FCC votes today to regulate the internet

Why does the government insist on screwing up things that aren’t broken?

There was nothing wrong with DADT. Does any employer ask about the sex life of any prospective employee? No one has ever asked me if I’m a heterosexual during a job interview. They can’t ask that question.

So now it appears that we are going to see the internet regulated by the government. The goal is to stifle conservative thought and speech but they are saying it’s to make it more fair to the consumer. Where in the Constitution does it say it’s the government’s job to make things “fair” in the markets or for the people?

The FCC says that big corporations like Verizon and ComCast aren’t being fair to it’s customers by slowing connections or not allowing connections to certain sites. If that’s the case then the customer has the option to change providers. And when enough customers drop the company, the failing company will either make changes to appeal to the population or they will fail entirely. That’s how the free market works. It’s called competition.

But the government can’t stand something that works well and is unregulated. Regulation means, in the end, more money for the government, as well as control over the content or production.

The FCC wants to make the internet available to everyone in this nation. Where is it not available? There is nothing that is holding anyone back from access. It’s free in every library in this nation and available in almost every school. It’s cheap in most markets. Is it the goal of the FCC to soon provide every household in this nation with a computer?

The FCC is violating a court order and the Congress by this action. Where does the FCC stop with this? Once one regulation is put in motion, nothing stops it from further regulations.  We all know that government has never stopped at one goal line. They keep moving the goal and keep regulating further. The real goal is to quash conservative thought and speech.

The day will come when I will have to pay for this blog or end it. That’s one of the FCC’s goals – another way to make money for the government and another way to stifle conservative speech. That means that conservative bloggers like me, will not be allowed this free speech forum. It’s already being done in Pennsylvania where a person has to pay $300 for a license to blog.

A license to blog – think about that. We will need permission by the government to exercise our free speech right. There will be countless sites that you will not be able to read or post your opinion to because there will be countless blogs that will no longer exist. It stifles the free speech of readers, as well.

This is going to be a boondoggle for lawyers. Litigation will rule the day and the free market and free speech will be in the dumper.

We have not even touched the surface of what this will do to small providers like Lariat in Wyoming which provides service to rural areas. They are looking at their demise at the hands of this behemoth regulatory agency.

The FCC is making an end run around the Courts, Congress and the Constitution. This is the only way the Obama Regime can erase the first amendment from the Constitution and that is what they want.

The Passive Persecution of American Christians

According to R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr. at The American Spectator, the Andy Warhol Foundation is threatening to pull it’s funding from the Smithsonian. Their complaint is that the Smithsonian caved to Republicans and the Catholic League over “hosting a video showing ants crawling over the crucifix entitiled “Fire in My Belly.”

As Tyrell says, the double standard that the liberals operate on is fundamental to their mindset. It’s okay, justified and in fact, righteous to disturb the peace of those who disagree with them but when the public at large doesn’t want their ‘art’, it becomes an issue of social injustice, bigotry, civil rights violations and hate crime.

“If the ants were swarming all over the Koran it would clearly be a hate crime and out it would go without the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts having a leg to stand on.”

Not only would the Foundation not have a leg to stand on but they would be in the front lines demanding religious tolerance and decrying the bigotry of holding such an exhibit — but only for Muslims.

The Foundation’s argument is one of censorship. “For the Arts to flourish,” writes Joel Wachs, president of the Warhol foundation, “the arts must be free, and the decision to censor this important work is in stark opposition to our mission to defend freedom of expression wherever and whenever it is under attack.”

No one has censored this particular video or the entire exhibit for that matter. This video is available at another New York City museum for those who are so inclined to view and support it. No one is stifling the ‘art’ of anyone. Taxpayers just don’t want to pay for it. All art should be paid for by those interested in supporting it;  that’s where private foundations and patrons come in. Raise your own money for this “very important” exhibit.

Don’t be mistaken, this is not about freedom of expression or censorship. The liberals would love to paint that picture but it’s simply not true.  This is about religious persecution of those who are not Muslim or those whose religion is not fashionable to the artsy, elite left.  This particular assault on Christianity by the left is passive and insidious compared to the persecution they are suffering worldwide. Pope Benedict highlights this in his World Peace Day missive:

“Sadly, the year now ending has again been marked by persecution, discrimination, terrible acts of violence and religious intolerance,” Benedict lamented […]

Benedict singled out the “reprehensible attack” on a Baghdad cathedral during Mass in October, killing two priests and more than 50 other worshippers, as well as attacks on private homes that “spread fear within the Christian community and (create) a desire on the part of many to emigrate in search of a better life.”

[…]

“At present, Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith,” the pontiff asserted, and cited Christian communities suffering from violence and intolerance particularly in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Holy Land.

“This situation is intolerable, since it represents an insult to God and to human dignity” as well as “a threat to security and peace,” Benedict wrote [. . .]

It’s time that Christians fought back. If that means fighting in court, then so be it. The First Amendment guarantees us that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” No one or entity, including the government or a private foundation, have the  right to stifle the free exercise of religious worship and religious assembly. But the left has hijacked the government and the courts and is passively (without violence) persecuting and stifling the practice of religion by Christians in America.

We see this passive religious persecution in America every day, from Chase Bank refusing to allow their banks to decorate for the holidays to schools that no longer allow Christmas trees.

If the left objects to paying, with tax dollars, for a Nativity scene on the courthouse lawn, then there is no problem with the religious objecting to pay for an exhibit of ‘art’ that depicts Christ or Christianity in an abusive, illegitimate and dishonest way.

As Governor Christie said (on another topic): the double standard ends now.  Christians have to stand up and object as loudly, and if necessary as obnoxiously as the left has.

Quote of the day – Michael Goodwin

[T[he American system, we learn again, is intolerant of only one thing: intolerance. Whether its hammer comes from left or right, it always wakes the spirit of revolution. Freedom of speech, to dissent, to oppose, to fight back, is not just the literal content of the First Amendment. It is the essence of who we are as a people.

Obama, of course, infamously discounted American Exceptionalism when he was asked about it, suggesting he does not view our national character as unique. His mistake. ~ Michael Goodwin/FoxNews

Mark Steyn on Molly Norris and the loss of the First Amendment

When someone destroys a Bible, U.S. government officials don’t line up to attack him. President Obama bowed lower than a fawning maitre d’ before the King of Saudi Arabia, a man whose regime destroys Bibles as a matter of state policy, and a man whose depraved religious police forces schoolgirls fleeing from a burning building back into the flames to die because they’d committed the sin of trying to escape without wearing their head scarves. If you show a representation of Mohammed, European commissioners and foreign ministers line up to denounce you. If you show a representation of Jesus Christ immersed in your own urine, you get a government grant for producing a widely admired work of art. Likewise, if you write a play about Jesus having gay sex with Judas Iscariot.

. . .

On the advice of the FBI, she’s [Molly Norris] been forced to go into hiding. If you want to measure the decline in western civilization’s sense of self-preservation, go back to Valentine’s Day 1989, get out the Fleet Street reports on the Salman Rushdie fatwa, and read the outrage of his fellow London literati at what was being done to one of the mainstays of the Hampstead dinner-party circuit. Then compare it with the feeble passivity of Molly Norris’ own colleagues at an American cartoonist being forced to abandon her life: “There is no more Molly”? That’s all the gutless pussies of The Seattle Weekly can say? As James Taranto notes in The Wall Street Journal, even much sought-after Ramadan-banquet constitutional scholar Barack Obama is remarkably silent:

Now Molly Norris, an American citizen, is forced into hiding because she exercised her right to free speech. Will President Obama say a word on her behalf? Does he believe in the First Amendment for anyone other than Muslims?

Who knows? Given his highly selective enthusiasms, you can hardly blame a third of Americans for figuring their president must be Muslim. In a way, that’s the least pathetic explanation: The alternative is that he’s just a craven squish. Which is odd considering he is, supposedly, the most powerful man in the world.

Read entire column here.

~~~ooOoo~~~

The non-liberal press, i.e. Mark Steyn (NJR), James Taranto (WSJ) and Diana West seem to be the only journalists questioning this double standard in our society and speaking out on this atrocity visited on Molly Norris.

Liberals or not, thank God, someone is.

The Tea Party is Over or so they think

TheTeaParty is over.org

If you read the profiles of the 3 politicians on this webpage, there’s almost nothing a normal person would disagree with. But 2 DC attorneys are targeting the tea party (as though this were an organized group) to put the kabosh on anything with the tea party name and basically, any right leaning politician.

If you support the First amendment and your running for office, these guys will be throwing all kinds of laundered union money, some of it even tax payer dollars, against you. And it’s all completely legal.

So this is how they are coming after us. Forewarned is forearmed.

Be sure and read the Fox News link. It’s very informative.

What Constitution did they swear to uphold?

Unbelievable: taking the Court to task for upholding the First Amendment with not only applause but a standing ovation. Do we need any more proof that these politicians have no regard or no understanding  of the Constitution that they swore to uphold?

These people need to be sent packing this year.And Obama lied in his scolding.

SCOTUS rules to protect free speech

4 of the 9 Supreme Court justices are in favor of book banning and speech censorship. F-O-U-R  of them. And the 5 who voted in favor of the First Amendment are being called ACTIVISTS. Now, isn’t that ironic? To be in favor of the Constitution is now considered radical.

Amazing.

The case of Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission was decided last week by the U.S. Supreme Court, in a sqeeker vote that should scare all Americans. This case has unveiled to the public, the justices who would be in favor of censoring free speech and who are willling to ignore the first amendment’s stark and direct language:

“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”

How much clearer could the Founders have been?

From the AP:

When the Supreme Court first heard the case in March, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart, representing the FEC, was pulled into a discussion of an issue that took him down a slippery slope: If the movie were a book, would the government ban publishing the book if it mentioned a candidate for office within the election time frame?

Stewart said that it could.

“That’s pretty incredible,” Justice Samuel Alito said.

Then came questions about electronic devices such as the Kindle.

“If it has one name, one use of the candidate’s name, it would be covered, correct?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked.

“That’s correct,” Stewart replied.

“It’s a 500-page book, and at the end it says, ‘And so vote for X,’ the government could ban that?” Roberts asked.

[David] Bossie [founder of Citizens United and maker of Hillary the Movie] said this was the argument that turned a majority of the bench against the FEC and in favor of Citizens United.

“That sent a chill down the Supreme Court,” Bossie said. The argument became a “point of demarcation.”

The marxists progressives are now screaming outrage. This from the Wall Street Journal:

President Obama was especially un-Presidential yesterday, putting on his new populist facade to call it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies” and other “special interests.” Mr. Obama didn’t mention his union friends as one of those interests, but their political spending will also be protected by the logic of this ruling. The reality is that free speech is no one’s special interest. New York Senator Chuck Schumer vowed to hold hearings, and the Naderite Public Citizen lobby is already calling for a constitutional amendment that bans free speech for “for-profit corporations.” Liberalism’s bullying tendencies are never more on display than when its denizens are at war with the speech rights of its opponents.

But the marxists progressives make no mention of networks like MSNBC that is owned by the corporate giant General Electric and that has been nothing short of the communications center for the Obama administration. This case protects their free speech, as well.

As David Bossie writes at BigJournalism.com:

Finally, as the Court acknowledged, the position that corporations cannot engage in political speech has a fatal logical flaw.  Almost every major media outlet in the country is owned by a corporation and most of them advocate for or against candidates via endorsements, opinion columns, or politically-oriented programming.  Why should General Electric, which owns MSNBC, be permitted to use its nearly unlimited resources to influence elections, while I, who made Hillary The Movie using corporate funds for roughly .03% of the budget, could be put in prison for airing the documentary?

What is really frightening is that TheOne has 3 more years to appoint justices. One more liberal appointment could change the entire complexion of the Constitution and it’s protection of Americans. Those appointees have to be confirmed by congress. This is just another urgent reason that Constitutionalists must be elected this  year.

In a league of their own

But while some conservatives think O’Keefe and Giles were doing journalists’ jobs, “most news organizations consider such tactics unethical.”

Call the secret ACORN videotapes by Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe what you like, said Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post. Just don’t call it journalism.

(Entire column here.)

I’ll leave the debating up to the “real” journalists as to whether Giles and O’Keefe are “real” journalists: those guys who sat on their hands and did nothing while everyday a new video was released; those guys who tried to turn a blind eye to the ingenious work of 2 kids who blew the top off of arguably the most corrupt organization in the country. Now those “real” journalists are suffering bruised egos and bloodied reputations. If the public didn’t respect them before, their opinions of reporters now are in the dumper.

It’s ludicrous to be denouncing these 2 young people for doing the job that so-called professionals should have been doing all along and worse yet, when the videos started trickling out, they still did nothing. Now they want to jump up and complain that “hey, they aren’t in our league!” With that I have to agree. Indeed, Giles and O’Keefe aren’t in those “professional journalist’s” league. They are in a league of their own, far surpassing anything that the pros are doing or should have been doing.

What those 2 kids did was show deep respect and regard for the First Amendment and shine a spotlight on a far-reaching abuse of power that the “real” press has been desperately trying to ignore. The last thing the press wants to do is make the president look bad and they will protect him even to the tune of billions of tax dollars being thrown in the ACORN treasure chest and worse, the (thankfully hypothetical) trafficking in child sexual abuse and slavery.

So, the press can debate their legitimacy and criticize and demean these 2 young adults but the bulk of the American people owe them a debt of gratitude and a great deal of respect: something the press will continue to be without.