Freedom of Speech

Not here. Not ever.  You do not have permission to criticize us or any thing, subject, object, or … that we hold above reproach, especially that of your commoner selves.

According to a draft of the Loudoun County Public School district board’s proposed speech code, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, employees would not be allowed to criticize the school district’s “commitment to action-oriented equity practices” in all forms of public and personal communication.

And

The code briefly acknowledges employees have a First Amendment right to engage in protected speech, but says that right “may be outweighed” by the school district’s interest in “promoting internal … and external community harmony and peace” as well as “class equity, racial equity, and the goal to root out systemic racism.”

And

Employees would be prohibited from “retaliating” against accusers, even if the accusations are false.

Your Betters say so, you racist thugs.

The Racism of the Left

Separate from the segregationist identity politics so loudly practiced by the Left and its Progressive-Democratic Party is this. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two Arizona voting cases

Arizona Republican Party v Democratic National Committee and Brnovich v Democratic National Committee involving Arizona election laws that ban ballot harvesting and voting in other precincts.

As the Editorial Board puts it [emphasis added],

The Ninth Circuit and some other lower courts have interpreted [the Voting Rights Act] Section 2 broadly to enjoin any law that allegedly has a disparate impact on minorities no matter if the laws have a non-discriminatory intent. The Arizona cases provide the High Court an opportunity to clarify and tighten the standards for Section 2 claims.
Liberals are warning that the Supreme Court in the Arizona cases could “destroy what remains of the Voting Rights Act,” as one headline howled.

And the money quote to end the editorial:

As ever, the left is playing racial politics as the election approaches.

Censorship

It’s active, biased, and deliberate in social media. And Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet intend on stepping it up during the remainder of this election season.

Twitter, for instance, says on its website that it will “require people to remove Tweets” that include “statements which are intended to influence others to violate recommended COVID-19 related guidance from global or local health authorities to decrease someone’s likelihood of exposure to COVID-19.” Among the problematic statements the company lists under that category is “social distancing is not effective.”

But Twitter won’t say how its censors will reconcile the myriad local health authorities who disagree among each other on the proper steps to take.

Facebook on its website outlines a similar policy using similar language, with the company stating that it will “remove content with false claims or conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organizations and local health authorities,” including “claims that are designed to discourage treatment or taking appropriate precautions.”

Facebook also declines to say how its censor will reconcile the recommendations and instructions of those local health authorities.

Alphabet makes its bias unembarrassedly obvious:

YouTube has adopted a virtually identical policy, stating that it “does not allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts the World Health Organization (WHO) or local health authorities’ medical information about COVID-19.”

Never mind that WHO, as an apologist for the People’s Republic of China has no credibility whatsoever.

That’s just the social media’s bias regarding the Wuhan Virus. Their behavior is even more dangerous in the political arena.

Last month, Facebook was reportedly developing a “contingency plan,” intended to address scenarios in which Trump or his campaign attempted to dispute or delegitimize the results of the 2020 election.

But nothing planned to respond to the Progressive-Democrats’ openly stated intention to dispute the results of the 2020 election.

Zuckerberg went on:

the company will “attach an informational label to content that seeks to delegitimize the outcome of the election or discuss the legitimacy of voting methods, for example, by claiming that lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud.”
“This label will provide basic authoritative information about the integrity of the election and voting methods[.]”

All while he refuses to identify his “authorities,” much less to demonstrate their authoritativeness.

Be careful out there.

And vote, despite these Leftists’ efforts to delegitimize your vote.

Couple Critical Errors

…in an otherwise well-intended and worthy effort. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) wants to make it possible for prison inmates who have been trained in firefighting and have place[d] themselves in danger assisting firefighters to defend the life and property of Californians to join fire departments after they’ve been released from prison.

Long-time readers of my blog know that I am a firm believer in rehabilitation and redemption, and this move would open one path to each of those.

There are a couple of tweaks, though, that are necessary for making this a truly effective move. One is this: Newsom has signed into law

legislation allowing inmate firefighters to get their criminal records dismissed so they can qualify for civilian firefighting jobs after they are released.

The dismissal opens the door for model inmate firefighters to qualify for paramedic certification, a requirement for civilian fire departments. Currently, those with convictions are barred by state law from becoming an EMT.

I don’t agree, generally, with expunging criminal records when the crimes were committed by adults. In this sort of case, though, it would be appropriate to seal an (ex-)felon’s record so he can apply to a fire department.

A better option, however, would be to alter the State’s law regarding EMT eligibility to permit ex-felons otherwise trained as firefighters (even if trained while in prison) to become EMTs for the purpose of joining a fire department as a firefighter. (And, if that works out after some number of years of empirical observation, expanding the eligibility of ex-felons to become EMTs more generally.)

The other is one of mindset.

Inmates who have stood on the frontlines, battling historic fires should not be denied the right to later become a professional firefighter[.]

Rather, inmates who have stood on the frontlines, battling historic fires should not be denied the opportunity to later become a professional firefighter. No one has a right to any particular job, or career, or avocation. All of us do have a right to opportunity.

“You Do Not Need….”

In Canada, too. There’s a petition—one that drew a record number of signatures—in Canada calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to withdraw his Order in Council (roughly analogous to our Presidents’ Executive Orders) regarding his gun control overreach [emphasis added, but that’s a side issue].

We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada, call upon the Prime Minister to immediately scrap his government’s May 1, 2020, Order in Council decision related to confiscating legally owned firearms and instead pass legislation that will target criminals, stop the smuggling of firearms into Canada, go after those who illegally acquire firearms, and apologize to legal firearms owners in Canada[.]

Trudeau’s Order was instituted through taking cynical advantage of the upset over a mass murder in Nova Scotia a short time earlier, and he executed it in the absence of Parliament, which was not sitting due to the Wuhan Virus situation in Canada. His Order banned more than 1,500 models and variants of rifles, including AR-15s, Mini-14s, and firearms that the Nova Scotia gunman used. Trudeau, in the arrogance of government, rationalized his Order:

You do not need an AR-15 to take down a deer[.]

Those in government can’t conceive of the need for those being ruled over to defend themselves against criminals, including home invaders, rioters, looters—and crazed gunmen—when it’s so plainly the government’s police who are solely responsible for such defense, and it’s the responsibility of the attacked citizens to wait patiently on the government’s police’s arrival.

Those in government can’t conceive of the need for those being ruled over to defend themselves against that very government.

Those in power are oblivious to their own arrogance. That obliviousness itself creates an entirely separate need for the citizenry to define for themselves their need for and their purpose in having weapons.

That obliviousness itself creates an entirely separate need for an armed citizenry, one armed with the weapons of their individual choice, not those permitted by government.