NO.

I did something this morning that I haven’t done in a very, very long time.

I shut the radio off during a news report.

It wasn’t before shouting.

I’m not proud of that, but the tantrumatic expressions of an entire generation marinated in the divisive and toxic stew of political correctness have reached a zenith for me.

It was yet another story about how people who are ostensibly adults have nothing better to do than gather outside a building with the President’s name on it, and angrily protest the fact that a man who has zero connection with a tiny (and I mean statistically insignificant) group didn’t “do” enough to specifically denounce them in the strongest possible terms.

Like so many other “outrages” surrounding the President’s communications, this is yet another misstep by the President.  Not because he didn’t do as our self-appointed betters in the media, and their shrinking audiences seemed to think necessary, but because he didn’t take the opportunity to set them straight.

Sadly, we have reached a point in this country where without any real consensus, as evidenced by a successful ratification process, whereby we have amended the First Amendment.  By allowing the creation of a de facto right to not be offended, we have enshrined the heckler’s veto, and subjected the freedom of expression to the censor of 50%+1.

If you are one of the people reading this, and saying to yourself “But Blackiswhite, some ideas are so repulsive that they should be shut down, by any means necessary.”, I’m going to tell you, unequivocally, you are wrong, and as un-American as you can possibly  be.  And I don’t care if you don’t like that.  I don’t give a good God Damn if you are “triggered” by that.  Despite all recent efforts to the contrary, life doesn’t come with “safe spaces” and places to color, suck your thumb, or cling to your blankie, while rocking back and forth.

America has been successful because of its freedoms.  The lynchpin of the entire experiment is embodied in the First Amendment, and we are all made to be better citizens by it when we participate in the marketplace of ideas, rather than demanding that the marketplace be shut down.  To silence someone for saying something you don’t like is lazy.  It is easy.  And it is tyrannical, because it ultimately punishes “bad” thoughts.  And given what is being “taught” in the ivory halls of academia today, it is sadly predictable.

It comes down to this:  Compulsion is easy; persuasion is difficult.  But persuasion doesn’t rely on fear or force for conversion, and it requires you to understand, to think about, and to evaluate your reasons for thinking the way that you do.  It also requires the deepest kind of honesty…honesty to yourself, because if you have to confront the reality that the facts don’t support what you believe, but you choose to believe it anyway, then your beliefs are not rational.  And that’s ok, too, but you no longer get to claim “consensus”, or that the “science is settled” or that someone is “on the wrong side of history”, or any other fatally weak rationale for not engaging in a debate, and instead, attempting to silence those who believe differently than you do.

All of this is bad enough, but this latest manifestation, in regard to the denunciations of the President, and the obligatory breathless reporting on it is not only a blatant double standard, but an engagement in a game that the subject can never win.  For better or worse, there is a segment of the population for whom nothing this President, or the party he claims affiliation with will ever be worthy.  The idea that he must be made to specifically denounce a group he has nothing to do with, in the strongest terms, is laughable, as is the implication by doing so, he will magically be granted their approbation.  To believe this is to believe that these same critics would abandon the “victimhood” status which they have employed to such great advantage, rather than simply moving the goal posts, as this twitter exchange illustrates .  The weakness that too many who suffer this kind of assault fail to see is that capitulating to these kinds of demands means allowing others to shape and form your own speech, until you fit into the same mold their as their own preferences, making you indistinguishable from those preferences, but less appealing, because those preferences won’t have your demonstrated proclivities toward the badpolitithougtspeech disfavored by the mob, and our self-appointed betters…thus ensuring the only real diversity that is “approved”… impervious to the irony that if it meets with such approval, it isn’t really an expression of diversity at all.

Being a citizen, rather than a subject, means that you will be exposed to things you do not like.  It means hearing things you don’t like hearing.  And it means that you can evaluate for yourself the merit of the ideas and speech that you are exposed to.  This is worthwhile, if only because you don’t surrender the sovereignty over your own conscience to others and their own subjective ideas about what is worthy of expression…which any citizen knows is dangerous, because sooner or later, YOU will be on the wrong side of what that 50%+1 deems worthy.  This is why the rule of law matters, and why we are all diminished when we engage in de facto exceptions.

Read Full Post »

On the Coronation of Our Nation’s First Monarch…

What I learned from Barry the Usurper’s speech:

1. Progressivism sees the ultimate aim of government as the removal or mitigation of consequences for those it has deliberately enslaved with gilded shackles.

2. Logic has no place in the actions of government. You MUST believe that deportation is physically impossible, but verification of tax status and criminal background checks for the very same people can be accomplished with the wave of a wand.

3. “New tones” and “civility” only apply to discourse directed toward the monarch and his prerogatives; he will be as insulting, as condescending, and as reckless with the truth as he likes. He may impugn the character of his opponents, and assassinate any character he choses without acknowledging that he never had a right to claim the moral high ground that he has. And if you expect something different, that’s your problem, not his.

4. Breaking the law should never be rewarded, unless the Monarch deems it proper to do so.

5. Redefining terms and words in order to rhetorically spin dross into gold is acceptable linguistic alchemy.

6. Claiming cover based on the actions of predecessors whom you have reviled and disrespected at every turn isn’t despicable and toxically ironic when the Monarch does it.

7. If Congress doesn’t pass a law that the Monarch wants, the Monarch can refuse to enforce the law that exists…and such a trick is capable of repetition.

Read Full Post »

Modern-Day Incantations and the Failure of “Reason”

The most powerful word in the country today is… “Offensive”.

The words of a Facebook acquaintance hung there on the group page, taunting my mind away from a more basic Sunday morning meditation.   It worked, and my mind started milling the words, prompting my immediate rejoinder “If that were true, it would work for everyone, non?”

But the more I thought about it, the more I came to consider the “wrongness” that lead to the statement being made in the first place.  I realized that it isn’t about the rank hypocrisy that sees nothing wrong with an entitlement for some people to invoke “offense” as a means to stop discussion, debate, questions, behavior or beliefs they do not like, but is incapable of even considering that other parties might be offended by the discussion, debate, questions, behavior or beliefs of the those invoking “offense”, let alone capable of invoking “offense” themselves.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think being able to end all discussion, debate, questions, behavior, or beliefs by claiming to be “offended” is unhealthy for a free society, offensive to liberty, and childish in the extreme.   As long as it is impossible to have an honest conversation, because it will almost certainly “offend” someone, it will be impossible to address any issue of import.  It doesn’t take long before this will lead to financial impairment, social impairment, and impairment of national security. (See President Obama, Second Term)

But the really, really odious part if this is that I often hear “Offense” uttered like an incantation from many of the same people who speak of “reason” being superior to faith, and a basis for them to assume an intellectual superiority that they clearly haven’t earned, while they often put faith in “facts” that have expiration dates due to constantly changing nature of scientific paradigms.  The illogic of presuming that rights which are guaranteed by law are subject to override if only they can apply their completely subjective responses to the exercise of those rights would be laughable if it wasn’t pursued with such zeal and dedication.  Orwell himself couldn’t have conceived of the sheer scope of the vanity and delusion that have combined to impose a bizzaro-world rhetoric to such a degree that sincerity and directness are relegated to criminal status.

The saddest aspect to this current state of affairs is that too many of us allowed ourselves to be cowed by this practice, as if offending someone, or at least those granted a de facto privileged status by the arbiters of acceptability, is a combination of the worst sin and the worst crime that a person can commit.  The fact is that this extraordinary power and cancer on society wouldn’t be powerful at all if we didn’t let it.  But this requires a boldness to push back, that too few have the backbone to exhibit.  Start responding by saying “SO???”  Ask them to explain why they are suffering from the alleged “offense”.  Put the onus on them to prove why it should matter to you, and to everyone else, rather than giving what has morphed into a generic and reflexive complaint the presumption of legitimacy without the burden of proving it.  It is your duty as a citizen and a member of society to engage people who don’t want you to engage in an honest discourse.  It is your birthright to be able to do so without the threat of sanction by government, or those who want to destroy the very way you live, and censor your very thoughts.

STAND.  BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

Read Full Post »

Because Being On One List Isn’t Enough…

I’m ashamed to admit that I was amused for a bit.  When the Hobby Lobby decision was first handed down, the deluge of butthurt and really bad analysis from the Left was entertaining.  It offered a glimpse into a mindset that has been wrongly conditioned to think that religion was something confined to various buildings dotting the landscape of the country for a few hours a week…a diversion for people not smart enough to take advantage of an opportunity to sleep in, rather than a deeply held conviction that guides the actions of those who believe, and that as such, will be expressed in the actions taken by the holders of those beliefs, including what they do, and what government may try to force them to do, with their own property.

But the howls continued.  The vitriol continued.  And expressions of hatred were aired without restraint or condemnation, once again giving lie to the Left’s own sermonizing about civility and tolerance.

As a student of history, I wasn’t disturbed by the Hobby Lobby ruling, because it brought about the correct result.  I was disturbed by the fact that it wasn’t a unanimous ruling, which in and of itself shows just how far we have strayed from first principles.  And as the wailing and gnashing of teeth continued to grow into a low roar, fueled by ignorance and indigence that someone should be allowed to dissent and not participate in the high holy sacrament of killing unborn children, I saw yet more confirmation of a clash of beliefs being perpetrated by a creed that is still inexplicably permitted to masquerade as value neutral, when it is nothing of the sort.  Secularism as practiced today has death at its heart, and as such it can be nothing but a cancer that is embraced and nurtured by too many in society until the tumor in our collective head has grown so large that it threatens the very nature of who we are as a people.  Our society still utters the expressions of freedom, but does so in contradiction to the convictions that inform our actions.  These soulless supplications are offered both as ruse, and rebuke, intended to convince the less vigilant among us that there is no cause for alarm, and to portray the watchmen as hysterical and ridiculous.  And in this climate, usurpations and entitlements are magically and mystically transmogrified into “rights”,while real rights, which government is obligated to protect and defend, are consigned to wither and fade in the shadow of the “rights” “given” (and protected by nothing other than) by the artifice and caprice of government, which is more interested in redistributing private property and the bounty earned by it, than in defending it.

A healthy society is one that understands that morality is a cultural necessity.  No society has long lasted when every man has done right in his own eyes, without a common frame of reference to which everyone can refer.  Government works best when it accepts and codifies those guard rails which delineate the boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not.  It is an unhealthy society which rejects what has been shown to have value, and provide a framework that allows society to grow and thrive, in favor of a government that assumes the mantle of moral authority based on what it determines is true, is right, and is acceptable, because there is no anchor for any of these determinations other than the desires of 50% +1.  Some may say that this sickness is a product of the 20th Century.  I’ve come to understand that the body politic has been infected with this particular hubris from much longer, but I do think that it accelerated, at an exponential rate, in the 20th Century.

The standing complaint of human degeneracy remains against us.  Causes have been operating—and of late years with fearful rapidity and strength—to produce a state of moral obliquity and practical atheism among us, appalling in magnitude and of alarming consequence.  It has become of late quite customary to sneer at the Puritanism of our fathers, and to speak with contempt of the severity of their manners and the bigotry of their faith.  This impious treatment, by the present corrupters of society, of a generation of men whose lofty principles and illustrious virtues they seem utterly unable to comprehend, is well adapted to not only arouse the deepest indignation, but to excite the most lively concern.  There are two quarters from which these evil influences chiefly proceed.  A class of men without conscience, and reckless of all moral restraint, have gained ascendancy in the public favor, and assume from their prominent position to mould and direct the public sentiment of the nation.  Their general influence upon the public morals has been like the wind of the desert, –poisonous, withering, and destructive.  Another and very large class of men moving in the lower walks of life form a significant element of our American population, whose hard and vicious instincts , gratified without compunction and paraded everywhere in the most offensive manner, would seem to render them well-nigh incapable of reformation.  Apparently insensible to all the nobler sentiments of public morality and virtue, and ever ready to perform their congenial part in the general demoralization the demand that all the higher classes shall pander to their depraved appetites, as the price of their patronage and support.  In this reciprocal play of the baser passions the common principles of morality are daily sacrificed, and the strong and the weak join hands in carrying down the nation to the very verge of ruin.  No man can observe the conditions of society in our country, and the obvious impulses of human conduct, without feeling that the perils against which the fathers warned us, and which have so faithfully and constantly pointed out ministers of religion, have, not withstanding, increased at a fearful rate, without seeing the most alarming departures from the standard of individual rectitude and social integrity have occurred among us within the century that is past.
—Byron Sunderland, Washington D.C., April 14, 1863.

And now we have come to a point where a vocal segment of society have decided that a recognition that someone else’s right to not participate in the use of a substance or device that they personally find repugnant to their faith should be subordinate to government’s “ability” to make them pay for another’s choice to use such substance or device.  We have come to that point where a recognition of the right of conscience is considered to be a “denial of access” and abridgement of the recipient’s “right to choose” with their benefactors money.  And those who protest loudest because they see in this recognition a threat to a river of blood money so long and casually extorted from the taxpayer feel absolutely no guilt in their perversion of terms and concepts in their efforts to gin up outrage against the affirmation of the obvious, which is still obviously stated, and has remained such in a more than a century’s worth of a campaign of deception and subversion by their own design, because honesty in their intentions never would have obtained the support they otherwise enjoyed.

Read Full Post »

This Week In Irony

I know, I know…since the dawn of the Obama Era, irony has become as ubiquitous as the sunrise, and through its cumulative effect, toxic to the Republic, which I’m sure is all part of the plan.  Nonetheless, after a week like this one, I can only conclude that our self-appointed betters and “thought leaders (now there’s an irony for you)” have decided that they have succeeded in creating a climate of apathy and ignorance so strong that no statement, and no circumstance is too outrageous to tumble from their lips.  The sad thing is, I think that they might be right, as this week seems to prove…

First on this week is the “Reverend” Al Sharpton.  Yes, the “drug informant” Al Sharpton, who brought us this spectacularly polished turd:

“I think that the message is, no matter what the world may do to unfairly, no matter how your crucified, nailed to the cross at home, or in your personal relationships, or on the job that you can rise if you don’t lose yourself during the hard times and the challenges.[“]

Put aside the garbage where he’s trying to link the meaning of Easter to Barack Obama.

This is really, really bad theology.  Easter is about sin, a price that mankind would never be able to pay for redemption, and the willing sacrifice of God’s son to pay that price for ALL OF US, and to conquer death.  That doesn’t happen without Christ, no matter how much those who worship government try to convince us that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.  An awful lot of rhetorical sulphur he’s preaching.  I think he might want to study up on what the book says about that kind of behavior.

Next up are the usual suspects with regard to Chelsea Clinton’s announcement  at the “Girls No Ceilings Conversation” event in New York City:

“One more thing to say very quickly,” the 34-year-old addressed the crowd. “Mark and I are very excited that we have our first child arriving later this year. I certainly feel all the better whether it’s a girl or a boy that they’ll grow up in a world with so many strong female leaders…”

Now, given the positive reaction from the crowd, one can only assume that they believe that she will be going to a store and purchasing a baby when she thinks that the time is right, because otherwise, she would be referring to a lump of cells that she has a sacrosanct right to terminate at anytime because it isn’t a “child” or “baby”…at least that’s what wymyn’s groups and blood money grubbers like Planned Parenthood keep telling us.

Hillary couldn’t help but to also chime in:

“I’m expecting a grand child which I’m very excited about. We’re very excited about what’s happening in our family but we’re also very excited about what we’re doing.”

Congratulations, kid.  Grams needs a political prop, so you get to be born!

And our final entry on this week’s hit parade.  Fresh off of questions regarding his son’s motivations for wanting the land that Clive Bundy ranches on in Nevada, and scrutiny of the connections between himself and the head of the Bureau of Land Management (and after previously being in the news for diverting campaign funds to his grand-daughter), Harry had this to say about the Federal Government’s aborted attempt to “shock and awe” the prickly rancher in to submission to his Federal betters:

 “Well, it’s not over. We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over,” Reid said.

Given Harry’s misappropriation of campaign money and his apparent intimate knowledge of private citizen’s Federal tax returns, such as Mitt Romney, the Koch Brothers, and Clive Bundy, I guess that means that we’ll soon be treated to the sight of Harry “I-Never-Met-A-Budget-I’d-Pass” Reid being marched out of the Senate in handcuffs.

Yeah, I know.  The law is only for little people, and those who happen to not be Democrats.   Yea for “fundamental change”.

 

Read Full Post »

Interregnum

With a government based on the rule of law becoming increasingly lawless with every passing day, I find the subject of rebellion on my mind more and more.  I don’t mean rebellion in the sense of the contumacious response that many of our forebears reserved for those who disregarded the notions of individual rights and liberty in favor of a distant sovereign.  I mean a deliberate and conscious effort to hinder the designs of those who “rule” without understanding, and who turn the notion of consent of the governed around so that the governed must seek the consent of the government.  Indeed, when we are burdened with a President who has voiced criticism of the Constitution that characterizes it as a “charter of Negative Liberties”, and laments the fact that it has in the past prevented government from working a top down, fundamental change, including redistribution of wealth, as a means to work “social justice” upon the country, and without a trace of understanding that this has been a feature and not a bug, reasonable men and women will observe that these are not normal times.

It is hard to maintain a fealty and respect for the offices of government when its scrutiny and muscle render so little of it those it was intended to serve.  And as the single biggest usurpation of power ever devised by man, the cruelly and ironically titled “Affordable Care Act” continues to harm Americans in greater numbers than it “helps”, despite the Administration’s near constant extra-Constitutional efforts to delay implementation of some of its more onerous provisions, I suspect that I am not the only one considering rebellion, in a myriad degrees.

I fear the disruption and chaos that would come with an open insurrection.  But with a government that disregards any semblance of limitation upon its power, or any regard for ours, I find it difficult to believe that things will improve of their own accord.  As corruption becomes the norm, and as government wears less tolerant of competitors and critics, I suspect that acts of rebellion, large and small, will become commonplace.  Lawlessness begets lawlessness.  Selective enforcement is no different from arbitrary and capricious fiat, save for the window dressing of legitimacy conferred by the fact that what is being selectively enforce having actually once been enacted by a legislature.  Without a common moral compass to act as a moderating influence, I have little faith that once contempt for the rule of law is shared equally by those charged with enforcing it, and those meant to live under it, that bloody retribution will not be a fatiguing fixture of daily life.  And still, it comes, along with the day when each person will have to decide how far is too far, what trespasses are too offensive, and what intrusions are intolerable.  As that decision is arrived at, the legitimacy of government will evaporate like morning fog on a summer lake, because once those charged with maintaining the peace have abrogated the birthright of our citizens, the social compact will be swept away, leaving those with no understanding of the philosophy and history of our legal tradition to make the laws.

25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Judges 21:25

Read Full Post »

A Nation of Bullies

I saw a post today on Facebook talking about how wrong it is that the Presstitute Corpse was all over the story about a top Chris Christie aid and a childhood friend of his colluding to snarl up traffic for the city of Fort Lee, New Jersey getting on the George Washington Bridge. [Apparently, they decided to “punish” the mayor of Fort Lee, a Democrat, for refusing to endorse Christie in his campaign for governor, so multiple lanes leading to the bridge were shut down for a “traffic study”.]  Basically, this post took the position that the same media that was fairly disinterested in the IRS being used to target the Administration’s critics, and really cannot be persuaded to dig very hard into Benghazi shouldn’t be making a big deal about this abuse of power, because it shows that Christie can be a badass.

It’s right and it’s wrong.

First, the attitude of the Presstitute Corpse with regard to the abuses of power and scandals of the Obama Administration is contemptible, and the logic is laid bare in this exchange between DNC Chair Debbie Wassermann-Schultz and CNN’s Don Lemon.  The sad truth is that both deserve a great deal of scrutiny and criticism.

I don’t want a Presidential Candidate (I wouldn’t have chosen Christie anyway) who establishes his “badass” creds by abusing power, or allowing those close to him to do so without his knowledge *winkwink*.  And it isn’t ok when one of “ours” does it, simply because it has become second nature to the Executive Branch in Washington DC.

Abuse of power is the worst abuse of the public trust because it takes something that exists for the benefit of citizens, and turns it against them.  And when it is used to specifically punish or deter the exercise of freedom of speech and freedom of association, it becomes particularly repugnant.  While we have an undercurrent in society today that finds retaliation against the exercise of these rights acceptable, especially if the retaliator was “offended”, this concept is anti-American, and belies a weakness in those finding such “offense”.  If your ideals are so delicate that you cannot adequately defend them, and instead must “punish” those who believe differently, you’re the one with a problem.  If you cannot convince those who believe differently than you to see it your way, and you believe that the appropriate response is to “punish” them, you’re the one with a problem.   And if you are so “offended” by a differing opinion that you must squelch it, you’re the one with a problem.

You want a candidate who is a badass?  Find one who isn’t afraid to be unapologetically conservative.  Find one who isn’t afraid to go to those places where conservatives “dare not walk”, and plainly and patiently explain why conservative principles, especially smaller government, create opportunity and an economic climate in which the limitations on people’s accomplishments and standard of living are up to them, and not simply reduced to what government let’s them have.  Find one who will not retreat, and will not compromise freedom…but most of all, find one who is a good enough leader that he or she will not be “surprised” by a close aid or staffer who believes it ok to use the offices of government to punish people who disagree with them.

If Christie knew about this, he isn’t worthy of the nation’s trust in Federal office.  If he didn’t know, then he isn’t ready to be trusted with this kind of authority.  But if the Presstitute Corpse believes that it is appropriate to turn this into the biggest scandal since Watergate when it couldn’t be bothered to turn the same scrutiny on the IRS, on Benghazi, on Solyndra and other “green energy” graft, they are committing malpractice, and need to be held to account, too.

 

Read Full Post »

The First Amendment Is Still Alive

A friend of mine posted a link to an article this morning he prefaced with the question “Is sacrificing your religious liberty the price of market participation?”  The article, by Benjamin Wiker, entitled “The Religious-Liberty Quagmire to Come” discusses a recent Slate article sympathetic with the current HHS mandate overreach in which government attempts to abrogate the rights of people to exercise their religious liberty with their property, specifically duly chartered legal business entities.

The article’s author opposes the viewpoints expressed in the Slate article, by author Dalia Lithwick.  I oppose them also, but on grounds originating not just in my studies, but also by practical experience and logic.

The first point raised is this:

Lithwick argues, first of all, that corporations are distinct entities from individuals.

This is true in a literal sense.  Corporations have a legal identity that are separate from their owners in the same way that I have a legal identity that is separate from my oldest son.  You’ll note that I did not use my wife in that example.  It was not an accident.  While she is indeed an entity that is distinct from myself, we happen to live in a community property state, so we “enjoy” the dual status of having distinct legal identities, while legally being considered as having the same legal identity for legal, and more to the point, commercial, purposes.  This reality is imposed upon us by the state, which applies this status based upon an action we took based on a shared religious conviction, and retain based upon that same shared religious conviction.  We are each “owners” of that resultant fictional legal entity known as a “marital community”, which, at least in our case, exists and acts in both personal and commercial transactions in ways that express or are the result of our individual religious beliefs.

While individuals can have religious beliefs, corporations can’t. Once you establish a corporation, it is automatically a secular corporation.

This is what we called in law school a “false starting premise”.  The reason is simple.  The state’s blessing to act as a corporate entity does not automatically confer a “secular” (like the author of the piece, I also object to the common use of the word “secular”, and for the same reasons, however, for the purpose of this essay, I will use it in the context of the incorrectly presumed “neutrality” in which it is often used) status on the resulting entity.  The reason for this is simple.  State enabling statutes almost always permit corporations and limited liability companies to be established “for any lawful purpose”, which by its nature would include the conducting of any lawful business in a manner consistent with the religious faith of the owners of the entity in question.  In fact, thanks to the First Amendment, and its extension to the individual states, the states would be legally prohibited from restricting individuals from forming entities for such purposes.

The other obvious weakness in this rather remarkable assertion from Ms. Lithwick would be the fact that churches often incorporate as non-profit corporations in order to apply for Section 501(c)(3) status so that donations, gifts, and tithes maybe tax deductible to the donor. (Contrary to popular opinion, churches do not have to apply for this status to be tax-free.  They are already tax-free, as they should be, as a result of the First Amendment.)

Wiker states that Lithwick’s assertion is rooted in the decision in the Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. decision.  The corporation is owned by a Mennonite Family which employs 950 people.  The family opposes the HHS mandates regarding abortion on religious grounds.  The Federal Judge hearing the case concluded:

“We simply cannot understand how a for-profit, secular corporation — apart from its owners — can exercise religion,” circuit Judge Robert Cowen wrote. “A holding to the contrary … would eviscerate the fundamental principle that a corporation is a legally distinct entity from its owners.”

Aside from the naked and unsupported (and unsupportable) conclusion that a corporation is secular, there are a few other weaknesses.  State law would rightfully permit me to draft and file for a client Articles of Incorporation or a Certificate of Formation establishing that the entity is “being formed for the express purpose of selling ice cream, and spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, and any other lawful purpose,”, and there is nothing that the state or the Federal government could Constitutionally do to prevent me from doing so. Being a distinct legal entity doesn’t mean that a corporation cannot express or conduct itself based upon a specific political or religious viewpoint.  And while there are instances in which government may lawfully restrict what an owner does with its private property in certain balancing of the equities situations, at this time, I can think of none which directly conflict with the right of conscience.

The assertion of an automatic secular nature of corporations based on a theory of complete segregation between a legal entity and those that own them faces other philosophical and logical difficulties aside from being an assumption of a fact not in evidence.  First among them is the fact that one of the pillars the good Judge rests his opinion on is the notion that that an individual can exercise religious freedom, but a corporation cannot.  This point ignores the fact that corporations ARE allowed to exercise other First Amendment rights, such as freedom of speech, and Freedom of Association, which is the main principle underlying the freedom to enter into contracts with people of your choosing, or the freedom to hire people who you think make a good fit with your corporation, and will make a good employee.  Recognizing this, there is no logical or legal basis to presume that these freedoms can be exercised by a corporation or an LLC, but that those same entities can or should be barred from exercising religious freedom to act in a manner consistent with the religious beliefs of its owner.

The second weakness with this assertion is the fact that the income from many of these “separate, distinct legal entities” is reported not on a separate tax form for that entity, but on the personal tax forms for those who own those entities, which would hardly make sense if these were indeed separate and distinct from their owners.

The third weakness of this viewpoint is that our economy would be in much worse shape without corporations and LLCs because they make it possible for more people to provide goods and services at prices and in quantities that the risk that they would necessarily have to bear individually would either make prohibitively expensive, or practically impossible to provide.  While the very word “corporation” often evokes the image of boardrooms filled with grey suits making decisions that impact the livelihood of hundreds or thousands, or more, the fact is that the majority of corporations are closely-held businesses, where the ownership consists of a individuals, or small numbers of people, often members of the same family, or of one or two families. And in some instances, this is also true of those large corporations that I previously spoke of.  Ford is one example that comes to mind.  However, even if it wasn’t for the fact that a majority of these entities are small, closely held corporations or LLCs that permit individuals to offer products or services because of the risk management that the law permits through the use of these entities, there is also the fact that the law DOES allow certain individuals who offer goods and services through corporations and LLCs to refuse to offer those goods and services based on the individual owner’s right of conscience and/or religious beliefs, among other factors.  Doctors, who can refuse to perform abortions, and attorneys, who can refuse representation based on any factor at all, are two that come to mind.  While competence or having the requisite skill are among the reasons for these rights of refusal, they are not the ONLY ones.  And while it might be tempting to say that the personal nature of services rendered by these professions support such an exemption, the fact is that for nearly all closely-held business entities, the nature of what those individuals do is personal.  For such individuals, their business is at the forefront of their thinking.  It is the first thing they think of in the morning, it is what they contemplate as they drift off to sleep at night.  Their businesses ARE an expression of who they are, and  that “separate legal entity” invariably becomes associated with the individuals who own them.  The manner in which they conduct their business often expresses an opinion or a philosophy held dear to the owner of that business.  It is not reasonable or logical to suggest or expect that these individuals segregate their religious and spiritual identity and activity from the profession or career that they otherwise breathe and eat; to do so would be a denial of the very essence of the person that the law and society would find morally objectionable and repugnant if any other belief or activity was being discussed instead of the free exercise of religion. This is no less true for a baker of wedding cakes, or a photographer than it is for a doctor or a lawyer who has incorporated so they can ply their trade without risking the loss of everything they own and have worked for to one lawsuit.

Another logical weakness in this assertion is that many of these entities often are operated day-to-day in accordance with various codes of ethics voluntarily committed to by the owners and employees of the corporations and LLCs.  For an entity to be, even indirectly, conducted according to such a code of ethics, but presumably not capable of exercising a religious point of view is facially absurd.

——————————————————————————————————————————-
I’d like to think that things will get better, but the current prevailing prejudice against religion in some of the most litigious groups in our society leads me to believe that we’re in for a lengthy fight to preserve our first liberties.  Especially if examples such as the New Mexico photographer, and the pink swastika philosophy that seeks to punish those who do not wish to participate in their activities, regardless of whether not it makes any logical sense to compel those who object with their beliefs to provide a personal service or product is any indication.  But then, with a federal government that is engaging in similar unconstitutional behavior as a guide, there really is no reason to be surprised at the bold entitlement demonstrated in this strategy, which is why legal interest groups such as the ADF are going to become increasingly important and need our help in the coming years.

Read Full Post »

If Only The Feds Were As Dedicated To CUTTING Spending…

So I got a letter from my friends at the Census Bureau.

Frankly, after my last phone conversation with them, I’m shocked.  But after reading the letter, I’m appalled.  The Census Bureau’s dedication to finding more ways for my government to spend other people’s money buying votes is almost…heroic.  But I’m getting very tired of the idea that I should be an unpaid information gatherer who needs to cheerfully and dutifully provide to them information that can be used to aid identity theft AND target us for more government “dedication”, and that their assurances that our information will be kept confidential and not be misused should be trusted.  In the immortal words of Brother Theo, “I can only assume someone has been spray painting “IDIOT” on my forehead again.”

Dear Resident:

Recently, a U.S. Census Bureau telephone interviewer contacted your household on behalf of the American Community Survey (ACS).  The Census Bureau is conducting this survey under the authority of Title 13, Section 141, 193, 221, of the United States Code, and response to this survey is required by law.  I understand that you have some concerns about participating in this survey, but your household’s participation is important to the success of this survey.

The American Community Survey contains questions about your household characteristics including such topics as education, employment, and housing.  The primary goal of this survey is to provide the information each year about the social, economic, and housing characteristics of the United States.  Your participation helps provide the information needed by your community, county, state, and nation to plan and fund programs at all levels.  The ACS will provide detailed information updated every year.  Before the ACS, such information was only available from the census which is done every 10 years.

We want to emphasize that any information that you give to our interviewer will be kept confidential.  By law, the Census Bureau cannot publish or release to anyone any information that would identify you or your household (Title 13, Section 9).  The information you can provide can be used only for statistical purposes.

We hope that you participate in this survey to help us improve the information that you and others provide about your community.  If you have any questions, call us at 1-888-817-2153.  We will be pleased to help you.

Sincerely,

James B. Treat

Chief, American Community Survey Office

Let’s brake it down, shall we?

Dear Resident:

Recently, a U.S. Census Bureau telephone interviewer contacted your household on behalf of the American Community Survey (ACS).

More than one, actually.  I made the mistake of being polite to the first one.  As the second one learned, I am not amused by unwarranted intrusions on my privacy and my time.

The Census Bureau is conducting this survey under the authority of Title 12, Section 141, 193, 221, of the United States Code, and response to this survey is required by law.  I understand that you have some concerns about participating in this survey, but your household’s participation is important to the success of this survey.

1.  I’m tired of the passive-aggressive bullshit.  Seriously, you set the wrong tone sending an attorney a fat envelope with the words “YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW” on the outside.  And the “Pretty please, participate please?” offered in the same sentence as a reminder that my response is required by law isn’t convincing, it is embarrassing, as I try to keep from laughing out loud at this hamfisted approach.  Knock it off.

2.  I have a law degree.  Continuing to tell me that 13 USC 141, 193, and 221 “gives you the authority” to seize my time, and make me an unpaid gatherer of information that you have no authority to demand of me isn’t very convincing.   You are empowered to ask questions that would tend to aid in the apportionment of Congressional representation.  Nowhere in the three sections you cite are you granted authority to ask me about my education level, my employer, my wages, my commute, my residence and the amenities in it, or the health of the people who live under my roof.  These have as much to do with Congressional apportionment as a goldfish has to do with a delivery truck, and even if the authority to ask such things was clearly spelled out, which it is not, I’m not some vassal or serf to be bullied into coughing up my papers, and letting you know what goes on behind my closed doors simply because Congress wants to know.  Perhaps you have heard of the penumbras and emminations of privacy rights in the Constitution, at least those not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights?  If “privacy” means enough that a woman can hire a doctor to snuff her child in utero, then it certainly would permit me to tell a nosy government that still works for me to go pound sand when it starts asking me to spend significant amounts of my time sharing information with it which is none of its business.

3.  I don’t “have some concerns about participating in this survey” (did you learn condescension on our dime as well?) ; I DON’T TRUST YOU.  I read the pretty pamphlet you included with the survey, which outlined how your employees are prohibited by law from disclosing or misusing my confidential information.  It might have even been reassuring, had I not been paying attention to recent news, but given the fact that the IRS is subject to laws and regulations more specific and strict regarding the treatment of citizens’ personal data, and the late revelations demonstrating that IRS employees weren’t deterred one whit by these laws and regulations, you’ll just have to understand that we both know I’d have to be three days dead to trust your agency with that data.  No thank you.

The American Community Survey contains questions about your household characteristics including such topics as education, employment, and housing.  The primary goal of this survey is to provide the information each year about the social, economic, and housing characteristics of the United States.  Your participation helps provide the information needed by your community, county, state, and nation to plan and fund programs at all levels.  The ACS will provide detailed information updated every year.  Before the ACS, such information was only available from the census which is done every 10 years.

1.  Those household characteristics are as related to the topic of the census as a goldfish is related to a delivery truck.

2.  So, as I correctly discerned from the outset, the purpose of this survey is to get information that will allow our elected officials to go shopping with our money and buy votes.

3.  Every year?  I definitely didn’t see the authority to conduct a survey annually in 13 USC 141.  In fact, it was very specific about surveys in addition to the decennial census, but it did NOT authorize the taking of a survey annually.

We want to emphasize that any information that you give to our interviewer will be kept confidential.  By law, the Census Bureau cannot publish or release to anyone any information that would identify you or your household (Title 13, Section 9).  The information you can provide can be used only for statistical purposes.

I want to emphasize that I don’t trust you, no one with three functioning brain cells has any reason to trust you, and you are asking for information that is none of your business.  If I can’t be forced to quarter troops in my home, then I can’t be compelled to reveal to a Census Bureau employee information about amenities in it, or the people who live in it.  And I do not appreciate the presumption that my free time is yours to hijack for purposes of me reporting on myself and my family so that Congress can go on a vote-buying shopping trip with even more of other people’s money.  I realize that you think that the 40 minutes you estimated would be necessary for me to fill out your survey was an innocuous demand on my time.  But you’re only one of many agencies which think that they are making innocent and de minimus demands on my time.  And it is starting to add up.

The fact is that I am citizen of a nation founded on the unique recognition of the rights of the individual…a concept we felt so strongly about that we drafted a Bill of Rights to ensure that the power of government would be limited and subservient to the individual.  This hasn’t been revoked, nor have these rights been surrendered…a fact that many federal employees and elected officials are on the cusp of being very deliberately and unpleasantly reminded of.

The law you cite doesn’t give you the authority to ask the questions you have asked, and even if it did, it is an unwarranted and intrusive invasion of my privacy.  I answered the only questions that the statute can be reasonably said to allow, and they are the only ones I have any intention of answering.  Your time might be better served harassing someone who doesn’t understand the difference between a citizen and a subject.

Read Full Post »

Beware The Wrath of A Patient Man

This week, Chris Matthews attempted to expand a lucrative franchise of fostering division and hatred in a manner befit of a panoply of “leaders” of the “African-American Community” when he assumed the mantle of authority to speak “On behalf of all white people“.

Now I’m not about to follow in his footsteps and make the same mistake. I can only speak for myself, and as a person who happens to be white (think physical characteristic and not identity), I assure you that Chris Matthews does not speak for me. If some of the reactions that I read yesterday are any indication, I’m not the only one who shares this opinion.

I’m not sure if the recent anniversary of the untimely death of Mary Jo Kopechne at the hands of one of his former associates was weighing a little too heavily on his conscience, causing him to have a little something extra before his broadcast, or years of seeing “RACISM!!!!” in everything from blacktop roads to the milk in his morning corn flakes has further strained his already tenuous grasp on reality. I prefer either of those options to rank cynicism and a weariness at seeing grievance hustlers like Al “I-perpetrated-a-fraud-and-got-away-with-it” Sharpton, and Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson make a very good living casting every event imaginable as an expression of racism and discrimination requiring them to “lead their communities”, and often demand apologies when none are owed from people who do not owe them, and deciding to give it a whirl himself.

Regardless, the media, and the usual suspects, which includes politicians, have done a fine job in turning Treyvon Martin’s death into something it never was: the result of racism.

From the Injustice Department, headed by one of the biggest race hypocrites to draw breath in my memory, to the President himself, who again inserted himself into this controversy by pissing gasoline all over a fire stoked by these “leaders” for the last week, the meme is out there that racism is the reason a 17-year-old is dead, along with a law that was never invoked in the criminal case against the hispanic man who shot him. And it is being used to justify demonstrations among the perpetually grieved, and riots and property damage that make most law-abiding Americans less, not more, sympathetic to their cause. “Disgusted” is far too mild a word to describe my feelings about the rhetoric, the lies, the vitriol, and the complete disrespect for the law, and its processes that I have been witness to this last week.

I was born at the beginning of the 1970s. When I was a child, the attitudes of the previous generation were already being swept away, and, at least in my social circles, Dr. King’s dream about judging a man based on character instead of race seemed normal, rather than some sort of manifestation of backwards thinking. At least for a while. As I got older, I started to see racism firsthand. I saw it on my college campus (an inner-city campus), and in the workplace, where it was often implemented by law. And the more I saw, especially in the workplace, the more I came to question its effect on society. Perhaps the most telling moment was in law school. My Constitutional Law professor, who was black (and also preparing an Amicus brief for the Grutter case), and I got into it when we were discussing the infamous Bakke case. I committed the sin of reading the footnotes, and asking uncomfortable questions about the information they contained. The plaintiff, Bakke, had applied to get into Medical School at the University of California. Being a graduate program, the school only admitted a set number of students, most of whom were selected based on grades and test scores. I say “most”, because the school, as part of an affirmative action program, set aside a set number of seats for African-Americans, and lowered the standards for admission for them to qualify, which meant that Bakke, who was otherwise capable, and met the median standards, was eligible for even fewer of the available seats because of this policy. What got me going was in reading the footnotes, members of other minority groups apparently had no problems meeting the same standards applied to other applicants. In fact, Asians had consistently higher scores, according to the footnotes. I raised my hand, and asked why we continually lowered the bar for only one class of people. My professor responded that it was a remedial measure, enacted to make up for inequality that had been practiced before. I asked him if he thought medical school was the right place to perform such remediation. He asked what I meant. I told him “Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want MY doctor to be the guy who wouldn’t have qualified to get in to medical school if the bar hadn’t been deliberately lowered for him and others like him. The class’s reaction indicated that the logic was obvious. The professor’s reaction indicated that I struck a nerve. I was lucky to pass the class.

While this lowering of the bar has morphed into something less objective, and thus more repugnant, there have been some glimmers of hope, most notably, Justice O’Connor’s assertion in the Grutter case, which indicated that government wouldn’t keep the bar artificially low forever, and at some point in the future, it would no longer be necessary to have different standards for different skin colors. As I watched last week, I realized that the time for abandoning such measures has come and gone. Ambition has given way to entitlement, and remediation has given way to a bitter, permanently aggrieved mindset, which can only be cured by government dependency on what it takes from others to redistribute, and of course, the self-style and appointed “Community Leaders” who strike an indignant pose and utter demands and platitudes into every open microphone they see. And thanks to the single most divisive “Uniter” in almost a century, and his merry band of grifters, and thieves, it has gotten worse.

So what’s my point, you ask? It is something that needs saying, and I apologize for failing to say it sooner.

As a man who never owned slaves, and had to work for the things I have (and the things that government takes from me to give to others), I DON’T APOLOGIZE.

As someone who doesn’t take the breathtaking lawlessness currently practiced by the government as occasion to riot, to loot, and to commit mayhem, I DON’T APOLOGIZE.

As someone who has witnessed 30 years of affirmative action/diversity destroy merit in our society, and in our civil service, while continually being lectured by academic pinheads constantly spouting such inanities as “Only white people can be racist”, or waxing poetic about “White Privilege”, like I never had to work for anything in my life, because all it took was knowing the secret handshake, and the password to be taken to the head of any line, I DON’T APOLOGIZE.

As a man who is sick and tired of having to deal with the aforementioned “Community Leaders” and those who feel compelled to feel and express “OUTRAGE!!!111!!!” on behalf of others by finding racism and racial intent in every turn of phrase, in every term, and in every idiom, rather than facing and dealing with the very real problems that face ALL OF US, I DON’T APOLOGIZE.

As someone who never saw any reason to identify and characterize people based on their race, because I believe in and aspire to higher ideals, but who has had to listen to a constant drumbeat about it from people who inject it into everything, in order to bolster their continuous demands that I, and others like me need to do more, and to give more to improve the conditions of “their people”, rather than relying on them to strengthen and improve society by doing it themselves, I DON’T APOLOGIZE.

I apologized earlier in this piece for not saying this sooner. I was somewhat reluctant to commit this to writing, as it would be very easy for the very people I never want to hear from again to characterize me as a racist, or maybe even a “creepy ass cracker”, but in the last few weeks, I’ve come to realize that it does not matter. No matter how deferential I am. No matter how much I go out of my way to not offend for offense’s sake, it will never be enough for the usual suspects, and their subjective damnations or mystic (and faulty) divinations of the content of my soul. I have witnessed a fundamental transformation, and it has made my country an uglier place, not a better one. That’s the only apology I offer. I waited too long to say it, and this country has waited too long to expect the perpetually aggrieved among us to sack up and contribute to society, or go shut the hell up, and go away. I used to think that the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” treatment given racism in the last three decades did much to take the sting out of the allegation. But when it is used to ruin careers, and drive a man acquitted of a crime (and who isn’t even white) into hiding, as the President again lowers himself to racial demagoguery, I start to think something no one should be thinking: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

If you agree with Tingles Matthews, The Wrong Reverend Sharpton, or the Wrong Reverend Jackson, and make racism your answer to everything, and apply it liberally to any person, group, or ideology which disagrees with you, have a care. It wouldn’t necessarily be a racial thing if good people decided they were sick of your shit, and acted accordingly. It’s past time for “communities” to dismiss their “leaders” and their “organizers”, and set to work on mending society, before we revert to a fractured land where unity is a thing of the past.

Read Full Post »