Socialism

It seems Amazon has teamed with another company to create and issue a credit card that would be issuable to Amazon’s Prime members. It doesn’t matter what the purpose and parameters of the card are—they’re legal under existing law.

But none of that matters.  Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I, VT) and his trophy BFF, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY), object to the card because it doesn’t suit their requirements.  And since they object, they’ve vowed to destroy the card, should Sanders be elected President.

It doesn’t matter what their objections are; Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez intend to use Government power to destroy a private enterprise’s product because that product wouldn’t fit their government’s purpose for private enterprise products.

Sanders pretends his ideology, his policy, is democratic socialism.  No, this example of his is straight up socialism.  In particular, it’s the fascism subset of socialism, since Sanders would presume to have government impose its production policy on a private enterprise.

The sad—and dangerous—thing is, Sanders knows this distinction full well, even if Ocasio-Cortez might not.

Rule By Law

The House Progressive-Democrats insist that they, in the words of Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern (D, MA),

will not allow this president and his administration to turn a blind eye to the rule of law[.]

Current House rules regarding subpoenas issued to Executive Branch personnel that those personnel do not comply with must go to a full House floor vote in order for enforcement in Federal court to be sought.  That’s not fast enough or powerful enough to suit the Progressive-Democrat leadership.  It also exposes Progressive-Democrats from competitive districts to the risk of losing in the 2020 election.

Under their proposed new rule (scheduled for vote Tuesday), committee chairmen can seek court enforcement without even a committee vote, much less an ensuing floor vote.  They would only need to get the agreement of a small group of House leadership: the Speaker, the Majority and Minority Leaders, and Majority and Minority Whips.

Guess which way those votes will go.

Changing the rules solely for the purpose of achieving a narrow partisan end is not the rule of law that McGovern so piously claims to want.  It’s naked rule by law.  It’s what tyrannies do.

Yewbetcha

Justice Clarence Thomas, on the matter of judicial precedent, as quoted by Myron Magnet in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal:

“Stare decisis is not an inexorable command,” Justice Thomas observes in [Franchise Tax Board v] Hyatt. He has said elsewhere: “I think that the Constitution itself, the written document, is the ultimate stare decisis.”

What he said.

Great Britain’s Retreat from Liberty

Or, perhaps they’ve been routed by the forces of Government Knows Better.

This incident occurred last January, but there’s no evidence since that the Brits—their government, anyway; there are pockets of concern, as this incident also indicates—have regained their spine.

A man has been fined after refusing to be scanned by controversial facial recognition cameras being trialled by the Metropolitan Police.
The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. However, witnesses said several people were stopped after covering their faces or pulling up hoods.

Here’s Detective Chief Superintendent Ivan Balhatchet, Scotland Yard’s lead for facial recognition:

The technology used in Romford forms part of the Met’s ongoing efforts to reduce crime in the area, with a specific focus on tackling violence.
As with all previous deployments the technology was used overtly.

That’s utterly disingenuous.  Being open about dragooning citizens to give up their privacy for the convenience of Government does not at all mitigate the fact of being forced to surrender individual privacy to Government for no reason other than that Government is…curious.

A man declined to be tracked by a warrantless government, and he was punished by that government for his effrontery.  Never mind that warrants and the requirement to have them were invented by the English centuries ago.

Christianity is a Threat

The Chinese Communist Party, through its provincial organ in Henan Province, says so.

The Hebi Municipal Radio Administrative Bureau [hosted] a presentation titled “Christianity’s Enormous Harm on China’s Security,” to party members in the city of Hebi….

Instructive title, that.  The seminarists insisted that the “correct view” is that Christianity (and, I suppose, religion generally), are bent on undermining the Communists’ rule.  Never mind that “render unto Caesar” bit.

Of course, Christianity’s central tenets of conscience, free will, individual responsibility do work out to threats to tyrannical societies like the PRC’s because these fundamental positions are threats to the power of the tyrants that reign over those societies.  Hence the need for the CCP to work so zealously to suppress Christianity and along the way to lock Muslims up in concentration camps and jail Falun Gong followers.

Keep in mind, too, that this is the People’s Republic of China that Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden says is no threat to us.