Tag Archives: morality

The Progressive View of Free Speech

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We ought to be allowed to set limits.  The government should tell you what your limits are.  No less a light than Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) says so.  Fox News reports that in an effort to pass the Disclose Act, which would have stripped political speakers of their anonymity and exposed them to union intimidation and to Democratic ad hominem attacks (can you say “Koch brothers?”) with a view toward further intimidation,

New York Sen. Charles Schumer claimed Monday that “there ought to be limits” on First Amendment rights, while arguing in favor of Democrat-backed legislation that would require full disclosure of big-money donors behind election campaign advertising.

After all, he says,

You can’t scream “fire” falsely in a crowded theater.  We have libel laws.  We have anti-pornography laws.  All of those are limits on the First Amendment.  Well, what could be more important than the wellspring of our democracy?  And certain limits on First Amendment rights that if left unfettered, destroy the equality—any semblance of equality in our democracy—of course would be allowed by the Constitution.

There’s a pattern here.  The examples he cites are plain acts of dishonesty.  So what else is dishonest in this Progressive’s eyes?  Why, political speech of which he disapproves.  So this must be limited, too.

But, indeed, “what could be more important than the wellspring of our democracy,” the freedom of political speech?

This Plant is your Plant, This Plant is my Plant

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With apologies to Woody Guthrie….

Here is Folksinger Obama with his latest…hit:

This plant is your plant, this plant is my plant
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This plant was made for you by me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This road was made for you by me

I’ve roamed and rambled and I’ve followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me my voice was sounding
This firm was made for you by me

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This farm was made for you by me

As I was walkin’—I saw a sign there
And that sign said—no tresspassin’
But on the other side…it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side was made for me by me!

In the squares of the city—in the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office—I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
Why this land’s made for you by me.

Be Too Bad if Something Was to Happen to It

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So, pay the vig.  That’s the extortion Senator Patty Murray (D, WA) is threatening us with.  Roll over, and give us our tax increase on those we don’t like, or we’ll raise taxes on everyone.

[If] we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013…. We will have a new fiscal and political reality….

Of course, she continues to insist that “fair” is whatever the Progressives say it is, at any moment.  She, like her fellows, have continuously refused to say what amount constitutes a “fair share,” for her hated rich or for her sainted poor.

Here’s her naked extortion threat:

If middle-class families start seeing more money coming out of their paychecks next year—are Republicans really going to stand up and fight for new tax cuts for the rich? Are they going to continue opposing the Democrats’ middle-class tax cut once the slate has been wiped clean?

She’s also taking our national defense hostage and demanding that it be ransomed with more taxes.  The article at the link cites her as adding

[If] Republicans don’t negotiate to her party’s liking on the automatic spending cuts—known in Washington as the “sequestration”—set to take effect at the start of next year, her party would let those cuts happen, too.

Can we afford four more years of this assault on our freedoms?  Can we afford four more years of bipartisanship meaning “do it the Progressive way, or else?”

As to the taxes themselves, to which Senator Murray and her fellows are so tightly bound, Murray and her fellows, as with so much of the legislation they’ve rammed through, are running against the wishes of Americans.   The latest McClatchy-Marist poll has found the following:

  • Registered voters want all of the tax cuts extended, including for those with incomes above $250,000, by 52% to 43% wanting the cuts reserved for those making $250,000 or less
  • Those making less than $50,000 per year supported tax cuts for all incomes by 53% to 41%
  • Voters in the age band 18-29 favor tax cuts for everyone by 69% to 29%

There’s No Voter Fraud

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Nosirree.  But there is this AP story carried by Fox News with incidents like this reported.

The voter registration form arrived in the mail last month with some key information already filled in: Rosie Charlston’s name was complete, as was her Seattle address.

Problem is, Rosie was a black lab who died in 1998.

And this

A Virginia man said similar documents arrived for his dead dog, Mozart, while a woman in the state got forms for her cat, Scampers.

The AP story notes that residents and election administrators around the country have encountered a number of questionable mailings like this addressed to animals, dead people, noncitizens and people already registered to vote.  Voter Participation Center brags about having distributed 5 million forms in the last few months, intended to get “unmarried women, blacks, Latinos, young adults,” and so on registered.

The problem with such ad hoc systems is that there is no accountability attached.  VPC itself says it relies on the recipients to toss the bad forms; it doesn’t try not to send them in the first place.  Except that Rosie isn’t around to toss her bad form, and Scampers can’t read.  VPC, though, says it’s all someone else’s fault: they use “commercially collected information.”

More seriously, as New Mexico officials note, ineligible voters who complete the documents can make it onto the rolls.  In New Mexico, for instance, noncitizens can qualify for a driver’s license by simply proving residency—not even necessarily legal residency—and state elections officials have no way of verifying the voting eligibility status of those who file registration documents.  Further, the registration forms often arrive with information already filled in and with a pre-addressed (to appropriate local elections officials) envelope enclosed.

There really are a small number of fraudulent registrations compared to the overall legitimately voting population.  But keep in mind that Senator Al Franken (D, MN) was elected in 2008 by 300 votes out of nearly 3 million cast, and President George W Bush won Florida’s Electoral College votes in 2000 by 500 votes out of some 6 million cast.

Also keep in mind that Attorney General Eric Holder opposes voter ID laws, which would protect the sanctity of Americans votes by reducing the opportunity for election stealing through voter fraud even further.

DoJ and…Racism

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Speaking to the NAACP in Houston last Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder had this to say about Texas’ attempt to protect Americans’ voting rights by implementing a voter ID law that would help ensure that only eligible voters got to vote:

Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them—and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them.  We call those poll taxes.

The racism in Holder’s remarks is apparent.  As the WSJ pointed out

The Texas law stipulates that voters can use several kinds of ID to vote, including a driver’s license, passport, a US military ID, and (this being Texas) a handgun permit.  As for the “poll tax” canard, the law says the Texas Department of Public Safety will issue a free Election Identification Card if requested.

When was the last time Holder’s Jim Crow had a poll tax of $0.00?

But this is the new Jim Crow, Eric Holder style: anyone who votes Democratic (as opposed to democratic) should be allowed to vote, regardless of eligibility.  Never mind that the Supreme Court upheld a substantially identical voter ID law in Indiana just three years ago.  But Holder can’t attack Indiana; that state isn’t under his personal thumb, courtesy of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Texas is.

This is also the same Attorney General that, shortly after he assumed the position, threw out a case of New Black Panther voter intimidation of white voters that the Federal government already had won—at the end of the previous administration—and concerning which it was, literally, all over but the sentencing.  That case eventually led to the resignation of career Federal Prosecutor J Christian Adams.  This case also led to then-active Federal Prosecutor Christopher Coates’ testimony in front of the US Civil Rights Commission about the new DoJ’s policy of not seeking enforcement of voter laws when the victims weren’t people of color or when the suspected perpetrators were.

It would be interesting to hear Holder give the same speech to a more balanced audience.