Supreme Court Reignites Culture Wars

According to the main stream media, aka the Pravda Press, the culture wars have been rekindled.  I agree, but I think the Supreme Court lit the match.  The Supreme Court has made it a habit of removing social issues from legislative debate by issuing edicts under the color of legal opinions. It's the edicts, not the social issues themselves, which cause big emotional arguments. The Supreme Court is abusing its power by rewriting laws and inventing Constitutional provisions.  I think that Roe v Wade should have taught us that the problem is not the issue of abortion itself.  The problem is the Supreme Court finding things in the Constitution that are not really there.

In 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted, homosexual acts were illegal in every state. The legislators who ratified it thought it was about race. The Supreme Court had to make it up to use the 14th Amendment to proclaim same sex marriage as a Constitutional right. If the Supremes had ruled that under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, a marriage legally performed in one state must be recognized on all states, there would have been right wing grumbling but not the explosion you're seeing now. The way the decision was reasoned basically says that 5 Supreme Court Justices can do whatever they want. There are no Constitutional limits which they will respect.

In the bakery case, it's rule of law, free speech and freedom of religion versus political correctness. The basic idea of the rule of law is that everyone should be able to know what the law is in advance so they can obey it. In this case, nobody could know that the fines imposed for refusing to create a wedding cake for gay marriage were going to be more than the annual profits of the entire bakery. People would generally feel that you sell standard goods to everyone, but you have the right as an artist to refuse to put images and messages on custom cakes that go against your convictions or religious beliefs. For example, you should not be forced to make a Hitler themed birthday cake, especially if you're Jewish. The administrative law "judge" made it up. There was no precedent for the finding. There was no precedent for the size of the fine or damages, whatever you want to call the $135,000 assessment against the Oregon bakers. It was a lawless act. 

It's typically minorities that need a strong rule of law to protect themselves from angry mobs. At the moment, gay marriage has an angry mob on its side. Liberals must be very foolish not to see the possibility that mobs might form with irresponsible opposing viewpoints. If there's no law, whoever has the biggest mob wins.

At this point most liberals tune out because they assume I’m a Christian fundamentalist racist bigot.  So now I have to play identity politics.  I believe that married gay couples need to own guns to protect their homes, children and marijuana plants. I go to a Protestant church once a year for Easter. My wife is not a Christian. My sister in law is black and she's the best thing that ever happened to my brother. I'm 64. I grew up in Montana. My family was a little unpopular because we paid "white" wages to Indians working on our ranch. I plan to attend a gay wedding in August where two of my friends are getting married.  This is not about the state of civil rights in 1964. This is about now.

I haven’t been able to find a link to anything about the Oregon law, either statute or administrative law. If any reader has information concerning the letter of the law in Oregon, please leave me a link in a comment. I would like a link to any published article that spells out what the law was the day before the offense. Please include any reference you find to specific penalties. To me, this looks more like $100 first offense than $100,000. Unless the law spelled out over $100,000 penalties or damages, it's abuse of power.

Liberals say the bakers had it coming because they publicly declared they would not make cakes for gay weddings.  This bothefree exercise of religion, freedom of religionrs me. I thought we had a right to free speech. Wedding cakes are an artistic product. How far does Oregon law go? If the cake is ugly, are the bakers in violation? If the bakers intended to make it ugly as a form of civil disobedience, does that come into whether they are in violation? Do devout Muslim or Orthodox Jewish bakers have to make birthday cakes with bacon on them if an administrative law judge in Oregon says they do? (Hint: Pork products, like bacon, are not kosher for devout Muslims and Orthodox Jews.)

Liberal comments give away what's actually happening. The bakers are being punished for having the effrontery to actually have Christian religious beliefs that they want to live by. My 4 grandparents had 4 different religious traditions. Three were different varieties of Christianity. One of my grandfathers was Jewish. We all got along fine because nobody insisted on conformity. You have to have some tolerance for other folks' beliefs. In the vernacular, you have to cut people some slack.  Punishing Christians for their beliefs is not a good way to gain acceptance and gradually wear down resistance to this major change. It's religious bigotry, which encourages extreme reactions. Liberals believe everyone should conform to your views of the truth and anyone who doesn't should be severely punished. Liberals think it's justified, but it's every bit as extreme as the religious intolerance of ISIS or Al Qaeda. The difference is that Liberals just want to impose severe fines. Liberals don't want to kill the dissenters, yet.

So what can we do about it?  The first step is to raise a fuss. If everybody objects loudly, we can gather sufficient number to change this. It's also vital to make clear that the problem is the law is being changed in an unlawful, dangerous way. Most people today evaluate any judicial proceeding, including a Supreme Court decision, by whether they like who "won" rather than by the reasoning used to get the outcome. It's not gay marriage itself that is threatening, at least to me. If gay marriage was adopted by state legislatures or state referendums then the people would have decided on a matter that was clearly left to the states by the Constitution. It's that the government no longer respects written law. It is doing whatever it wants. Not enough folks seem to recognize that if the law is fickle, no outcome is secure. Nobody's life, liberty or property is secure from government seizure.

So gay people celebrate the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage with no thought that the decision makes no sense. When the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, homosexual acts were illegal in every state. If the Supreme Court had used the full faith and credit act to say that a marriage legally performed in one state must be recognized in all states, it would have been a small but understandable stretch. Using the 14th Amendment as the reason gay marriage is legal tells people that 5 Supreme Court Justices can do whatever they want with the flimsiest of excuses. When the Supreme Court finds that when the law says an "exchange set up by the state" really includes exchanges set up by the federal government as well, they're making it up. The law has no meaning anymore.

Republican candidates should make clear that process is much more of a problem than the outcome.  We want legislatures to deal with these thorny problems where the Constitution has nothing much to say.  We do not want the Supreme Court finding rights to privacy and dignity that aren’t there.  Because once they start finding things that aren’t there, everyone instinctively knows there’s no end to it.

Our original revolution was started by people writing letters to each other. Committees of Correspondence are a lot easier to set up with the internet and its social media. Raise a fuss. That's what I'm doing.

The Irony of Jewish Mistrust for Evangelicals

The big question last week was why the Jewish vote was still going to Democrats given that the current administration is so hostile towards Israel.  One answer was that the GOP alliance with Evangelical Christians made Jews nervous.

It's ironic that the GOP alliance with Christian Conservatives feels threatening to Jews. The alliance was born out of the government attempts to control church sponsored schools and home schooling. The Evangelical Christians became politically involved because state and local governments were harassing them. They wanted religious freedom to go their own way. The Jewish view of this is that the Evangelicals want to take over the public schools and force Christian prayers into the classrooms. While that may have been true prior to 1964, it certainly has not been their goal since 1976, and definitely is not today. My insight on this comes from the fact that while I'm a Protestant, my grandfather was Jewish and my wife is Jewish. I have talked to both sides and there's a big misunderstanding here. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/416057/can-jewish-americans-support-both-democrats-and-israel-jonah-goldberg

Liberal Road to Plutocracy and Religious Intolerance

Liberals like to say that Conservative policies will lead to plutocracy and Christian theocracy. Conservatives see the end result of ever more powerful government, which throws the Constitutional checks and balances under the bus, as the surest way to crony capitalism and religious intolerance.

Goldman Sachs, the big Wall Street bank, gives all of its political donations to Democrats because complicated regulations, like Dodd Frank, makes it easier for them to compete against smaller firms. It's called regulatory capture in academic circles. In Chicago, it's known as political clout. A powerful government with heavy regulatory schemes has influence it can sell. This leads to corruption.

The main reason that Evangelical Christians became Conservatives is because they wanted to home school their kids. The authorities tried to make that impossible. It was a religious freedom issue. Most Conservatives are strongly in favor of religious toleration.

It is not religious toleration to force Catholic Nuns to pay for abortions under Obamacare or lose all federal funds for their work helping the poor of all faiths. It is not religious toleration for the City of San Francisco to try to outlaw circumcision for everyone, including Orthodox Jews. It is not religious toleration to force private vendors to bake cakes or take pictures for gay weddings when they have religious objections to them. It is not religious toleration to try to sue them out of business when they refuse.

Before Liberals make stupid assumptions, I go to a Protestant church once a year for Easter. My Grandfather was Jewish, as is my wife. My sister in law is the best thing that ever happened to my little brother. She also happens to be black. I am in favor of gay marriage, as long as it's done by state law, and not a Supreme Court 14th Amendment ruling. I plan to attend a gay wedding this summer.

The difference is that I am willing to tolerate other religious views. Liberals are not.

Hobby Lobby Returns Us to 2010, Not 1965

I think the Contraception Mandate was designed to cause the current Supreme Court ruling against it. They really didn't expect to get away with it, they just wanted a ruling to complain about. Liberal hysteria will be effective only if it's left unanswered. Conservative ads have to point out that the morning after pill costs 50 bucks. Regular daily contraception pills can be purchased for $9 a month. We are not talking big money here. The other thing we have to drive home is that we have gone back to the law as it was in GASP! 2010. We are not going back to 1965 or 1970. Contraceptives can still be purchased at your corner pharmacy, even in Connecticut. We are not back to abortions with coat hangers unless you're going to Kermit Gosnell's clinic. Griswold v Connecticut and Roe v Wade are still the law. This hysteria is as big a con game as "If you like your plan..." Conservative ads out to say so, maybe ending with the tag line, "Do you really trust the folks who told you that you could keep your plan under Obamacare to tell the truth about birth control?"

http://spectator.org/articles/59872/can-shameless-baseless-propaganda-save-dems

Constitution Protects "Religious Kooks"

This is a recent comment on Freedom of Religion by a typically tolerant liberal: “You should be thrilled if you religious kooks are afforded any freedom whatsoever, after all the atrocities and crimes you've been responsible for.”

The Bill of Rights contains Freedom of Religion. It specifically includes all of us religious kooks. By the way, I go to church once a year for Easter. Does that make me a religious kook, or is it my tolerance of other folks' religious beliefs that is the problem? Further, these rights are not from the government, according to the Declaration of Independence. They are God given rights. Where in the Constitution is a woman's right to free contraceptives? Where in the Constitution does it say that Freedom of Religion requires that the government approve of an individual's religious beliefs before he or she has any rights? 

Is There a Constitutional Right to Free Contraceptives?

Freedom of Religion is in the Bill of Rights.  Every woman's right to free contraception is not.  It's not even a penumbra.  The pills we are talking about are relatively cheap.  Why can't Sandra Fluke buy her own contraception?  I think the real issue here is the Liberal/Progressive Democrat Party's desire for absolute governmental power.  This article gives the real motive away by making a slippery slope argument that once businesses can resist government orders on religious grounds, there's no end to the other government orders that might be resisted.  Sandra Fluke wants everyone to be forced to do the government's bidding no matter how arbitrary the rules are and no matter how often and capriciously they change.  Just to be totally clear, there is no desire on the part of the businesses involved to outlaw contraception.  They just don't want to have to pay for it.  If people think free contraception is a desirable outcome, they can set up charities to fund it.  Why does government coercion have come into the picture?  It's clear to me that private enterprise is a check on government power, and that's why enforcing arbitrary regulations is so important to Sandra Fluke and friends.  They want an all-powerful government. 

I don't understand why the government has to force businesses to pay for things. If government wants women to have free contraception, the government should pay for it directly. If the government chooses not to pay for contraception, then private charities can be organized to do this. Contraceptives are available for purchase legally at every corner drugstore. The folks who are forcing things down throats are the Big Government Democrats trying to coerce others to pay for things because the Feds are too broke to buy it themselves. Nobody is advocating making contraception illegal. The argument is about who has to pay. 

The left wants to claim more and more power for the central government. They will lie, cheat and steal to achieve their goal. Contraception is cheap and available at every corner drugstore. Why is the contraception mandate the only thing our Dear Leader won't change about Obamacare?  The reason is the left wants unquestioned obedience to government edicts. The level of outrage liberals are expressing towards religion in particular and diverse beliefs in general, is a measure of how badly they want to crush any resistance to any government edict. I think they object to the resistance to government edicts much more than to the specifics of this case. This is about removing any private organizational checks on the exercise of governmental power. The specifics are just a smokescreen. 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2014/03/25/a_women039s_rights_catastrophe_328428.html

Funny Liberal Assumptions About Conservatives

Liberal assumptions about my beliefs are funny. They assume I'm a fundamentalist Christian with a racist tinge.  I actually believe that married gay couples need to own guns to protect their homes and marijuana plants. Just to save Liberals guessing wrong again, I go to a Protestant church once a year for Easter. My wife is not a Christian.  My sister in law is black and I'm really glad she married my brother.  It's amusing that liberals start the story of American education in the 1830's. It allows them to skip over falling test scores and graduation rates in inner city schools in more recent years. I don't think my grandmother teaching in a one room schoolhouse in Colorado in 1914 at the age of 16 has much to do with current conditions, although I do agree she was a successful teacher. I assume that union teachers are being paid for "voting right" as we say in Chicago, because the education they provide in inner city public schools is so poor there could be no other reason to pay them. Many voucher schools, like Milwaukee College Prep for example, are non sectarian. I suppose in the liberal mind any voucher school is a front for Jesus Freaks. I'm sure the Jewish philanthropist who raised the money to found Milwaukee College Prep would be surprised to hear he's just a front for Jesus. I still don't understand why Catholic charities have to be given a choice between signing an approval form for their insurance to pay for contraceptives and going out of business. I guess we all need to genuflect before taxpayer financed contraception. Why can't Sandra Fluke buy her own? They certainly don't cost that much. I guess Liberals would say it should be that way because they like it that way. Their intolerance for Christianity reminds me of the Taliban a lot more than religiously affiliated schools and charities they detest. Don't let me disturb the Liberals hour of hate. I'll play Emmanuel Goldstein for liberal convenience.

Thoughts of John Locke on Holocaust Day

Recent articles on Holocaust Day have drawn comments that religion is a big contributor to violence and even genocide.  I think the problem is not religion itself, but rather the claim that what any individual believes to be the word of God should be held superior to other views by secular authority and forced on those who disagree.  I got this opinion while reading books by John Locke, starting in philosophy class in college.  The professor didn't think he was much of a philosopher, but I thought he was great.  Locke argued that government derives its power and legitimacy from the consent of the governed.  His views were extremely influential in the formulation of the government the US has today.  Please take a look at the wikipedia entry for John Locke, and in particular his views on religious toleration.   He was a very religious man who argued that human judges could not dependably evaluate competing versions of the word of God.  According to Locke, “No private person has any right to encroach in any way on another person’s civil goods because he declares his allegiance to another church or religion. Anything that a man has as a matter of human rights or civil rights is to remain inviolably his.”  Locke’s argument for toleration lead to the First Amendment provisions for freedom of religion.

Original article on Holocaust Day:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345043/lessons-holocaust-day-dennis-prager?pg=3

Wikipedia entry for John Locke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke

Source of Locke Quotation

http://www.egs.edu/library/john-locke/quotes/