Freedom of Speech

The Center for Immigration Studies, a leading anti-immigrant group that was invited to testify at last month’s Senate immigration reform hearings, has been making it very clear why it opposes comprehensive reform. In an interview last week, CIS director Mark Krikorian said that Republicans shouldn’t bother courting Latino voters or “importing more of them” through immigration reform because “generally speaking, Hispanic voters are Democrats.”

In an interview yesterday with VCY America’s Jim Schneider, the group’s research director Steven Camarota, piled on, calling GOP supporters of immigration reform “useful idiots” who “have no idea of the political preferences of the people who they’re trying to turn into voters.” 

Schneider: I think it’s Politico, this week Monday, talked about this mega GOP donor, Paul Singer, making a six-figure donation to a group that’s involved with marshaling conservatives to support an overhaul of our federal laws on this issue. I mean, is there, it sounds like there’s tons of pressure that’s going on legislators at this time.

Camarota: Yeah, well, you know, what did Lenin, the leader of the Soviet revolution say, ‘There’s a lot of…the capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him.’ Well, you know, there’s just a…and he also talked about the concept of ‘useful idiots.’ These are people who help you inadvertently with your revolution. Well, that’s kind of a harsh statement but the reality is there are lots of conservatives who never actually looked at the voting data, who have no idea of the political preferences of the people who they’re trying to turn into voters.

And so, when you press them on this, a lot of times they’ll say, well, ‘I didn’t know,’ or, ‘We’ll fix that, somehow we’ll change their minds,’ as if they were malleable piece of clay and not human beings entitled to their own opinions. The fact is that if immigration continues, the United States will continue to move in a more left or progressive direction. That’s not necessarily bad or good, but it is a fact, because the new immigrants and their children, based on all the polling that we have, tend to favor expansive government. Again, in a democracy, you change the voters, the political system has to respond. That’s just the reality of the situation.

Elsewhere in the interview, Camarota went all out on the racial dog whistles, taking on Attorney General Eric Holder’s defense of the civil rights of immigrants and non-English speakers. “Unfortunately, there’s a whole industry designed to balkanize the country and remind people of their backgrounds and ethnicity and their race,” Camarota said. “And there’s a lot of what you might call ‘professional ethnics’ out there whose job it is to keep the country divided.” This "identity and grievance politics," he adds, is “one of the downsides of immigration in modern America.”

Schneider: He also used this term, ‘language minorities,’ and that sounded rather peculiar to me. Can you define, what is he meaning by ‘language minorities?’

Camarota: Well, this is something that’s evolved since the 1960s, not surprisingly, that if you don’t speak English you’re entitled to certain protections, including things like have voting ballots printed up in your language. Now, of course, a moment’s reflection reveals that basically that makes no sense. Because when you naturalize, when a legal immigrant becomes a full citizen of the United States, they have to display a knowledge of English, so they should be able to read English. And people born in the United States should also be able to have learned English. They lived here, they grew up here.

So who exactly are these foreign language battles for? Well, what it’s for is to preserve ethnic identity. And unfortunately, there’s a whole industry designed to balkanize the country and remind people of their backgrounds and ethnicity and their race. And there’s a lot of what you might call ‘professional ethnics’ out there whose job it is to keep the country divided, because if people assimilate, well, they have no one they can claim to represent. And that’s one of the downsides of immigration in modern America, identity and grievance politics.

On this week's "Hagee Hotline," Pastor John Hagee responded to a question from a viewer about whether God would hold this nation accountable if it ever legalized gay marriage by declaring that biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah was "God's pilot study for his response to the homosexual society," and warning that it was not a matter of the government approving it but rather "if the people accept it, and if the righteous accept it, judgment will come":

One of the most remarkable things about the Religious Right today is the amazingly widespread belief that any criticism or disagreement with their agenda is somehow a violation of their First Amendment rights. 

The Religious Right seems to truly believe that the First Amendment protects their rights to say anything they wish while simultaneously rendering them immune from criticism or opposition, as if the very same First Amendment that protects their free speech rights does not protect the free speech rights of those who disagree with them.

Case in point:  the day after the election, the American Humanist Association sent a letter to all the newly elected members of Congress, encouraging them not to join the Congressional Prayer Caucus. But to Rep. Randy Forbes, founder of the Prayer Caucus, this is nothing more than an attempt to "censor people" and prevent them from talking about their faith, as he explained on "Wallbuilders Live" today:

None of us, and no member of our caucus believes, that we want government to dictate what the church should do and we don't want the church dictating what the government should do.

But these extremist groups try to switch that around and they try to carry it to another dimension where they don't want anybody in government to have the right to even speak about their faith, or prayer, or God, or religion.  And they don't want anyone in the church to be able to speak about government.

What they want to do is censor people from their faith and from their First Amendment rights.

Members of Congress have the right to join the Prayer Caucus if they want, just as others have a right to ask them not to do so.  That is how the First Amendment works. 

Disagreement is not censorship and the Constitution does not protect you from criticism.

For years, conservatives have claimed that liberals seek to criminalize Christianity and conservative opinions through imaginary hate speech laws. But today, WorldNetDaily columnist Erik Rush writes that the government should prosecute liberals and members of the press… in order to defend freedom, of course. He accuses journalists of “treasonous collusion” with the Obama administration and said the Founders would have wanted journalists to be “found guilty of high crimes.” “Trials for treason and the requisite sentences would apply,” Rush says, “and I would have no qualms about seeing such sentences executed, no matter how severe.” He claims that progressives’ “seditious, anti-American” speech is “excepted from protection under the First Amendment,” hoping that “the political disenfranchisement of liberals, progressives, socialists and Marxists can begin in earnest, and in the open.”

Assuming that all goes well and that we are rid of Obama in January, there will be a nation to repair – but what about the causes for this necessity? Yes, many Americans are now cognizant of the fact that progressives have “progressed” America dangerously close to being a Marxist-socialist nation and that we are collectively responsible for not having checked that progress. But aside from grass-roots efforts toward electoral and political reform, there are other widespread, organized threats to America’s ongoing concern as a representative republic with guaranteed personal liberties, free speech foremost among them.

Here, I am speaking of the press, the conglomeration of national broadcast, digital and print media organizations that has been incrementally packed with ideological liberals and socialists, and so has disqualified itself as the impartial government watchdog it once was. During my lifetime, I have seen the press become an advance force for social engineering and global socialism. The degree to which they have deceived Americans and enabled the agenda of radicals in recent decades is beyond shame. As former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell said recently, the press has become an enemy of the American people. In the matter of this president, the press largely facilitated the ascension of Barack Obama. The instances wherein they have promoted, shielded and aided him are beyond enumeration.

This goes beyond such things as MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and his man crush on Obama – I’m talking about treasonous collusion. One particularly scandalous incident occurred during the second presidential debate, when CNN moderator Candy Crowley made an interjection that appeared to have been as spontaneous as Ambassador Chris Stevens’ murder, and which led to a solid point scored for Obama. Most recently, after Mitt Romney brought up Obama’s 2009 “Apology Tour,” the press did their best to support Obama’s claim that this never happened, despite boundless reams of footage that exist chronicling the event.

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It is improbable that the framers of the Constitution anticipated a situation in which the press were entirely given over to seditious, anti-American policies. If they had, it is likely that their modus operandi would be similar to that for any faction found guilty of high crimes. Trials for treason and the requisite sentences would apply, and I would have no qualms about seeing such sentences executed, no matter how severe.

This is not likely to occur, however. Radio personality and nascent media mogul Glenn Beck has the intention of putting the establishment press out of business. While I wish him every success, it doesn’t seem likely that he will accomplish this through his organizations alone. In addition to the advent of powerful alternative media sources, I believe it will be necessary to codify – or reaffirm – the nature of crimes against the Constitution and the American people. In this manner, we can thwart the designs not only of the press, but all global socialists operating in America.

Those whose speech and actions impinge upon the God-given rights set forth in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the Constitution are, by definition, excepted from protection under the First Amendment (as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment). This is a very important concept to consider, because it is based on these presumptions of protected speech and equal protection for all that progressives and socialists have engaged in their predation upon our liberties.

If these truths can be acknowledged and widely accepted as such (as opposed to progressives’ Orwellian interpretations), then the political disenfranchisement of liberals, progressives, socialists and Marxists can begin in earnest, and in the open.

Concerned Women for America’s leading “scholar” Janice Shaw Crouse is defending the conviction of three members of the Russian band “Pussy Riot” on charges of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” The three women were sentenced by a Russian court to two years in a prison colony in a decision condemned by the U.S., the E.U. and human rights groups. Their crime was a performance staged in a cathedral in which they beseeched the Virgin Mary to deliver Russia from Vladimir Putin and denounced the increasingly close ties between the state and the Russian Orthodox Church.

In a column today, Crouse defends the convictions, writing that Pussy Riot “insult[ed] Christians” and that the band members should “accept responsibility for your actions” and “repent.”

So next time Concerned Women for America complains about the Obama administration’s supposed threats to freedom, just remember that they have no problem with Russia imprisoning political activists.

Have the women repented or taken responsibility for their actions? Their formal statements about the incident reveal their utter lack of morality, embrace of a "blame-everyone-but-us" ideology, and disdain for capitalism and individual responsibility. Like their U.S. counterparts, they want "human rights, civil and political freedoms" for themselves but not for Christian believers or anyone else with different beliefs.

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The media -- both in Russia and in the U.S. -- ignores the religious bigotry directed at Christianity and, instead, jumps to the defense of anyone who shows intolerance towards the church. It is apparent from the closing statements of the three Russian feminists on trial that they are not sorry for their actions and, in fact, view themselves as the victims, not the Christians that they denigrated. The punk rock group entered the sanctuary with the intent to insult Christians, and when they were held accountable, they claimed that it was someone else's fault.

If you want to rage against that which you perceive to be unjust or unfair, it would go a long way toward credibility to also accept responsibility for your actions.

In his Washington Update radio address today, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins slams the American Library Association for a curriculum that educates students about their library privacy rights. Perkins quotes the concerns of Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, a group that encourages parents to challenge “sensitive, controversial and inappropriate material” in school libraries, including such books as Beloved, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.

“School libraries,” Perkins says, “are one place where liberalism has a long shelf life”:

In the library, what kids are really checking out is a new ideology. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. School libraries are one place where liberalism has a long shelf life. For years, the American Library Association's been funneling inappropriate material to kids. And stopping them just got a whole lot harder. The Left wing's favorite billionaire, George Soros, is giving the ALA a half-million dollars a year to develop a "privacy curriculum" that teaches kids how to "bust through censor walls," "encrypt their communication," and "override filters." Even worse, librarians are told "to inform students that their book circulation data will never be shared with anyone, including their parents." Groups like Parents Against Bad Books in Schools are fighting back, but they need your help. "If enough parents become aware of how many objectionable books there are in [circulation] and work together in constantly challenging them, things can improve considerably," said a spokesman. Otherwise, what libraries will be lending isn't books--but a helping hand to the Left.

For what it’s worth, here are the American Library Association’s guidelines on privacy in school libraries:

Students as Library Users: Students who use school libraries need to learn about the concepts of privacy and confidentiality. They may not know the dangers of sharing personally identifiable information with others. School library media specialists may face the situation of an adult asking for information pertaining to students' library use. These situations must be handled in accordance with all school and library policies. In an ideal situation, that information would not be released. Teachers should not be able to "check" on students to see if they have borrowed assigned readings or used specific resources. School library media specialists are best served when they assist teachers in developing classroom procedures and policies that preserve user privacy and meet educational goals.

Last week, a Ugandan gay rights group sued anti-gay activist Scott Lively in US court for allegedly violating international law over his role in Uganda's proposed "Kill The Gays" bill.

So naturally the good folks at Liberty Counsel have stepped up and agreed to defend Lively in this case: 

Liberty Counsel has agreed to represent Rev. Scott Lively, an evangelical pastor who was sued in a Massachusetts federal court by a foreign group called Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG).

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The suit is a direct attempt to silence Rev. Lively because of his speech about homosexuality and pornography ... Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, commented: “This lawsuit against Rev. Scott Lively is a gross attempt to use a vague international law to silence, and eventually criminalize, speech by U.S. citizens on homosexuality and moral issues. This suit should cause everyone to be concerned, because it a direct threat against freedom of speech.”

On his radio program yesterday, Bryan Fischer explained that the only real difference between liberals and Islamic radicals was that "so far [liberals] haven't taken to killing people."  But other than that, they are pretty much the same because both groups hate America, freedom, and God:

There's this odd collaboration between liberals in America and Muslims. Liberals reject the Judeo-Christian tradition just like Islam does and that's where, I think, the linkage is. I mean, you look at Islam, they're going to behead homosexuals; liberals want them coronated; we want them helped. So these are poles apart, so why is it that liberals in America are so fond of and go to bat for Muslims all the time? It makes no sense in any kind of rational world.

But there isn't any rationality in liberalism. It's not rational. It's not logical. It violates everything we know about history, everything we know about logic, everything we know about morality. All of those are violated by a liberal worldview. So what is that they share in common? Well, I think what they share in common, the reason that they bond together, you know the enemy of my enemy is my friend, they both have in common one enemy: the Judge-Christian system of values, the Judge-Christian system of truth claims and values. They both hate the Judge-Christian tradition with equal passion and so that's what bonds them together.

And they hate America with equal passion. And they hate democracy. They hate freedom of speech, they hate freedom of association. So what Muslims and liberals share together is this hatred of the United States, this hatred of classical American values, this hatred of the Judeo-Christian values system.

And the illustration of the way in which Muslims hate democracy just as much as "regressives" do ... I'm not saying "as much" because Muslims are willing to go much further in their opposition to democracy than Democrats are. They'll try to shut you down, they'll try to engage in electoral fraud, they will try to use intimidation, they will try to use the courts, they will try to shout you down, but so far they haven't taken to killing people.

Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family’s True Tolerance campaign has been an outspoken opponent of anti-bullying policies, and now she is warning parents that the safe-schools group GLSEN wants to make school sports teams a friendlier and less hostile environment for gay and lesbian athletes. While the National Education Policy Center found that 85% of LGBT students “report being harassed because of their sexual or gender identity” at school, anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family militantly oppose any efforts to tackle the bullying problem and claim “pro-homosexual” anti-bullying programs “promote homosexuality in kids.” Today, Cushman demonizes GLSEN for designing ways for coaches and athletes to prevent the harassment of LGBT players:

Parents should be aware of how this radicalism could be introduced to their children through school sports programs.

Called “Changing the Game: The GLSEN Sports Project,” the new initiative is “focused on addressing LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] issues in K-12 school-based athletic and physical education programs.”

The director of the new GLSEN sports program is Pat Griffin, who has a history of promoting homosexual and transgender activism and is the author of a book entitled Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbians and Homophobia in Sport. The book has chapters with titles like, “We Prey, They Pray? Lesbians and Evangelical Christians in Sport.”

In a “Chalk Talk” series for coaches, Griffin has advised on “What is Unacceptable in an Athletic Setting,” including “Teammates proselytizing other team members who are not interested in discussing religion.”

Does this mean that GLSEN’s new sports project director would prefer to ban athletes using their freedom of speech to voluntarily share the Gospel with those who disagree with their viewpoint?

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It’s clear we can expect GLSEN’s sport project to become yet another venue for pressuring schools to implement radical policies and teachings that fall in line with homosexual and transgender political activist goals.