Taking the First Amendment for Granted

Everyone once in a while, I stop and take in the brave new world we live in. We are always connected if we choose to be and sometimes when we choose not to be. Whether on Facebook, YouTube, Linked In or Twitter, we are saying things and commenting like never before. Imagine what Thomas Jefferson or James Madison would think if they knew just how far free speech has come. From a guy orating on a stump to some idiot trolling websites anonymously, we are stretching the bounds of opinion on a daily basis.

That's why it amazes me just how many people take this freedom for granted. Like every God-given right, we have to be vigilant to protect those we have. China shows how easy it is to not only keep the free flow of information from the masses (although some does get in and out) and the junta in Beijing knows the power if they were to ever lose that iron grip. The Soviet Union would never have survived the 90's and 00's because technology does not advance under communism and the propaganda would have been exposed for what it was. NoKo is another animal all together but it's a much smaller brainwashed nation...but I digress.

The freedom to speak and say what you want without repercussions is under siege. Liberals (and some libertarians and conservatives including this one ) screamed in outrage when the Patriot Act was passed to combat terrorism. The least escalation of government in our lives is abhorrent to any true freedom lover and the reassurances by the Bush administration did little to assuage the feeling.

Fast-forward to the current administration and take a quick look at what they are doing. If Bush had even tried to do a sixteenth of what Obama is doing, MSNBC's prime time lineup would have spontaneously combusted on the spot. Chris Matthews would have been even more incoherent than normal and Rachel Maddow would have looked into the camera even more deeply with that faux intellectual look she always affects.

Our rights are not to be trampled and we're seeing more and more on a daily basis. The latest example has been squashed by a judge but the fact they tried this is bothersome. An unnamed telecom company was served with a letter concerning customer information that not only forced them to not discuss the issues raised but to even announce they've received the letter, thus keeping us, the consumer from knowing the government was snooping around in our accounts.

Both challenges are allowed under a federal law that governs NSLs, a power greatly expanded under the Patriot Act that allows the government to get detailed information on Americans’ finances and communications without oversight from a judge. The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs over the years and has been reprimanded for abusing them — though almost none of the requests have been challenged by the recipients.

I encourage you to read the entire essay. Our freedoms were guaranteed to us by wiser and more visionary men than we have in charge today. In fact, they were put in place to stop the power grab of men like we currently have in office.

When Did America Become a Land of Pussies?

I was watching a history channel show about the home front during WWII. There was very little of everything because we came together and put all of our resources into beating back national socialism and the rising sun. People didn't bitch and complain, they accepted that it was all for the better and that we would be a stronger nation if we suffered through the war years. I won't even mention the men and women who were in theater and battled the enemy back mile by bloody mile.

How did we go from a nation that could steel its spine for the greater good to a nation of complete pussies?

Just look around you today, you'll see it everywhere: from laws on soft drinks and fattening foods to elimination of dodge ball in gym class, we have taken a nation forged by hard men and women and made it into a latte-sipping, metrosexualized place where the slightest un-PC thing is grounds for a lawsuit.

I'm pretty much the least PC guy I know and still I find myself stopping short of saying what I want to because it would be misconstrued and I'd be labeled a bigot, homophobe, misogynist or other "ist". Example: when I read that Chris Rock said that Obama was the "father of the country", my first thought was written and then erased.


Anyway, we've become a nation that can't even laugh at itself anymore. Racial humor has been around as long as we have and I for one find it humorous when comedians pick on white people. However, I can not, ever do the same when it comes to latinos or blacks. But I digress.


People who are not pussies take the right path even though it's almost always the more difficult one. Pussies take the easy way, all the time. Knock your girlfriend up? Abort the baby or just ignore it. Lose your job because your performance sucked or you just couldn't make it on time? Sue the company and collect unemployment for 100 weeks and when that runs out, sue for disability over some phantom illness. Your kid acts like an asshole and gets his ass kicked because of it? Complain to the school and sue the parents of the kid who whooped your sons ass all over the schoolyard.


The WSJ has a piece today on the "wimpification" of America and notes that Obama would not allow his son to play football if he had one. This is just another example and one that shows we are being led by an administration that personifies the pussification of the US. We have a president that voted "present" on numerous important bills and who didn't have the balls to accept responsibility for the bin-Laden raid until it was over and successful and later allowed four Americans to die in Benghazi while he was out doing something that was evidently more important.


Until we get back the swaggering, bad ass American ethos personified during the Reagan years and post 9/11, we will continue to ebb in the eyes of the world and our enemies are watching us closely to see what direction we are heading.

Gay Day at Chick-Fil-A Goes About How'd You'd Expect

After a record day in support of Chick-Fil-A--a great American company being vilified by the left for the views on gay marriage held by management--the other side turned out and the result is hilarity. When you juxtapose the pictures of sane, rational people making an effort to protect the rights of Americans to freedom of speech with those of the other side, it's striking.

Every time lefties try to mass their power by congregating, those of us not on the left just stare in amusement because America is a center-right nation and in our general mindset, they are not only worthy of our scorn but ridicule. Think about the Occupy movement: drugs, rapes, murders and dudes shitting in the street. Yeah, that really makes me want to join up and "fight the man".

Below we have a member of that particular demographic showing up that at "fascist" fast food establishment in support of his ideological brethren. The guy probably thinks he's making a statement or something (and where does one buy a shirt like that?) but instead it just makes the dude wearing it look like a fucking moron:

More from Zombie.

It's funny, America has moved to the left of center on many social issues (gay unions being the most visible) for the most part but even the staunchest independent is not real keen on seeing two guys slobber all over each other in front of a restaurant just for the pure shock factor. And for the record, most of us don't want to see a guy and a girl doing it either.

But the guy pictured above is not just making a statement, he's going right for the jugular by attacking what many people consider to be their personal savior. I'd love to see the guy substitute "Jesus" with "Allah" and see how acceptable it would be. But of course he won't because he's a pussy and knows Christians will not attack him for blasphemy while Muslims will separate him from his brainless head.

Overall, I'd say Gay Day at Chick-Fil-A was a failure.

Update: More from Twitchy.

Is There a More Useless POS Than Gloria Allred?

Really?

Gloria Allred has sent a letter to Denise Nieman, the County Prosecutor in West Palm Beach, Florida, on behalf of the Women’s Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund, asking for an investigation into whether Rush Limbaugh violated Florida defamation law when he called Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute." Allred cites Section 836.04 of Florida Statute, which says that "whoever speaks of and concerning any woman, married or unmarried, falsely and maliciously imputing to her a want of chastity, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree."

"Mr. Limbaugh has publicly acknowledged that his reference to Ms. Fluke as a 'slut' and 'prostitute' were baseless and false," Allred writes. "In view of the fact that Mr. Limbaugh resides in your county and allegedly made the false statements concerning Ms. Fluke in your county as well, this letter is directed to your office."

Now I'm no lawyer and don't even play one on this blog but isn't Rush covered by something called the 1st Amendment? And if not, wouldn't a similar case be justified against Bill Maher or the myriad other lefties who defamed Michelle Malkin and sarah Palin? While I would like to see Maher and his less funny and less talented buddy Olbermann be forced to pick up trash on the side of the highway and/or shovel out enough cash to put Willow Palin and Malkin's kids through college, I can't bring myself to just erase a constitutionally-protected right.

Is Gloria Allred the biggest attention whore ever (or should I call her a prostitute)? Every single case that comes up involved a woman in some way she's the bitch who is ambulance-chasing and tracking them down to appear with her. Has she ever won these women anything or help them in any way?

She's got to change her name since "allred" is what happens when you are shameful and this idiot has absolutely no shame.

Obama's Scary Infringement on Freedom of Speech

In a What If Bush Had Done it scenario, the Justice Department subpoenaed numerous documents of the vile Indymedia site(s):

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Kristina Clair, a 34-year old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the Justice Department's subpoena. (The Independent Media Center is a left-of-center amalgamation of journalists and advocates that – according to their principles of unity and mission statement – work toward "promoting social and economic justice" and "social change.")

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

Why Indymedia would have Social Security Numbers and bank account numbers is beyond me but that's not the point. The federal government asked for physical addresses of people who read a website including times and other identifying info. That is one scary step towards violating the 1st Amendment rights of a great many people. They also forced them to be quiet about it which I find incredibly chilling.

But wait, it gets much better worse:

A Justice Department official familiar with this subpoena just told me that the attorney general's office never saw it and that it had not been submitted to the department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. for review. If that's correct, it suggests that U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison and Assistant U.S. Attorney Doris Pryor did not follow department regulations requiring the "express authorization of the attorney general" for media subpoenas -- and it means that neither Attorney General Eric Holder nor Acting Attorney General Mark Filip were involved. I wouldn't be surprised to see an internal investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility; my source would not confirm or deny that.

Am I to believe that these underlings acted on their own in the midst of a transition and while working under an interim boss? If so, why haven't they been fired and why did we not hear of this before now?

The Obama administration is turning into one of the most secretive since Nixon and acting like the shadiest since Tricky Dick as well.

Here's the EFF post on the legal issues. Thank goodness for those who are protecting us when real rights are violated by the government unlike the ACLU who makes shit up.

More Democrat Crushing of Free Speech

It's only year one in Obamanation and we're already seeing bills introduced that would curtail free speech in ways never before considered:

Proposed congressional legislation would demand up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to “coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.”

Every single one of my posts is meant to "coerce...or cause substantial emotional distress" to liberals. That's by design. This is a great example. So is this.

The proposal by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Los Angeles, would never pass First Amendment muster, unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing. So Sanchez, and the 14 other lawmakers who signed on to the proposal, are grandstanding to show the public they care about children and are opposed to cyberbullying.

The meaasure (sic), H.R. 1966, is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act. It’s designed to target the behavior that led to last year’s suicide of the 13-year-old Meier.

And there you go, we must pass this un-Constitutional bill because it's "for the kids". How the hell could you oppose this, do you hate kids?

There slippery slopes and slopes lined with Crisco oil. This would be the latter. I mean, it would be like a Democratic president using his authority to round up a certain ethnic group and interning them because their ancestral homeland attacked one of our Navy bases or something. That couldn't happen, right?

Who would be the arbiters of what words "intimidate," "harass" or "cause emotional distress" anyway?

I could see conservative bloggers being investigated for every single post and it will effectively shut down the newest and some may say most important form of free speech that we now have. Of course, the Democrats led by Sanchez have exactly that goal in mind.

The Continuing Jihad Against Rush Limbaugh

The nightmare first month and a half of the Obama administration is over and we've seen an omen of things yet to come. Reckless spending on a scale never seen before? Check. Alienating our valued allies Poland the Czechs and Britain? Check. Breaking lies on troops withdrawal from Iraq, closing Gitmo and rendition? Check. Attacking a radio talk show host who is a private citizen with the full force of the US government? Check.

Now I expected BHO to spend incessantly, make one foreign policy faux pas after another and back away from any inane pledges he made with regard to Iraq and the greater war on terror but I never thought I'd see the day that a sitting president neck-deep in scandal and by his own admission "overwhelmed" go on such as un-presidential attack against a man who is just exercising his 1st Amendment right to free speech. yes, Clinton did attack Rush after the Oklahoma City bombing but not to the extent we're seeing now with coordinated broadsides hitting the USS Rushbo daily. All to distract the populace from the horrid start Nobama is experiencing.

Even the Dems are not able to control their criticism.

More on this at Red State.