This essay from the Examiner should make your blood run cold, particularly if you value the First Amendment.
Brief excerpt below the fold:
Death threats and taxes: How one 'wealthy' blogger was silenced
Everyone has an opinion on taxes -- and usually it's a negative one. So a recent blog post by University of Chicago law professor Todd Henderson shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. But the resulting firestorm prompted such a negative reaction that Henderson pulled the post and abandoned blogging altogether....
Read the rest HERE and more HERE. Excerpt from the latter link:
...[A]lmost as soon as he hit the send button, a firestorm erupted.. Henderson says he was inundated with e-mails that divided along the lines of “die yuppie scum” and “thank you for saying what we couldn’t say.” He says the vehement tone of the responses -- he called it “an electronic lynch mob” -- and fears for his family forced him to delete the post and quit blogging altogether....
What would force you bloggers to shut up?
In my view, the threat of losing one's job already prevents many from exercising their First Amendment right to freedom of speech. In these trying economic times, exercising caution is a wise step, I think.
Many of us bloggers and commenters already use pseudonyms – for various reasons, of course. In my case, I use a pseudonym so as to protect the safety of my students. I admit that, at my age, I'm no longer much concerned with my own personal safety. I will also admit that, from day one of blogging, I have had some concerns about litigation consequences.
My question to you: Is the use of pseudonyms a form of self-censorship that we bloggers should avoid?
Your comments to the above question and to the news item itself are welcome.
The Quran-burning controversy in the United States has prompted the Islamic bloc at the United Nations to revive its call for the U.N. to set up an “international monitoring mechanism” to track incidents of “Islamophobia.”
[...]
At the U.N. Human Rights Council this week, OIC members are also seeking support for a resolution condemning Florida pastor Terry Jones’ abortive call to burn copies of the Quran on September 11.
[...]
When it comes to a vote — before the Council’s session in Geneva ends next Friday [October 1] — the measure almost certainly will pass. The OIC controls more than one-third of the Council’s seats, and its resolutions are routinely backed by non-Muslim allies such as China, Russia, Cuba and South Africa.
Islamic law as the new world order means saying goodbye to our First Amendment. As just one example of what can happen when Muslims perceive that shari'a is violated, even in a society which doesn't live under shari'a law, read about the situation in which Molly Norris has found herself.
The OIC wants all of us to live in fear of offending Islam.
Information about the OIC, from this 2006 article, "Islamic Assault on the First Amendment":
The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), composed of 57 Muslim countries, formulated a resolution that Islam be protected from “defamation” even if factual. On April 12, 2005, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution by the vote of 31 to 16 that promotes “respect for all religions and their value system” superceding “respect for human rights”. Accordingly, accusing Islam of violating human rights is in itself an act of defamation of Islam.
And note this information about the OIC's upcoming conference in Chicago. Pastorius of Infidel Bloggers Alliance says this about the conference, in which the OIC will lecture us about Islamophobic:
It’s nauseating the Islamic supremacists from the OIC will be lecturing us on “Islamophobia” while on American soil.
Just how far does Islamification have to go before the West cries, "Enough"?
Silverfiddle of Western Hero makes an excellent point in this post:
The FBI cannot protect an American citizen [Molly Norris] from Muslim murderers, but it grants asylum to a foreigner [Jorge Luis Aguirre] threatened by drug gangs.
America has come to a sorry pass under the Obama administration.
Obama protests objections to the Ground Zero Mosque, condemns burning the Koran, yet remains silent about an American journalist's being forced into hiding by practitioners of the religion of peace.
You may have noticed that Molly Norris’ comic is not in the paper this week. That’s because there is no more Molly.
The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, “going ghost”: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity.
She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor.
She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab.
It’s all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoon....
Once again, the religion of peace proves that it is not peaceful, nor does Islam allow for freedom of expression, particularly if that freedom of expression is perceived as insulting Islam, Mohammed, the Koran, Moslems. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, to the point of all things Islamic, including naming a nightclub "La Meca"; read the information about the night club at Tea and Politics.
Remember these words of Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984):
They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
What You Need To Know About The Ground Zero Mosque
Please see this index from Infidel Bloggers Alliance. Worth your time.
More news below the fold.
The demonstration against the Ground Zero mosque last week, a demonstration some 10,000 strong, was quite an ostensible success.
Did that success have anything to do with PayPal's recently shutting down the accounts of Atlas Shrugs, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), and Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI)?
"This court is not interested in the truth. This court doesn't want me to have a fair trial." - Geert Wilders, February 4, 2010
It has come to my attention that some informed people don't even realize that Geert Wilders is on trial in what could well be the most important trial of the our time. Indeed, sometimes when I've mentioned the name "Geert Wilders," I've gotten a blank stare and the response, "Who?" and "What's going on?"
In my view, it is an abomination that the story of the trial of Geert Wilders is not making headlines in every newspaper in the West, including in the American media. Especially in the American media.
Paul Marshal, senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom, explains some of the importance of this trial and indicts the American media at National Review Online:
The American media’s silence about the Geert Wilders trial is puzzling —the trial is explosive, much more so than most of America’s perennial “trials of the century.” Wilders, leader of the Freedom party, is arguably the Netherlands’s most popular politician, but for years he has had to live in safe houses, including on military bases. He now faces the possibility of imprisonment on charges of “group insult” and “incitement to hatred,” as defined by articles 137 (c) and (d) of the Dutch penal code, for his public speeches and op-eds criticizing Islam.
Apart from its direct and immediate threat to free speech, the trial exposes the growth of political violence and repression in the Netherlands, long lauded as the most tolerant country in Europe, if not the world....
The media’s silence is also disturbing since it indicates their reluctance, even fear, when it comes to grappling with the West’s increasing censorship of anything that might be deemed offensive to some Muslims. So far, the effects in the U.S. are small — such as the Yale University Press’s removing the famous Danish cartoons from a book about those same cartoons — but they betray a mindset common to much of Europe: preemptive self-censorship.
Much more HERE in the article "Western Civilization on Trial"; contributors to the essay also include Bat Ye'or, Clifford D. May, Daniel Pipes, Nina Shea, and Robert Spencer.
The Geert Wilders trial ought to be an international media event; seldom has any court case anywhere had such enormous implications for the future of the free world. The case against him, which has all the legitimacy of a Stalinist-era Moscow show trial, is a manifestation of the global assault on free speech sponsored chiefly at the U.N. by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). If Wilders loses, the freedom of speech will be threatened everywhere in the West.
Even if he wins, a dangerous precedent has been set by the fact of the trial itself: It is a sad day for the freedom of speech when a man can be put on trial for causing another man offense. If offending someone were really a crime warranting prosecution by the civil authorities, the legal system would be opened up to absurdities even greater than the Wilders trial....
Of course, thanks to the Internet, the most-publicized "offense" that Mr. Wilders committed was making the video Fitna, a short film using words from the Koran, news headlines, and news video footage to illustrate the threat that jihad and Islamization pose to the Netherlands. Watch the video for yourself. Exactly what in that video isn't true?
No matter. The truth doesn't matter! As Stogie points out in this essay:
Geert Wilders is on trial for telling the truth.
Furthermore, we have yet another disturbing aspect of the trial:
Wilders is being limited in the number of witnesses he can call: out of 18 requested, only 3 were approved by the court.
Of note: one of the approved witnesses is Wafa Sultan, a former Muslim and the author of A God Who Hates.
In his unique style, Pat Condell addresses the matter of the trial of Geert Wilders in the following video, absolutely worth your time if you care one whit about freedom and justice:
The Obama Administration has now actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council last Friday, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
[...]
Last year the Secretary General of the [Organization of the Islamic Conference] chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu issued a warning: “We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed” regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. And he reported success: “The official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.”
For the first time, an American President has bowed to the OIC’s demands and taken cognizance of that “responsibility”...
Once eroded, freedom of speech is consigned to the dustbin of history. We are witnessing the early stages of that consignment to the trash heap right now.
The United States Has Given Up Control Of The Internet
(Two posts today. Please scroll down to the post below for a humorous graphic)
The consequences remain to be seen.
The decision was Washington-based. From this article in the Guardian:
After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.
Icann – the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org – said today [September 30] that it was ending its agreement with the US government.
The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of commerce, effectively pushes California-based Icann towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe.
[...]
The new agreement comes into force immediately. It replaces the old version which had been in place since 1998 and was scheduled to expire today [September 30].
[...]
"We expect more active involvement from governments, a higher level of participation from many governments and we're already hearing about more governments joining the team…
Read the entire article here. The article makes the kumbaya sound attractive.
But just how will Islamic countries react to sites critical of Islam? And how much power will foreign governments have over the web?
Additional reading: this post at Atlas Shrugs in which Pamela Geller says the following:
If not America, who? The US, beacon of life, liberty, and stalwart defender of individual rights, is giving up "ownership" of the internet. The new agreement gives other countries, and the UN the ability to set internet use policies. Wee, dear friends ..... for those whose only shot of communication will be snuffed out.
It is amazing how much damage to our rights can be done in such a short period of time.
Watch for Sharia law to find its way into this.
China will say no to their dissidents.
Islam will say no and work block sites that attempt to reveal their bloody plans.
It was our extraordinary gift to the world ............... and like some depraved drunk we toss it away and relinquish control to the vultures and destroyers. We kept it free.
Despite its many flaws, the Internet has been a beacon of truth and of information. What if that light gets dimmed? The light will dim or possibly completely go out if the "world community" takes complete control of the web!
Also see this: "U.S. co-sponsors anti-free speech resolution at the UN."
...Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, a world affairs columnist and CNN host who serves on Yale's governing board, said he told Yale that he believed publishing the images would have provoked violence.
"As a journalist and public commentator, I believe deeply in the First Amendment and academic freedom," Zakaria said. "But in this instance Yale Press was confronted with a clear threat of violence and loss of life."
It appears that BHO had Zakaria's book The Post-American World on his reading list:
Just sayin'...
Additional reading: more from Creeping Sharia about Zakaria in Newsweek and at his web site.
MyBarackObama.com: Dissenters To BHO's Plans Are "Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists"
Much of the following video is about BHO's upcoming national address to schoolchildren. But there is another element too. Listen and watch, particularly at time marker :55-1:10. Also note that right-wingers have been deemed "the heirs of Bin Laden," at time marker 1:40-1:43.
Not a surprise that the right is being demonized. Didn't I post this less than a month ago?
Palin's comments, posted on her Facebook page, come after weeks of raucous town halls in which conservatives have shouted down members of Congress.
"There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to rush through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment," Palin wrote. "Such tactics diminish our nation’s civil discourse which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters’ passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying. Let’s not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us."
Let's think about Palin's statement for a minute. Common folk are going to town halls and have one chance to have a face-to-face with their so-called "elected public servants." And those public servants are lying to and dissing the very people who pay their salaries after voting these "public servants" into office. These common folk, many of them looking to the so-called "experts" for answers, come, for the most part, respectful of the office and perhaps even a bit intimidated by the "experts," many of whom are lawyers or, at the least, have many years in public office. Then the common folk learn that these relied-upon "experts" don't have answers and/or are spouting the BHO party line.
Analogy: I recently bought a new car. The first dealer I visited for over three hours lied to me as to the trade-in amount for my clunker (the manager saying "$3500" when the government web site clearly stated $4500). We cut a tentative deal at $11,000, and when I returned to that car dealer later in the day with my checkbook in hand and the printout from the government web site, I got all sorts of run-around and a new price of $14,000.
So what did I do? Kick the furniture around? Start yelling? No. I went to another car dealer and yet another until I found one willing to strike a deal with me. I wasn't trapped, I had options.
But what if there had been no other car dealer to go to? I think that my reaction would have been much like the common folk at the town halls. I certainly wouldn't have left quietly as I really needed a new car.
In a sense, these common folk at the town halls are trapped. They have only one dealer with which to strike a deal, that dealer being their so-called "public servant" of the moment. And the common folk are seeing so-called "public servant" after so-called "public servant" acting the assand lying.
These so-called "public servants" deserve to be hooted at, yelled at, and laughed at. They've earned such reactions. They also need to be voted out of office - perhaps even recalled from office before their current term has ended.
In my view, Sarah Palin is coming off like some kind of elitist with her statement about telling the common folk to tone down their anger. Furthermore, the people - the common folk, untrained in public relations and policy debate, which training all these politicians have - are showing anger in the face of disdain and lies, and are responding in the tradition of the Spirit of 1776.
It is the so-called "public servants" who have turned public discourse into a farce. They deserve the reaction they are getting from the people.
Click directly on the image to your left to enlarge it and to see what these so-called "public servants" actually deserve!
This is one of my longer posts, so settle in for a lengthy read as I connect the dots. This post will stay here several days as I have a busy week ahead.
(graphic courtesy of GM's Place - disseminate freely)
Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform
As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
[...]
Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.
If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.
As one who always reads Pearlstein's columns, which typically often sound financial advice, I have to say that I'm astounded as the position he has taken in this essay.
Those with concerns about ObamaCare are "political terrorists"? Perhaps Pearlstein is a covert disciple of Cass Suntein and Zephyr Teachout. --------- On July 12, 2009, I posted the following about Cass Sunstein:
Based on his own words and statements of intent, Cass Sunstein, appointed to the shadowy post of White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, will likely have his eye on the Internet, particularly on us bloggers:
When it comes to the First Amendment, Team Obama believes in Global Chilling.
Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor who has been appointed to a shadowy post that will grant him powers that are merely mind-boggling, explicitly supports using the courts to impose a "chilling effect" on speech that might hurt someone's feelings. He thinks that the bloggers have been rampaging out of control and that new laws need to be written to corral them.
[...]
Sunstein questions the current libel standard - which requires proving "actual malice" against those who write about public figures, including celebrities. Mere "negligence" isn't libelous, but Sunstein wonders, "Is it so important to provide breathing space for damaging falsehoods about entertainers?" Celeb rags, get ready to hire more lawyers.
Sunstein also believes that - whether you're a blogger, The New York Times or a Web hosting service - you should be held responsible even for what your commenters say. Currently you're immune under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. "Reasonable people," he says, "might object that this is not the right rule," though he admits that imposing liability for commenters on service providers would be "a considerable burden."
[...]
"As we have seen," Sunstein writes, having shown us no such thing, "falsehoods can undermine democracy itself." What Sunstein means by that sentence is pretty clear: He doesn't like so-called false rumors about his longtime University of Chicago friend and colleague, Barack Obama.
He alludes on page 3 (and on page 13, and 14, and 45, and 54 - the book is only 87 pages) to the supposedly insidious lie that "Barack Obama pals around with terrorists." Since Sunstein intends to impose his Big Chill on such talk, I'd better get this in while I can. The "rumor," i.e., "fact," about the palsy-walsiness of Obama and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers (Ayers referred to Obama as a "family friend" in a memoir) did not "undermine democracy," i.e., prevent Obama's election. The facts got out, voters weighed them and ruled that they weren't disqualifying.
Sunstein calls for a "notice and take down" law that would require bloggers and service providers to "take down falsehoods upon notice," even those made by commenters - but without apparent penalty.
Consider how well this nudge would work. You blog about Obama-Ayers. You get a letter claiming that your facts are wrong so you should remove your post. You refuse. If, after a court proceeding proves simply that you are wrong (but not that you committed libel, which when a public figure is the target is almost impossible), you lose, the penalty is . . . you must take down your post.
Such suppression of First Amendment rights would be challenged in courts of law, of course. However, the article points out the following disturbing reality:
How long would it take for a court to sort out the truth? Sasha and Malia will be running for president by then. Nobody will care anymore. But it will give politicians the ability to tie up their online critics in court....
Here is a some additional information about Cass Sunstein:
At the time of my July 2009 posting about Cass Suntein's plans, RaDena commented as follows:
They won't be able to do it, Always, because it will backfire on the far left. They spew more vitriol than anyone...They can't suppress only conservatives and as they can't do anything else except throw around insults they'd be affected by this much worse than you or I would. Americans are not going to tolerate that much of a double standard... at least I hope not!
Hmmmm.... And now we have the White House snitch program and all sorts of trouble at town halls (See recent posts at Gateway Pundit). How things have changed in less than a month from that posting about Sunstein! We shouldn't be surprised at change, of course: the Whitehouse.gov video, which supposedly "debunked" the idea that Obama is pro single-payer, came of out the White House Office of Information, headed by Cass Sunstein. How many of the other videos and documents coming out of the White House bear the mark of Sunstein? A lot of them, I'm sure.
Now, about Zephyr Teachout.
Back on May 31, 2009, I published a post entitled "Are BHO and Company Keeping a List?" at Infidel Bloggers Alliance:
How long do we have before we lose the Internet?
I direct you to this column by George F. Will. Complete essay, which is quite long but important for us to discuss, I think:
For several decades, most of the ingenuity that liberal academics have invested in First Amendment analysis has aimed to justify limiting the core activity that the amendment was written to protect -- political speech. These analyses treat free speech as not an inherent good but as a merely instrumental good, something justified by serving other ends -- therefore something to be balanced against, and abridged to advance, other goods.
The good for which Zephyr Teachout would regulate speech is combating corruption, which, as she understands it, encompasses most of contemporary politics. A visiting law professor at Duke, writing in the Cornell Law Review ("The Anti-Corruption Principle"), she makesan astonishingly far-reaching argument for emancipating government from First Amendment restrictions on its powers to regulate political speech -- speech about the government's composition and conduct.
Hitherto, most arguments for such emancipation -- for McCain-Feingold and other measures regulating the quantity, content and timing of political speech -- have rested on the supposed need to curb corruption or the "appearance" thereof, with corruption understood as quid pro quo transactions, political favors exchanged for financial favors. But bribery has long been criminalized, and courts are wary about allowing the criminalizing of the constant transactions of mutual support between politicians and factions.
Teachout's capacious definition of corruption includes even an unseemly "attitude" of citizens as well as officeholders "toward public service." She says that the Framers thought limiting corruption was their "primary task." Therefore the "anti-corruption principle" should have "as much weight" as the First Amendment, giving Congress considerable "leeway" to regulate the political "process," which is mostly speech. What Teachout disparagingly calls "the apotheosis of speech" and "the sanctified meme of 'free speech' " is, she says, "a serious problem" requiring a rethinking of "the proper relationship of speech to self-serving public actors."
She advocates, as proponents of an elastic Constitution often do, an "evolving standard," this time a standard about how we define, measure and condemn "self-serving" behavior, aka corruption. This standard might license Congress to restrict speech in order to combat:
"Unequal access" to the political process; "unfair deployment of wealth"; "undue influence" by this or that group; speech that is "distorting" or lacks "proportionality" or results in "drowned voices" or a "passive" or "dispirited" public or that causes a "loss of political integrity" or creates "moral failings for members of Congress." Such speech might not be constitutionally protected if we properly "refine the meaning of the privilege of political speech."
So, political speech is not a right but a privilege, something granted by governmentwhen government deems it consistent with what Teachout calls the "equally important" anti-corruption principle. Imagine the "self-serving" uses incumbent legislators might have for the terms in the paragraph above as reasons for restricting political speech.
The word "corruption" or some permutation of it occurs 58 times in the 85 essays that are the Federalist Papers. James Madison wrote not only many of the papers but also this: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." He saw no conflict between that proscription and efforts to minimize corruption. He and other Framers considered corruption a vice requiring constant vigilance precisely because it is inextricably entwined with a virtue, America's vast scope -- constitutionally protected scope -- for self-interested behavior, including political speech.
Congressional Democrats want to kill a small voucher program that gave some mostly poor and minority students alternatives to the District of Columbia's failing public schools, and the Obama administration spent additional billions to avoid a declaration of bankruptcy by General Motors. Some people think both decisions represented disinterested assessments of the public good. Others think the decisions represented obeisance by Democrats to the teachers and autoworkers unions, respectively. If the decisions were such obeisance, they were, by Teachout's standards, corrupt.
If corruption is as ubiquitous as Teachout's standard ("self-serving" behavior) says, then reasons for restricting political speech also are ubiquitous. Under today's regulatory and redistributionist government, which is busily allocating wealth and opportunity, politics frequently "appears" to many people "self-serving." It will not, however, be prettified by regulating speech.
If Teachout considers the politics produced by today's gargantuan government unlovely, she should not try to further enlarge the government by empowering it to comprehensively regulate speech about government. Instead, she should join the movement to restrain government's incessant regulating and redistributing transactions on behalf of myriad factions -- transactions that create more and more clamorous factions. The movement is called conservatism.
If political speech becomes a privilege, we are doomed!
Are you connecting the dots in the same way that I am?
Right now, with union thugs moving in on town hall meetings, we are seeing political speech becoming a privilege.
Right now, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media are painting constituents voicing questions and dissent as "extremists." Watch a few broadcasts on MSNBC to get the drift, but be sure to take your antacids or a stiff drink first. We even have Nancy Pelosi saying that dissenters to ObamaCare are carrying swastikas and deceptive photos circulating. How long before we hear that portrayal as "Angry town hall attendees are political terrorists"? And remember the ideology which drives this administration; Sunstein and Teachout make that ideology clear even though we don't hear their names front and center.
Losing our freedom of speech and even our ability to freely communicate with our elected public servants can't happen in America? Think again.
After all, who would have said a year ago that we'd be seeing these town halls, overt and covert, erupting as they have?
And could you get away with putting this sign in your yard and have your home still remain safe? Could you put this bumper-sticker version on your car and not have your car vandalized? I think that we've already lost those freedoms.
I submit that WE THE PEOPLE are being terrorized by this arrogant, power-grabbing administration and its maniacal devotees, who want us to become WE THE SHEEPLE:
Of course, not all the people are willing to be sheeple (hat tip to Reliapundit of THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS):
Likely, you've heard about this poster cropping up all over Los Angeles:
From this article in the Washington Post, about the above poster:
...[T]he poster is ultimately a racially charged image. By using the "urban" makeup of the Heath Ledger Joker, instead of the urbane makeup of the Jack Nicholson character, the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can't openly discuss. He is black and he is identified with the inner city, a source of political instability in the 1960s and '70s, and a lingering bogeyman in political consciousness...
The Joker's makeup in "Dark Knight" -- the latest film in a long franchise that dramatizes fear of the urban world -- emphasized the wounded nature of the villain, the sense that he was both a product and source of violence. Although Ledger was white, and the Joker is white, this equation of the wounded and the wounding mirrors basic racial typology in America. Urban blacks -- the thinking goes -- don't just live in dangerous neighborhoods, they carry that danger with them like a virus. Scientific studies, which demonstrate the social consequences of living in neighborhoods with high rates of crime, get processed and misinterpreted in the popular unconscious, underscoring the idea....
It is an ugly idea, operating covertly in that gray area that is always supposed to be opened up to honest examination whenever America has one of its "we need to talk this through" episodes. But it lingers, unspoken but powerful, leaving all too many people with the sense that exposure to crime creates an ineluctable propensity to crime.
Superimpose that idea, through the Joker's makeup, onto Obama's face, and you have subtly coded, highly effective racial and political argument. Forget socialism, this poster is another attempt to accomplish an association between Obama and the unpredictable, seeming danger of urban life. It is another effort to establish what failed to jell in the debate about Obama's association with Chicago radical William Ayers and the controversy over the racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama, like the Joker and like the racial stereotype of the black man, carries within him an unknowable, volatile and dangerous marker of urban violence, which could erupt at any time. The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can't be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he's black.
I call BS on the above article!
The idea that we cannot criticize BHO's policies because any such criticism is racism is pure nonsense. Dangerous nonsense.
Comments at the WaPo web site can be found HERE. Last time I checked, comments totaled over 1600.
And the author of the article, Philip Kennicott, defends his article HERE.
From this essay by Byron York in the Washington Examiner:
Obama's dissident database could be secret -- and permanent
The White House request that members of the public report anyone who is spreading "disinformation" about the proposed national health care makeover could lead to a White House database of political opponents that will be both secret and permanent, according to Republican lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are examining the plan's possible implementation.
[...]
Senate Judiciary Committee lawyers studying the proposal say that although there is no absolutely settled law on the matter, the White House plan is likely not covered by the Privacy Act, which prohibits government agencies from keeping any records "describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained." Therefore, it appears the White House can legally keep records of the emails and other communications it receives in response to Phillips' request. [Macon Phillips is the White House director of new media]
Those lawyers also point out that the White House is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, which means it would not have to release any information on the plan to members of the public who make a request.
In addition, the lawyers say the collected emails likely will be covered by the Presidential Records Act, which requires the White House to preserve and maintain its records for permanent storage in a government database. Phillips' request suggests that whatever information the White House receives on health-care reform "disinformation" will be used to further the goal of passing a national health-care makeover, which is, of course, one of the president's main policy initiatives. Such material, and whatever the White House does with it, would qualify as presidential records. Only after more than a decade would such records be publicly available....
Something very, very slimy is going on with the BHO administration.
In less than seven months, January 20, 2009 being the point at which BHO and this Democratic Party Congress took office, gone is the leftists' cry of "Dissent is patriotic."
And, if you have not already done so, please read yesterday's post here at my blog site: "America, Welcome to the Gulag!" The screen shot of the White House web site's promotion of silencing voices is in that posting. After all, one never knows when the White House web site will be scrubbed.
This topic of this posting is everywhere today, I know. But something as significant and anti-American as what the White House posted on its official web site cannot be ignored by a blog called "Always On Watch."
The screen shot (hat tip to Karen of Eastern Right):
The infamous paragraph is below the fold:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
The left believes that dissent is fine and dandy when the left is doing the dissenting. Another standard evidently applies when the right dissents.
And the White House is now promoting snitching, even extending to "casual conversation," because some Americans are wary of BHO's health-care reform. Daring to defy BHO makes targets of any who won't toe his line.
(with thanks to my friend Mary for emailing me the link)
Based on his own words and statements of intent, Cass Sunstein, appointed to the shadowy post of White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, will likely have his eye on the Internet, particularly on us bloggers:
When it comes to the First Amendment, Team Obama believes in Global Chilling.
Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor who has been appointed to a shadowy post that will grant him powers that are merely mind-boggling, explicitly supports using the courts to impose a "chilling effect" on speech that might hurt someone's feelings. He thinks that the bloggers have been rampaging out of control and that new laws need to be written to corral them.
[...]
Sunstein questions the current libel standard - which requires proving "actual malice" against those who write about public figures, including celebrities. Mere "negligence" isn't libelous, but Sunstein wonders, "Is it so important to provide breathing space for damaging falsehoods about entertainers?" Celeb rags, get ready to hire more lawyers.
Sunstein also believes that - whether you're a blogger, The New York Times or a Web hosting service - you should be held responsible even for what your commenters say. Currently you're immune under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. "Reasonable people," he says, "might object that this is not the right rule," though he admits that imposing liability for commenters on service providers would be "a considerable burden."
[...]
"As we have seen," Sunstein writes, having shown us no such thing, "falsehoods can undermine democracy itself." What Sunstein means by that sentence is pretty clear: He doesn't like so-called false rumors about his longtime University of Chicago friend and colleague, Barack Obama.
He alludes on page 3 (and on page 13, and 14, and 45, and 54 - the book is only 87 pages) to the supposedly insidious lie that "Barack Obama pals around with terrorists." Since Sunstein intends to impose his Big Chill on such talk, I'd better get this in while I can. The "rumor," i.e., "fact," about the palsy-walsiness of Obama and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers (Ayers referred to Obama as a "family friend" in a memoir) did not "undermine democracy," i.e., prevent Obama's election. The facts got out, voters weighed them and ruled that they weren't disqualifying.
Sunstein calls for a "notice and take down" law that would require bloggers and service providers to "take down falsehoods upon notice," even those made by commenters - but without apparent penalty.
Consider how well this nudge would work. You blog about Obama-Ayers. You get a letter claiming that your facts are wrong so you should remove your post. You refuse. If, after a court proceeding proves simply that you are wrong (but not that you committed libel, which when a public figure is the target is almost impossible), you lose, the penalty is . . . you must take down your post.
Such suppression of First Amendment rights would be challenged in courts of law, of course. However, the article points out the following disturbing reality:
How long would it take for a court to sort out the truth? Sasha and Malia will be running for president by then. Nobody will care anymore. But it will give politicians the ability to tie up their online critics in court....
If Suntein's proposal become reality, America as the beacon of freedom is finished!
Take it from me, one caught up in a lawsuit regarding a car accident of some four years ago and with no settlement yet in sight, swift justice doesn't exist.
Robert Spencer is exactly correct. We're witnessing the constant erosion of freedom of speech. Is the world paying attention? Is there any stopping this steamroller crushing the most important liberty, from which all other liberties spring?
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