Tag Archives: freedom

Thought Police

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They’re metastasizing into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a guide to “inclusive language” in order to promote “health equity” and “inclusive communication.”

For instance, their “Corrections & Detentions” section “suggests”

replacing terms such as “Inmate,” “Prisoner,” “Convict/ex-convict,” and “Criminal” with terms such as “People/persons,” “Persons in pre-trial or with charge,” “Persons on parole or probation,” or “People in immigration detention facilities.”

The problem with euphemisms, though, is that they mean precisely the same as the word they’re intended to replace. Persons on parole or probation still are criminals. That’s the status of folks on parole or probation—they’re still criminals, felons, until they complete their sentences. People in immigration detention facilities remain illegal aliens—that’s why they’re being detained.

The substitutes may soften the language in a misguided attempt to disguise or obfuscate the facts, but that’s only a temporary condition, and the frankness of the underlying meaning ultimately (and quickly) comes through. That’s why there’s a constant search for euphemisms.

The problem with government agents—the men and women who populate government agencies—being the ones pushing for euphemisms is that their push becomes mandates, and government mandates are nothing more than restrictions on free speech, limits on one of our most basic individual liberties. When government agents presume to dictate how we must term concepts, they’re dictating how we must think about them.

Even the worthies in government know that. Which is maybe why they’re making their push.

Escalating

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First (well, almost first, but the early large), President Joe Biden (D) surrendered in Afghanistan, and he did it so abjectly that he abandoned Americans (he was correct when he said through his Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, that he wasn’t merely “stranding” them), allies’ citizens, and Afghan partners in his desperation to meet the terrorist Taliban’s deadline.

Then Baby Kim has resumed northern Korea’s weapons grade plutonium-producing nuclear reactor—and not even troubling to conceal that effort.

Now this.

In a move that could have ramifications for the free passage of both military and commercial vessels in the South China Sea, [People’s Republic of China] authorities said on Sunday they will require a range of vessels “to report their information” when passing through what China sees as its “territorial waters,” starting from September 1.

And

[The PRC] claims under a so-called “nine dash line” on its maps most of the South China Sea’s waters, which are disputed by several other countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

And by Japan and most of the rest of the world, including—used to be, anyway—the United States.

It’ll be instructive to see how the Biden/Harris administration responds to this demonstration of contempt for their timid fecklessness. Compare their response, then, with the prior administration’s reaction to the PRC government’s declaration of an ADIZ that encompassed significant swaths of the South and East China Seas airspaces and tried to require all air traffic to check in with the PRC. (Spoiler: that administration ignored the PRC’s demand, and so did most of the rest of the world.)

It’s shaping up to be a disastrous period of American headlong retreat under this Progressive-Democrat administration.

A California Judge Has Spoken

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Recall California Proposition 22, which exempted Uber Technologies Inc, Lyft Inc, and DoorDash Inc from a California state gig law that, in essence, requires businesses to reclassify their gig associates from independent contractors to employees. That proposition was passed overwhelmingly by the citizens of California.

A California state judge ruled last Friday that the proposition was unconstitutional and so unenforceable. His rationale:

Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch said in Friday’s ruling that Proposition 22 limits the state legislature’s authority and its ability to pass future legislation, which is unconstitutional.

The judge has ruled that the people are not allowed to limit the authority of their employee, of their government. Keep in mind that, although Roesch couched his ruling in terms of the State’s legislative branch, his own judiciary branch is a part of that government whose authority he’s protecting.

The California government (including Roesch, et al., mind you) is not subordinate to the citizens of California?

Here’s the preamble to the California State constitution, which according to Roesch has no meaning.

We, the People of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution.

It used to be the People of California’s constitution, not the State judiciary’s.

Here’s Art II, Sect 1:

All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security, and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.

Here’s Art II, Sect 10(a):

An initiative statute or referendum approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise. If a referendum petition is filed against a part of a statute the remainder shall not be delayed from going into effect.

Unless a member of the State’s government, here a judge, demurs. Then the people’s decision is set aside. Because the People are no longer sovereign in California.

Hmm….

Progressive-Democrat Controls over Individuals’ Lives

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Here are some of those controls that are buried deep within the bowels of the so-called infrastructure bill just rammed through the senate.

mandate for vehicle manufactures to install “drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” as a standard feature inside of new vehicles

Because all of us are simply too grindingly stupid to make our own decisions about drinking and driving. This is amply proven by the one or two among us who are so stupid, so we all must pay the price.

create a vehicle miles traveled system for taxing drivers based on their annual vehicle mileage is hidden away in the bill’s section 13002, entitled “National motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot”

This also will create an opening for tracking where we go and who/what we visit in addition to tracking how we travel to get there.

grants select cabinet secretaries the authority to fully fund select infrastructure projects with taxpayer dollars by waiving cost-sharing rules

Just gimme the damned dollars and quit asking pesky questions. We Know Better. Never mind that the need for any of these dollars has yet to be established beyond yelling “Infrastructure,” as though that settles the science.

If these controls really were any good, and if average Americans really did take them seriously, Progressive-Democrats would offer them in separate stand-alone bills for public debate and scrutiny.

More important to the Progressive-Democrats, though, is that these policies vastly increase their surveillance state. Even waiving cost-sharing expands surveillance, since the Secretaries designated The Precious Ones will need to identify whose costs are going to be “saved” and who will be called upon to pick up the cost slack.

The Left is On the Move

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…especially their political arm, the Progressive-Democratic Party.

President Joe Biden (D) has signed an Executive Order requiring all vehicle sales in the US to be electrically powered. Biden will masquerade his EO as “nonbinding.”

Sure. If he and his cronies in Congress didn’t intend for it to be binding, Biden would use his bully pulpit as President to stump for electrification of our vehicles. Instead, he’s going the cudgel route, covered by his velvet.

If he and his cronies in Congress didn’t intend for the EO to be binding, those cronies wouldn’t be pushing—via reconciliation, yet—their “green” mandates into law. They would, instead, use their own bully pulpits to stump for their “green” ideas. Instead, they’re going their naked cudgel—reconciliation—route to ram through their diktats.

Biden’s EO also is supposedly supported by the likes of General Motors, Ford Motor, and Stellantis (nee Fiat Chrysler). Given the nature of our current Progressive-Democrat-controlled government, the idea that these companies’ support is voluntary is…risible.

This is the Progressive-Democrat-controlled government telling American private companies what they must produce.

This is fascism on the move.