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31 January, 2011
Wisconsin: More Leftist hate speech
Pretty close to libel, in fact"State Republican leaders are calling a Madison talk show host's comments about Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch hate speech.
WTDY's "Sly" Sylvester spent part of his show Monday talking about how Kleefisch is calling businesses in other states to try to lure them to Wisconsin. After attacking her credentials as a business owner, the liberal host got personal.
Mocking Kleefisch in a sing-song voice, Sylvester said, "and then I got colon cancer and ran around the state to tell people. Even though I have government health care, screw everyone else."
Sylvester said in the same mocking voice she used sexual acts to get support from Milwaukee talk-show hosts for her election.
Wednesday morning, Sylvester apologized for making the sexual comments. He said he recognizes it's hard to be a woman in politics and shouldn't have made remarks about sexual favors.
Source
Must not express anti-Muslim sentiments in Britain
We read:"Five men have been arrested after a Facebook site was set up declaring “all Muslims should be thrown out of Wales”. Around 150 people joined the group on the social networking site claiming they would march through the Rhondda Valleys to make their feelings known.
The proposed march has been described as “mindless bigotry” by racial equality groups. But South Wales Police have now stepped in and arrested five men for religiously aggravated public order offences.
It is one of the first occasions people have been arrested over comments posted on Facebook. The group has also been removed from the site.
Police now believe the march will not go ahead, but they will be on standby in case anyone turns up. Members of the group, which was entitled Rhondda March, said they would walk from Treherbert down to Pontypridd on February 28.
Source
30 January, 2011
Congress considering internet “kill switch”
Egypt has one. Why not Obama?"Introduced last summer, a bill affording President Obama executive power over private Internet companies in the event of a 'national cyberemergency' is returning this year, albeit with a few tweaks.
The CBS News article, 'Renewed Push to Give Obama an Internet ‘Kill Switch,‘' insists that the bill should not cause Internet companies any alarm, citing government promises to limit the bill’s use to 'crucial components of national infrastructure.'
We must question, then, why it is the case that these promises aren’t built into the bill."
Source
Murder of homosexual Ugandan blamed on hate speech from U.S. Evangelicals
We read:"Kato 's death is being called the direct result of the hateful words of American evangelicals who have publicly fought against homosexuality and homosexual rights.The fact that contempt for homosexuals is normal in all African populations seems to be overlooked. It doesn't need missionaries to bring that out. And the normal Christian doctrine that one should hate the sin and love the sinner should in fact be some protection for homosexuals.
Over the last few years, homophobia has soared hroughout Africa but especially in Uganda, where a controversial 2009 Anti-Homosexuality Bill proposed the death penalty for some homosexuals.
The evidence suggests that American evangelicals were involved in the drafting of the bill. In March 2009, an American evangelist named Scott Lively led an anti-gay conference in Kampala. A few days later, David Bahati, a lawmaker and a close friend of Lively, introduced the bill in Parliament.
Source
29 January, 2011
Homosexuality must be ACCEPTED!
I am firmly of the view that homosexuality should be tolerated. What people do with their body parts should be no concern of the law and no cause for oppression.
But whether homosexuality should be accepted is surely an individual matter. People should be perfectly free to dislike it and say so if that is how they feel. And to protect their childen from the delusion that homosexuality is normal is surely part of that right"A US supermarket has come under fire for censoring a magazine cover featuring a photo of Elton John, his husband and their new baby boy.
The Harps store in rural Mountain Home, Arkansas placed plastic covers with the words - "Family Shield. To protect young Harps shoppers" - over the copies of the current edition of Us Weekly celebrity magazine.
Shopper Jennifer Huddleston said she was offended after spotting the magazines earlier this week. She posted a photograph on Twitter where she vented her outrage.
Her complaint created internet buzz after she addressed tweets to celebrities Anderson Cooper, Kathy Griffin, Ellen DeGeneres, The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the ACLU, ABC reported.
Harps was flooded with calls and removed the shields.
Source
Rabbis protest Fox host’s use of Holocaust imagery
Jews have a monopoly on mention of Hitler & Co.? A lot of non-Jewish Americans died to defeat Hitler. Does that not give all Americans the right to talk about it?"Four hundred rabbis will publish a letter on Thursday calling on Fox News to sanction host Glenn Beck for repeated use of Nazi and Holocaust imagery and for airing attacks on World War Two survivor George Soros.Truth hurts. Once again Jews are antagonizing their only real friends: Conservatives. Their Leftism rots their minds.
In an open letter to Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp, which owns Fox, the rabbis also demand an apology from Fox News chief Roger Ailes for characterizing Beck's Jewish critics as nothing more than 'left-wing rabbis.'"
Source
28 January, 2011
Hawaii senators hold prayer despite vote to end it?
We read:"A group of nine Hawaii senators held hands, bowed their heads and sought God's blessing Wednesday, signaling that they'll still pray despite a vote last week to abandon official invocations.
Fears of court challenges compelled the state Senate to end prayers, making it the first legislative body in the nation to do so.
The informal prayer Wednesday took place in the Senate chamber before the daily lawmaking session, convened in such a way so as not to contradict the decision to remove invocations from Senate business.
The 25-member Senate changed its rules in a unanimous voice vote last Thursday to end prayers after the American Civil Liberties Union sent lawmakers a letter complaining that the invocations often referenced Jesus Christ, contravening the separation of church and state.
"It's nice to start off the day with a prayer because we need all the help we can get," said Sen. Mike Gabbard, D-Kalaeloa-Makakilo.
The ACLU of Hawaii declined to comment Wednesday. The ACLU previously has said the Senate's action to remove prayers helps create an environment where everyone feels welcome regardless of spiritual beliefs.
Senate President Shan Tsutsui, who did not participate in the prayer session, said he condoned their independent movement to keep prayer alive. "It's a matter of free speech," said Tsutsui, D-Wailuku-Kahului. "We do encourage members, at their own will and desire, to go ahead and engage in prayer."
Source
MSNBC‘s Matthews Calls Bachmann ’Balloon Head’ During On-Air Rant?
If a conservative commentator said this about a Leftist woman, NOW and other feminist orgs. would throw a fit"I’m sure Tea Party Express co-founder Sal Russo didn’t expect his visit to Hardball to be dull. Sure wasn’t. It quickly turned into a Chris Matthews rantfest about Michele Bachmann. ‘Balloon head’ became the term of the night.Now there’s some non-vitriolic rhetoric for you!
Mediaite’s Matt Schneider:
The “interview” ended up being just Matthews berating Russo with questions like “do you know how little this woman knows about American history” and “what is she talking about?”
Source
27 January, 2011
"Sexist" comments a cause for firing of British TV commentator?
Must not discuss either the competence or the appearance of a female? The comments were made privately but were overheard and recorded."One of British football's leading television commentators, Andy Gray, has been fired, a day after being taken off the air for making sexist remarks about a female match official.
Gray, who has been the face of Sky Sports' football coverage for the past two decades, was dismissed by the broadcaster with immediate effect after "new evidence of unacceptable and offensive behaviour" in an off-air incident last month came to light.
Gray, 55, was broadcasting the Premier League match between Wolverhampton and Liverpool on Saturday when he and Keys make disparaging remarks about Massey, who was officiating the game.
Gray questioned whether Massey knew the offside rule, widely seen as a barometer of basic football knowledge, and made an abusive reference to Toms, saying she had been "hopeless" as a lineswoman.
Further footage which compromised Gray and another member of Sky Sports' commentary team - Andy Burton - was also passed to the media. Burton was taken off air yesterday.
In that incident, Burton was talking to Gray off-air on the touchline at Molineux prior to kickoff on Saturday and said: "Apparently a female lino today, bit of a looker."
Continuing to remark on Massey's appearance, Burton added that another member of the Sky Sports crew said Massey was "all right," adding: "Now, I don't know if I should trust his judgment on that?"
Gray then said: "No, I wouldn't. I definitely wouldn't ... I can see her from here," before swearing and adding: "What do women know about the offside rule?"
Source
An important caution
We read:"It seems with respect to freedom those who find themselves in positions of power (among others) seem unable or unwilling to grasp the most fundamental tenet of freedom, namely, that in order to be free you must allow those around you to be free as well. Any limit placed on the freedom of one individual becomes a prison not only for the intended victim but for the proposer of such limitation. As the sphere of acceptable discourse becomes narrower and narrower, the likelihood of civil debate diminishes, replaced by other, less genteel, forms of communication."Free speech is to an extent a safety valve and repressing it could push the censored person to resort to violence.
Source
26 January, 2011
Arrogant Leftist bureaucrat overstepping his power to control the media
We read:"Julius Genachowski is the self-proclaimed "cop on the beat" at President Obama's Federal Communications Commission (FCC). That's great if the cop is as principled and honorable as Serpico. It's not so great if he's more like Mayberry's bossy, meddling, interfering Barney Fife.
Unfortunately, Mr. Genachowski resembles the latter, not the former. His handling of the joint venture between NBC Universal and Comcast went so far beyond the FCC's purview over such matters that one would think the commission were a legislative body, not a regulatory agency.
Mr. Genachowski stalled a no-brainer approval of the merger for more than a year. During that period, the uncertainty over whether the FCC would approve the merger enabled Mr. Genachowski to exact concessions from the two parties more ridiculous than anything found in slapstick cinema.
Fresh off his power grab in late December, when he ramrodded network neutrality rules over the Internet by a 3-2 partisan vote, Mr. Genachowski ignored the obvious benefits of vertical integration between content provider NBC Universal and content delivery mechanism Comcast.
Instead, he fussed over unsubstantiated concerns that the joint venture might result in a monopolistic boon for both businesses in terms of profitability and competitiveness. The delay caused untold losses for both entities, impeded the timely hiring of thousands of employees and resulted in unnecessary restrictions on the merging companies.
While Mr. Genachowski held the keys to the door separating NBC Universal and Comcast, rather than simply opening the door, he instead opted to knock down the wall separating the FCC's regulatory power from the Department of Justice's antitrust authority. To its credit, Justice, waiting for FCC approval, already had announced its satisfaction that the merger posed no antitrust worries.
Among the concessions strong-armed by Mr. Genachowski are agreements to impose network neutrality rules on content streamed online, add 1,000 hours of news programming and informational programming to specified channels, set aside $20 million for minority programs, provide $9.95 monthly service to low-income customers, institute "fair pricing" for content provided to Comcast's competitors, provide documentation of content arbitration disputes to other cable companies and guarantee equal transmission of content from other networks.
Comcast and NBC Universal had no choice but to acquiesce to these demands. Lawsuits are costly and time-consuming and would result in further delays.
Source
No freedom to lie
We read:"Cyber-bullying may become a criminal act in Georgia. That’s because a Blairsville man and his attorney are working with state legislatures after the man was accused of being a pedophile and drug user – on an Internet website.Good that the b*tch was tracked down. Hopefully a warning to others
Last week, Gene Cooley received a settlement for the internet libel case. Cooley got a 400-thousand dollar court settlement on January 13th.
Now, this all started in 2008, after Cooley’s fiancé was murdered. Colley says that while he was in Florida for her funeral, an Internet user posted several comments under various IDs on a website.
Colley says the user accused him of being a pervert and a drug addict. And he says because of those online accusations, his future in laws kicked him out. He also lost his job in Blairsville, and most importantly, he says, his reputation. So he moved to Augusta where he works as a hairstylist.
Cooley’s attorney got clearance to track down the IP address of the user and filed a lawsuit against Sybil Denise Ballew, who’s been accused of similar actions in the past.
And last week, Cooley says justice was finally served. And he hopes this will set a precedent for cyber bullies. "Literally it’s been murder,” Cooley says. “Not only was my fiancé murdered by an ex-husband, but my life and what little shred I had, was murdered by this person."
Attorney Russell Stookey adds, "What we need to do is to make some peace in this law that will bite these people who go on and do character assassinations by ambush. If we can get this law ruled, maybe we can clean up, these blogs where they go on blast people."
Source
25 January, 2011
Free Speech now on Trial in Denmark
We read:"On January 24, 2011, the distinguished Lars Hedegaard, the President of the Danish Free Press Society and the International Free Press Society, will stand trial for telling the truth about Islamic gender apartheid.
What speech did Langballe utter? He exposed honor killings among Muslims and was actually convicted for doing so -- According to Ahmed Mohamud, the Vice President of The Danish Free Press Society, and Katrine Winkel Holm, Chief Editor of Sappho, the Society’s magazine."In the past year, the Danish public prosecutor has been waging a lawfare offensive against outspoken critics of Islam and Muslim practices. On December 3, 2010, Member of Parliament Jesper Langballe was convicted of ‘hate speech’ – or as the judge in the lower court of Randers put it: ‘racial discrimination’ – for having called attention to honour killings in Muslim families.And what exactly is Lars Hedegaard’s crime?His crime has been to point to the great number of family rapes in areas dominated by Muslim culture. This well documented fact has brought him an indictment under the Danish penal code’s ‘racism’ clause…According to Mohamud and Winkel Holm, both MP Langballe and Lars Hedegaard have long ago “emphasised that they did not intend to accuse all Muslims or even the majority of Muslims of such crimes. This has made no impression on the public prosecutor. We fear that the public prosecutor intends to stifle open debate on Islam and Muslim culture. And we fear that he is doing so with the tacit approval of the governing parties, which first signalled their intention to remove the racism clause from the penal code but have recently recanted.”
Source
Here's the joke that got a college prof. fired
We read:""A group of sociologists did a poll in Arizona about the new immigration law. Sixty percent said they were in favor, and 40 percent said, 'No hablo English.'"
That joke in class has Robert Engler, a 12-year sociology professor at Roosevelt University, fighting for his career.
It elicited two written complaints in the spring of 2010 as ethnically offensive, and what followed was a protracted argument that eventually included the termination of his employment from the fall semester. Administrators have also discontinued his course "City and Citizenship," previously a requirement for graduation.
Now his attorney, Doug Ibendahl, is about to file suit. Ibendahl believes university administrators are dragging their feet over a "harmless joke that would not be considered offensive by any reasonable standard."
Ibendahl added that Engler has an unblemished record, and the joke was directly related to the day's topic of discussion.
"Humor is used by many professors to better engage students. … We can expect a substantial chilling effect on academic freedom and our First Amendment Rights. That hurts all of us, and possibly other students most of all," he said.
Source
24 January, 2011
Hawaii Senate ends daily chamber prayers?
We read:"Fearing a possible court challenge, Hawaii's state Senate has voted to silence the daily prayer offered before each session began — making it the first state legislative body in the nation to halt the practice.
A citizen's complaint had prompted the American Civil Liberties Union last summer to send the Senate a letter noting that its invocations often referenced Jesus Christ, contravening the separation of church and state.
That prompted the state attorney general's office to advise the Senate that their handling of prayers — by inviting speakers from various religions to preach before every session — wouldn't survive a likely court challenge, said Democratic Majority Leader Brickwood Galuteria. "Above all, our responsibility is to adhere to the Constitution," Galuteria said after Thursday's vote to halt the daily blessings.
"They (the ACLU) continue to threaten governments with lawsuits to try to force them into capitulating to their view of society," said Brett Harvey, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, made up of Christian lawyers to defend free faith speech. "Governments should take a stand for this cherished historical practice."
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that legislative prayers are permissible in some circumstances, but the court hasn't considered the issue since 1983.
Source
New campaign: Hands Off the Internet!
We read:"The Internet managed to revolutionize our lives without the involvement of busy-body politicians. Instead, the Internet is entirely regulated by non-State institutions, incentives, and rules.
These free market forms of regulation actually work, unlike most State regulations. The politicians find this hard to tolerate, so they're constantly looking for excuses to meddle. That's why DownsizeDC.org is introducing our Hands Off the Internet campaign."
Source
23 January, 2011
MA: Police steal serf’s guns over disrespectful words toward the ruling class
We read:"After being notified of Arlington resident Travis Corcoran’s controversial blog post in which he implied members of Congress ought to be shot, the Arlington Police Department (APD) has placed a suspension on his license to carry firearms and seized all of his weapons.The cops knew it was an opinion, not a threat, but they pretended otherwise just to show what good little lickspittles they are.
Corcoran wrote and uploaded a post to his blog, tjic.com, following the Jan. 8 shooting of United States Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson titled '1 down, 534 to go,' suggesting the other 534 members of Congress should be next....
Bongiorno said Corcoran has a 90-day window in which he can appeal the suspension in court. Corcoran declined to comment on the investigation in a follow-up call Tuesday night.
In his interview last week, Corcoran said while he did not regret the blog post, he does not actually believe violence against politicians is an effective method of reforming government.
Source
BBC laughs at man being atom bombed
That good ol' Leftist "sensitivity" again, obviously"The BBC is at the centre of a diplomatic row after the Japanese Embassy protested about an episode of comedy quiz show QI. Tokyo says the show, hosted by Stephen Fry, insulted a man who survived both of the atomic bomb strikes that ended the Second World War.
Panellists and the studio audience were seen laughing and joking about the experience of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who was described on the programme as ‘The Unluckiest Man in the World’.
The businessman was the only person who has been recognised by the Japanese government as having survived both the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and that of Nagasaki three days later. As many as 200,000 Japanese are said to have died in the bombings.
Mr Yamaguchi, who died last year at 93, was badly burned in the first attack but got on a train the next day to go home to Nagasaki.
On the episode of QI, which was first broadcast shortly before Christmas, comedians such as Alan Davies and Rob Brydon were seen joking about his story. Davies, when asked to work out what the man’s link to the nuclear attack was, suggested the ‘bomb landed on him and bounced off’.
When Fry asked whether the man had been lucky or unlucky, Brydon said: ‘Is the glass half-empty, is it half-full? Either way it’s radioactive. So don’t drink it.’ Davies chipped in: ‘He never got the train again, I tell you.’
But the jokes were too much for some Japanese viewers. One contacted diplomatic staff in London while others are understood to have emailed the show. Embassy officials reviewed the footage and sent a protest letter to both the BBC and producers Talkback Thames.
A QI producer said ‘we greatly regret it when we cause offence’ and admitted he ‘underestimated the potential sensitivity of this issue to Japanese viewers’. The BBC apologised for ‘any offence caused’ and said it would be writing to the Japanese Embassy.
Source
22 January, 2011
Another intolerant Brady
There's the Brady campaign and now this:"In 2008, President Barack Obama referenced dramatist David Mamet’s line about drawing a gun against a knife-wielding opponent from the classic 1980s film The Untouchables, and most people recognized it as a rhetorical device rather than a call for violence. I don’t recall any hue and cry for limitations on the president’s right to speak. If there was, such objections were rightly forgotten soon afterward.
Many people, however, don’t want the public to have the same privilege, even though it’s enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Rep. Bob Brady (D-PA) has proposed a bill to make it a federal crime to employ “language or symbols” that could be interpreted as inciting violence against elected officials.
“You can’t put bulls-eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official,” Brady said on CNN. Despite the unfortunate coincidence of the Arizona shootings coming several months after the use of crosshairs in poster art, his bill is both unconstitutional and un-American.
Source
Britain: Militant homosexuals threaten witnesses against them
Must not help homosexuals to become normal -- or even argue that it is possible"The professional trial of a psychotherapist who agreed to try to ‘convert’ a gay man was suspended yesterday after allegations of attempts to intimidate a key witness.
Supporters of Lesley Pilkington, the Christian therapist who faces being struck off, called in police after they said the expert witness was threatened in several ‘menacing’ phone calls. They said the witness was warned not to appear at the hearing.
The allegation brought a new twist to the case which has generated fresh controversy over Christian beliefs and the rights of Christians to hold to them at work.
Mrs Pilkington was targeted by a gay journalist who persuaded her to help him change his sexuality. Patrick Strudwick attended sessions with her with a tape recorder strapped to his stomach and then published a critical article about her in the Independent newspaper.
She is now appearing before a professional conduct panel of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and faces losing her accreditation if she is found to have breached its rules.
The Christian Legal Centre, a group that is supporting Mrs Pilkington in the case, said yesterday: ‘Shortly before the hearing, BACP required all witness statements to be passed to them with contact details. ‘Immediately after supplying the statements, an expert witness received several menacing phone calls, threats and intimidation, telling the witness not to attend.’
The organisation has reported the alleged intimidation to police and called for a full investigation. A BACP official confirmed yesterday that the hearing was adjourned.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, said yesterday: ‘Mrs Pilkington deserves to get a fair hearing by her professional body. In this case the homosexual lobby has been extremely militant and sought to silence by threats and intimidation.
Source
21 January, 2011
Alabama Gov. apologizes for Christian fellowship remarks
We read:"Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley has only been in office three days, but he's already facing criticism for remarks he made the day of his inauguration.Critics seem to overlook the fact that the Gov. was making a religious statement in a church. He was simply saying that a shared belief in Christ makes you brothers in Christ, whether you are black or white. He is surely entitled to his religious beliefs.
Bentley, a Republican, told a crowd at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church on Monday that if they haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, they are not his brother or his sister.
“The governor does not have to be a seasoned politician to understand the impact of remarks like that,” said Bill Nigut, the Southeast regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. “These are remarks of a man who truly believes what he said, apparently. This seems to be quite clear that Christians are part of an exclusive relationship he has with his brothers and sisters and the rest of us are not.”
Bentley was sworn in shortly before he spoke at the church where the late civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was once a pastor. According to The Birmingham News, during his speech he said it was important for Alabamians to ''love and care for each other." He also told the crowd he is color blind.
Kennedy agrees with the statement that Bentley has First Amendment rights, but he is speaking as the governor, the one person who has the bully pulpit of the state.
Source
He was in fact reaching out to blacks, most of whom do have some degree of Christian belief. He said nothing to indicate that he would practice any form of discrimination in the execution of his duties so he had nothing to apologize for. Christians do not need to apologize for being Christians.
A rather surprising victory for free speech in Australia
If conspiracy theories were to be used as grounds to discriminate against someone, the 50 million (or thereabouts) Americans who believe that the 9/11/2001 attacks were a hoax could also be discriminated against. And making someone's political opinions grounds for an adverse psychiatric diagnosis would be to go the way of the old Soviet union. And Christians -- who believe in an invisible entity -- would be at risk too. So kudos to the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal
A man declared a white supremacist by police and ruled a possible risk to public safety by a psychiatrist has been granted the right to possess a handgun.
Darryl Potts, who believes there is a Jewish conspiracy to destroy other races, had his AB firearms and probationary pistol licences revoked by police after he expressed "white supremacy views" to officers during an incident involving domestic violence.
But, in a landmark case, the Administrative Decisions Tribunal has ruled that, even though Mr Potts might hold extreme and offensive views, that does not mean he is mentally impaired and he is legally entitled to a firearm licence. The decision was at odds with the opinion of police, the Firearms Registry and a psychiatrist's clinical assessment that Mr Potts had the potential "to put public safety at risk".
Mr Potts, an elevator technician at Federal Parliament, pursued the case because he believed having a revoked firearm licence could affect his security clearance to work in government buildings. He said he wanted to take a stand against the trend of removing people's firearms.
Both during the case and in extensive interviews with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Potts made a series of bizarre claims about Jewish people. He told the tribunal he did not believe six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. "I say the six million is a load of hogwash," he said.
After having his licences reinstated, he said he believed Jews were plotting to dilute other races by encouraging mixed-race children and he had unwittingly played into their hands by having children with his Korean-born wife - from whom he has separated. "If I had've known this information I would not have participated in mixed-race marriage," he said.
He also said Jewish spies, posing as "Israeli art peddlers" were visiting his house because he was "a person of interest" to them.
After the 2009 domestic dispute at his estranged wife's house, the Firearms Registry referred Mr Potts to a psychiatrist on the basis that he "has expressed white supremacy [sic] ... views that have raised concerns regarding his mental health".
After Mr Potts stated, "I am a very angry man", the psychiatrist diagnosed him as having a personality disorder.
ADT member Peter Molony rejected the psychiatrist's opinion and ruled, "Mr Potts is an intelligent, manipulative and calculating man".
"The fact that he holds political and religious views and opinions that are offensive is not, in my opinion, sufficient to find that the public interest requires that he no longer hold a firearms licence," Mr Molony found. "To do so would be to embark on a slippery slope ... to totalitarianism."
SOURCE
20 January, 2011
Cross Case Spurs New Legislation
We read:"A group of California lawmakers is pushing for congressional protection for religious symbols included at U.S. war memorials after the latest court challenge to a San Diego veterans monument that features a 43-foot high cross.
Earlier this month, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Mount Soledad cross -- which has been at the center of legal fights for more than two decades -- amounts to an unconstitutional display of government favoring a specific religion, and must be changed. Supporters of the memorial have vowed to continue fighting the case to the Supreme Court.
But California Republican Rep. Duncan D. Hunter hopes his latest legislative bid might settle the fight before that, by allowing religious symbols to be included in any federal military memorial by law. The measure could circumvent the courts' interpretation of the Establishment Clause, which prohibits the U.S. government from showing preference for one religious group over another.
Source
Angry feminist discovers new "incorrect" term
It's the Tankard lady again. Sounds like she should keep away from tankards"The objectification of women's bodies and commodification of childbirth came together yesterday in a single antiseptic phrase contained in the announcement of a second child for actress Nicole Kidman and her musician husband Keith Urban.
The baby's birth three weeks ago took even dedicated "Our Nic" watchers by surprise, including Woman's Day which had the couple adopting a Haitian child.
"Our family is truly blessed . . . to have been given the gift of baby Faith Margaret. No words can adequately convey the incredible gratitude that we feel for everyone who was so supportive throughout this process, in particular our gestational carrier."
In those last two words, the woman whose body nurtured this child for nine months is stripped of humanity. The phrase is reminiscent of other terms popular in the global baby-production industry, such as suitcase, baby capsule, oven and incubator.
The detached language views women as disposable uteruses. This dismantling of motherhood denies the psychological and physiological bonds at the heart of pregnancy.
Source
19 January, 2011
Don Surber tells it like it is
We read:"I do not want civil discourse
For a decade, from the election of Bush 43 forward, the Left has lied and cheated as it tried to return to power. Al Gore made a mockery out of the American electoral system by being a spoilsport over Florida, which Bush indeed won by 537 votes.
Dan Rather forged a document to try to derail Bush’s re-election. Twice Democrats stole U.S. senators from the Republicans. After voting to support the war to get by the 2002 election, many Democrats quickly soured on the war.
The profane protests were cheered by liberals who misattributed “dissent is the highest form of patriotism”to Thomas Jefferson; the words belong to the late historian Howard Zinn.
Once in power, liberals were the opposite of gracious. For two years now, I have been called ignorant, racist, angry and violent by the left. The very foul-mouthed protesters of Bush dare to now label my words as “hate speech.”
Last week, the left quickly blamed the right for the national tragedy of a shooting spree by a madman who never watched Fox News, never listened to Rush Limbaugh and likely did not know who Sarah Palin is. Fortunately, the American public rejected out of hand that idiotic notion that the right was responsible.
Rather than apologize, the left wants to change the tone of the political debate. The left suddenly wants civil discourse.
Bite me.
The left wants to play games of semantics.
Bite me.
The left wants us to be civil — after being so uncivil for a decade.
Bite me.
There is grown-up work to do now. Liberals ran up the federal credit card, destroyed the American medical system and undermined the rule of law — which is the foundation of capitalism — with a bunch of unconstitutional fiats from the president and his bureaucracy.
The economy is a mess. The president “inherited” a 7.6% unemployment rate. It’s now 9.4% — after we spent a record $787 billion on a stimulus.
I was not consulted on that stimulus. I had a very good argument against it. I said the money supply was too large and printing more money would fail. I said let the economic downturn run its course. Lefties were too busy celebrating the 2008 election to listen.
When people protested lefties made vulgar remarks about tea-bagging and giggled. So screw you and your civil discourse. I don’t want to hear it. I have been screamed at for 10 years.
It’s my turn now. I am not going to scream back. But I refuse to allow anyone to dictate what I say or how I say it. I refuse to allow the same foul-mouthed, foul-spirited foul people who dumped on me to now try to tell me what I may or may not say.
My free speech matters more than the feelings of anyone on the left. You don’t like what I say? Tough.
I will not allow people to label my words Hate Speech or try to lecture me on civility. I saw the lefty signs. The left’s definition of civil discourse is surreal.
We have a terribly unfit president who has expanded government control beyond not only what is constitutional but what is healthy for our freedom.
Indeed, this call for civil discourse is itself a direct threat to my free speech. So screw you. You don’t like my words? You don’t like my tone? You feel threatened?
Too bad. No. Actually, that is what I want. I want the lefties to feel bad. I want them to feel hurt. I want them to cry to their mommies.
That way the field will be cleared so we grown-ups can fix the nation and the economy. If you can’t put up with a little excrement, get the hell out of the barn.
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Some things SHOULD be hated
We read:"Are you 110% sick of and fed up with people who have hated and slammed America their whole lives lecturing to people who have loved America their whole lives that we "need to watch out how we criticize the President"? I know I am. With that in mind, a few words on "hate" from one of the great men of the last century, Menachem Begin, from the introduction to his stirring 1952 memoir, "The Revolt":
"Who will condemn the hatred of evil that springs from the love of what is good and just? Such hatred has been the driving force of progress in the world's history -- "not peace but a sword" in the cause of mankind's advancement. And in our case, such hate has been nothing more and nothing less than a manifestation of that highest human feeling: love. For if you love Freedom, you must hate Slavery; if you love your people, you cannot but hate the foreign enemies that compass their destruction; if you love your country, you cannot but hate those who seek to annex it. Simply put: if you love your mother, would you not hate the man who sought to kill her: would you not hate him and fight him at the cost, if needs be, of your own life?"
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18 January, 2011
Liberal hate speech OK
The 9th Circus: No breach of the "separation of church and state" if a government body involves itself in a religious matter and gives official support to an anti-Christian belief system"When various religious groups sponsored an advertising campaign offering “healing for homosexuals”, the San Francisco board of supervisors sprang into action. It sent a letter to the groups “denounc[ing] your hateful rhetoric” and alleging a “direct correlation” between that rhetoric and the “horrible crimes committed against gays and lesbians,” including the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard.
It also adopted two formal resolutions. One called for the “Religious Right to take accountability for the impact of their long-standing rhetoric, which leads to a climate of mistrust and discrimination that can open the door to horrible crimes such as” a recent murder.
The second resolution stated that the groups’ ad campaign encouraged maltreatment of homosexuals and urged local television stations not to broadcast the groups’ ads.
In American Family Association v. City and County of San Francisco, a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit rules that the city government’s actions did not violate modern Establishment Clause doctrine.
But as Judge John T. Noonan observes in dissent: “To assert that a group’s religious message and religious categorization of conduct are responsible for murder is to attack the group’s religion.…
Here the city had a plausible, indeed laudable purpose, to decrease vicious violence on account of sexual orientation. [But it] used a means that officially stigmatized a religious belief as productive of murderous consequences.”
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Texas Tech Pisses Off Illegals Again With 'Catch An Illegal Immigrant' Game
We read:""ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT" read the T-shirts' fronts. "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN" read the backs.Hmm that's funny, I don't remember them calling it "Catch and Beat an Illegal Alien" or "Catch and Kill A Foreigner". The fact that 15 faculty members would chose to limit free speech and expression should bring into question their capabilities to teach.
Students in the Texas Tech chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas wore the T-shirts on campus one day as part of a game, "Catch the Illegal Immigrant."
Although the game goes against the university's mission to build a diverse and welcoming atmosphere, the students have a right to play it, Tech President Jon Whitmore wrote in a response letter Wednesday to two students who were deeply offended by the game.
"All members of our university community have a right to express themselves, even when you and I or others disagree with them," his letter reads.
Two students informed the university's president of the event in a protest letter dated April 11 and endorsed by 15 faculty members and six student organizations. The game promotes violence toward not only illegal immigrants, but all foreigners, their letter reads. [How, exactly?]
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If any of these faculty members are teaching on the issue of history of the United States or the Constitution, their teaching credentials for those subjects should be revoked immediately for they have proven that they cannot even understand the first amendment.
I guess being diverse means you have to accept illegal aliens among your group, it's not good enough that you have just regular old legal Hispanics, Indians, Blacks, Whites, Asian etc... YOU HAVE TO HAVE ILLEGAL ALIENS as well or you simply aren't accepting of diversity.
17 January, 2011
Maine governor to NAACP: “Kiss my butt”
We read:"Why would a man engage in such undiplomatic language? My theory: After a week of incendiary and irresponsible rhetoric from the left over the Arizona shootings, his nerves were frayed by the “climate of hate” and he just snapped. Granted, I have zero proof, but it pleases my partisan sensibilities to believe it, and besides, it’s a fittingly idiotic note on which to end a week of pure political insanity. So congratulations, liberals — you drove him to this.I liked the comment that the Left drove the governor to his remark. It refers of course to the absurd Leftist allegation that Sarah Palin drove the Tucson gunman to murder.
Slublog has all the background you need on what inspired this dastardly act of speech-hate, including a reminder of the NAACP’s own Krugman-esque regard for tea partiers. The man’s either (a) the next Chris Christie or (b) obviously a violent racist. Perhaps we should ask his adopted son from Jamaica which it is?
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More attacks on liberty
We read:"When you read about the recent attacks by a deranged madman, do you blame yourself? Make no mistake, if you own a gun or believe in the First or Second (or any other) Constitutional amendments, those who hate your liberty (and I'm not referring to Muslim extremists, but rather to communitarian extremists) blame you.
Jared Lee Loughner is being called a "right wing extremist" simply because he used a gun, and because it suits the communitarians' needs at the moment. But consider what Gary Gibson wrote about it:
"Libertarians, conservatives, Tea Party members, advocates of small governments of every stripe, anyone who’s ever criticized the government too vigorously… They’re being told to “tone it down a bit.” The complaint from lovers of the state is that we’ve gotten too vicious, that all the strong words have finally led to someone taking extreme measures.
Never mind that the shooter was a just a lone nut whose main concern with government was that it was using mind control. One does not list the Communist Manifesto or Mein Kampf in one’s top ten list if one is for smaller government. In fact, anyone who thinks these books belong in the same list as We the Living— a warning against the dangers of communism — cannot be thinking too clearly.
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16 January, 2011
Wearing Rosary Beads to School Got Me Suspended, Texas Girl Says
For once I am rather on the side of the school here. Brainless gang bangers do wear the beads around their necks as pretty ornamentation rather than for any religious reasons and if I were a parent of a kid at the school concerned, I would want gang activity discouraged as much as possible.
But practicing Catholics should of course be allowed to have them at school. Practicing Catholics don't usually wear them as a necklace anyway as that would make them very difficult to use in their intended purpose -- which is to count off the number of prayers said."A Texas girl is calling for an apology from her middle school after she says she was suspended for wearing rosary beads around her neck, khou.com reports.
Jonae Devlin, 14, reportedly told the station that she wore the prayer beads at Hodges Bend Middle School in Houston because they remind her of her late grandmother, a devout Catholic. "I wear them for my grandmother," she told the station. "It makes me feel like she's with me all the time."
The school's principal ordered that the girl be suspended for one day, arguing that the beads violate the school dress code, khou.com reported. "She said, 'I’m going to give you the choice to take it off or be suspended,' and I said, 'You might as well suspend me,'" Devlin told the station.
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Naughty pop song
We read:"Canadian radio stations have been warned to censor the 1985 Dire Straits hit Money for Nothing, after a complaint the lyrics of the Grammy Award-winning song are derogatory to gay men.What was OK 25 years ago is not OK now. A clear deterioration in free speech.
A St. John's, Newfoundland, station should have edited the song to remove the word "f*ggot" because it violates Canada's human rights standards, according to ruling this week by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.
A unnamed listener to OZ FM in the Atlantic Coast province complained to the industry watchdog after hearing the song, which features Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler and fellow rock star Sting.
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15 January, 2011
Hungary must not mention its own history
Because Hungary was on the losing side in WWI, some Hungarian-populated regions were given to other countries -- but Hungarians are not allowed to regret or even mention that" The Hungarian EU presidency is steering into a fresh controversy with the installation of a 'history carpet' featuring a map of 'Greater Hungary' in the Justus Lipsius building where ministers and leaders from all 27 member states meet during summits.
Intended to be a "historical timeline" of Hungarian symbols and images, the 202 square-metre long carpet rolled out on the floor of the Council of the European Union building is likely to spark fresh controversies about the nationalistic outlook of the government in Budapest...
But to MEPs from countries in the region, the very choice of the map - depicting Slovakia and parts of Romania and Serbia as part of the Habsburg empire - is indicative of the nostalgic sentiments and even irredentist impulses of the current government.
While agreeing with the Hungarian spokesman that the map relates to 1848, when Hungary rose against the Habsburg empire, along with other nations, Austrian Green MEP Ulrike Lunacek also pointed out that at the end of that process, 19 years later, the Austro-Hungarian co-regency was formed, putting Budapest on an equal footing with Vienna and granting it the same imperial authority over other nations.
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More instances of Leftist hate speech
An editorial in Monday’s New York Times justified the focus on conservatives: “It is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge.” But while the liberal media indict Palin and other conservatives, there’s a long list of vicious rhetoric coming from media liberals.
MSNBC has been the most venomous, a fact NBC has glossed over in its coverage castigating conservatives. The network’s 8pm ET host Keith Olbermann in 2009 referred to columnist Michelle Malkin as “a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” Hardball’s Chris Matthews fantasized about the death of Rush Limbaugh: “Somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp.”
The outrage evidenced this week was not to be found when a film festival showed “Death of a President,” a movie depicting the imagined assassination of President Bush. “Poor taste or, as some say, thought-provoking?” MSNBC daytime anchor Amy Robach mildly wondered on September 1, 2006.
On Monday’s The Ed Show, MSNBC’s 6pm ET host Ed Schultz pointed his finger at Fox News for supposedly inciting its audience to “think that doing something radical is the right thing to do,” but sidestepped his own history of shocking comments. “I get passionate, but not in a violent way,” Schultz insisted.
On his national radio show in 2009, however, Schultz wished for Dick Cheney’s death: “He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion, Dick Cheney is, he is an enemy of the country....Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you?” (MP3 audio) In 2010, Schultz screamed that “Dick Cheney’s heart’s a political football. We ought to rip it out and kick it around and stuff it back in him!” (MP3 audio)
Other left-wing radio hosts have openly desired the death of leading conservatives without a peep from the liberal media elites. Radio host Mike Malloy (a onetime news writer for CNN) wished for Rush Limbaugh’s demise on January 4, 2010, a few days after the conservative host was hospitalized for chest pains: “I’m waiting for the day when I pick it up, pick up a newspaper or click on the Internet and find out he’s choked to death on his own throat fat or a great big wad of saliva or something, you know, whatever. Go away, Rush, you make me sick!” (MP3 audio)
In 2009, then-Air America radio host Montel Williams urged Congresswoman Michele Bachmann to kill herself: “Slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to — or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone.” (MP3 audio)
If Bachmann had been the Congresswoman attacked this weekend instead of Giffords, would the media be as strong in their attacks of the overheated rhetoric lobbed against her over the past several years?
HBO’s Bill Maher, a favorite guest on CNN and other supposedly respectable news networks, wished for the deaths of both Limbaugh and Cheney. Talking about the then-Vice President in 2007, after al Qaeda exploded a truck bomb at a base in Afghanistan near where Cheney was visiting, Maher argued: “I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.”
In 2008, Maher morbidly suggested Limbaugh would have been a better candidate to have died from a drug overdose: “Why couldn’t he have croaked from it instead of Heath Ledger?”
Among the claims this week is that anti-government rhetoric is putting public servants in peril. If such a dubious claim is true, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann was jeopardizing lives when he teed off against the government’s anti-terrorism policies in 2006: “We now face what our ancestors faced at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering: A government more dangerous to our liberty than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.”
Media gadfly Arianna Huffington made her own plea for civility, telling the Washington Post via e-mail this weekend that “there are lots of ways to be lively and put forth a strong opinion without demonizing one’s opponent....It’s the demonization that is the problem.”
But her Huffington Post blog site has demonized conservatives for years, including an item posted in early 2007 mocking the cancer that would eventually take the life of White House press secretary Tony Snow. Sneered San Francisco radio host Charles Karel Bouley: “I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer NOT grow in you. Work for Fox News, spinning the truth in to a billion knots and how can your gut not rot?”
The Left has been trying for years to shut down conservative radio and otherwise criminalize conservative speech. Using this tragedy to further that agenda is beyond cynical, and probably counterproductive: a new CBS News poll finds that even after a weekend of anti-conservative propaganda, 57% don’t think “harsh political rhetoric” had anything to do with the shootings.
But if the media insist on having a debate about political speech, they need to focus on the Left’s vileness as well. Otherwise, they’re just partisan hypocrites joining in the exploitation of tragedy for political gain.
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14 January, 2011
How can you condemn hate speech while ranting about blood-drenched conservatives?
A good comment:"Michael Daly in the New York Daily News writes that Sarah Palin may now have “the blood of more than some poor caribou on her hands”. Jane Fonda blames Glenn Beck. Not all Lefties are taking this line, of course, nor even most. But it is striking that those who complain most loudly about hate speech then go on to indulge in the very phenomenon they purport to be condemning.
There is something repulsive about attacking your opponents for their intemperate language and in the same breath accusing them of complicity in murder. There is something blindly narcissistic about calling for a calmer debate while at the same time attacking Sarah Palin in terms that come close to incitement. Odium is not confined to any political faction. Spend five minutes reading the online reactions to the atrocity to see how readily Leftists resort to accusations of evil.
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Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh respond to Arizona shooting
We read:"Conservative media figures like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are raising fears that liberals could use the Tucson, Ariz., shootings as an excuse to clamp down on their voices, even as two prominent liberals made public statements urging that the Federal Communications Commission and Fox News do just that.
Limbaugh and Beck, along with other conservative voices like Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly, had come under fire in the hours after the shooting from liberals such as Keith Olbermann and Paul Krugman, who accused them of using violent rhetoric that could push an unhinged person over the edge. But no link has been found between suspected shooter Jared Lee Loughner and any of these media figures or Palin.
Limbaugh railed against the left’s attempts to “massage” the shooting “for their political benefit,” saying Democrats were just waiting for an excuse to “regulate out of business their political opponents.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody in the Obama administration or some FCC bureaucrat or some Democrat congressman has it already written up, such legislation, sitting in a desk drawer somewhere just waiting for the right event for a clampdown,” Limbaugh said. “They have been trying this ever since the Oklahoma City bombing.”
In fact, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the third-ranking Democrat in Congress and one of the more outspoken voices in the wake of the shooting, blamed vitriol in the public discourse for the events and told the Charleston Post and Courier on Monday he wants to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, a defunct policy requiring media to cover both sides of controversial issues that many in the industry expect would mean the death of conservative talk radio.
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13 January, 2011
Being anti-government does not make you a conservative
Just about the only thing in the ravings of the Arizona assassin that the Left have been able to seize on as being conservative is that he was "anti-government".
But, in their confused way, Leftists (particularly the more extreme ones) are often anti-government too. Most of the support for Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame, for instance, has come from the Left. And the far Left is certainly disgusted with the Obama administration.
And conservatives are not anti-government anyway. Unlike libertarians, they are strongly supportive of some government activities (defense etc.). They want limited government, not no government.
ADL goes over the line -- and beyond the pale
As I note in my sidebar, the ADL is supposed to defend Jews but it is in some ways their worst enemy. What sense does it make to antagonize the conservative-voting half of America's population? Particularly when that half is the half that most supports Israel? ADL stands for "Anti-Defamation League" but defaming Christians and conservatives is what they routinely do, rather incredibly. They are just hate-filled Leftists who can't help themselves, obviously."As more and more mainstream news outlets are acknowledging the fallacy of the connection between overheated rhetoric and the Arizona violence (The Post's Paul Farhi has a must-read piece on the subject) the Anti-Defamation League sends out an appalling press release that reads: "ADL EXPERTS AVAILABLE ON RIGHT WING EXTREMISTS AND ANTI-GOVERNMENT GROUPS."
Have we established that this is the root of the problem? Are they uninterested in left-wing groups? A pro-Israel conservatives e-mails me: "This is about the worst thing I can ever remember them doing. It is astonishing. Anything for a headline, I guess."
The release has struck a chord on Capitol Hill. A pro-Israel staffer on the Democratic side tells me, "With anti-Semitism on the rise across the world, one would think this esteemed organization could more productively apply its not unlimited resources."
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Democrat congresswoman Says 'Job-Killing' Is Hate Speech
Must not put things plainly"Following Saturday's tragedy in Tucson, Arizona, which led to the death of six people and the serious injury of 20 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, echoed the growing call for a more civil political discourse by challenging Republicans to change the name of their health care repeal legislation:The Left would have a grand old time if conservatives adopted the characteristic deceitful language of the Left (where "pro-abortion" is "pro-choice" etc.) but I think I can predict that among conservative bloggers at least, that ain't gonna happen.
"The bill, titled the ‘Repeal the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act,' was set to come up for a vote this week, but in the wake of Gabby's shooting, it has been postponed at least until next week," she wrote in a blog post on The Huffington Post.
"Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that the name of that one piece of legislation somehow led to the horror of this weekend - but is it really necessary to put the word "killing" in the title of a major piece of legislation?
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12 January, 2011
Lots of Leftist hate speech after Giffords shooting
We read, for instance:""When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told a news conference.So accusing political opponents of anger, hatred, prejudice and bigotry is NOT vitriol and not outrageous?? The Democrat sheriff's accusations are in fact among the most abusive in America today.
"The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."
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Dupnik has form for hate speech, of course. He was a vocal opponent of Arizona's S.B.1070, a law designed to rid the state of illegal immigrants by criminalizing their efforts to work , defining their presence in the state as trespass, and mandating immigration status checks during routine police stops. In April, Dupnik used strong language to condemn the law, calling it "racist," "disgusting" and "stupid" as well as unnecessary.
And, as Glenn Reynolds notes, after Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" the press was full of cautions about not drawing premature conclusions about a connection to Islamist terrorism. "Where," asked Mr. York, "was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?"
Another excuse to attack free speech
We read:"Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, is proposing new limits on free speech. On Sunday, Brady told CNN that he plans to introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or violent against a federal official.The recently defeated Labour party government in Britain was obsessed with targets for everything: How long a person has to wait before they are treated in a public hospital, for instance. And the police had targets for all sorts of things, such as how long it took them to respond to a crime report. Obviously a government that was inciting mass murder.
Brady told CNN Sunday that federal lawmakers and other government officials to have the same protections against rhetorical threats as the president, whose threats are monitored by the U.S. Secret Service. “The president is a federal official,” Brady said. “You can’t do it to him; you should not be able to do it to a congressman, senator or federal judge.”
In particular, Brady says he takes specific offense to the electoral map produced by Sarah Palin’s political action committee during the 2010 midterm election which “targeted” a number of key swing districts. “You can’t put bulls eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official,” Brady said.
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Perhaps one of the few amusing things in this matter is the fact that Democrats have also used maps with targets on them in political campaigns. Only they used bullseyes instead of crosshairs on their map. Only a Leftist would think that was a significant difference. Both maps here.
11 January, 2011
British tour company criticised for offering Hitler tour
Must not learn about the history of Nazism:"British tour leaders faced criticism over plans to take 30 tourists on a luxury $3100 trip through Germany to visit sites associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. The eight-day trip in June - titled "Face of Evil: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" - has been sanctioned by German authorities.Leftists treating adults like children again. I suppose they live in horror of people finding out how Leftist Nazism was.
The itinerary includes visits to sites such as the spot where Hitler committed suicide, the lakeside villa where the Holocaust was planned and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
But critics claimed that the trip risked becoming a "perverse pilgrimage" in honour of Hitler. "German historians have confronted the Nazi past with seriousness," said David Cesarani, a British expert on the Nazi period. "But there is a danger of sensationalism when it is incorporated in what I'd call a holiday tour."
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Some past censorship
We read:"Abe’s post on the bowdlerization of Mark Twain reminded me of the evolution of the opening line of the great Broadway musical Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. In 1927, when the curtain went up, the chorus sang “Niggers all work on de Mississippi, /Niggers all work while de white folk play. /Loadin’ up boats with de bales of cotton. /Gettin’ no rest till de /Judgment Day!”
By the 1936 movie, the line had become “Darkies all work …” The 1946 Broadway revival began “Colored folk work on de Mississippi.” By the 1951 movie, it was “Here we all work …” The 1966 Lincoln Center production simply omitted the line altogether. Only with John McGlinn’s magnificent recording of the complete score in 1988 was the original text first restored.
No one could possibly accuse Oscar Hammerstein of being a racist and, indeed, the word he chose was historically and dialectically correct. It’s the word black stevedores on the Mississippi would have used in the 1880s.
I wonder what Mark Twain would have said about an expurgated Huckleberry Finn. I bet it would have been funny. I happen to know what Oscar Hammerstein would have said. When Paul Robeson started rewriting “Ol’ Man River” for his own political purposes, Hammerstein said: “As the author of these words, I should like it known that I have no intention of changing them or permitting anyone else to change them. I further suggest that Paul would write his own songs and leave mine alone.”
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10 January, 2011
Appeals court says cross on federal land is unconstitutional
Hard to believe that this is still rumbling on:"A war memorial cross in a San Diego public park is unconstitutional because it conveys a message of government endorsement of religion, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a two decade old case.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the unanimous decision in the dispute over the 29-foot cross, which was dedicated in 1954 in honor of Korean War veterans.
U.S. Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said the federal government, which is defending the San Diego cross, is studying the ruling and had no comment.
Gina Coburn, spokeswoman for the San Diego's city attorney's office, which was once a defendant in the case, said the cross will have to be removed from Mount Soledad unless a full panel of 9th Circuit judges reverses Tuesday's decision or the Supreme Court agrees to rule on it.
The land under the cross was eventually transferred to the federal government but the courts have said that did not protect it from the constitutional dispute.
Joe Infranco, senior counsel of The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal group, said the memory of troops should not be dishonored because the ACLU and a few others are offended by the presence of the cross.
"It's tragic that the court chose a twisted and tired interpretation of the First Amendment over the common sense idea that the families of fallen American troops should be allowed to honor these heroes as they choose," he said.
The Rev. John Fredericksen of Orlando, Fla., was among a steady stream of people who visited the white cross Tuesday atop Mount Soledad, which affords spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and the surrounding upscale suburb of La Jolla.
"For those who are offended, they can move or look somewhere else," the 56-year-old Christian pastor said. "Christians are not asking every mosque or synagogue to be torn down. Why tear down a symbol of Christianity? Let them find or make their own memorial."
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Is the photo below obscene, pornographic or pedophilic?
An Australian hospital thinks it is -- and has refused a $200,000 donation as a result.A charity exhibition at Sydney Children's Hospital of works by some of Australia's leading artists has collapsed after hospital officials saw one of the works - a photograph by the Archibald Prize winner Del Kathryn Barton - in which her six-year-old son is shown naked from the waist up.The hospital directors are the ones who must be perverted to see something sexual in a young boy's chest
The decision will cost the hospital an estimated $200,000.
The exhibition, organised by the art adviser and broker Virginia Wilson Art, will go ahead in March and the proceeds will be donated to another charity, Midnight Basketball, which runs workshops and tournaments for youth who are at risk.
Tamara Winikoff, the executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, said decisions such as this were "absurd and tragic". "In our zeal to protect children we are erasing them entirely," she said.
She said nudity was being conflated with pornography, even though representations of nudity had been part of Australia's artistic tradition throughout history.
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9 January, 2011
'Mother,' 'Father' Changing to 'Parent One,' 'Parent Two' on U.S. Passport Applications
We read:"The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, the State Department says.The disrespect for normal marriage continues. What if a mother feels offended by being called simply "parent 1"? Her feelings, don't count, of course. Minorities are all that matter.
“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. "They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’"
A statement on the State Department website noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.” The statement didn't note if it was for child applications only.
The State Department said the new passport applications, not yet available to the public, will be available online soon.
Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness. “We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago,” she said.
Gay rights groups are applauding the decision... But some conservative Christians are outraged over the decision.
“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”
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BBC TV programme mentioning cot death draws ire
"EastEnders" is a "soap""As complaints about the show reached more than 6,000, it was sensationally claimed that its screenwriters are in revolt over the storyline, in which a mother whose new-born baby has just died secretly swaps the child for a healthy one born to a neighbour on the same day.Upsetting your audience would be pretty dumb if you were a commercial broadcaster but when you are government-funded (as the BBC is), that is not much of a worry.
In addition, a host of critics - led by former TV star Anne Diamond and the online forum Mumsnet - complained that the New Year storyline was ‘cynical’, ‘ill informed’ and portrayed grieving mothers as ‘unhinged’.
Astonishingly, even the charity that the BBC asked to advise it on the storyline added to the growing chorus of anger, swiftly distancing itself from any direct involvement in the cot death scenes.
The decision to air the episodes has plunged the corporation into its biggest controversy since the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand ‘Sachsgate’ saga in 2008.
Yesterday the BBC sought to justify the episodes by pointing out that calls the to the cot death charity had increased five-fold since the story was broadcast.
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8 January, 2011
Historic British charity drops the word "Christian" from its name
And is the new name dumb!"One of the country’s best-known charities has changed its name, losing the clearest link to its Christian roots. The Young Women’s Christian Association has dropped its historic title after 156 years because ‘it no longer stands for who we are’.Another Leftist takeover
Instead the organisation – which is mainly funded by legacies left by Christian supporters over 15 decades – will be known as ‘Platform 51’.
Bosses say the name was chosen to reflect the fact that 51 per cent of people are female and that they can use the charity as a platform ‘to have their say’ and ‘to move to the next stage of their lives’.
The decision to drop all mention of Christianity from the charity’s name and purposes drew criticism from religious groups yesterday. It also appeared to open a rift between the renamed grouping in England and Wales and the worldwide YWCA that grew after the charity was founded by two Englishwomen in 1855.
Officials at the World YWCA headquarters in Geneva said none of the 124 branches in other countries are changing their names. Spokesman Sylvie Jacquat said: ‘The name has been there for more than 150 years and we are not even discussing a change. ‘We see our name as an opportunity for promoting Christian values and principles.’
Although it remains listed in the Church of England’s year book as an organisation ‘of importance for the Church of England’, none of its trustees or senior managers are church representatives. Its chairman is gay rights activist and former equality quango manager Helen Wollaston.
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Enemy of free speech at NPR pushed out
We read:"NPR Executive Ellen Weiss, the woman responsible for firing Juan Williams after he made comments on Fox News about being uncomfortable around people dressed in Muslim garb on airplanes, is stepping down from her position after an NPR review of the Williams firing was conducted.
The move also comes just one day after the new Republican Congress gained power. Members of the new House GOP leadership have stated publicly that defunding NPR is at the top of the spending cuts list.
From FoxNews:
Ellen Weiss resigned as senior vice president for news on the same day that NPR's board of directors completed its independent review of the dismissal of Williams. The directors recommended new internal procedures for personnel decisions and disciplinary action.
Williams, who is a Fox News contributor, cheered the announcement. "It's good news for NPR if they can get someone who is the keeper of the flame of liberal orthodoxy out of NPR," he told Fox News.
"She had an executioner's knife for anybody who didn't abide by her way of thinking," he said.
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7 January, 2011
White TV reporter fired for using the ‘n-word’ accuses station of racial discrimination
About time this happened:"The question of whether it is acceptable for an African-American person to use the 'n' word in a workplace but not a white person is to be decided by a federal jury. U.S. District Judge Barclay Surrick has ruled that former Fox29 reporter-anchor Tom Burlington's claims against the station of double standards and racial discrimination will go to trial on January 18.
Burlington, who is white, was dismissed after using the 'n' word during a staff meeting in June 2007. He made the comment while discussing a story about about the symbolic burial of the word by the Philadelphia Youth Council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Burlington, who is now working as a real estate agent, was suspended within days and then fired after the incident was published in the Philadelphia Daily News.
He claims he 'was discriminated against because of his race', and states in his lawsuit that at least two African American employees at Fox29 had used the word in the workplace but had not been disciplined.
Judge Surrick, in denying Fox29's request to have the suit dismissed, said that federal courts had not determined whether a double standard, if true in this case, would violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which deals with equal opportunity in employment.
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California court repeals 4th Amendment for cell phone owners
The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures"The next time you're in California, you might not want to bring your cell phone with you. The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can search the cell phone of a person who's been arrested -- including text messages -- without obtaining a warrant, and use that data as evidence.
The ruling opens up disturbing possibilities, such as broad, warrantless searches of e-mails, documents and contacts on smart phones, tablet computers, and perhaps even laptop computers, according to legal expert Mark Rasch."
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6 January, 2011
Huckleberry Finn censored
We read:"Mark Twain's classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to be censored to remove racially insensitive terms from the text. The 1884 book has been removed from the curricula of dozens of U.S. schools due to 217 uses of the word 'n****r' and two Twain scholars plan to release an expurgated version.Once again kids will be denied knowledge of their past. History lessons have been dimbed down, and now literature must not give kids a window onto the way we were. I am sure the Left live in fear that people might one day learn that much less restrictive societies once existed.
A new edition replaces the 'N word' with 'slave' and also expels all uses of 'injun', a derogatory reference to Native Americans.
The scholars say the new version is a bid to make the book's treatment of race more in line with 21st century values but critics say the censorship is taking political correctness too far.
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The Finest In Left-Wing Hate From 2010
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5 January, 2011
AL: All religions “scams,” says atheist group advertisement
A bit rude:"A new advertisement in Alabama by a national atheist group is reportedly declaring religions to be "scams."The politics of insult again. Or the politics of arrogance. And lumping all religions together is pretty thick. Are Quakers and Muslims the same?
The Huntsville ad -- produced by the American Atheists -- displays the message "You know they're all scams" alongside pictures of religious symbols, such as Islam's crescent moon and star, the cross and the Jewish star, according to the Christian Post. The billboard also claims that the national group has been "telling the truth since 1963."
The American Atheists define "scam" as a fraudulent business scheme or ploy to intentionally mislead a person, usually with the goal of financial gains, the Post reports.
According to the group, "all religions make lots of promises about an afterlife that doesn't exist."
Source
They sound pretty evangelical. I suspect that they are mainly trying to convince themselves. I am the most utter atheist you would ever find (I don't even believe that the word "God" is meaningful) but I don't need to prop up my views by attacking the beliefs of others.
I do seriously wonder about how militant atheists get that way. There must be some unhappiness in their lives to make them like that. My own religious background is as a Bible-bashing Protestant fundamentalist but, far from repudiating or attacking that, I have the warmest memories of that time in my life (in my teens) and an abiding instinctive sympathy for others who are still of that persuasion. I suspect that militant atheists just have some deficit of feeling.
Anyway, I am the winner. The great Protestant hymns ("How great thou art", "To be a pilgrim" etc.) still bring tears to my eyes. I suspect that militant atheists can never share that.
Another old fashioned sports broadcaster hits trouble
We read:"A veteran sports broadcaster was taken off air after he called a female colleague 'sweetcakes'. The spat came during a production meeting and was not made while the pair were on air.If ever I want to insult a feminist, now I know what to call her: "Sweetcakes". It does sound pretty dismissive, as it was intended to be. I don't think I could say it with a straight face, though. I would have to laugh.
Franklin was stopped from commentating on the weekend's Fiesta Bowl match after Edwards complained about his sexist behaviour at the ESPN sports channel.
The incident occurred in a pre-game production meeting also attended by ESPN announcers Ed Cunningham and Rod Gilmore.
When the conversation turned to the subject of Gilmore's wife Marie being elected mayor of Alameda in California, Edwards tried to join in but was cut off by Franklin, according to reports. 'Why don’t you leave this to the boys, sweetcakes,' Franklin is said to have told her.
'Don’t call me sweetcakes, I don’t like being talked to like that,' Edwards responded. Franklin replied: 'OK then, a**hole.'
It is not the first time he has been involved in sexist remarks to female colleague. In 2005 he was forced to apologise to reporter Holly Rowe after calling her 'sweetheart' on air. [Cripes! I must have insulted a fair few women in my time, at that rate]
Franklin, 68, has been with ESPN since 1987 and has been a commentator on basketball and college football.
Source
4 January, 2011
Incorrect photo: Placenta photo gets Kan. nursing students expelled
It seems in rather poor taste to me but a firing offence? It just shows how Fascist American universities and colleges have become now that they are almost wholly Left-run."Four students who posed for photos with a human placenta have been kicked out of a suburban Kansas City nursing program after one of the pictures was posted on Facebook.
One of the students, Doyle Byrnes, has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Kansas seeking to force Johnson County Community College to reinstate her before classes resume Jan. 19.
The Kansas City Star reported that Byrnes and several other students were attending a lab course at Olathe Medical Center in November when one of them asked a nursing instructor for permission to photograph the placenta so they could share the experience on Facebook.
Byrnes and the other three students who posed with the placenta were expelled the next day. The lawsuit didn't fully identify the other students.
Jeanne Walsh, director of nursing at the college, criticized Byrnes in a letter that was included as an exhibit with the complaint: "Your demeanor and lack of professional behavior surrounding this event was considered a disruption to the learning environment," the letter said. [How?]
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A Muslim Batman?
More tedious political correctness:"In case you’ve been out of the loop (and it’s a pretty tiny loop, so you could easily be excused) there’s more than one Batman now. Also, one of those Batmans (the original flavor) has been travelling around the world recruiting more Batmans to be his Little Helpers.Since Batman was originally a NYC character, this is a big stretch. But if you don't like it, don't buy it. DC Comics might learn something from that.
I’ll let that sink in.
There has been some controversy over the French-Batman’s-Little-Helper Nightrunner, who is a young French-born Muslim from Clichy-Sous-Bois, the neighborhood rocked by riots in 2005, who was motivated by the death of a radical friend at the hands of the police to fight AGAINST Islamic nationals and terrorists in the French state.
And by controversy, I mean internet controversy. Which is to say, some random people who have nothing to do with the comics industry and, in fact, nothing to do with France, said some racist and religiously intolerant stuff about the choice; and no one in the comics industry or, in fact, France, has yet responded.
There are some internet people who think is its quite the travesty that DC Comics decided to make Batman welcome a Muslim guy into his organization.
Source
At least the new helper is still on the side of the good guys, I guess.
3 January, 2011
Abuse is all that Leftists have got
There's a brief posting on Wizbang in which the author ("Rick") notes the attacks on Christians recently reported in Egypt and Iraq and opines that "the Islamist attacks being perpetrated against Christians in foreign countries will one day soon be seen here in the U.S."
One could argue about the likelihood of that prediction but a Leftist commentator doesn't bother with that. He just lays on the abuse with a trowel. He says:You're one sick puppy, Rick. You really do need help. Your hate is out of control, and putting it on daily display so that you can find fellow sick f*cks isn't really "therapy" - you're just digging your hole to hell deeper and deeper.The writer of course offers no reasoning to support his "diagnosis" and his inference that fear of Muslim aggression is "hatred of your fellow man" doesn't withstand a moment's scrutiny.
Bottom line, get help. You're mentally ill: "We will see those sorts of attacks here in the U.S. It's just a matter of time..."
Quit making excuses for your sick, twisted hatred of your fellow man. Get help.
Mass murderers are part of "our fellow man" but that does not mean that we are wrong to disapprove of them and fear their evil deeds. Not all of "our fellow men" are the same, though Leftists often pretend that they are.
Such a pathetic effort at reasoning by the Leftist writer concerned seems evidence that HE is the one with a "sick, twisted" mind to me.
The amusing thing about the episode, though, is that "Rick" in his post quoted something that quite exactly predicted what the Leftist commenter would do: "Critics are called bigots, neo-Nazis, Islamophobes, or some other cruel name. In essence, having negative comments or judgments about Islam is labeled evil".
So by his comment, the Leftist proved the accuracy of the post that he was condemning. He just had nothing but hate to offer.
Must not mock homosexuals -- unless they are conservative, of course
We read:"Why on God’s green earth are you a Republican?” MSNBC’s Cenk Uygur asked GOProud chairman Christopher Barron. Instead of discussing the recent denunciation of his group by other conservative organizations — which is likely why Barron was invited on to speak in the first place — the MSNBC “interview” consisted only of Uygur mocking and laughing at Barron to his face, dismissing the notions that someone could be both gay and conservative (apparently being gay is the only issue Uygur thinks gays care about) and that conservatives are a “welcoming” crowd.
How very tolerant of him…
“I have an easier time being openly gay with conservatives than I do being a conservative with other gay people,” Barron said.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
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2 January, 2011
Must not call homosexuals "gay"??
Britain:"Jobcentre bosses are investigating claims that staff taunted a couple with homophobic abuse during weeks of discrimination - calling them 'gay boys'.
Steve Mellor, 23, and Roy Pearson, 28, say they were victimised for being homosexual whenever they went to claim their benefits.
Mr Mellor, who had to start claiming benefits because of a long-term illness made worse by stress, wrote to the centre last week. He said: 'When we went in on Wednesday to find out about Christmas payments, we got no help whatsoever, so we started walking away. The Department for Work and Pensions is looking into claims that Jobcentre staff taunted them
'Comments then came from staff such as "those two gay boys always come in for information" while they pointed and laughed at us.'
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British police banned from saying 'eggs is eggs' in case it offended infertile women
We read:"Police have been banned from using the phrase “sure as eggs is eggs” in case it offends women with fertility problems, a senior officer has claimed.
Writing on a popular online blog, the anonymous whistelblower, said that colleagues in his force had been ordered not to use the expression on “diversity” grounds.
The blogger, who writes under the pseudonym Inspector Gadget, after the cartoon character, is understood to be a serving inspector in a county force in southern England, which he refers to only as “Ruralshire” – “a county in England, not too far from Metrocity”.
In his latest posting, he dismissed the alleged ban on the phrase as “another nonsensical, empire-building, silly, frothy, pathetic and downright insulting example of political correctness gone mad”.
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1 January, 2011
Burka sketch on British TV program sparks outrage
We read:"Jeremy Clarkson and his Top Gear co-stars have sparked religious outrage after dressing up in burkas on the Boxing Day special. Clarkson and Richard Hammond decided to dress in niqabs, a form of the burka where everything but the eyes are covered, in order to disguise themselves on the road.
They also got James May in on the act when they greeted him from hospital after he fell and hit his head on rocks in the Syrian desert.
But their joke backfired after they were slammed by Muslims for mocking their religion. Islamic extremist Anjem Choudary, said: "The burka is a symbol of our religion and people should not make jokes about it in any way. "It would have been equally bad even if they'd not been in a country mainly populated by Muslims."
The BBC said it had not yet assessed viewer reaction and a spokesman for the show would not comment.
This is not the first time Clarkson has caused a storm over a burka. In July he told Top Gear viewers that he had seen a Muslim woman wearing saucy underwear beneath her gown.
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Making Fun of Homosexuality 'No Longer Acceptable'?
From a Leftist movie review:"While the nation pondered its dense history of homophobic bullying after a string of gay youth suicides starting popping up on the front pages, the trailer for the Ron Howard "comedy" The Dilemma was released with a "gay = stupid" joke as its lead. What would otherwise pass by as an unexamined passive slam against an already-maligned group became no longer acceptable.Extensive commentary at the source link. The Left certainly regard homosexuals as an especially protected class. It's just their opinion, though. Hate speech laws contravene the 1st Amendment and laughing at someone is a mite different from hating them anyway.
The line was unintelligibly defended by Howard, Vince Vaughn, and numerous web commentators who think that a joke too lazy and immature for anybody over 13 to find funny is the same thing as South Park-style take-no-prisoners satire.
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Posts from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).
"HATE SPEECH" is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: "The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Federal courts have consistently followed this. Said Virginia federal district judge Claude Hilton: "The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane."
Even some advocacy of violence is protected by the 1st Amendment. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that speech advocating violent illegal actions to bring about social change is protected by the First Amendment "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
The traditional advice about derogatory speech: "Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you". Apparently people today are not as emotionally robust as their ancestors were.
A phobia is an irrational fear, so the terms "Islamophobic" and "homophobic" embody a claim that the people so described are mentally ill. There is no evidence for either claim. Both terms are simply abuse masquerading as diagnoses and suggest that the person using them is engaged in propaganda rather than in any form of rational or objective discourse.
Leftists often pretend that any mention of race is "racist" -- unless they mention it, of course. But leaving such irrational propaganda aside, which statements really are racist? Can statements of fact about race be "racist"? Such statements are simply either true or false. The most sweeping possible definition of racism is that a racist statement is a statement that includes a negative value judgment of some race. Absent that, a statement is not racist, for all that Leftists might howl that it is. Facts cannot be racist so nor is the simple statement of them racist. Here is a statement that cannot therefore be racist by itself, though it could be false: "Blacks are on average much less intelligent than whites". If it is false and someone utters it, he could simply be mistaken or misinformed.
Whatever your definition of racism, however, a statement that simply mentions race is not thereby racist -- though one would think otherwise from American Presidential election campaigns. Is a statement that mentions dogs, "doggist" or a statement that mentions cats, "cattist"?
Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated." -- Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862
The spirit of liberty is "the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." and "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." -- Judge Learned Hand
Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)
First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean
It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.
It seems a pity that the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus is now little known. Remember, wrote the Stoic thinker, "that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavour not to let your impressions carry you away."
"Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason?" -- English poet John Milton (1608-1674) in Areopagitica
Hate speech is verbal communication that induces anger due to the listener's inability to offer an intelligent response
Leftists can try to get you fired from your job over something that you said and that's not an attack on free speech. But if you just criticize something that they say, then that IS an attack on free speech
"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper
Why are Leftists always talking about hate? Because it fills their own hearts
Leftists don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt
When you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.
The naive scholar who searches for a consistent Leftist program will not find it. What there is consists only in the negation of the present.
The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could have been speaking of much that goes on today when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."