Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Bill Lockwood: Socialism is the Gradual Loss of Freedom 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Private property is an essential element of man’s freedom. Biblical injunctions not to steal (Exodus 20:15) imply the right to private property as an extension of my labor. And, people have a right to enjoy the fruit of their labor. Frederic Bastiat, the French economist and statesman (1801-1850) summarized God-given rights as “Life, Liberty and Property” and noted that these do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, life, liberty and property existed before hand which caused men to make laws in the first place.

Cultural turmoil begins when “the Law” or its enforcer—the “government”–turns into an instrument of plunder to redistribute my earnings to others. This is precisely what has occurred in America. Amity Shlaes, in her new book, Great Society: A New History, recounts that during Lyndon Johnson’s implementation of his socialist welfare-state “Great Society,” one of the modernist thinkers involved with his administration was Charles Reich, a young law professor at Yale and former clerk to the liberal Supreme Court justice Hugo Black.

“To help the poor, Reich turned old property rights arguments on its head…Payments [of welfare] were a right, not a privilege. Reich called what the poor or old received ‘new property.’” In other words, government assumed the right to decree that other people have a right to my private property—the fruit of my labor. This is the essence of the Welfare State.

Bastiat reflected on this perversion—for perversion it is. “It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunders.” This insight reaches right into the current political climate of the American welfare state proudly trumpeted by both parties, Democrat and Republican.

If one doubts that outright plunder is occurring in America fostered by the government itself, just try Bastiat’s test. “See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other person to whom it does not belong. See of the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime …”

Our institutions of welfare, HUD housing, Medicaid, Medicare, green energy, public education, suggested reparations, even quota systems in hiring, firing, and punishment–and a host of other programs of which time would fail to list– are all results of plunder by the federal government—and all completely unconstitutional.

Consequences

What are the consequences when this occurs?

“In the first place, it erases from everyone’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.”

Exactly. Talk today about “social justice” is nothing but just that—talk. It is not “justice” neither is it sociable.

Second, and most importantly here, this creeping socialism equates to a gradual loss of freedom. When decisions of the individual are supplanted by decisions from the government, this is a loss of freedom. “Powerful government, by its very nature, always has and always will tend to make itself more powerful and more dictatorial” (The Ethics of Capitalism: A Study in Economic Principles and Human Well-Being, Chamber of Commerce of the United States: Washington, D.C., 1960). “When government gains control over the livelihood of individuals, national planning can only be carried out by subjecting the lives of individuals to control or regimentation.”

What inevitably occurs in this type of a climate is the decline of enterprise which entails the loss of inventiveness and improvements. “It means less variety in life, and variety is a large, although often unrecognized, element in a high standard of living.” Like a huge snake coiled around the breast of a person that gradually squeezes out the life, so socialism does to a nation.

In his blockbuster book, The Problem with Socialism, professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo, exposes how this slow fade in the economy worked in Sweden when socialists implemented their plans. “Socialism nearly wrecked Sweden, and free market reforms are finally bringing its economy back from the brink of disaster.”

Starting in the 1930’s, Swedish politicians became “infatuated with fascist-style, socialist ‘planning.’ … Government spending as a percentage of GDP rose from what would today seem a relatively modest 20% in 1950 to more than 50% by 1975. Taxes, public debt, and the number of government employees expanded relentlessly. Swedes were, in essence, living off of the hard work, investments, and entrepreneurship of previous generations.”

America has unfortunately, copied the Swedish model. But what happened in Sweden? The Scandinavians could not avoid economic reality. “It is impossible to maintain a thriving economy with a regime of high taxes, a wasteful welfare state that pays people not to work, and massive government spending and borrowing.”

By the 1980’s, Sweden’s collapse of economic growth and a government attempt to jump-start the economy with a massive expansion of credit resulted in “economic chaos” complete with stock market bubbles that burst, and interest rates “that the Swedish central bank pushed up to 500 percent.” By 1990 Sweden had fallen from fourth to twentieth place in international income comparisons.”

It is a slow road back for Sweden. And the same will be for America. But the point remains that socialism resembles a slow bleeding of prosperity, liberty, and right to property.

Bill Lockwood: Shelby Steele’s White Guilt-How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era 4.5 (2)

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by Bill Lockwood

Shelby Steele came of age in the “radical ‘60’s”—when America’s character began to fall apart. Personally moving from a position of “black anger” to a mature conservatism over the years, he presents an incisive and clear diagnosis of America’s most pressing cultural problem—race. (White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era)

Steele begins with personal experiences of segregation in the 1950’s wherein “white supremacy” was the norm and moves the reader through the current morass wherein “white guilt” now controls the narrative in America. “White guilt” is Steele’s characterization of the primary cultural concept that has been absorbed by the majority population. This was because of historical wrongs to black America, such as slavery and segregation.

Steele uses the term “disassociation” to explain how “white guilt” continues to drive the political and cultural agenda in the western world. By “disassociation” Steele references the continuing effort of white America to distance themselves from the racism of America’s past. Everything from public policy to collegiate admissions to housing and social behavior has been dictated by this disassociation or “white guilt.” Unfortunately, explains Steele, this is a complete hijacking of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.

Eisenhower, Clinton, and Johnson

Steele begins his diagnosis with the observation that President Bill Clinton politically survived his sexual immorality with Monica Lewinsky. But that sexual scandal would have destroyed the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. On the other hand, the rumor was that Eisenhower used the “n word” in referring to blacks; but Bill Clinton would never have survived had he done that.

So what changed? Morality has become relativistic in America– but “there is no moral relativism around racism, no sophisticated public sentiment that recasts racism as a mere quirk of character” (p. 5). Even the hint of “racism” is enough to destroy one’s career. Steele finds the answer to all of this in Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. Two years before Johnson launched the Great Society he stated in the famous Harvard University speech, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line in a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others.’”

Johnson’s Great Society, however, has had a deleterious if not disastrous effect upon the culture of America. It has embedded the assumption that though there may have been racism against blacks in the past, the white culture continues to be racist and operates upon that reality. Everything occurring now in America is seen by the main stream culture as through this prism.

Effects of the Great Society

What are some of the effects of this assumption? First, responsibility has been removed from black America. Johnson’s “Great Society was … a redistribution plan for responsibility by which he asked white America to assume considerable responsibility for black achievement” (p. 53). At the same time white America lost its moral authority “to enforce a single standard of responsibility for everyone because—by its own admission—it had not treated everyone the same.”

In slavery, blacks were not free, “but they were not entirely responsible for their lives” (p. 46). The Great Society ingrained this same principle into the black community—no responsibility. We are witnessing the results of this on the streets of America today.

Blacks have little or no responsibility to do well in school. Since African-Americans have been victims of injustice in the past, our standards are lowered in academia to accommodate minority achievement. We have included all manner of gimcrack educational ideas, the ‘beauty’ of which was that they always promised to let us achieve great things by demanding less of our students and of ourselves.

We talked of ‘black ways of knowing,’ which, of course, effectively gave all black teachers a kind of racial teaching credential that whites could never have. We devalued rigorous academic work by insisting that black students learned ‘experientially’ and ‘intuitively,’ and by arguing that ‘street knowledge’ was often more valuable than ‘book’ knowledge. There were certainly exceptions to all of this, people who worked earnestly with their students and taught substantive classes. But these serious people found themselves in an atmosphere of black excuse-making and incompetence … (119-20).

Another obvious result of the Great Society is that the concept of diversity is paramount above all other considerations. Campuses, government jobs and private places of business must tout “diversity” or be accused of racism. Diversity has become the god in America, effecting even Supreme Court decisions. Steele offers the landmark University of Michigan Affirmative Action case (2003) as an example. Justice Sandra Day O’Conner’s majority opinion has some “odd reasoning,” to say the least.

O’Conner borrowed “pseudoscientific doublespeak”—“learning outcomes,” “soft variables,” “selection index,” “nuanced judgments,” “critical mass,” and “holistic reading”—O’Conner piles one social science banality on top of another, hoping against hope that we buy her tall tale of ‘diversity’ as so ‘compelling’ a state interest that it justifies racial preferences. Her opaque language is a textbook illustration of George Orwell’s famous critique of political language as words used to ‘obscure’ and hide reality rather than to illuminate it (p. 127-28).

In turn, the god of “diversity” has birthed an entire “quota” system—spoken or unspoken—for almost every system in America, whether it be in education, job markets, and personal associations. African-Americans must be included, regardless of real achievement.

As an illustration of how strong this mantra is, Steele asks us to consider the fact that the very “possibility of racism” is enough to overturn science. DNA testing meant less in the O.J. Simpson case than did the possibility that Mark Fuhrman, one of the investigators in the O.J. Simpson case, had used “racist” terminology to refer to blacks. DNA and science, which should be an open and shut case, was thrown out due to racism.

Ethnic studies in schools is another form “disassociation.” Steele gives a personal illustration from a collegiate campus that included obvious sub-standard literature studies for students simply because the authors were black. He comments that “inclusion” has now become a literary value all its own.

Poverty itself is seen unrelated to personal dysfunction of those who suffer it. Once again, the removal of responsibility. This, in turn, has brought about the “treatment” by government “interventions” and more redistribution of money—of which we can never have enough. “With this ‘blameless’ poverty (poverty that never ‘blames the victim’), the government can be responsible for poverty even as it lacks authority over it.”

Steele explains how this has brought on big government. “So ‘blameless’ poverty is not more than a white ingenuity which allows institutions to steal responsibility for a problem they lack the authority even to honestly define” (p. 122).

In the end, white America is always trying to “prove a negative.” Prove they are not “racist”—which is the given assumption of our culture. But proving a negative is never possible. White America might elect the first black president in Barack Obama, they may have submitted to racial preferences in hiring and admissions for fifty years, they may have financially supported LBJ’s Great Society to the tune of billions of dollars—but that is never enough.

Now our culture is bombarded with efforts to dismantle America entirely. The newly proposed bill sponsored by Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts is a case in point. These Democrat women unveiled this week the BREATHE ACT which de-funds the Police, abolishes surveillance tactics which they say “disproportionately” targets minority communities, ending asset forfeiture, repeal laws that criminalize illegal immigration, encourages states to actually close down detention facilities, and eliminate gang databases while forgiving all fees and surcharges within the justice system.

The bill also demands reparations for mass incarcerations for blacks who have been “caught up in the War on Drugs” or been the victims of police violence and it eliminates federal programs and agencies used to finance ICE.

This is tantamount to a country with no borders, no responsibility required by its minority citizens, and no enforcement mechanism when laws are broken. The only reason such proposals has any legs is due to what Shelby Steele correctly calls “White Guilt.” It is a concept that will completely destroy the fabric of America.

Bill Lockwood: Losing Property Rights 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

Fox & Friends reported Monday that an Ohio business owner “is receiving threats for cooperating with law enforcement officials investigating the looting of her cupcake store last month.” “Kelly Kandah, the owner of Colossal Cupcakes in Cleveland, which was destroyed by looters, said some of those threats include people telling her that when her store is rebuilt, ‘it’s going to happen again.’”

Ms. Kandah said that some of the “complaints” of rioters were due to the fact that her cooperation with the FBI is “upsetting people” because she would involve the police over something such as property.”

The family-owned business, which is Ms. Kandah’s investment of her own private capital, is afraid to re-open after repairs because her plea to law enforcement for protection is seen by the looters as “racist” for “not supporting ‘black lives.’”

Kelly Kandah’s story is only one example of literally hundreds and thousands of private business owners who have lost, and are in the process of losing their own private property to the forces of evil. Violence is sweeping the country in the aftermath of the George Floyd death leaving cities such as Minneapolis looking like the streets of Baghdad.

Socialism Cancels Property Rights

Much of the current hedonistic lawlessness, inclusive of the disrespect of private property, is due to the infusion of socialistic “values” in our people. The doctrine of socialism disdains the very concept of “private property.” Private property is itself considered to be evil, according to Spargo & Arner (Elements of Socialism).

Not only is private property considered to be evil, but is the very cause and root of all societal problems. “Dishonesty” is supposedly caused by “private property” (p. 23); property is that which “divides mankind into classes” (p. 206), and therefore, all property must be leveled.

A malicious view of these socialists is found in their comment regarding “Negroes” and private property. “The ‘thieving propensities’ of the Southern negro do not come from a criminal nature, but from the failure of a simple barbarous people fully to appreciate the conception of private property” (p. 71).

Since private property is seen as a development of evolutionary changes through centuries, and people are as well, Spargo & Arno are suggesting that blacks have not evolved to the point where they have appreciated the developments of civilization.

It is ironic that the current slew of Marxists and socialists in our universities have maligned Christianity with a backward view of blacks and private property—when in point of fact, it is SOCIALISM itself which teaches it.

Like Spargo & Arno of yesteryear, the current Mayor of NYC, Bill de Blasio, himself a Marxist, has decried the very concept of private property in a 2017 interview, as reported by USA Today (9-13-17). Private property is a roadblock to economic progress, per de Blasio.

The mobs, looters, and violence mongers stalking our city streets agree with him. Private property is for destruction. A godless worldview.

The Founders

The founders of America correctly recognized that all of private property is an extension of one’s life, energy, and ingenuity (see W. Cleon Skousen, The Five-Thousand Year Leap, 171). Therefore, “to destroy or confiscate such property is, in reality, an attack on the essence of life itself.”

“The person who has worked to cultivate a farm, obtained food by hunting, carved a beautiful statue, or secured a wage by his labor, has projected his very being—the very essence of his life—into that labor.”

Property rights—or more correctly, the right to property, is in reality an extension of personal liberty. Justice George Sutherland of the U.S. Supreme Court once stated, “… the individual—the man—has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his LIFE, the right to his LIBERTY, the right to his PROPERTY.”

He went on to note that “the three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes his life worthy living. To give him his liberty but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to still leave him a slave.”

Property rights is an essential ingredient to liberty and freedom. John Adams saw it clearly. “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secure or liberty cannot exist.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “A right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings.”

For the reasons cited above, “Life, liberty, and property” is the phrase enshrined two times in our Constitution.

What Occurs When Property Rights Are Not Respected?

W. Cleon Skousen, in The Five-Thousand Year Leap, observed that FOUR things will occur, and have occurred, where the right to property is not preserved.

One, the incentive of an industrious person to develop and improve property is destroyed. This is exactly, to the tee, what is occurring in America right now as Marxist lawless gangs loot and destroy. Kelly Kandah is “AFRAID” to re-open her business, just as she was afraid to DEFEND her business as thugs destroyed it while she hid in the back rooms while the ransacking occurred. “My family built it up, [I] listened to it get absolutely destroyed,” she said on June 2. “That whole time we were locked in there [back bathroom]… I just listened to everything getting shattered and crushed.”

Two, the industrious individual would also be deprived of the fruits of his (or her) labor. Witness again Kelly Kandah, as well as a host of other law-abiding citizens who have lost their life fortune’s while their businesses went up in smoke in recent George Floyd riots.

Three, marauding bands would be tempted to go about the country confiscating by force and violence the good things that others had frugally and painstakingly provided. Who has not seen the video clips of huge Black Lives Matter crowds plus Antifa and useful idiots robbing and pillaging businesses, homes, and grocery stores?

Four, mankind would be impelled to remain on a bare-subsistence level of hand-to-mouth survival because the accumulation of anything would invite attack. Kelly Kandah, who has laboriously accumulated something of value through the years in her Colossal Cupcakes, invites lawless attacks simply due to that fact alone. It matters not that she declares she is “absolutely for the cause” (Black Lives Matter). That cuts no figure to Marxists and violence-mongers. She has accumulated something of value.

Be sure of this. In the wake of destruction of private property also comes destruction of innocent lives. Indeed, some of this has already been occurring. And all of this from a “WOKE” crowd.

Matt O’Brien: Mass Incarceration Remains a Myth, Mass Migration Is Still a Problem 0 (0)

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by Matt O’Brien

The Intercept has published an article titled, “Immigration Detention Is Part of Mass Incarceration: The Case for Abolishing Ice and Everything Else.” It is, in essence a promotion piece for two unabashedly anti-Trump screeds: Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession With Locking Up Immigrants, written by law professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández and All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It, by Daniel Denvir.

Both authors argue that the Trump administration’s attempts to strengthen immigration enforcement are not intended to preserve American sovereignty and national security. Rather, they claim, Team Trump is exploiting systemic racism, fear of migrants and a “mass incarceration problem” that undermines civil rights in the United States. Moreover, both García Hernández and Denvir assert – against the weight of historical evidence – that only recently has the U.S. government begun to take immigration violations seriously.

But, even for The Intercept, which is unabashedly anti-Trump and pro-open-borders, touting such over-the-top hyperbole is a bit much. Neither García Hernández’ nor Denvir’s claims have any validity whatsoever.

To begin with, the United States in its relatively brief history has received more immigrants than all the other nations of the world combined. Clearly, we don’t have any fear of migrants. Not to mention that, since immigrants aren’t a race – they come from every corner of the globe – it’s patently ridiculous to claim that being broadly in favor of border enforcement renders someone a “racist.”

When it comes to the detention of lawbreakers, the U.S. isn’t even close to having a “mass incarceration problem.” As Rafael A. Mangual of the Manhattan Institute has pointed out, the U.S. does have a fair and impartial justice system. And that system regularly incarcerates violent felons and other serious criminals who pose a danger to the American public. What’s more, unlike many other countries in the world, the U.S. transparently reports the number of people it jails each year. Meanwhile, the notion that the U.S. regularly incarcerates people who simply don’t deserve to be in jail just isn’t supported by any objective data.

As far as the severity with which immigration offenses have been viewed throughout American history, both García Hernández and Denvir are way off base. In 1798, Congress passed the Alien Friends Act, which empowered the president to imprison or deport aliens believed to be “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.”

In 1799, in Frie’s Case, Supreme Justice James Iredell applied the Alien Friends Act and related legislation. He noted that no one had ever argued, “that aliens had a right to go into a foreign country, and stay at their will and pleasure without any leave from the government.” Justice Iredell’s statement is proof positive that even the earliest government officials believed that foreign nationals may enter and remain in the U.S. only with the permission of the Executive Branch. Furthermore, it’s a clear acknowledgement that the federal government has always had the authority to take enforcement actions against foreigners who enter the U.S. without permission or who exceed the bounds of permissions granted.

So, what’s up with The Intercept and the authors it cites? They believe that the actions of individuals are not a product of conscious choice. Instead, they see crime and illegal migration as things that people are forced into. And they consider anything other than total forgiveness for any type of criminal behavior to be immoral. It’s what Kurt Schlichter of Townhall.com calls “decriminalizing crime.” However, eliminating all restrictions on bad behavior only leads to chaos and the breakdown of the social order needed for the United States to remain successful.

American voters know that we don’t have a mass incarceration problem, we have an unchecked mass migration problem. That’s why they elected Donald Trump as president. He was the first candidate in five decades who seemed to understand their frustrations with immigration policies that put the desires of foreign nationals above American’s basic need for safety, security and economic stability.

IR: https://www.immigrationreform.com/2020/01/06/incarceration-illegal-immigration-criminals-immigrationreform-com/

Matt O’Brien joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 2016. Matt is responsible for managing FAIR’s research activities. He also writes content for FAIR’s website and publications. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in French from the Johns Hopkins University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Maine School of Law.

Matt O’Brien: ProPublica’s “Big Story” Is More Than a Little Wrong 0 (0)

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by Matt O’Brien

Radical news outlet ProPublica is currently running a scare piece claiming, “Border agents can now get classified intelligence information. Experts call that dangerous.” According to ProPublica, “…the Trump administration is creating a new center in suburban Virginia that will allow immigration agents to access, for the first time, the sprawling array of information scooped up by America’s intelligence agencies….”

The article, part of the organization’s “Big Story” newsletter, further claims, “Migrants and others denied entry will be unable to see the evidence against them because it is classified.” It also asserts that, “It could also be nearly impossible for those denied entry to challenge faulty information if wrongly accused, they say, since most of it is classified.”

But, there are so many factual errors in ProPublica’s overwrought monument to pointless, fake news hyperbole that it is difficult to know where to begin debunking it.

Immigration officers throughout The United States Department of Homeland Security already have access to classified information. They have, for decades. In Jay v. Boyd, decided in 1956, the Supreme Court explicitly held that, when determining an alien’s admissibility to the United States, the government may rely on “confidential information not disclosed to the alien.”

In fact, over 20 years ago, in 1998, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) General Counsel Paul Virtue appeared before Congress to discuss the government’s need to consider classified information in connection with immigration applications in order to protect America’s national security. And that was under the Democrat, left-leaning Clinton administration.

And the Trump administration isn’t setting up any shadowy new intelligence center in the capital city’s suburbs. There are already a number of information-collection-and-sharing facilities all around the Washington, D.C., area. They range from the National Counterterrorism Center, operated by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) National Targeting Center (whose motto is “Catching smugglers, terrorists and lawbreakers works better through partnership.”). Many other agencies also run information-sharing centers in the area. Their collective purpose is to protect the United States from foreign national security threats, particularly terrorism.

The suburban Virginia facility referenced by ProPublica is called the National Vetting Center (NVC). And it serves one simple purpose that its parent agency, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has loudly and publicly proclaimed:

Over time, the U.S. Government has developed multiple, unconnected processes to bring together threat information already lawfully held by the government about individuals seeking to enter the United States or obtain benefits under our immigration laws.  The NVC is centralizing and improving these processes to more efficiently and effectively inform department and agency vetting.  Relevant, appropriate information will be accessible in a consolidated and timely manner to the departments and agencies leveraging the NVC’s process and technology.

As for those “civil rights concerns” that ProPublica is crowing about: There aren’t any. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly pointed out, requests by foreign nationals for admission to the United States don’t give rise to constitutional civil rights claims, because “the admission of aliens to this country is not a right, but a privilege, which is granted only upon such terms as the United States prescribes” – Ekiu v. United States (1892), Fong Yue Ting v. United States(1893), Knauff v. Shaughnessy (1950), Kliendienst v. Mandel (1972).

Finally, ProPublica’s claim that individuals denied entry to the United States on the basis of classified information will be denied an opportunity to review and contest such information is utterly specious. Foreign nationals can’t even challenge a denial of admission made on the basis of unclassified information. Under existing statutes and case precedent, the Department of State can summarily deny a visa to a foreign national and CBP personnel at the border may deny admission to anyone who fails to establish his/her admissibility – and the law provides absolutely no legal mechanism  for challenging a denial of admission.

In reality, it turns out that this “Big Story” is actually much ado about nothing.

IR: https://www.immigrationreform.com/2019/11/04/pro-publica-bias-reporting-fake-news-immigrationreform-com/

Matt O’Brien joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 2016. Matt is responsible for managing FAIR’s research activities. He also writes content for FAIR’s website and publications. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in French from the Johns Hopkins University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Maine School of Law.

Bill Lockwood: Christianity in the Cross-hairs 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

The Democrats have Christianity in their cross-hairs. It must be eliminated. According to presidential candidate Joe Biden, his top priority in the Oval Office, should he be elected, will be to pass and enforce the “Equality Act”—a proposed bill that normalizes deviant sexual behavior while penalizing biblical Christianity.

Recently, Joe Biden honored the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for moving “the moral arc in this nation towards justice.” The HRC is a prominent homosexual advocacy group. He was referring to the so-called Equality Act, which passed the House Judiciary Committee in May. The Equality Act would effectively gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 which has protected Americans with a Christian conscience from interference from Big Brother Government. As Bill Donohue, president and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, wrote in May:

The Equality Act is the most comprehensive assault on religious liberty, the right to life, and privacy ever packaged into one bill in the history of the United States. …this act is based on the idea that sexually challenged men and women—those who think they can transition to the other sex—should be treated as if hey were members of a minority race.

In short, the Equality Act takes “political correctness” and puts a statist government’s teeth into it. Let’s see the background.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act

The RFRA began as a reaction following a 1990 Supreme Court decision (Employment Division v. Smith) which concerned Christians that religious liberty might be threatened. In 1993 none other than Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced the RFRA, a bill which was intended to keep federal laws from burdening a person’s religious convictions. The bill passed and was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

It is important to note that this resulted from a huge national movement of Christians to protect their First Amendment God-given rights. The Left, however, has never appreciated it, to say the least. For example, in 2014, the RFRA was used as a basis to challenge the ObamaCare mandate that required all for-profit companies to cover abortion-inducing drugs in their health-care plans. Hobby Lobby successfully challenged in Court Obama’s iron-fisted unconstitutional law.

The Left, therefore, has not only despised Christianity itself, but the basic protections that our Constitution has guaranteed them, including the First Amendment. After the 1993 RFRA, the war began to rage openly.

In 1997 the Supreme Court “ruled” that the RFRA could not apply to the states—only the federal government. This left the states open to irreligious assaults. The Christian communities around the country then began to pass at state levels their own religious freedom bills. Enough!, says the Left. We will eradicate Christian liberty once and for all—hence, the Equality Act.

The Equality Act

This historic proposal will take the 1964 Civil Rights Act and apply it to the Homosexual Network operating in the United States. It will therefore gut the RFRA by granting homosexuals and other deviant sexual behaviors preferential treatment in hiring; houses of worship would be turned into places of “public accommodations” where the Equality Act would rule; beginning in kindergarten children will be indoctrinated with the LGBTQ agenda; freedom of speech by Bible-oriented Christians would be endangered by law; privacy rights in bathrooms and gym locker rooms would be a thing of the past as would parental rights to teach children the sin of homosexuality. In short, liberty would be lost.

Bill Donohue adds,

If anyone thinks this is an exaggeration, check out what has happened to religious liberty in New Jersey and Ohio where Catholic hospitals have been targeted. Unless they agree to perform a hysterectomy on a woman who claims to be a man, they can be sued. The ACLU has been suing Catholic hospitals all over the nation trying to force them to adopt its anti-Catholic agenda. While it typically loses, this legislation will reverse that record.

In short, the Equality Act could put people out of work for their beliefs, according to the Heritage Foundation. Those who believe the Bible will be disallowed by law from expressing those beliefs in public. The biblical definition of marriage will be relegated to your closet. Your family will have been invaded by the federal mandates that favor homosexuality as a “protected class.”

What is occurring in Great Britain will be occurring here as well. There, the Muslim community is seeking protection from criticism by having Islam classified as a “race” via the United Nations. Those who criticize the teachings of Mohammed become “racists” with all that that word carries. No open dialogue, no open thought—just conformity. So here. No dialogue. No debate. No scientific proof—just a statist government enforcing its will.

Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, your sins have hid his face from you …therefore justice is far from us, neither does righteousness overtake us; we look for light, but behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity. – Isaiah 59:1,9

Alex Newman: Growing Push to Teach Bible in Government Schools 0 (0)

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by Alex Newman

WILLIAMSTOWN, Kentucky — Across America, states are looking to Kentucky for guidance on teaching the Bible in government schools without arousing the wrath of lawless federal courts determined to stamp out God’s Word.

Under a bill signed two years ago, students in Kentucky are allowed to take elective Bible classes at government schools, provided the Bible is not presented as the inerrant Word of God—a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith.

After Kentucky, Georgia and Arkansas passed similar legislation. At least 10 others have introduced bills to do the same. Project Blitz is leading the charge nationwide.

The idea is to ensure that students understand their heritage as well as the foundations of their civilization and the great literature of the Western world, supporters say.

However, the Bible will not be taught as God’s Word due to rogue federal court decisions purporting to outlaw that. And many Christians have expressed concerns that anti-Christian zealots would use the course to demonize Scripture and those who believe it.

Still, supporters said it was important to allow children to be exposed to the Bible.

“It really did set the foundation that our Founding Fathers used to develop documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,” Kentucky Rep. D.J. Johnson (R-Owensboro) was quoted as saying by local news service WDRB when the bill passed there. “All of those came from principles from the Bible.”

Governor Matt Bevin, who has developed a national reputation as a true conservative, also expressed strong support for the measure when he signed it in June of 2017.

“The idea that we would not want this to be an option for people in school, that would be crazy. I don’t know why every state would not embrace this, why we as a nation would not embrace this,” the governor told supporters at the bill signing. “You could be an atheist, and you would appreciate there’s a lot of wisdom in the Bible.”

Under the legislation, local school boards are allowed to offer an elective course on Bible literacy as part of the “social studies” curriculum.

The measure was approved overwhelmingly by the state legislature. And across America, the idea is tremendously popular.

Even President Trump has expressed support. “Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible,” he tweeted in January. “Starting to make a turn back? Great!”

On the other side of the debate, the ACLU and various other fringe far-left organizations are foaming at the mouth in outrage. The increasingly unhinged Washington Post even claimed it was “unconstitutional.”

The Takeaway

The Supreme Court never had the power to ban Bible reading and prayer in schools. And it certainly did not have the power to establish the dangerous false religion of humanism using government schools to conscript children.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook

Jesse Lee Peterson: WHY CHRISTIANS ARE LOSING THEIR COUNTRY 0 (0)

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Jesse Lee Peterson blasts left for attacking people for telling truth

by Jesse Lee Peterson

America is a Christian nation, but that fact has been under attack by the children of the lie. The left has pushed immorality to the point we have so-called “same-sex marriage” and “transgender” nonsense trampling the rights of Christians. “People of color” and “women” join the attack on freedom of speech and our rights to self-defense. Good people are accused of “hate speech,” punished for telling the truth in public – or even in private!

Christians, men and especially white people are under attack. Christians are forced to bake “gay cakes” for homosexuals pretending to get “married.” Men are falsely accused of “sexual harassment,” “sexual assault” or of being “child molesters” – and they’re not allowed to say the women are lying! Children are abused by women, even killed in the womb, and the man can’t do anything to protect his children. White people are called “racist” just for loving their country, for telling the truth about “people of color,” or for standing up for white people.

A decade ago, the fallen messiah Barack Obama claimed America is “no longer a Christian nation.” He pushed homosexuality and transgender madness, and took up for Muslims at every opportunity. He was the first “feminist” president, and loved abortion.

Obama attacked whites and police, making blacks feel justified in their anger and false victimhood. He brought Black Lives Matter to the White House – a group worse than the KKK, founded by black lesbians, homosexuals and white “social justice warriors.” They killed the souls of black people by pushing anger, and their attacks on police resulted in an increase in murders around the country.

You cannot be a Christian and support the Democrat Party. After Obama, they’ve only grown more radical, electing far-left Muslims, homosexuals, and women – in order to attack a real men, President Trump. Donald Trump represents everything they hate – the goodness of America. The straight, white, conservative, Christian man of power built this country. But leftists don’t want America to be made great again, so they go after all males, white people, and Christians in order to take down Trump.

Order Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson’s book, “The Antidote: Healing America from the Poison of Hate, Blame, and Victimhood.”

This week, they went after Democrat Joe Biden – Obama’s vice president. They accused him of sexual harassment with no proof. For years, Biden openly kissed and tried to flatter women and little girls in front of cameras – never trying to hide it. But now people impulsively judge him as “creepy,” watching suggestively edited videos that play on the imagination and people’s anti-male brainwashing. In the old days, men warned you to believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see.

But Biden as a hated “white male” is not welcome in the Democrat Party. They want a woman or a “person of color” to run for president.

Men have been trained by women to show affection, to worship women, make them feel special – but only with “consent.” Meanwhile, women throw themselves on men, hug and kiss men without permission, sexually assault them, and even rape men and young boys. Even Christians join in on this double-standard, in which every man is a suspected “rapist” or “child molester.” At our recent Men’s Forum at my nonprofit BOND, a home contractor said he wears a camera on himself all day to prevent being accused!

The city of Chicago recently elected a black lesbian for mayor. She’s pretending she will end the corruption in the city. But she herself is morally corrupt – she has no values. She’ll go after the Christians, white people and men, and only further destroy the city.

There are homosexuals who are stuck in that lifestyle but know it’s wrong. But this new mayor-elect, Lori Lightfoot, is promoting wrong as right. Similarly, Pete Buttigieg, a homosexual millennial mayorof South Bend, Indiana, is trying to run for president. The corrupt liberal media love him for being shamelessly homosexual. The former mayor of Houston, Annise Parker, is a lesbian with a pretend “wife.” Females on the Supreme Court and in Congress have conducted so-called same-sex “weddings.”

In Ireland, they have a homosexual prime minister who brought his gay “partner” to America for an official event with Vice President Mike Pence. This man, Leo Varadkar, gave a slap in the face to Christians, speaking against “discrimination.” The radical homosexuals are allowed to discriminate against Christians, but not the other way around. There is no freedom.

Christians have lost their countries because Christians are no longer any different from the world. They believe that they can be born again of God and continue to sin. The men are controlled by women – they kiss up to women in their personal lives and in politics. The whites are afraid to tell the truth to the people of color. The Christians have anger in their hearts, playing God – there’s no love in anger, but only fear, doubt, worry and insecurity. Christian parents are sacrificing their children to corrupt schools where kids come out liberal, turning away from God.

If you want your country to be right, you have to be right. As Christ said, you must become perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect.

https://youtu.be/ZS6OPX5yU7o

WND: https://www.wnd.com/2019/04/why-christians-are-losing-their-country/

Read Jesse Lee Peterson’s Biography

Bill Lockwood: King Cuomo of NY: Shades of Herod! 0 (0)

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by Bill Lockwood

Shockingly, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, recently signed into law measures to expand abortion rights across the state. Mislabeled the Reproductive Health Act, the state of New York wanted to put protective barriers around Roe v Wade which Democrats feared could be overturned by a more conservative Supreme Court under Donald Trump. Cuomo stated: “With the signing of this bill, we are sending a clear message that whatever happens in Washington, women in New York will always have the fundamental right to control their own body.”

The bill allows women to abort their babies up to the very moment of birth, even as they prepare for delivery. This grotesque ignoring of the value of children’s lives by abortion—properly called infanticide—is alarming and should serve as a wake-up call to all Americans as to the wicked direction of leftist politics.

Herod the Great, the unusually cruel king of Judea who served under the auspices of Emperor Augustus at the time of our Lord’s birth, was in the last years of his reign when he learned that “the King of the Jews” was to be born in Bethlehem. In an effort to exterminate Jesus Christ, the newborn king, Herod ruthlessly slaughtered all of the babies of Bethlehem from two years old and younger (Matt. 2:16). Cuomo is cut out of the same cloth.

What’s next? Allowing the murder of children up to two years old? New York’s reasoning is that their bill involves the Reproductive Health of a woman. What about her Psychological Health? Here is how two Italian utilitarian professors argued for infanticide-even after birth-due to a woman’s psychological health.

However, having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health

of the woman or for her already existing children, regardless of the condition of the fetus. This could happen in the case of a woman who loses her partner after she finds out that she is pregnant and therefore feels she will not be able to take care of the possible child by herself.

Giubilini & Minerva

The above statement was published in a prestigious online Journal of Medical Ethics several years ago. If that is not an argument for infanticide, it would be difficult to determine what would constitute one. It was co-authored by Alberto Giubilini of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and Francesca Minerva of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. Their position is that killing of a newborn baby is “ethically permissible” in all circumstances where abortion would be.

To soften our minds to this horrific suggestion, they tell us that the unborn child as well as the newborn is “only a potential person.” Further, feeling that “infanticide” is too strong a term, they therefore “propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion.’” This emphasizes “that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus … rather than a child.” In other words, quit thinking in human terms like “child” or “baby.”

The “circumstances” which would “ethically” allow “abortion” include such considerations as when the “well-being of the family” is at risk. And then, almost unbelievably, the professors tell us that “The best interest of the one who dies is not necessarily the primary criterion for the choice…”

Biubilini & Minerva’s reasoning is simply an extension of the justification for Cuomo’s abortion bill. Let New Yorkers or any pro-choice person give a coherent answer as to the conceptual difference between a woman’s reproductive health and her psychological health. This cannot be done precisely because abortion itself is infanticide: the killing of innocent God-given life.

Once a society begins wickedly exterminating its unborn children (America has murdered more than 1 million babies a year since 1973—financed in large part by taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood) a hardening of the conscience begins that inevitably leads to open Herodian-style infanticide. New York proudly leads the way downward.

One might ask the professors, or the Governor, who sets himself forth as some great one on this issue, just how long after birth might a baby be murdered? The professors are not certain on this point. That will have to be settled by “neurologists and psychologists” who advise the “king.” And that advice will be skewed depending upon the interest of the crown.

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