Tag Archives: first amendment

Commentary

Kiss America Goodbye

If you think that title sounds alarmist, think again.

Undoubtedly the worst presidential candidate in modern history, crooked, cognitively challenged and thrust into office by the dedicated efforts of America’s lapdog media, her socialist Big Tech and “the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics,” Joe Biden has not even taken office yet. Nor has the razor thin Democratic tie (+socialist Kamala Harris) in the Senate been installed. But the Democrats can taste the power that they will soon wield and they are already making their wish list, naming those whom they will persecute and punish, lining up for new investigations and prosecutions, and above all laying plans to secure their grip on the power they have gained so that they never have to surrender it again. In anticipation of their ascendancy and in cooperation with its expected permanency, Big Tech has already begun silencing any voice of opposition to the one-party rule that America will soon suffer, permanently banning soon-to-be-ex-President Donald Trump, blocking any social media platform that does not agree to censor conservative speech, shutting off access to servers and internet services for alternative media and laying the groundwork for a universal blockade of information outside the “mainstream” narrative. Books are being banned, political contributors outed and threatened. Fund-raising websites deny access to anyone not politically correct. The list goes on and on.

How long until this website is blocked or banned? How long until e-commerce sites that sell t-shirts with images and legends derisive of left-wing, socialist, progressive, statist ideas and personalities are dropped? How long until guns, ammunition and related goods and services are banned from the Internet? How long until PayPal and other e-payment options are denied to conservative organizations or websites? How long until churches find their live-streamed services blocked because the pastor dared to preach against homosexuality or abortion? How long until your bank begins “monitoring” your accounts to identify support for “domestic terrorist” (conservative) causes and candidates? Don’t dare scoff at these questions! Who would have ever believed that America would see the day that churches were ordered closed and pastors threatened with jail for refusing to comply?

“But censorship like that is okay because it’s not the government doing it!” That’s what they’re going to say, and I know because that’s what they’ve already said. Conservatives have no right to speak on college campuses because it isn’t the government silencing them. Conservatives have no right to have their opinions shared in the mainstream media–or even to expect that facts and events demonstrative of the lies told by the left are published anywhere that the public can see them. Free people have no right to be heard as long as it is the left-wing monolithic tech monopolies (that your government has fostered) that are silencing and crushing them. You have no freedom if it is someone other than the government depriving you of it. Really?

When was the last time you read the Declaration of Independence? If you’ve read my book, God, America and Liberty you’ve already heard this analogy, but here it is again: most ideologically-based associations (like churches) have two founding documents, a statement of faith or beliefs and a constitution or bylaws. The constitution or bylaws is a set of rules for how they will conduct business: how the leader is chosen, how the directors are chosen, who is in charge of the money and how it is handled and spent, etc. The statement of faith or belief is a list of the core convictions held by the association, the common ideas that bind the members together in one body. The rules are important, but the beliefs are why the association exists in the first place. The Declaration of Independence is our nation’s statement of faith. Please take a moment to read it in its entirety, but here is a very important quote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Our government was institution in order to secure our rights (all government are supposed to be) not just to abstain from destroying them itself. You have the right to life, and your government is not just supposed to refrain from killing you, it is supposed to keep others (foreign governments and other citizens) from killing you too. You have a right to liberty, and your government’s responsibility is not just to abstain itself from stripping you of your liberties, it is also required to prevent others from taking your liberties as well. Your rights were given to you by God. They were not granted to you by government. When your government stands by and allows the Big Corporate Mainstream Media to gouge out your eyes and stop your ears (by blacking out news that you need in order to make an informed choice in an election, e.g. the Hunter Biden story) and allows Big Corporate Tech to rip out your tongue (by silencing anyone who defies the left-wing narrative by trying to inform you, e.g. the Hunter Biden story) then your government has become destructive of the ends of securing your liberties.

We are at a crisis point in our nation’s history. Our government has long been out of control and indifferent to our freedom, but now it has gone from indifference to antipathy, becoming destructive of our freedoms. Very soon you will not be able to read words like those in our Declaration of Independence on the Internet or hear them on the television.

What then?

Commentary

I Am Calling for Impeachment

In a 5 to 4 ruling, the United States Supreme Court rejected a Nevada church’s request to strike down a state restriction limiting attendance at religious services to 50 people, while allowing essentially unrestricted admittance to casinos. Chief Justice John Roberts opined that Nevada’s restrictions on places of worship “appear to be consistent with the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.” In case you have forgotten (as Chief Justice John Roberts apparently has) the First Amendment states (in part):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

U. S. Bill of Rights, First Amendment, First Clause

Seriously. This should worry you. If Chief Justice John Roberts and the other four liberal, activist justices can rule that limiting attendance at church is “consistent” with “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” then they are perfectly capable of ruling absolutely anything. Absolutely anything.

A justice who can make that leap could also rule that forcing the Fox News Network off cable or banning Rush Limbaugh from the radio is “consistent” with the “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” clause; or that banning all political protests (except Black Lives Matter) was “consistent” with the “right of the people to peacefully assemble” clause of the First Amendment.

A justice who can rule that way could also rule that banning possession of firearms by American citizens was “consistent” with the “shall not be infringed” clause of the Second Amendment.

Such a justice could also rule that a law allowing police to break into your house without a warrant and search for anything that they can use to prosecute you is “consistent” with the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” clause of the Fourth Amendment.

A justice who can rule as these five lawless judges did in this case is capable of ruling that allowing you to be tried for a criminal offense again and again until the jury finally finds you guilty is “consistent” with the “nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb” clause; or that torturing you until you confess is “consistent” with the “nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself” clause; or that a law allowing the government to seize your belongings and hold them until you prove yourself innocent of some charge* is “consistent” with the “nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” clause of the Fifth Amendment.

For too long American have accepted that the Constitution says what the Supreme Court says it says, but this disastrous error has allowed activist judges and justices to do virtually anything they like and call it law. The Constitution says what it says, and there is no one reading this post who cannot judge what “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” means.

Supreme Court justices who can rule that limiting attendance at church while encouraging attendance at a casino is constitutional should be impeached. Their arrogant disregard for the clear text of the First Amendment and the Constitution is the very essence of “bad behavior.”

*We’ve already got this: see “Civil Asset Forfeiture”
https://fee.org/articles/the-governments-war-on-property/