Some push back on the claim that hatred and violence are more prevalent in America today and in the past hundred years. They suggest that it may seem that way but it is only because of faster and more thorough communication of violence than any statistical increase. That is open to discussion.
There is no argument, however, that civility is at a low ebb...lower than that in the past half century at least. Insults, disrespect, and harassment used to be not only objectionable, but cause for being ostracized from society at large and any consideration for holding authoritative office or employment. If you wished to be respected and have your ideas and beliefs considered seriously, you did not act or speak impolitely or insultingly. To do so was to invite violent reaction; most of us remember the term, "fighting words" as cause for violent reaction. Insulting your family would result in a violent fight and the courts saw the person uttering the disrespectful phrase or label as at fault.
Today, such a person is not ostracized, disrespected or shunned. Instead, they are elected to public office. If they are proven liars, they are re-elected to public office and not held to account; they are even granted immunity from legal action for libel and slander. Apparently consequences no longer exist for such.
Consider it may very well be this lack of consequences that has given rise to increased violence and deaths.
Hatred, anger and disrespect have always existed. It has been the combination of laws and societal norms that have served to cause those with those feelings to keep them to themselves in order to continue to earn a living and be generally accepted in society...these people felt the pressure of being unacceptable to all around them should they "act out" their antisocial feelings.
For many who disagreed with the ideology, beliefs and false statements of President Obama, these factors controlled. Mutterings were heard, but the concept of honoring our elective system(s) over-rode the anger and dislike of some, if not many, of President Obama's administration.
The election results of 2016 was considered by many at the time as a case of "what goes around, comes around." But the Left decided, whether individually or collectively, that such was not to be the case. They have, so far, thrown a three year tantrum! Vocal calls for Impeachment were heard even before President Trump was inaugurated. Disrespect and anger were the watchwords of the day. Harassment and actual assault was deemed appropriate behavior. Supporters and members of Mr. Trump's administration were chased from public spaces, from restaurants and followed down public streets subject to vile insulting language. They were not protected by the law or law enforcement; courts now discovered that such vile behavior was "free speech." Never before had assault and harassment been considered by the law or American society as constituting "Free Speech."
Consider that the more acceptable emotional outbursts become, the closer those that have emotional feeling come to that line of behavior that involves actual violence. An analogy would the that allowing everyone permission to stand closer to the edge of a cliff is not only likely, but certain, to result in more people falling off the edge.
That is what America is living with today. If we truly desire to be a civilized nation...if we want once again to respect all around us even as we disagree on programs, ideas and personal lives...perhaps we need to consider reining in our passions...our emotions. Maybe it is time to respect each other; not just our friends, but even those who are not our friends.
What continues to be aggravating is that the Left is currently blaming President Trump's administration for this hatred and the resulting violence, calling upon him to put a stop to it. Considering that the hatred AND the violence began with the "resist" movement, assaults and harassment by Antifa, calls on the public to harass any and all Trump appointees and supporters by the Left's elected representatives (Representatives Barbara Lee, Ted Lieu, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Maxine Waters, Senators Kamala Harris, Charles Schumer, Governor Andrew Cuomo, among many others) one is tempted to laugh out loud at the hypocrisy.
Almost half of the voters in 2016 (some suggest MORE than half) have abandoned civility and past societal norms, advocating the casting away of the United States Constitutions Freedoms and protections in favor of mob rule.
Their words and actions have brought the American Republic to the brink of disaster. If they succeed we all...our children and grandchildren...will reap the consequences.
Showing posts with label Free speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Free speech. Show all posts
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Monday, October 16, 2017
The "Establishment" Politicians on both sides still don't "get" it!
Perhaps it is because they see any success by President Trump as "Armageddon" to their elite political existence. I find it hard to imagine that with the myriad professional politicians with elite educational credentials are unable to see the true reason for the election of a businessman with considerable baggage, personally and in business, to the highest office in the land in preference to a life-long political operative who had so much in common (with, of course, ideological differences) with those on both sides of the aisle.Can they all hold the conviction that Secretary Clinton lost because she was a bad candidate and had at least as much baggage as Mr. Trump?
While it is clear that all professional politicians motives, even as they each deny them, include self-aggrandizement, accumulation of power, money and a sense of an elite status, not one of them seems to have the ability to sense, much less analyze and conclude, that the American voter is fed up with the lying and failure to actually care about the things that the voters who put them in office truly care about.
Some of them seem to think that because they were re-elected even as Mr. Trump won in last November's election they were not seen by the voter the same way that hindsight seemed to indicate those same voters saw Mrs. Clinton. One wonders if they have any inkling that if in their own races there had been 3 or more choices (including a brash, non-politician) that they might have suffered the same fate as Mrs. Clinton. Because with very few exceptions, it is clear that such would have been not only possible but likely.
Those of the political establishment have for years...decades, actually...gotten away with making promises that were clearly abandoned as soon as the election results were tabulated. In some cases it is clear that those promises at the time they were made were clearly lies.
Now that President Trump has held office for almost a year, it has been clear to every citizen capable of voting that every other person elected to the Congress of the United States of America acts to prevent any significant accomplishment by the new President...every one, even those who ran on a Republican ticket.
For eight years, Republicans claimed they had a better way of providing Healthcare in America and were prevented from providing relief for the American people because of the veto threat from a Democrat President...FOR EIGHT WHOLE YEARS! But once President Trump took office, having promised that when the Republican controlled Congress presented the bill to him, he would sign it...that Republican-controlled Congress failed to pass the promised legislation. That is too egregious to be an oversight, a mistake, or something slipping through the cracks! They lied.
Meanwhile, the Democrats for the previous eight years had proven over and over again that they also were lying to the American people. They also were moving further and further to the Left, as they took the side of demonstrators who took to the streets hurting people and destroying property and even attacking, hurting and murdering police. They claimed such violence was only "sporadic" and that it was all part of "free speech." Somehow they missed the concept of the guarantee being for the right to avoid prior censorship, but not consequences for what was said.
It is unfathomable that professional politicians do not recognize that the majority of the country see them as the equivalent of an invading, occupying force that holds office through subterfuge and fraud while exercising their power to obliterate individual freedom(s) and control both speech and action.
Clearly, the citizens of this country do see that as the truth, hence the election of President Trump.
Instead of colluding with each other to try to take Mr. Trump down...instead of investigating the election, obstructing real partnership to get reasonable legislation passed...and colluding with a clearly "Leftist" media for the same purpose, they should recognize, admit, and act to prove they are prepared to abandon their lust for money, power, and status by actually listening to and acting on the wishes of their constituents.
If they do not, the next election cycle will see a lot of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle facing challenges from candidates that will make President Trump look like an agreeable teddy bear. And those candidates will win.
While it is clear that all professional politicians motives, even as they each deny them, include self-aggrandizement, accumulation of power, money and a sense of an elite status, not one of them seems to have the ability to sense, much less analyze and conclude, that the American voter is fed up with the lying and failure to actually care about the things that the voters who put them in office truly care about.
Some of them seem to think that because they were re-elected even as Mr. Trump won in last November's election they were not seen by the voter the same way that hindsight seemed to indicate those same voters saw Mrs. Clinton. One wonders if they have any inkling that if in their own races there had been 3 or more choices (including a brash, non-politician) that they might have suffered the same fate as Mrs. Clinton. Because with very few exceptions, it is clear that such would have been not only possible but likely.
Those of the political establishment have for years...decades, actually...gotten away with making promises that were clearly abandoned as soon as the election results were tabulated. In some cases it is clear that those promises at the time they were made were clearly lies.
Now that President Trump has held office for almost a year, it has been clear to every citizen capable of voting that every other person elected to the Congress of the United States of America acts to prevent any significant accomplishment by the new President...every one, even those who ran on a Republican ticket.
For eight years, Republicans claimed they had a better way of providing Healthcare in America and were prevented from providing relief for the American people because of the veto threat from a Democrat President...FOR EIGHT WHOLE YEARS! But once President Trump took office, having promised that when the Republican controlled Congress presented the bill to him, he would sign it...that Republican-controlled Congress failed to pass the promised legislation. That is too egregious to be an oversight, a mistake, or something slipping through the cracks! They lied.
Meanwhile, the Democrats for the previous eight years had proven over and over again that they also were lying to the American people. They also were moving further and further to the Left, as they took the side of demonstrators who took to the streets hurting people and destroying property and even attacking, hurting and murdering police. They claimed such violence was only "sporadic" and that it was all part of "free speech." Somehow they missed the concept of the guarantee being for the right to avoid prior censorship, but not consequences for what was said.
It is unfathomable that professional politicians do not recognize that the majority of the country see them as the equivalent of an invading, occupying force that holds office through subterfuge and fraud while exercising their power to obliterate individual freedom(s) and control both speech and action.
Clearly, the citizens of this country do see that as the truth, hence the election of President Trump.
Instead of colluding with each other to try to take Mr. Trump down...instead of investigating the election, obstructing real partnership to get reasonable legislation passed...and colluding with a clearly "Leftist" media for the same purpose, they should recognize, admit, and act to prove they are prepared to abandon their lust for money, power, and status by actually listening to and acting on the wishes of their constituents.
If they do not, the next election cycle will see a lot of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle facing challenges from candidates that will make President Trump look like an agreeable teddy bear. And those candidates will win.
Friday, February 24, 2017
Are the "Hate Crime" statutes attempts to by-pass the Constitutional guarantee of free Speech?
For three quarters of a century I have been angered by many events that centered around the exercise of free speech as guaranteed by the American Constitution. Most were personal events that occurred after I had gotten to voting age and had to endure what I considered bad language that not only was often physically impossible but also un-civil. These offended my perception of what communication should be in any civilized society.
Then there were general public exercises of offensive behavior and speech that seemed to violate existing social norms. Included in this list, was the burning of the American Flag and the behavior of the Westboro Baptist Church, of Topeka, Kansas, at the funerals of fallen servicemen.
I admit to a visceral anger at such behavior, and the wish for the power to put such activities to an end.
On reflection, while there was great danger in any preemptive prohibition on speech and/or action that did not encourage actual physical harm to others, it seemed that in cases where a case could clearly be made for damage being inflicted on innocents or others those who were injured should have the right to restitution.
Logic suggests that the courts, SCOTUS included, have wrongly and carelessly expanded the definition of "free" in free speech to include freedom from consequences of that exercise. A careful consideration of the concept of free speech seems to clearly mean that the founding fathers wished to prevent the preemptive prohibition of any person from stating a case on any subject that they found compelling.
There is no action in this world that does not have consequences for those committing actions...or speaking words. ONLY in America are people allowed to insult others, call them vile names and, in the case of politics, actually lie about accusations and behavior.
In any moral sense, this is wrong. Certainly any person can comment or accuse, but isn't it just common sense that there needs to be truthfulness in the comment or accusation? Absent truthfulness, shouldn't any person...rich, famous, poor, unknown...be able to call any such commenter or accuser to make the victim whole? What social, moral or governmental purpose is served by allowing reprehensible language.
Note that I see such action as being in civil courts, and never as being based on statutory laws. This should never be in the criminal realm. Why? Because then the government is given control of determining what is acceptable or not.
I abhor the passing of "Hate Crime" and "Hate Speech" legislation. The activities specified are already against the law and the courts have jurisdiction and those engaging in such actions can be punished for their actions. Frankly, the motivation for abhorrent behavior is not of importance and certainly should not the subject of governmental definition and intuition. As far as speech is concerned, the Constitution is clear on it being allowed. I certainly would allow action to recover provable injury from such speech...as long as it was in civil court and the judgment made by a jury.
Hate Speech statutes seem only to be a means for the Federal Government to "pile on" for largely political purposes when some crimes are committed. That is not reason to create more power and put it in the hands of the level of government most removed from the people.
Then there were general public exercises of offensive behavior and speech that seemed to violate existing social norms. Included in this list, was the burning of the American Flag and the behavior of the Westboro Baptist Church, of Topeka, Kansas, at the funerals of fallen servicemen.
I admit to a visceral anger at such behavior, and the wish for the power to put such activities to an end.
On reflection, while there was great danger in any preemptive prohibition on speech and/or action that did not encourage actual physical harm to others, it seemed that in cases where a case could clearly be made for damage being inflicted on innocents or others those who were injured should have the right to restitution.
Logic suggests that the courts, SCOTUS included, have wrongly and carelessly expanded the definition of "free" in free speech to include freedom from consequences of that exercise. A careful consideration of the concept of free speech seems to clearly mean that the founding fathers wished to prevent the preemptive prohibition of any person from stating a case on any subject that they found compelling.
There is no action in this world that does not have consequences for those committing actions...or speaking words. ONLY in America are people allowed to insult others, call them vile names and, in the case of politics, actually lie about accusations and behavior.
In any moral sense, this is wrong. Certainly any person can comment or accuse, but isn't it just common sense that there needs to be truthfulness in the comment or accusation? Absent truthfulness, shouldn't any person...rich, famous, poor, unknown...be able to call any such commenter or accuser to make the victim whole? What social, moral or governmental purpose is served by allowing reprehensible language.
Note that I see such action as being in civil courts, and never as being based on statutory laws. This should never be in the criminal realm. Why? Because then the government is given control of determining what is acceptable or not.
I abhor the passing of "Hate Crime" and "Hate Speech" legislation. The activities specified are already against the law and the courts have jurisdiction and those engaging in such actions can be punished for their actions. Frankly, the motivation for abhorrent behavior is not of importance and certainly should not the subject of governmental definition and intuition. As far as speech is concerned, the Constitution is clear on it being allowed. I certainly would allow action to recover provable injury from such speech...as long as it was in civil court and the judgment made by a jury.
Hate Speech statutes seem only to be a means for the Federal Government to "pile on" for largely political purposes when some crimes are committed. That is not reason to create more power and put it in the hands of the level of government most removed from the people.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
A Government may be legal...and still be illegitimate
The United States has just gone through an intense election and the European Union is seeing its member nations involved in an almost universal crisis of confidence in membership in that union.
Most of us have been angry, disturbed or perhaps just uncomfortable with actions that have been judged by our respective national justice systems to be legal even as we "knew" that they were wrong. Sometimes this has been because of badly worded laws, sometimes because of very good defenses coupled with inadequate or inept prosecutions (or the reverse), and sometimes because it seemed as everyone was so very worried about the individual tree as the forest was left to burn or wither.
In America Free Speech, originally defined to mean that there could, with rare exceptions, not be prevention of the right to say something, has become defined as meaning that whatever and however something is said, there shall be no consequences for it. That is just a perversion of the original intent. No longer is it necessary to be certain that your speech is a truthful statement lest you be brought into court for libeling someone...say whatever you want. This may be legal...but any sane person would suggest that such action should be judged as illegitimate.
The legal system in America has become a tool to enable people to avoid consequences for doing and saying illegitimate things. Just one example is the treatment of those entering and remaining in our country illegally. Our Constitution is a contract between its government and its citizens; it basically establishes that the government will protect its citizens and the country's borders and the citizens will obey the laws that govern the land. How on earth does any person or group who has NOT obeyed the laws of the United States get the right to claim that the government provide them the protections promised to its citizens? Those here illegally come to the table as non-parties to the contract and, moreover, they come with unclean hands, having already broken the laws that a citizen, as part of the contract, agrees to obey and abide by.
In France, the people voted NOT to join the European Union...but somehow (who know by what technical legal maneuvers) they are a member. The fact that France's politicians have done something that they argue was legal, does not make it legitimate. All over the world, the increased ability to communicate without prior constraint by governments is revealing to the people that their governments are run for the self-defined elites of each country, that the citizens are being made to support the lives of elites who care not one wit for the citizenry.
Strange that the elites seem unable to understand why the people are upset, angry and growing closer and closer to violence each day. How quickly the elites around the world forget the lessons of the Russian and French revolutions, among many others. When the government(s) show contempt for the law or use it for their own privileged purposes, why should they not understand that the citizens will see that they need to act in their own interests regardless of the laws, in the same way that the politicians have done to mistreat the citizens, to regain control of their own lives.
Those in power can only avoid "consequences" for so long before they must account. And the longer they delay that accounting, the more extreme the consequences.
Most of us have been angry, disturbed or perhaps just uncomfortable with actions that have been judged by our respective national justice systems to be legal even as we "knew" that they were wrong. Sometimes this has been because of badly worded laws, sometimes because of very good defenses coupled with inadequate or inept prosecutions (or the reverse), and sometimes because it seemed as everyone was so very worried about the individual tree as the forest was left to burn or wither.
In America Free Speech, originally defined to mean that there could, with rare exceptions, not be prevention of the right to say something, has become defined as meaning that whatever and however something is said, there shall be no consequences for it. That is just a perversion of the original intent. No longer is it necessary to be certain that your speech is a truthful statement lest you be brought into court for libeling someone...say whatever you want. This may be legal...but any sane person would suggest that such action should be judged as illegitimate.
The legal system in America has become a tool to enable people to avoid consequences for doing and saying illegitimate things. Just one example is the treatment of those entering and remaining in our country illegally. Our Constitution is a contract between its government and its citizens; it basically establishes that the government will protect its citizens and the country's borders and the citizens will obey the laws that govern the land. How on earth does any person or group who has NOT obeyed the laws of the United States get the right to claim that the government provide them the protections promised to its citizens? Those here illegally come to the table as non-parties to the contract and, moreover, they come with unclean hands, having already broken the laws that a citizen, as part of the contract, agrees to obey and abide by.
In France, the people voted NOT to join the European Union...but somehow (who know by what technical legal maneuvers) they are a member. The fact that France's politicians have done something that they argue was legal, does not make it legitimate. All over the world, the increased ability to communicate without prior constraint by governments is revealing to the people that their governments are run for the self-defined elites of each country, that the citizens are being made to support the lives of elites who care not one wit for the citizenry.
Strange that the elites seem unable to understand why the people are upset, angry and growing closer and closer to violence each day. How quickly the elites around the world forget the lessons of the Russian and French revolutions, among many others. When the government(s) show contempt for the law or use it for their own privileged purposes, why should they not understand that the citizens will see that they need to act in their own interests regardless of the laws, in the same way that the politicians have done to mistreat the citizens, to regain control of their own lives.
Those in power can only avoid "consequences" for so long before they must account. And the longer they delay that accounting, the more extreme the consequences.
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