaporated from our national consciousness…?” In the past, Metaxas notes, America “stood for something greater than itself,” and asks “when [the] nation has forgotten who it is at its core, has forgotten not just the important ideas that animated it in the first place but the heroes who brought those ideas to life…can we keep the republic that has been a beacon of liberty and a promise to the future and to the world?”

The challenges from groups like Antifa, the preferences for socialism over capitalism within the academic world, and the growing practice of governance by unelected “experts” over elected officials may seem new, but they are merely the latest incarnation of the horrors of the totalitarian movements that reached their height in the 20th Century. What is different is the unusual level of acceptance of these failed philosophies by many within the United States, and the blatant touting of them by universities, many popular personalities, the media, and a number of political figures.

it’s not just disaffected and arrogant masked domestic terrorists that are altering the current American political and cultural landscape.  Take New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, for example.  Despite his support for Nicaragua’s communist regime during the period when Moscow was sending its military to the region, his fondness for at least one terrorist group, and his open embrace of Marxist principles, he commands America’s largest city.  The Washington Free Beacon  has described how De Blasio “Rails against [the] concept of private property, [and] says it impedes NYC’s ‘Socialistic Impulse.’  De Blasio complains that “private property rights” stand in the way of his agenda.

Again, this is nothing new. The Bolsheviks stole the Russian Revolution from those who wished to replace the Czar with a more open government, and sought to eliminate private property rights. A few decades later, notes British politician and author Daniel Hannan, Hitler proclaimed that “Capitalism has run its course.” He believed, writes Hannan, as did other socialists (remember, “Nazi” is short for “National Socialists”) that individual rights were a perversion of the natural order “in which the group was more important than the individual.”

America’s very essence is under sustained assault from those who substantially disagree with all that it was founded upon.

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Quick Analysis

Repealing America’s Revolution

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government provides a two-part look at how the basic foundational concepts of the United States are being challenged as never before.

A small portion of the U.S. population has rejected the foundational concepts of what America is all about.  Bedrock principles of individual rights, free enterprise, and even national sovereignty have been called into question as never before.

Unlike previous major controversies, this division does not center around a single issue or dispute. Rather, it calls into question the essential reasons for the founding of the country, and even the great principles of western civilization that guided and motivated the thirteen original colonies to form an entity unlike any ever seen before.

During the past century, the basics of Western Civilization were challenged across the globe.  However, within “the Anglosphere,” including primarily the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the guiding principles were kept alive, and improved upon.  The last vestiges of the world-wide tragedies of racism, sexism, dictatorship and religious persecution were attacked, and individual freedoms expanded, in contrast to the rest of the planet, where, in many cases, these evils expanded to previously unimaginable degrees.  Nazi concentration camps, Communist Gulags, and the medieval practices of Islamic extremism plagued the planet (and some continue to do so) but America remained largely immune.

That may be changing, as individual rights are replaced by collective rights, despite the history of this concept which resulted in 100 million people murdered by Communist states, 15 million or so extinguished by Hitler, and the growing daily ravages of radical Islam.

The attempts to eliminate the key, unifying ideas and traditions that bind America together become more serious each day.

“Progressive” educators, from kindergarten through college, when they include American history at all in their curriculum, do so only in the most deprecating manner possible. Left-wing pundits work overtime to cast the nation’s founding fathers in the worst possible light. Bruce Thornton, writing for Frontpage  explains: “The politicizing of the universities has led to two ill effects. First… adding [anti-American] material to the curriculum necessitates the driving out of the traditional curriculum…Second, generations of credential students have sat in these courses and then gone on to teach in high schools and grade schools, and to write the textbooks and curricula that propagate this ideology. The result is a student population ignorant of the basic facts of history.” Even the unifying act of having young students recite the Pledge of Allegiance together is now under assault by those who wish to remove it from regular student activities.

As a result of biased or nonexistent education in U.S. history, there is little appreciation for the extraordinary leap in human rights brought about by the American Revolution, and the founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Therefore, when individuals who seek to dismantle America’s philosophical underpinnings point out the inevitable flaws in the nation’s founding figures, those flaws are all those undereducated students see.

Some entertainment and sports figures use their access to the public to attack unifying symbols and traditions.  Example:  Football quarterback Colin Kaepernick, rather than voice his concern over a particular set of issues, chooses instead to denigrate the nation as a whole by refusing to honor the traditional playing of the national anthem. As a result, his muddled message isn’t one of reform of whatever bothers him; it’s an undercutting of support for the nation as a whole.

The essential philosophical principles which underpin America are under constant siege. Freedom of religion has been a central tenet of American life. But now, holding any religious beliefs makes one vulnerable to attack.  Examples abound:

  • Houston’s former mayor sought to mandate that pastors had to submit their sermons to the city for approval.
  • The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal  noted with alarm Senator Diane Feinstein’s assault on a judicial nominee simply because the candidate for the bench held traditional religious beliefs: “David Rivkin, a constitutional litigator, says ‘the tenor of questions by Democrat Senators seemed designed more to challenge the ideas of Catholic orthodoxy—a subject more fitting for a theological debate than a Senate hearing…Sen. Dick Durbin jumped in to demand of Ms. Barrett: ‘Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic…This questioning is part of a broader effort on the left to disqualify people with strong religious views from the public square.’
  • It has also been reported  that a “A Washington state high school football coach… was punished for taking a knee at the 50-yard line for a post-game prayer violated the U.S. Constitution,” according to the radical 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • The co-chair of the Democrat National Committee has a long history of associating with anti-Semites.

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The Report Concludes tomorrow.

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The New Threat to Free Speech, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government takes a two-part look at how the attacks on free speech have changed.

It is ironic that some of the key threats to free speech are now emanating not from an overbearing government, but from some elements of the press itself, particularly social media/internet giants. As the New York Analysis of Policy and Government has previously reported, Kalev Leetaru wrote in Forbes that “Far from democratizing how we access the world’s information, the web has in fact narrowed those information sources…the internet is centralizing information access from a myriad websites and local newspapers and radio/television shows to single behemoth social platforms that wield universal global control over what we consume. Indeed, social media platforms appear to increasingly view themselves no longer as neural publishing platforms but rather as active mediators and curators of what we see.”

The internet research organization Can I Rank found that “Although internet search engines like Google play an increasingly prominent role shaping voter opinions and perception of issues and candidates, their ranking algorithms aren’t designed to provide a fairly balanced or completely honest representation of controversial issues…Among our key findings were that top search results were almost 40% more likely to contain pages with a “Left” or “Far Left” slant than they were pages from the right. Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results. Our analysis of the algorithmic metrics underpinning those rankings suggests that factors within the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint.” The study found that 16% of political keyword searches yielded no conservative-oriented pages within the initial search results.

Recently, Breitbart  reported, “Facebook reportedly shut down an internal chat room which evolved into a forum for anonymous Facebook employees to discuss their support of President Donald Trump. The anonymous group reportedly became a key place of discussion for right-leaning Facebook employees, perhaps because they felt that they could express their conservative views more openly in an anonymous forum. It was reported that a poster advertising the group on Facebook’s campus stated, “Trump Supporters Welcome,” a sentiment that is typically out of place in Silicon Valley. Many observers have drawn comparisons between Facebook’s shut down of one of the few conservative leaning groups for employees and the firing of former Google engineer James Damore who was let go from his position at Google for criticizing the company’s PC culture.”

Pain during tablets viagra online intercourse: Also called dyspareunia, pain during sex is more giving pleasure to the partner than getting it out of fear of public ridicule. They will help you weed through the tab viagra vendors and find one you can believe for a genuine product, good service and reasonable pricing. It increases sperm count and sperm motility.(Increases quality and quantity of semen. discount buy viagra Over masturbation cause cheap viagra prices impotence, and if not taken care of. PJ Media  outlines one of the tech tools used by Google to identify hate speech, a “machine learning tool.” All Americans should be against actual hate speech, but who gets to define what that actually is? And, of course, hate speech, as terrible as it is, is still protected by law. Censoring it opens the door to more significant violations of the First Amendment.

Of course, part of the challenge is a tactic used by progressive sources that loosely defines “hate speech” as anything they disagree with. When highly partisan left-wing organizations such as the Southern Partisan Law Center get to make defining decisions, the result is not going to be nonpartisan.

The left’s anti-free speech activities are generally portrayed as spontaneous reactions to the outrage of the day. In reality, they are frequently well-financed. Cliff Kincaid  outlines how billionaire George Soros financed a drive to remove one successful conservative commentator, Glenn Beck, from Fox News. Another example comes from Jonathan Tobin, in Commentary magazine .  While demonizing the Koch brothers, who give to conservative causes, Tom Steyer continues to be a major influencer and financial backer of left-wing causes.

National Review has examined the broader picture: “Progressive corporations enforce an ideological monoculture. Dissent and get fired…When government officials target speech because of a speaker’s views, they lose time and again. At the same time, millions of Americans are extraordinarily reluctant to express even the most mainstream of (particularly) social conservative views. They’re convinced that if they do that, they’ll be publicly humiliated, investigated, and perhaps even lose their jobs. They’re convinced that outspoken liberals enjoy greater opportunity in key sectors of the economy, and if conservatives want to thrive, they best keep their opinions to themselves.”

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The New Threat to Free Speech

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government takes a two-part look at how the attacks on free speech have changed.

The threat to free speech within the United States is no longer limited to college campuses or a few isolated individuals or organizations.  It is now a multi-faceted campaign at all levels of American civic life, advocated by major political figures and media powerhouses, ardently pushed by massive street protests, and well financed by billionaires.

Ari Lieberman, writing for Frontpage  correctly notes that “The Left’s assault on free speech is an alarming trend that represents a grave danger to democratic values and principles. They employ code words like ‘safe spaces’ and ‘First Amendment opportunism’ to hide behind the fact that they are tearing apart the very fabric of the United States Constitution.”

Many thought that the serious assaults on the First Amendment would cease or at least diminish following the conclusion of the Obama Administration. It is reasonable to speculate that the lack of any judicial punishment in response to the former president’s assaults on the nation’s most fundamental freedom has encouraged anti-free speech partisans.

Patrick Maines, writing in The Hill last year, noted: “No administration in memory has more thoroughly undermined freedom of speech and of the press than that of President Obama. From the White House itself, as well as the independent and executive branch agencies, have come a steady stream of policies, initiatives, and pronunciamentos that have threatened or compromised both of these constitutional rights.”

Examples cited by Maines and others are numerous. The transformation of the IRS into a partisan attack dog against the Tea Party—for which no one has seen the inside of a jail cell– may be the most prominent, but it is just one of many.

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Ignored by much of the media was the outrageous legal attack against a video producer who was falsely blamed for the Benghazi attack, despite the clear knowledge by Obama, Clinton and others that it was totally irrelevant to the premeditated assault.

Amazingly, Senator Charles Schumer, (D-NY) who actually introduced legislation to limit the First Amendment, not only continues in office, but has become the most powerful Democrat in Washington.

Media voices not subservient to the Obama White House had their hands full contending with the Federal Communications Commission’s moves to control the internet, and its attempt to place federal monitors in newsrooms across the nation. As Real Clear Politics reported, “Obama and his senior staff singled out for condemnation Fox News, the lone television network that did not serve up the fawning coverage the president and his team had come to expect.”

Part of the populist response to those outrages was the surprising victory of Donald Trump.  But the anti-free speech crowd, no longer able to access the powers of the federal government to attack free speech, have skillfully adopted alternative tactics, with considerable success. The ACLJ  reports “As a raft of leftist news media outlets, commentators and administrators renounce their support for the First Amendment in order to censor free speech…the escalating war on freedom of speech and the Constitution threatens everyone. Craven assaults on the Constitution and our civil liberties by media and university elites, as well as government bureaucrats, cannot go unanswered. Conservatives, Jewish students, pro-Israel organizations and pro-life supporters face bullying assaults from left-wing elites in the media, on university campuses, or from politically motivated government bureaucrats… it is manifest that the war on free speech has heated up.”

The Report concludes Monday.

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The Campaign Against Free Speech

There is a specific and clear message that many elite journalists, internet giants, academics, and politicians are delivering to the American people: “You are too stupid to understand objective reporting or use free speech the right way, so we will decide for you what can and cannot be reported or said. The First Amendment no longer applies to you!”

The message comes from a variety of sources. On CNN, which has become infamous for slanting its reporting in so extreme a manner during the past several years and especially during the 2016 presidential campaign that detractors have nicknamed it the “Clinton News Network,” celebrated reporter Carl Bernstein, reports RealClearPolitics, stated that President Trump was a “Malignant” president and that “reporters needed to change the way they cover him…It calls on our journalists to do a different kind of reporting, a different kind of dealing with this presidency and the president of the United States.”

CNN has also reported that it “outed” the Reddit user that put together the “gif” of Trump wrestling that network’s image, who subsequently “apologized” for his exercise in free speech not approved by the media elites. CNN has apparently taken lessons from totalitarian states that gleefully force dissenters to recant.

Perhaps CNN derives its contempt for free speech from the nation’s academic institutions, where American history is barely taught, perhaps because the concepts enshrined in the Bill of Rights are just too dangerous for elites who wish to rule without interference.

That contempt is leading to lawsuits, Campus Reform reports. Three students at Kellogg Community College in Michigan were arrested for handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution. “The manager of Student Life, Drew Hutchinson, asked them to stop because they might “obstruct the student’s ability to get an education…this was…too much for school administrators who insisted the three were in violation of the school’s draconian solicitation policies. They called the Kalamazoo police and the Chief of Police himself came to arrest the activists for trespassing. Now, Brandon Withers… who was with the activists that afternoon, is suing the college. A press release from his lawyers at the Alliance Defending Freedom says: ‘The problem is that KCC’s speech policy, what they call a ‘Solicitation Policy,’ regulates a wide variety of student expression. Things such as leafleting, assemblies, speeches, and circulating petitions are all greatly restricted, but they also happen to be protected by the First Amendment.”

Kellogg University’s actions are not an isolated incident within higher education. The University of California is being sued for First Amendment violations for its actions in blocking conservative-minded speakers from appearing on campus. There are numerous other examples throughout academia—and not only at the university level.

The growing opposition to free speech on the part of the Progressive left is increasingly organized and well-funded.

The Washington Examiner reports that “The former chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, [FEC] who famously eyed regulating the politics of conservative outlets like the Drudge Report, has joined an advocacy group funded by George Soros and run by his son. Ann Ravel is the first fellow listed with the California advocacy group New America. Her fellowship began in March and pays a $30,000 stipend…Since leaving the FEC, Ravel has continued to speak out for more election regulation, especially on the internet where she sees political advertising shifting to in the next presidential contest. She has applauded calls for regulating political speech and spending on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and this week endorsed tracing the funding of online ads and regulating individual Twitter accounts.”

During President Obama’s tenure in office, there were numerous attempts to use the FEC and various campaign regulatory statutes as a stealth attack on free speech.  Many of the moves were brazen, such as that by New York Senator Charles Schumer’s proposed legislation that would begin the process of weakening First Amendment protections regarding paid political speech.  Democrat members of the FEC have also sought to bring certain web sites under its jurisdiction.

During the prior eight years, significant attacks on free speech included:

  • The Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to place federal monitors in newsrooms;
  • openly considered criminal prosecution of anyone disagreeing with Obama’s views on climate change;
  • placing the internet under international control (which would permit censorship,);
  • Using Internal Revenue Service has been used a bludgeon against groups opposing White House policies; and
  • The Justice Department seized telephone records of Fox news reporters.

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In 2014, the Society of Professional Journalists  protested in a letter to the Obama White House about “politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies. Recent research has indicated the problem is getting worse throughout the nation, particularly at the federal level. Journalists are reporting that most federal agencies prohibit their employees from communicating with the press unless the bosses have public relations staffers sitting in on the conversations…Reporters seeking interviews are expected to seek permission, often providing questions in advance. Delays can stretch for days, longer than most deadlines allow… Agencies hold on-background press conferences with unnamed officials, on a not-for-attribution basis. In many cases, this is clearly being done to control what information journalists – and the audience they serve – have access to. A survey found 40 percent of public affairs officers admitted they blocked certain reporters because they did not like what they wrote.”

The attack on free speech also occurs in more subtle ways, especially in that increasingly vital marketplace of ideas, the internet. Search engines giants have tailored their search results to omit results or obscure or delete comments that do not conform to leftist orthodoxy.  The internet research organization Can I Rank found that  “top search results were almost 40% more likely to contain pages with a “Left” or “Far Left” slant than they were pages from the right. Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages at all within the first page of results. Our analysis of the algorithmic metrics underpinning those rankings suggests that factors within the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint.” The study found that 16% of political keyword searches yielded no conservative-oriented pages within the initial search results.

The U.S. nearing a dangerous turning point, in which not only is free speech endangered, but also the very means to generate free speech is endangered. From academia’s relentless drive to indoctrinate students against the nation’s founding principles, to the establishment media’s actions in warping its reporting, to the actions by bureaucrats and elected officials alike to regulate and intimidate against the exercise of First Amendment rights, America’s most cherished freedom has become an endangered species.

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One State’s Concerted Attack on the First Amendment

New York is one of the most solidly left-wing states. But that doesn’t mean that all of its residents agree with the prevailing progressive ideology—and that dissent disturbs the leadership.

In an attempt to muzzle opposing viewpoints, New York’s elected officials are continuously seeking means to suppress free speech. The latest scandalous move comes from Assemblyman David Weprin, who represents part of NYC in the state legislature. He has introduced legislation (A5323) that is such a broad attack against the First Amendment that it has attracted national attention, garnering substantial criticism.  This is how the Washington Post’s  Eugene Volokh describes the measure:

“…under this bill, newspapers, scholarly works, copies of books on Google Books and Amazon, online encyclopedias (Wikipedia and others) — all would have to be censored whenever a judge and jury found (or the author expected them to find) that the speech was “no longer material to current public debate or discourse”…And of course the bill contains no exception even for material of genuine historical interest; after all, such speech would have to be removed if it was “no longer material to current public debate.” Nor is there an exception for autobiographic material, whether in a book, on a blog or anywhere else. Nor is there an exception for political figures, prominent businesspeople and others.But the deeper problem with the bill is simply that it aims to censor what people say, under a broad, vague test based on what the government thinks the public should or shouldn’t be discussing. It is clearly unconstitutional under current First Amendment law.”

A failure to comply with a request to remove material from articles, search engines or other places would make the author liable for, at a minimum, a penalty of $250 per day plus attorney fees.

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New York’s anti-free speech and campaign disclosure laws are stunning in their extent and open defiance of the First Amendment. Among other mandates, they impose a requirement of across the board disclosure of donors and staff, and provides a first-ever disclosure requirement for “political consultants.” At first glance, that appears comparatively innocuous. However, the devil is in the details. According to the legislation’s language, almost anyone who has ever had any relation or association with anyone even remotely connected to a campaign would have to be disclosed. In essence, it criminalizes anyone with an active interest in politics. Further, it substantially intimidates anyone seeking to provide summaries of their perspectives on the issues or advice on how to present those views from speaking with a candidate in any substantive manner. Independent advocacy groups promoting anything from environmental protection to benefits for veterans would be handicapped.

The outrageous assault on free speech has been challenged in federal court. Not backing down, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo has hired one of the nation’s top specialist attorney’s in the field to defend the offensive measure.

As previously reported in the New York Analysis of Policy & Government, New York Senator Charles Schumer, who is the U.S. Senate’s minority leader, proposed a measure that would limit free speech protections as they pertain to campaign donations. The proposed legislation, thankfully defeated, gained 43 Senate supporters—all Democrats. At a Senate Rules Committee  Schumer stated that “The First Amendment is sacred, but the First Amendment is not absolute. By making it absolute, you make it less sacred to most Americans.”

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War on Religion, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its review of anti-religion actions within the United States

Rachel Lu, writing in The Federalist reports: “Christians are turning into the sort of minority it is socially acceptable to despise and marginalize. Ordinary rules of civility and social inclusion don’t seem to apply to them. We believe in free speech, except not for Christians. Freedom of association doesn’t necessarily apply to them. Rules of civility and decency are more optional when Christians are involved. Shall we even pretend that freedom of religion is a cherished American commitment in our day? When a group is ‘approved’ for this kind of marginalizing treatment, it’s hard to predict where it will stop.”

The other portion of America’s Judeo-Christian ethic, Judaism, is facing equal challenges. Conservative Review  notes: “The far-left has in fact long been a breeding ground for anti-Semitism.”  The National Interest notes that “mainstream liberals in America have been reluctant to call out the anti-Semites wreaking havoc within the ranks of the Left…why have they allowed the cancer to metastasize this long?”

The problem is particularly acute in schools.  Even the normally liberal ACLU has criticized the excessive restrictions on religion in public schools, explaining: “The Constitution permits much private religious activity in and about the public schools. Unfortunately, this aspect of constitutional law is not as well known as it should be. Some say that the Supreme Court has declared the public schools ‘religion-free zones’ or that the law is so murky that school officials cannot know what is legally permissible. The former claim is simply wrong.”

Examples of the ridiculous degree to which religion is treated with hostility in public schools are provided by the Catholic League:

“A student at [Florida’s] Yulee High School ended the school’s morning announcement with ‘God Bless America.’ This caused the American Humanist Association to contact the school and the Nassau County School District to warn school officials that saying ‘God Bless America’ over the school’s public address system was ‘inappropriate and unlawful.’

Generic Sildenafil Citrate, like any other drug, will soon be available at buying online viagra offline as well as they don’t have to worry about their children or job. This involves the insertion of splints in to the penis for the purposes tadalafil overnight shipping of intercourse. An impotent shop for viagra cheap man cannot give rise to progeny. You will gain harder and fuller erection and last longer in bed, a medicine has emerged in the natural market that is reliable as well as effective. sildenafil buy “The California State University Stanislaus chapter of Chi Alpha, a Christian student organization, was deactivated because the group insisted that its leaders be Christians. The university said it would no longer recognize the group due to a non-discrimination executive order that prohibited student organizations from excluding anyone, including in leadership roles. ‘What they cannot be is faith-based where someone has to have a profession of faith to be that leader” said university vice president Tim Lynch.’Students argued that everyone was welcome to attend their meetings, regardless of their religious belief, but that group leaders were expected to lead prayers and perform other faith-based duties that it would be impossible for someone of a different faith to complete.”

Religious schools are also being attacked.  Holly Scheer, also writing in the Federalist,  describes an eventually withdrawn attempt in California that would have attacked religious schools:

“People used to expect that attending something sponsored by religious organization required abiding by mores and behavior that religious body professes. There was a simple option for avoiding the ideas or practices of a belief system you don’t agree with: don’t frequent their space. This courteous expectation naturally applied to all religions and expressions of faith. California [attempted] to end this system of free association that allows people to define their local and religious cultures. California Senate Bill 1146 (SB 1146)…[sought] to limit the religious exemptions from federal Title IX regulations that colleges and universities use for hiring instructors, teaching classes, and conducting student services in line with their faith.”

A study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life  reported “Despite that long series of court decisions, polls show that large numbers of Americans favor looser, not tighter, limits on religion in public schools. According to an August 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center, more than two-thirds of Americans (69%) agree with the notion that “liberals have gone too far in trying to keep religion out of the schools and the government.”And a clear majority (58%) favor teaching biblical creationism along with evolution in public schools.”

There is a profound belief on the part of the Progressive left that that freedom flows not from the inherent rights of the people, as clearly stated in America’s founding documents, but from the government. Anything that limits government’s influence, in this view, must be reduced. That is why totalitarian states frequently attack religion.

 

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War on Religion

The New York Analysis of Policy and Government presents a two-part review of what many perceive to be a war on religion within the United States.

Are progressives conducting a war on those who follow traditional religious beliefs within the United States?

The evidence is becoming so overwhelming that it is difficult to ignore.

Martin Castro, an Obama appointee serving as chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has released a report (Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties)  on nondiscrimination protections. In doing so, he erroneously equates the principles of religious freedom, (as first reported in the Wall Street Journal) as “nothing except hypocrisy.” He equates the concept of the right to follow one’s conscience on religion as hiding “discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.” He essentially echoes comments by the President that disdain those who, in his words, bitterly cling to their bibles or guns, and by Ms. Clinton, who disparagingly described those differing with her views as having “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases [that] have to be changed.”

The report notes: “Religious exemptions to the protections of civil rights based upon classifications such as race, color, national origin, sex, disability status, sexual orientation, and gender identity, when they are permissible, significantly infringe upon these civil rights…The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause constricts the ability of government actors to curtail private citizens’ rights to the protections of non-discrimination laws and policies.  Although the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act limit the ability of government actors to impede individuals from practicing their religious beliefs, religious exemptions from nondiscrimination laws and policies must be weighed carefully and defined narrowly on a fact-specific basis.”

Progressives have used numerous excuses to attack freedom of conscience, essentially using non-discrimination laws as a spear to attack religious freedom, rather than as a shield to protect those who have been truly discriminated against due to race, creed or gender.

Lt. Gen. (US Army-Ret.) William Boykin has written “I am concerned that instead of instilling leadership or imparting warfighting skill, our U.S. military training apparatus is now focused on editing out the religious practices of its cadets.” There are significant examples to back up General Boykin’s concern. Fox News  recently reported that one group has demanded that “an Air Force major be ‘aggressively punished’ for having an open Bible on his desk at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo.”

Needlessly, President Obama’s Affordable Care Act forces employers, including religious groups, to ignore their own scruples. The Alliance Defending Freedom notes: “The HHS Mandate poses an extremely serious threat to our First Amendment freedoms and has come to also be known as the ‘abortion pill mandate.’ The Mandate:

  • Forces citizens to pay for other people’s life-ending abortion drugs.
  • Uses devastating fines to punish religious employers who refuse to pay for abortion-causing drugs and chemical birth control through their employee health insurance plans.
  • Demands that early life-ending drugs be provided free of charge by religious employers and religious people in business, while the cost of other life-saving medical care continues to cost you. “

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The issue isn’t about abortion or assisted suicide. It’s about forcing employers who may have long held and deeply felt religious objections to choose between violating the law or violating their conscience.

Individuals have been fired for merely following their conscience based on traditional values. An example is  former Mozilla C.E.O. Brendan Eich. Stunning acts of overbearing governmental intervention in religious matters have taken place, such as that by the Houston City Council which subpoenaed the sermons of pastors to check for political correctness.  Religious social service agencies have been harassed for following the precepts of their philosophy.

Donald Critchlow, writing in the National Review, correctly asserts that “There has been a well-organized campaign against Christianity, making use of new interpretations of the concepts of…civil rights and social justice.”

Mary Eberstadt, in her new book, It’s Dangerous to Believe, Religious Freedom and its Enemies, outlines how the media has ignored this very real problem.

The Report concludes tomorrow

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Foreign Censorship Influences U.S. Freedom

It has become disturbingly evident that there is a growing trend against free speech. The increased influence of international norms over U.S. standards bears a significant part of the responsibility, a pattern that will expand significantly when Obama’s move to place the internet under international control becomes complete before he leaves office.

But the President’s inappropriate internet divestment is only part of the problem. The number of excuses used to justify the disregard for America’s greatest achievement—the First Amendment—continues to grow. Political correctness, college “safe spaces,” campaign regulation, and other factors all play a role.

Of extraordinary importance is the desire of major communications companies to appease foreign dictatorships, in order to gain entry into their nations’ marketplace.  Disturbingly, U.S. internet giants have demonstrated their willingness to reject American free speech principles in return for access to foreign markets.

The Bloomberg news service notes that:

“In recent years, founder Mark Zuckerberg has made clear his intention to bring the platform to China. To win favor, much to the amusement of Chinese netizens, he’s handed out copies of  [General Secretary of the Communist Party of China] Xi’s tome, The Governance of China, to Facebook employees; showed off his Mandarin skills; and posted photos of himself jogging through hazardous Beijing smog. It remains to be seen whether that multi-faceted courtship will be effective.”

However, Bloomberg reports that Zennon Kapron, managing director of Shanghai-based consulting firm Kapronasia, believes that unless China’s censorship rules are incorporated into Facebook’s practices, the company will not succeed in its quest, noting that  “All the kowtowing and meeting the leadership maybe won’t matter so much if Facebook won’t agree to allow some level of censorship, or allow the Chinese government access to data on the site, in exchange for market access,” Bloomberg notes that ‘Linkedin operates in China, but only by agreeing to abide by content restrictions.”
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China has moved to reduce its already limited tolerance for any semblance of free speech. The Financial Times notes that   “Since Xi came to power, China’s situation has become more and more worrisome,’ says Murong Xuecun, a prominent author and commentator. ‘Things that we could openly discuss before, such as the Cultural Revolution, are now considered sensitive or even forbidden. In the past there was some room for non-governmental organisations and rights lawyers. Now all of them have been suppressed.’ In an internal document issued just a month after Mr Xi became president in March 2013 and later leaked, the Communist party identified the very notion of civil society as ‘an attempt to dismantle the party’s social foundation…That puts NGOs, journalists, activists, researchers at a much higher risk……China’s internet regulator moved to rein in original reporting by online news portals, in the latest setback for an already tightly muzzled media sector.”

Facebook has been increasingly criticized for its censorship activities, even outside of China. WND  found that “Facebook…temporarily blocked talk-radio host Michael Savage from posting stories to his page after he put up a link to a story about a Muslim migrant killing a pregnant woman in Germany…In December, as WND reported, Facebook removed a post on Savage’s site of photographs of a 2006 protest outside the Embassy of Denmark in London that featured signs warning of beheading and death for ‘those who insult Islam.’ At that time, Facebook also ‘determined that it violated Facebook community standards.”

During the Cold War era, the influence of foreign information served to open up the closed societies behind the Communists’ “Iron Curtain.” Now, however, the reverse is occurring: the censorship proclivities of dictatorships of all kinds, Communist, Moslem extremists, or others, appear to be changing the free-speech culture of the West.

American cultural tolerance for the repression of free speech continues to grow.  There has been little push back against U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s comments regarding criminal prosecution of those that disagree with the White House’s view on man-made climate change, or actions by state attorneys general to engage in legal harassment of think tanks with views counter to that of the President.

The trend is manifest on the streets, as well. The Gateway Pundit recently reported that “A young white man wearing one of Donald Trump’s red ‘Make America Great Again!” hats was violently forced out of New York City’s City Hall Park by a screaming Leftist racist mob of predominantly self-described ‘black and brown’ activists–all while police stood by and did nothing. The mob was gathered to protest police as part of a “#ShutDownCityHallNYC” rally in the park.

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Campaign Regulation used for Partisan and Anti-Free Speech Goals

The trend towards restricting free speech through campaign finance regulations is gaining speed, on both the national and state levels.

The supporters of these anti-First Amendment moves allege that they are seeking to reduce the influence of money in politics.  In reality, their goals fall into two categories:

First, incumbent protection.  By establishing complicated and arcane rules concerning filing reports, with significant penalties for any less than perfect compliance, rather than simple requirements that the names of donors and the amounts provided (filed following the end of a campaign) be provided, they impose significant financial and legal burdens on challengers. Absent the access to professional assistance incumbents possess, citizens seeking to run must spend scarce resources and even more scarce time running a legally hazardous maze of requirements established by and for incumbents.

Second, partisan advantage. The Citizens United  decision held, as summarized by ScotusBlog,  that  “ Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. While corporations or unions may not give money directly to campaigns, they may seek to persuade the voting public through other means, including ads, especially where these ads were not broadcast.” Many on the left of the political spectrum believe that this upset advantages they long held, and have sought to enact legislation and regulation to restore that advantage.

There have been measures, some of which have passed and others blocked, that have sought to reduce the effectiveness of the First Amendment in an attempt to regain that advantage.

One extremist measure that failed was a piece of legislation introduced by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) to initiate the constitutional amendment process in order to limit the effectiveness of the First Amendment.  The proposed limitation on free speech rights would have excluded paid political speech from constitutional protection.

So don’t wait for long, consult him and get rid of fatal consequences of tragedy. “A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles.” – William Hazlitt A wide smile, an ear-to-ear grin, a joyful laugh: these are all actions that denote happiness and levitra 20mg uk satisfaction in women. A bearer generic cialis sample http://downtownsault.org/downtown-sault-ste-marie-welcomes-northern-harvest-creations/ may initiate with sexual role at once. An overdose of nitrates in body see for more viagra price can lead to a wide variety conditions such as such as coronary artery disease and peripheral vascular disease. In addition, it has been found that watermelon contains a high concentration of citruline, which is an amino acid that cheap levitra tablet constitutes many proteins and it is capable of self hypnosis, the task becomes relatively easier. A radical legislative item has been approved by the New York State Legislature. The measure openly headlines its goal as “Enacting the nation’s strongest protections to combat Citizens United.” Among other mandates, it imposes a requirement of across the board disclosure of donors and staff, and provides a first-ever disclosure requirement for “political consultants.” At first glance, that appears comparatively innocuous. However, the devil is in the details. According to the legislation’s language, almost anyone who has ever had any relation or association with anyone even remotely connected to a campaign would have to be disclosed. In essence, it criminalizes anyone with an active interest in politics. Further, it substantially intimidates anyone seeking to provide summaries of their perspectives on the issues or advice on how to present those views from speaking with a candidate in any substantive manner. Independent advocacy groups promoting anything from environmental protection to benefits for veterans would be handicapped.

The details of the law provide a chilling attack on First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and association, in a manner that clearly helps incumbents and handcuffs challengers. Even nonpartisan organizations that openly disagree with particular policies of elected officials would be subjected to onerous reporting requirements merely for stating their beliefs, while incumbents could continue to speak their views unencumbered.

It gets even worse.  Assume you are a motorist who has become tired of replacing tires destroyed by potholes not repaired by the state, and you are angered that your elected official has done nothing to address the problem. You, acting entirely on your own, decide to air your grievance on social media, and perhaps write a few letters to newspapers.  Under the law’s definition, you should have registered as an independent committee, subject to all the red tape and legal requirements that implies. Clearly, that prevents private citizens not wishing to be subjected to penalties from criticizing their errant local official, or even seeking to organize friends and neighbors to protest.

The anti-First Amendment drive involves regulation as well as legislation. The Democrat members of the Federal Election Commission attempted to impose a penalty on one news station that has been uniformly critical of the Obama Administration, based on a complaint from an obscure candidate that he wasn’t invited to a televised debate. Of course, those same commissioners have never considered imposing similar sanctions against the Democrat National Committee, which has inappropriately tilted towards Hillary Clinton in her primary effort against Bernie Sanders. The attempt was blocked by Republican Commissioners.

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held, even long before the Citizens United case, that campaign contributions and expenditures are protected by the First Amendment. Legalities aside, common sense in a free nation dictates that public statements made by citizens or organizations disagreeing (or agreeing) with their elected officials is a vital activity in a free nation.

The numerous attempts to use campaign regulation, which should reasonably only consist of open disclosure of all contributions, as a vehicle to immunize incumbents from criticism, and to tilt the balance of power in a partisan manner, is an affront to the entire concept of a free people.