2022 elections—Freedom of speech and assembly

I think this will be the big issue for 2022 elections. Silencing us. Using non-government entities to destroy our First Amendment rights.

Sarah Sanders who is running for Governor of Arkansas:

"From "cancel culture" to big tech censorship, liberals are determined to dismiss, defeat, and repress any opinion that isn't in line with theirs.

They even went as far as banning a then sitting President of the United States from all platforms."

Right now, they are attacking supporters of the President who went after the swamp, but others are being silenced too. Doctors, lawyers, librarians, teachers, professors, entertainers and business owners are questioning the unproven medical advice and policies related to the pandemic. They are being silenced, whether or not they are the president's supporters. Time to step out and speak up. Stop cancel culture in your schools, churches and non-profits. Stop the scam. Stop the lockdown. Know what's going on in your state and community.

And you Democrats will be silenced next. Learn from history. Germany, Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba and others have much to teach you.

Spokes model for millennials

Alyssa Ahlgren is a millennial who's made a name for herself by being blunt and unapologetically conservative, calling out her generation, including AOC, for being spoiled and naive.

She wrote a nice piece in late May about standing up to fear. Now it's nearly October and I think maybe she was wrong about Americans and what they would put up with.

"Americans were willing to take temporary hits to their liberties to flatten the curve. We followed the rules. We were compliant with the “15 days to slow the spread.” What we are not compliant with is the continued abuse of power backed by zero evidence and practiced in the name of the “common good” and “safety.” As the country’s leaders remain divided on locking down and reopening, Americans are starting to stand together. We will not be vulnerable. We will not be complacent. And we will not shrink in fear. After all, the American spirit was derived from rebellion and the desire to be free. Good luck keeping that locked down."

My church has timidly offered some parking lot and mid-week services, and my library still has closed branches and appointment only computers. I guess our walk doesn't match our talk, especially on the First Amendment.

https://alphanewsmn.com/alyssa-ahlgren-what-the-shutdown-has-taught-us/

The plan to destroy your religious freedom

LGBTQ activists want to make disagreements and different religious beliefs against the law. The Fairness for All Act adopts the faulty reasoning of the Equality Act, treating all disagreement about the nature of marriage and the biological basis of sex as illegal discrimination. That's not fairness, that's anti-American.

• Pete Buttigieg, Democrat candidate for President, is not gay enough for this crowd.
• Your beloved sister or niece who are lesbian and accepted by the family and community will not pass muster.
• Your best friend from high school who is gay and a Republican will not be gay enough.
• Andrew Sullivan is not gay enough, "The gay left hates and wants to persecute orthodox Christians, however much good they do. And they’ve taken over the movement."

This is about power, not love and acceptance of differences.

You don’t have to fund a bad college education

Imagine a country with free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly without being attacked--unknown through out most of history, and now close to being lost if we can judge from the 25 or so Democrat candidates and Colin Kaepernick's latest antics to stop patriotism by a major corporation. I know you'll be shocked to learn this, but there is a class at a public university where a conservative Christian is on the faculty. Dr. Duke Pesta, University of Wisconsin.

https://youtu.be/mTJTFOyr0fk

• Why are you funding 1) radical ideas at your kids' college, and 2) their debt? Sure, they may return to normal by 25 or 30, but why put up with it?

• Your tuition and fees for your kids have turned the universities into ideological cesspools (paraphrase). Why should the rest of us bail out the bad decisions of university administrations?

• Literature is not read for its own value, but students are required to read Shakespeare or the Bible or 19th century literature through the lens of radical feminism or "queer eye." How can you avoid these radical reeducation camps we call "college," or "higher education?" Maybe a year or two working first? Get a little maturity first? He suggests 20 as the starting age--have some money in the bank and some education from the job. Skin in the game.

• Universities are the church of progressivism, a bubble of Marxism, and professors are the preachers. These evangelists for Marxism have never worked in the real world, in many cases. How much more history do we need to know Marxism is a failure? Academe is a good example of the failure of Marxism/Socialism.

• Hypocrites graduating with mounds of debt; grad students acting as slaves for the tenured faculty. Universities are class based and hierarchical. Even in business schools social justice theory trumps capitalism. Speaker believes college students are graduating in 2019 with the knowledge a high school student may have known in 1970. (I think that's a stretch--more like 1940). 

• He’s really hard on "Common Core" as prep for college because it dumbs everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Sexual indoctrination into transgenderism for very young children. What worked for the Left in college is now transferred to elementary age as young as six. Even in liberal radical Madison, WI, it's too much.

President Trump as defender of religious freedom

I was puzzled that the Washington Post editorial board was attacking the Bible as literature in schools today; after all, you can't read a history of rock or pop music or understand Shakespeare if you are illiterate in the Bible. But the attack by its "editorial board" is tied to Trump. He tweeted it is a good idea, therefore, it must be awful, oppressive and fascist.

The president made promises as a candidate about restoring our religious freedom, and it was one of the earliest promises he kept and with little fan-fare. The MSM haven't said a lot, but the left continues to attack nuns, bakers, and Catholic school kids at a march for life even after the Supreme Court returned to them their constitutionally protected rights.

I urge you to go on line and print out "Federal Law Protections for Religious Liberty" from the Office of the Attorney General, Oct. 6, 2017. Give it to your pastors, priests and professors. No other country has this; and no other U.S. president has told his AG to compile an easy to understand guide of laws, regulations, court cases and litigation results concerning that most precious of all our freedoms.

During the eight years of Obama, our freedoms were eroded in small but alarming ways with, "I've got a pen, and I've got a phone" to "fundamentally change" our nation. From announcing embryonic stem cell research at a Catholic university to setting up bureaucratic regulations in various agencies which bullied people of the book to using a website announcing which religious schools were receiving exemptions from Title IX, President Obama, a professed Christian, ground his heel on religious liberty in the United State.

Slowly the agency actions which were chipping away at our freedoms are being undone. That website which was used by the left to harass and mock people of faith, has been taken down. Other changes are being made in hostile bureaucracies in the Department of Labor and State Department and there is an ambassador at large for international religious freedom. HHS now has a division devoted to conscience protections and religious freedom.

Use it or lose it applies to religious freedom, too.

For more on this important issue see May 2019 issue of First Things. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/05/trump-and-religious-liberty

Do we really need the federal government for common sense?

"The U.S. Senate’s Judicial Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), will host a hearing, titled “Stifling Free Speech: Technology Censorship and the Public Discourse,” which will address whether social media giant Twitter and other tech companies are censoring conservative speech, including the hit pro-life movie UNPLANNED." (Carmel Communications)

Do we want the government directly involved in managing a private business like cable stations and social media companies? Are they now public utilities? Cities and states stifle religious expression and thought through local regulations and laws (bakeries, restaurants, flower shops)--does the federal government need to pile on another layer? Are there tax adjustments the government can make to companies who violate our freedom of expression and religion?

Signage battle in paradise

This summer rainbow colored signs have appeared in the tiny yards of some Lakeside cottages--I call them "virtue signaling" and they speak to "women's rights" (aka abortion), "science is real," (climate change), gender, race, illegal immigration without ever using those words. Since our owner's agreement says no signs, people have been asked to remove them (we don't even own our land--we lease it). Now I'm seeing signs about First Amendment free speech rights. Sorry. This is a private association, and First Amendment applies to the government not being able to shut you up, not an association you willingly joined. The Association also forbids smoking, alcohol, mean dogs, and parking on certain streets. That's what makes it such a nice place to live and safe for little children.

 

ISIS doesn’t just have a target on Pam Geller’s back

This will come as a shock to liberals and progressives, and even some conservatives who have criticized Geller, but ISIS doesn't just dislike conservatives who draw Mohammed, but they hate the liberals too for their belief in the first amendment (which includes religion). You know the one--allows them to ridicule and criticize Christians, stomp on the American flag and attend Michael Moore movies that insult our intelligence. Most of the people they've killed have been Muslim, but they're coming for you, too.

Pam Geller’s abuse of free speech

“I take a back seat to no one when it comes to defending free speech — even that of the worst sorts. We let neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan march and protest because the true test of free speech is that unpopular speech is tolerated. “  But for Pam Geller, she’ll hide in the trunk.

Bigotry comes in all shapes, sizes, races, genders and public offices.

Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood

You've heard a lot about Hobby Lobby. The other company is Conestoga Wood, owned my Mennonites. The ACA mandate includes a long list of contraceptives, 3 of which are abortifacients, which the owners of both companies object to, but they have no problem with the others (as a Catholic group might). They believe that providing drugs that can prevent embryos from implanting in the womb would make their companies complicit in a form of abortion. Obama has already exempted non-profits from this mandate, and of course has personally changed the law over 20 times to suit his Democrat supporters and those running for office this fall.  Freedom of religion for Obama means your religion stops at the church door.  He’s confused it with freedom of worship.

More than you’ll ever want to know about implantation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantation_(human_embryo)

The Manhattan Declaration

Sometimes I have to step outside my conservative Christian safe place and answer those who think I'm just weird or going over the edge. Really, friends, there are millions with my view. Perhaps it's you who is out of step or over the edge with your wish for government care 24/7? I had this viewpoint before they drafted theirs, but it's nice to find such confirmation.

"While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions." From the Manhattan Declaration; a call of Christian Conscience, Nov. 20, 2009.

The Manhattan Declaration

And what about Molly?

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal tells about Molly Norris, a caroonist who's been driven underground and forced to give up her job for suggesting something Muslims didn't like. Now we have Sharia for our newspaper staff? Taranto continues and notes that Obama has only championed First Amendment rights for Muslims:

"Where is President Obama? Last month, speaking to a mostly Muslim audience at the White House, the president strongly defended the right of another imam held up as a moderate to build a mosque adjacent to Ground Zero. The next day, and again at a press conference last week, Obama said he was merely standing up for the First Amendment. As far as we recall, it's the only time Barack Obama has ever stood up for anybody's First Amendment rights.

Now Molly Norris, an American citizen, is forced into hiding because she exercised her right to free speech. Will President Obama say a word on her behalf? Does he believe in the First Amendment for anyone other than Muslims?"

Story about Molly Norris.

Molly disappears.