It’s Friday, April 28th, 2017…but before we begin, the Kool-Aid drinkers at VOX finally appear to be waking up and smelling either the coffee or the bullsh*t:
In the Ossoffs’ defense, they’re not tax “evaders”; rather, in the spirit of other great hypocritical Limousine Liberals such as John Kerry…
…they’re tax “avoiders“!!! After all, why worry about taxrates when you’re not paying taxes in the first place?!?
Likewise, were Ossoff affiliated with the political party on the other side of the aisle, is there any doubt the MSM would be making hay of his having campaigned for the brilliant Hank “Capsize” Johnson?!?
That was a rhetorical question.
Next up, in what seems like an eerie remake of Seinfeld, NRO‘s Andy McCarthy details how an Obamaite federal judge just issued what amounts to…
“A showboating federal judge in San Francisco has issued an injunction against President Trump’s executive order cutting off federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities. The ruling distorts the E.O. beyond recognition, accusing the president of usurping legislative authority despite the order’s express adherence to “existing law.” Moreover, undeterred by the inconvenience that the order has not been enforced, the activist court — better to say, the fantasist court — dreams up harms that might befall San Francisco and Santa Clara, the sanctuary jurisdictions behind the suit, if it were enforced. The court thus flouts the standing doctrine, which limits judicial authority to actual controversies involving concrete, non-speculative harms.
Although he vents for 49 pages, Judge William H. Orrick III gives away the game early, on page 4. There, the Obama appointee(Who bundled some $200K for Barack Hussein’s campaign, and personally contributed $30K!)explains that his ruling is about…nothing.
That is, Orrick acknowledges that he is adopting the construction of the E.O. urged by the Trump Justice Department, which maintains that the order does nothing more than call for the enforcement of already existing law.Although that construction is completely consistent with the E.O. as written, Judge Orrick implausibly describes it as “implausible.”…”
In a related item also courtesy of NRO, David French sees Judge Orrick’s unsupportable opinion as nothing more than the most recent evidence…
“Forget the ludicrous #Calexit movement — why should a state bother seceding when it can simply nullify the portions of the Constitution it doesn’t like? A troubling trend is emerging: California is imposing its own vision of free speech, freedom of association, and freedom of the press on its citizens, and it’s daring the courts to stop it…”
Thank heaven…and both The Donald and Mitch McConnell (we know; it hurts us as much to write it as it does you to read it!)…we have Neil Gorsuch rather than Merrick Garland sitting on the SCOTUS.
For those needing absolute, unimpeachable confirmation The Left has shed any remaining Constitutional underpinnings (if not its moorings in reality), Wesley J. Smith’s offering at The Corner should seal the deal, as he relates how the…
NYT Publishes Speech Suppression Advocacy
These are dangerous times for free speech in the increasingly less free Western world. In Europe and Canada, one can be fined or jailed for expressing views that those in power find odious or “oppressive.”
Here in the USA, we see such authoritarian speech suppression increasingly embraced on college campuses. But in the New York Times?
Alas, yes. The paper that rarely publishes positions that materially diverge from its own editorial positions, has published a vigorous defense of speech suppression. The idea is that speech deemed antithetical to the “public good” can be squelched. From, “What Snowflakes Get Right About Free Speech,” by New York University professor Ulrich Baer (my emphasis):
The great value and importance of freedom of expression, for higher education and for democracy, is hard to underestimate. But it has been regrettably easy for commentators to create a simple dichotomy between a younger generation’s oversensitivity and free speech as an absolute good that leads to the truth.
We would do better to focus on a more sophisticated understanding, such as the one provided by Lyotard, of the necessary conditions for speech to be a common, public good. (Please note: the source of Baer’s authority is an obscure French philosopher, NOT the Constitution!)This requires the realization that in politics, the parameters of public speech must be continually redrawn to accommodate those who previously had no standing.
Thus, speech that supposedly demeans those whom the speech suppressors deem to have been marginalized should be squelched. Hence, those refusing to accept that, say, Caitlyn Jenner is now a “she,” not only can be–but should be–forcibly shut up.
But Ulrich advocates an even broader suppression of speech, that could, if imposed, shut down NRO or punish Rush Limbaugh.
The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized members of that community.
The tremendous peril here can’t be missed.Who gets to decide which view has what “inherent value?”Those in power. This means, as we see on college campuses today, that minority views are not only suppressed, but suppressed by threats of, or actual violence — as we have seen at UC Berkeley and Middlebury College.
Ulrich concludes:
I am especially attuned to the next generation’s demands to revise existing definitions of free speech to accommodate previously delegitimized experiences.
Freedom of expression is not an unchanging absolute. When its proponents forget that it requires the vigilant and continuing examination of its parameters, and instead invoke a pure model of free speech that has never existed, the dangers to our democracy are clear and present.
So, First Amendment-protected political speech is a clear and present threat to democracy?!? No, Ulrich is!
Moreover, he misses the obvious point that the power to squelch speech that conflicts with progressive social advocacy could be similarly used to punish those who call Donald Trump a fascist, if the government ever attained the power to punish disfavored views.
I have been thinking for some time that on issues of speech, we are watching a contest between the American Revolution — that guarantees the right to express unpopular social and political views — and the French Revolution that unleashes Jacobins to suppress heterodoxy.
But after reading Ulrich, I think we face something even more dangerous to liberty: A full-blown Mao-style Cultural Revolution is gestating on college campuses. If we don’t restore American ideals of speech freedom to those “snowflake” enclaves, we could well see a violent avalanche materialize that threatens the peaceability of our broader social discourse.
Here’s the juice: just as one cannot be a “little bit pregnant”, free societies cannot enjoy restricted degrees…
…of free speech. In the case of pregnancy, you either are or you ain’t; with the Founding Fathers’ right to free expression, you either have it or you don’t! The forces of Progressivism prefer the latter.
And just when you’d thought you’d heard it all, courtesy of the WSJ, consider this snippet from the Berkeley, CA Police Department website:
“The Berkeley Police and City of Berkeley want to facilitate the safe expression of constitutionally protected speech. We want to work in partnership with you to hold a safe and peaceful event. The following items are things that we recommend you do to ensure a safe event.
Go to City of Berkeley Website:
• Download and complete forms
• File them at the Recreation Department
Contact the Police Department and Provide:
• Purpose of protest
• Date(s) and time of event
• Location(s)
• Route of march, if planned
• Estimated attendance
• Organizing person or group
• Number of organizers
• How to identify and contact organizers/monitors at the event (hats, shirts, armbands)
• What will they be wearing?
• Will they have mobile phones?
• Do you want symbolic arrests?
• If so, where and when?“
We’re left to assume the anarchists ruling the UC-Berkeley campus requested no arrests whatsoever…symbolic or otherwise. Seriously, you couldn’t make Socialist sh*t like this up if you tried!
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side…
Finally, we’ll call it a month with another titillating tale torn from the pages of The Crime Blotter, which almost had us sympathizing with the accused…
“Hamilton says he was feeling the micro-aggression he sometimes experiences as a 6-foot-3-inch black man with dreadlocks. He has become accustomed to working through it as best he can.“
Yeah…micro-aggressions…experienced through encounters with other Negros. Sorry, Kima; we’re of the opinion the reason you got booted off the flight was not your size, skin color or hairstyle, but rather your weak bladder. That and the fact you twice ignored crew-member instructions.
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