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Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network
CCGN
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"You are so on the right track!"
- Virginia FREE SPEECH PROJECT
5/15/19 Campus Free Speech Petition 5/14/19 News Round-Up 5/5/19 Michigan Hate Speech Database |
CHAMPIONS NETWORK - NOW IN 12 STATES!
- AZ - Gail
- FL - Renée
- IA - Gregg
- MD - Jim, 1 more
- MI - Larry
- MN - Nathan
- OK - Don
- PA - Diana, Steve
- SC - Debbie
- TX - William
- VA - Constitution Leadership Initiative
- VA - Potomac Tea Party
- VA - Linda, Eric, and 8 more NEW!
- WA - Shari, Mike
- Elsewhere - Yvonne, Lorraine
Champions Network - Action Alerts
- Push Back / Make Some Noise!
BELOW
- 10/24/19: Killing the Political Right - CCGN Pushes Back on “Free Speech is Killing Us” Article
- 9/5/19: Shame on FEC Chair Weintraub for Trashing the Electoral College
- 8/5/19: Mixed-Up Heidi Schreck and The ‘Magical Appalling’ Constitution
- 4/3/19: Hey AOC, Why Don’t You Learn About the Constitution Before Spouting Off?
- 2/28/19: ‘The Flag is a Rag’ - Shame on Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers!
- 10/14/18: Don Lemon thinks there's an absolute right to protest "whenever and wherever you want". Let's have a little fun with that, shall we?
- 8/15/18: Yo, socialists! There are reasons we don’t have a unicameral legislature and the Constitution is not easy to amend. Ever think about that?
- Pushback on Ed Asner's Claim ‘The One-Percenters Wrote the Constitution’
- Shame! Former Justice Stevens calls for repeal of the Second Amendment, completely misunderstanding how it has helped preserve our liberty to the present day.
- Throw the Entire Constitution in the Garbage
Killing the Political Right
- CCGN Pushes Back on “Free Speech is Killing Us” Article
October 24, 2019
Reader Comments
Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, recently wrote an editorial asserting that online hate speech is producing violence and should be discouraged using a nonpunitive approach (“Free Speech Is Killing Us - Noxious language online is causing real-world violence. What can we do about it?”). He poses as the voice of reason against ‘free speech absolutism’, but what he is actually doing is proposing is a number of ways to suppress the political Right.
Marantz proceeds from a flawed premise - that hate speech causes violence. He backs this up by citing a parade of what he undoubtedly considers right-wingers - Modi, Duterte, Trump, Richard Spencer, and the Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Christchurch and El Paso perpetrators - for the proposition that noxious online speech metastasizes into physical violence. There’s only one problem: “there is no clear link between hate speech and violence.” Therefore, any moves to curb hate speech for this reason are unsupported by the data.
Moreover, “As Robby Soave has pointed out in a piece for Reason, rates of violent crime in the US have continually fallen since the 1990s, even though during that same period the Supreme Court has been increasingly insistent on upholding protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
But never let the facts get in the way of a good rant. Marantz plunges merrily on, proposing that hate speech be curbed by generating taxpayer-funded government counter-speech. His proposals include a national news literacy campaign, federal library programming, public media outlets like the BBC, and the creation of a new rival to compete with the tech giants online. Nowhere does he discuss what his proposals would cost or what new problems they would create. Nor does he discuss free speech considerations found in Supreme Court cases to the effect that we really do not want the government in the business of deciding what truth is. The government would routinely engage in viewpoint discrimination under Marantz’ proposals - pushing certain views and disfavoring others - thus distorting the marketplace of ideas.
His first four proposals, as a group, show a preoccupation with growing the government, governmentizing speech, and devoting taxpayer funds to pet left-wing causes - ‘doing something’ about hate speech, among them. However, a news literacy campaign would put the government in the business of deciding what is and what is not fake news. Government-funded library programming would grow another largely government institution - libraries - and increase the dependence of local libraries on federal money. Where federal money goes, federal control follows - not good, but Marantz does not discuss this problem. The creation of publicly-funded media outlets is another pet project of the Left. One of the main proponents of public funding for media is the avowed Marxist professor Robert McChesney. Not surprisingly, Britain’s publicly-funded BBC is notoriously left-wing. To give just one example, it tried to destroy anti-sharia activist Tommy Robinson, who deftly turned the tables and exposed the BBC’s lies and fake news machinery. The U.S. already has publicly-funded media outlets - the left-leaning NPR and PBS. There is no reason to think that additional government-funded journalism in America would not also tilt to the left. Efforts to rein in left-wing bias at NPR and PBS over the years have all failed miserably.
Left, Left, Left - Marantz is a creature of the Left. A quick review of his articles at the New Yorker turns up knocks on Tucker Carlson and President Trump, and romances dedicated to Washington State’s leftist Governor Jay Inslee and ‘stylish socialists’.
Marantz’ heroes include John A. Powell, a law professor at the University of California, former legal director of the left-wing ACLU and Susan Benesch, a lawyer swimming in the left-wing human rights milieu. Her credentials include left-wing Amnesty International and the Dangerous Speech Project where the qualifications of her colleagues include gender studies and social justice work.
Marantz’ solutions extend to leftist-inspired government regulation of speech. He proposes amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which currently views online platforms as mere conduits and shields the platform owners from liability for un-moderated content that users post on the platform. Although he did not come right out and say it, the implication is Marantz would assign statutory duties on the platforms to curate all content and impose legal liability on them when they fall short. But it is Marantz’ final paragraph that really gives the game away. Despite earlier declaring that he is not for repealing the First Amendment or for banning speech, his last paragraph speaks favorably of regulating noxious speech like the government regulates noxious emissions. But who gets to decide which speech is noxious and what penalties to impose? Because Marantz is so super-saturated in all things Left, his direct and inadvertent proposals inspire no confidence he would not use the machinery he wants to set up to kill the political Right, given half a chance.
The Left would be unaffected. Marantz’ examples of supposed hate-induced violence could have, but did not, include Left-wing crazies shooting up Steve Scalise on a baseball field and the security guard in the lobby of the Family Research Council. Similarly, Marantz makes no mention of Antifa cracking heads in the street. Apparently, these incidents don’t bother Marantz in the least. No need to rein in the behavior of the Left, nosirree, no worries here.
The Hate Industry - Marantz is not just a Leftist. He is a card-carrying member of the left-wing hate industry. He has been paid multiple times to write on hate speech and hate incidents.
Marantz writes: “Free speech is a bedrock value in this country. But it isn’t the only one. Like all values, it must be held in tension with others, such as equality, safety and robust democratic participation.” It is a commonplace that that law is the adjustment of competing values, but he conveniently leaves out any discussion of the values that inform constitutional protections for hate speech, or why the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio drew the line at the incitement of imminent violence, not violence that might occur... maybe someday... supposedly because somebody saw a social media post somewhere.
The hate-industrial complex is a thing. Careers are being propelled and a lot of money is being made. Just ask the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center which has a half a billion dollars in assets and has stashed a lot of it in off-shore accounts. A ‘nonprofit’ with a colossal fortune and offshore accounts - can you wrap your head around that? The SPLC has been sued multiple times for its phony hate group designations. (The Tea Party - really?) Marantz is in the same industry as the SPLC, which prompts the question: does he say what he says because he really believes it? Or because he is being paid to say it?
Either way, Marantz is setting about to pop the rivets undergirding free speech and, therefore, what he preaches must be challenged.
- CCGN Pushes Back on “Free Speech is Killing Us” Article
October 24, 2019
Reader Comments
- "Great job!"
- "Right On!"
Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, recently wrote an editorial asserting that online hate speech is producing violence and should be discouraged using a nonpunitive approach (“Free Speech Is Killing Us - Noxious language online is causing real-world violence. What can we do about it?”). He poses as the voice of reason against ‘free speech absolutism’, but what he is actually doing is proposing is a number of ways to suppress the political Right.
Marantz proceeds from a flawed premise - that hate speech causes violence. He backs this up by citing a parade of what he undoubtedly considers right-wingers - Modi, Duterte, Trump, Richard Spencer, and the Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Christchurch and El Paso perpetrators - for the proposition that noxious online speech metastasizes into physical violence. There’s only one problem: “there is no clear link between hate speech and violence.” Therefore, any moves to curb hate speech for this reason are unsupported by the data.
Moreover, “As Robby Soave has pointed out in a piece for Reason, rates of violent crime in the US have continually fallen since the 1990s, even though during that same period the Supreme Court has been increasingly insistent on upholding protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
But never let the facts get in the way of a good rant. Marantz plunges merrily on, proposing that hate speech be curbed by generating taxpayer-funded government counter-speech. His proposals include a national news literacy campaign, federal library programming, public media outlets like the BBC, and the creation of a new rival to compete with the tech giants online. Nowhere does he discuss what his proposals would cost or what new problems they would create. Nor does he discuss free speech considerations found in Supreme Court cases to the effect that we really do not want the government in the business of deciding what truth is. The government would routinely engage in viewpoint discrimination under Marantz’ proposals - pushing certain views and disfavoring others - thus distorting the marketplace of ideas.
His first four proposals, as a group, show a preoccupation with growing the government, governmentizing speech, and devoting taxpayer funds to pet left-wing causes - ‘doing something’ about hate speech, among them. However, a news literacy campaign would put the government in the business of deciding what is and what is not fake news. Government-funded library programming would grow another largely government institution - libraries - and increase the dependence of local libraries on federal money. Where federal money goes, federal control follows - not good, but Marantz does not discuss this problem. The creation of publicly-funded media outlets is another pet project of the Left. One of the main proponents of public funding for media is the avowed Marxist professor Robert McChesney. Not surprisingly, Britain’s publicly-funded BBC is notoriously left-wing. To give just one example, it tried to destroy anti-sharia activist Tommy Robinson, who deftly turned the tables and exposed the BBC’s lies and fake news machinery. The U.S. already has publicly-funded media outlets - the left-leaning NPR and PBS. There is no reason to think that additional government-funded journalism in America would not also tilt to the left. Efforts to rein in left-wing bias at NPR and PBS over the years have all failed miserably.
Left, Left, Left - Marantz is a creature of the Left. A quick review of his articles at the New Yorker turns up knocks on Tucker Carlson and President Trump, and romances dedicated to Washington State’s leftist Governor Jay Inslee and ‘stylish socialists’.
Marantz’ heroes include John A. Powell, a law professor at the University of California, former legal director of the left-wing ACLU and Susan Benesch, a lawyer swimming in the left-wing human rights milieu. Her credentials include left-wing Amnesty International and the Dangerous Speech Project where the qualifications of her colleagues include gender studies and social justice work.
Marantz’ solutions extend to leftist-inspired government regulation of speech. He proposes amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which currently views online platforms as mere conduits and shields the platform owners from liability for un-moderated content that users post on the platform. Although he did not come right out and say it, the implication is Marantz would assign statutory duties on the platforms to curate all content and impose legal liability on them when they fall short. But it is Marantz’ final paragraph that really gives the game away. Despite earlier declaring that he is not for repealing the First Amendment or for banning speech, his last paragraph speaks favorably of regulating noxious speech like the government regulates noxious emissions. But who gets to decide which speech is noxious and what penalties to impose? Because Marantz is so super-saturated in all things Left, his direct and inadvertent proposals inspire no confidence he would not use the machinery he wants to set up to kill the political Right, given half a chance.
The Left would be unaffected. Marantz’ examples of supposed hate-induced violence could have, but did not, include Left-wing crazies shooting up Steve Scalise on a baseball field and the security guard in the lobby of the Family Research Council. Similarly, Marantz makes no mention of Antifa cracking heads in the street. Apparently, these incidents don’t bother Marantz in the least. No need to rein in the behavior of the Left, nosirree, no worries here.
The Hate Industry - Marantz is not just a Leftist. He is a card-carrying member of the left-wing hate industry. He has been paid multiple times to write on hate speech and hate incidents.
Marantz writes: “Free speech is a bedrock value in this country. But it isn’t the only one. Like all values, it must be held in tension with others, such as equality, safety and robust democratic participation.” It is a commonplace that that law is the adjustment of competing values, but he conveniently leaves out any discussion of the values that inform constitutional protections for hate speech, or why the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio drew the line at the incitement of imminent violence, not violence that might occur... maybe someday... supposedly because somebody saw a social media post somewhere.
The hate-industrial complex is a thing. Careers are being propelled and a lot of money is being made. Just ask the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center which has a half a billion dollars in assets and has stashed a lot of it in off-shore accounts. A ‘nonprofit’ with a colossal fortune and offshore accounts - can you wrap your head around that? The SPLC has been sued multiple times for its phony hate group designations. (The Tea Party - really?) Marantz is in the same industry as the SPLC, which prompts the question: does he say what he says because he really believes it? Or because he is being paid to say it?
Either way, Marantz is setting about to pop the rivets undergirding free speech and, therefore, what he preaches must be challenged.
Shame on FEC Chair Weintraub for Trashing the Electoral College
September 5, 2019
Ellen Weintraub, chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission, worried aloud recently that results in the Electoral College that differ from the popular vote will undermine the legitimacy of our presidential elections in the eyes of voters. Her comments show her to be profoundly ignorant of the very nature of the electoral system she oversees.
First, she calls our system a democracy which it most surely is not. We are a constitutional Republic. There is a difference. Second, she either doesn’t understand the reasons why we have the Electoral College or she chooses to ignore them:
- Some say it’s because the Founders were suspicious of direct democracy which they feared would descend into mob rule. Instead, they gave us a Republic and put a buffer between the electorate and the selection of a President. The Electoral College could provide a final check and prevent a tyrant or someone who was unqualified from taking office.
- Others say we have the Electoral College because the small colonies felt overwhelmed by the large colonies and needed some inducements to ratify the Constitution and enter the union. So the small states get two U.S. Senators, regardless of population. They are also overrepresented in the Electoral College because the formula for selecting the 538 electors depends on the size of each state’s congressional delegation, including its two Senators. You often see in left-wing articles, statements like ‘Wyoming voters have ten times the voting power of people in California.’ But if smaller states were not overrepresented in the Electoral College, New York and California could conceivably decide all our Presidents all by themselves.
- The Electoral College encourages nationwide campaigning. Instead of just going for votes in big cities, candidates have to gather support from all types of areas and all regions of the country. George Bush arguably won the 2000 election because he unexpectedly flipped one state – West Virginia. Its four electoral votes put him over the top. With the Electoral College system, political parties ignore big chunks of the country at their peril.
- The Electoral College makes it harder to steal elections. Cheaters would have to corrupt electors in 13, now 50, different places. Also, they would have to predict which state’s electoral votes would be decisive, but that’s next to impossible. In a democracy, cheaters could steal votes in one place, say, Chicago, and change the outcome for the entire country.
Regardless of what you think of the Electoral College, there’s no denying that it has given us seamless transitions of power without conflict or bloodshed throughout our entire history – and that’s no small feat. Supporters of the National Popular Vote Compact and direct democracy should think twice before they upset the tried and true, the carefully balanced design of the Electoral College.
Comments from the Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network (CCGN):
- Weintraub “clearly knows nothing about the Constitutional process for electing the President of the U.S., which is both ironic and tragic given the position she holds. Her idiocy is readily confirmed by her reference to a "popular vote" which is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, and is, in fact, a popular fiction, contrived by democracy-fascists intent on bringing down the American system of government.”
Mixed-Up Heidi Schreck and The ‘Magical Appalling’ Constitution
August 5, 2019
The Left is eating up an award winning Broadway play - “What the Constitution Means to Me” - that is about to tour the country. The playwright, Heidi Schreck, has discovered, like the producers of the play Angels in America and many other artists before her, that the ticket to success in the arts world is to tilt to the Left and serve up exactly what Progressives want to hear.
As a teenager, Heidi Schreck loved the Constitution and paid for her entire college education by going around the country giving speeches on it. Her play “What the Constitution Means to Me” features her as an adult revisiting her teenage love of the Constitution and finding fault in the document now that she’s older. Her current views are quite far to the Left. She believes that transgenders have a basic human right to serve in the military, when the fact of the matter is NO ONE has a right to serve in the military. It’s a privilege reserved for those who qualify. She’s in favor of the Climate Kids lawsuit which seeks to establish a Constitutional right to a pristine environment, even though it would mean that the entire U.S. economy would be run by one federal judge out of a courtroom in Oregon, which is what the Climate Kids are asking for. She believes that our democracy is a lie and the United States is sliding into tyranny under President Trump, even though he has not shut down any newspapers or thrown any editors in jail. Schreck suffers from full-blown Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The adult Heidi Schreck has developed two problems with the Constitution, both straight out of the Left’s playbook - first, that the Constitution fails to achieve diversity and inclusiveness and, second, that it fails to protect people against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. With regard to diversity, Schreck says the Constitution only protects “the people who are already protected” - whatever that means - and is working perfectly as intended - to protect rich, white men. Everyone else is pushed to the margins of the Constitution, she says. We all belong in the Preamble, she declares. Never mind that the Preamble starts with “We the People”, not “We the Rich, White Men”. It’s an “appalling” document, she says, because it views blacks as property, not human beings. Never mind that the Constitution set things up to eventually get rid of slavery. [E.g., Slave Trade Clause - Article I Section 9].
The original Constitution may not look so good when viewed through the narrow prism of today’s identity politics, but this ignores the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments - getting rid of slavery, ushering in Equal Protection, and guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race or biological sex. Why would you throw out a document that has shown it can bring the blessings of liberty to more and more people over time, as our Constitution has? The worn-out observation that the original Constitution included some people but excluded others is true, but misleading.
Moreover, judging the Constitution by the standards of the Left’s diversity narrative du jour ignores all the things that are wrong with the narrative itself. Here are just three: First, it’s way out of balance. It crowds out other important values that the Constitution does embody like limited government, popular sovereignty, personal freedom, and individual rights. Get people all hepped up on diversity theory to the exclusion of all other considerations and, before you know it, they’re in Kentucky teens’ faces at the Lincoln Memorial [Nicholas Sandmann] and committing hate crime hoaxes in Chicago [Jussie Smollett]. Second, diversity policies hurt people. Just ask the excellent Asian students who can’t get into Harvard because of affirmative action policies favoring other groups. Third, the diversity narrative is leading to absurd results, like the resegregation of college dorms and the self-identify phenomenon where you can wake up one morning and proclaim you are something you are not and everyone else just has to bow down to it. Schreck and her play say nothing about any of these complications.
But there’s a second, more fundamental flaw in Schreck’s thinking. She criticizes the Constitution for failing to protect people, like her grandmother who was the victim of an abusive childhood. “I believe we need a brand-new positive rights document...,” she says during the play. The Constitution contains mostly negative rights that keep the government from doing bad things to you, like shutting you up or searching your house without a warrant. Positive rights include various forms of economic security, such as the rights to housing, education, and a job in FDR’s Second Bill of Rights. But positive rights also include the right to police protection, thus her beef with Justice Scalia’s opinion in a 2005 case [Castle Rock v. Gonzalez] declining to find a due process right to police enforcement of a restraining order against a father who ended up taking and murdering his three children. With positive rights, the three children and Schreck’s grandmother would have been protected, Schreck evidently believes. Forget that that police don’t always get there in time and all the other real-world complications to her rose-colored view.
The impulse behind all these positive rights is to have the government put a soft pillow under absolutely everybody for absolutely everything. Security in all things. As Schreck puts it, "Maybe instead, we could start thinking of the Constitution as a kind of ur-mother, whose job it is to actively look out for all of us, especially the most vulnerable among us." That’s the pioneer spirit.
There’s a lot of pseudo-science coming from the Left purporting to show that people on the Right are a bunch of fraidy cats and their brains are wired differently to seek security in all things. [Language of Terror by Kendall, et al.] Never mind that Social Security was a left-wing invention. But here we see the impulse for absolute security on full display from the new darling of the Left, which gets to the heart of the matter. As told to me by a former Leftist, the Left honestly believes it can bring about heaven on earth and the end of all human suffering. They believe they alone possess the secret knowledge to fundamentally transform human nature and bring about this earthly paradise. The rest of us are too stupid to figure it out. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s a bunch of malarkey. It’s a pipedream, it’s not ever gonna happen. Which makes Heidi Schreck’s play a nice bedtime story but nothing of substance that goes beyond the realm of fantasy.
So there you have it: a complete mirage from a mixed-up playwright. One minute she’s calling the Constitution “magical” and a work of “genius”, and saying it’s “appalling” the next. One minute she’s expressing her fundamental faith in the Constitution because it gives us what we need to make the country better, then calls for “a brand-new positive rights document” the next. Just because she’s conflicted and mixed up about the magnificence of our country’s founding document doesn’t mean we have to be.
August 5, 2019
The Left is eating up an award winning Broadway play - “What the Constitution Means to Me” - that is about to tour the country. The playwright, Heidi Schreck, has discovered, like the producers of the play Angels in America and many other artists before her, that the ticket to success in the arts world is to tilt to the Left and serve up exactly what Progressives want to hear.
As a teenager, Heidi Schreck loved the Constitution and paid for her entire college education by going around the country giving speeches on it. Her play “What the Constitution Means to Me” features her as an adult revisiting her teenage love of the Constitution and finding fault in the document now that she’s older. Her current views are quite far to the Left. She believes that transgenders have a basic human right to serve in the military, when the fact of the matter is NO ONE has a right to serve in the military. It’s a privilege reserved for those who qualify. She’s in favor of the Climate Kids lawsuit which seeks to establish a Constitutional right to a pristine environment, even though it would mean that the entire U.S. economy would be run by one federal judge out of a courtroom in Oregon, which is what the Climate Kids are asking for. She believes that our democracy is a lie and the United States is sliding into tyranny under President Trump, even though he has not shut down any newspapers or thrown any editors in jail. Schreck suffers from full-blown Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The adult Heidi Schreck has developed two problems with the Constitution, both straight out of the Left’s playbook - first, that the Constitution fails to achieve diversity and inclusiveness and, second, that it fails to protect people against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. With regard to diversity, Schreck says the Constitution only protects “the people who are already protected” - whatever that means - and is working perfectly as intended - to protect rich, white men. Everyone else is pushed to the margins of the Constitution, she says. We all belong in the Preamble, she declares. Never mind that the Preamble starts with “We the People”, not “We the Rich, White Men”. It’s an “appalling” document, she says, because it views blacks as property, not human beings. Never mind that the Constitution set things up to eventually get rid of slavery. [E.g., Slave Trade Clause - Article I Section 9].
The original Constitution may not look so good when viewed through the narrow prism of today’s identity politics, but this ignores the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments - getting rid of slavery, ushering in Equal Protection, and guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race or biological sex. Why would you throw out a document that has shown it can bring the blessings of liberty to more and more people over time, as our Constitution has? The worn-out observation that the original Constitution included some people but excluded others is true, but misleading.
Moreover, judging the Constitution by the standards of the Left’s diversity narrative du jour ignores all the things that are wrong with the narrative itself. Here are just three: First, it’s way out of balance. It crowds out other important values that the Constitution does embody like limited government, popular sovereignty, personal freedom, and individual rights. Get people all hepped up on diversity theory to the exclusion of all other considerations and, before you know it, they’re in Kentucky teens’ faces at the Lincoln Memorial [Nicholas Sandmann] and committing hate crime hoaxes in Chicago [Jussie Smollett]. Second, diversity policies hurt people. Just ask the excellent Asian students who can’t get into Harvard because of affirmative action policies favoring other groups. Third, the diversity narrative is leading to absurd results, like the resegregation of college dorms and the self-identify phenomenon where you can wake up one morning and proclaim you are something you are not and everyone else just has to bow down to it. Schreck and her play say nothing about any of these complications.
But there’s a second, more fundamental flaw in Schreck’s thinking. She criticizes the Constitution for failing to protect people, like her grandmother who was the victim of an abusive childhood. “I believe we need a brand-new positive rights document...,” she says during the play. The Constitution contains mostly negative rights that keep the government from doing bad things to you, like shutting you up or searching your house without a warrant. Positive rights include various forms of economic security, such as the rights to housing, education, and a job in FDR’s Second Bill of Rights. But positive rights also include the right to police protection, thus her beef with Justice Scalia’s opinion in a 2005 case [Castle Rock v. Gonzalez] declining to find a due process right to police enforcement of a restraining order against a father who ended up taking and murdering his three children. With positive rights, the three children and Schreck’s grandmother would have been protected, Schreck evidently believes. Forget that that police don’t always get there in time and all the other real-world complications to her rose-colored view.
The impulse behind all these positive rights is to have the government put a soft pillow under absolutely everybody for absolutely everything. Security in all things. As Schreck puts it, "Maybe instead, we could start thinking of the Constitution as a kind of ur-mother, whose job it is to actively look out for all of us, especially the most vulnerable among us." That’s the pioneer spirit.
There’s a lot of pseudo-science coming from the Left purporting to show that people on the Right are a bunch of fraidy cats and their brains are wired differently to seek security in all things. [Language of Terror by Kendall, et al.] Never mind that Social Security was a left-wing invention. But here we see the impulse for absolute security on full display from the new darling of the Left, which gets to the heart of the matter. As told to me by a former Leftist, the Left honestly believes it can bring about heaven on earth and the end of all human suffering. They believe they alone possess the secret knowledge to fundamentally transform human nature and bring about this earthly paradise. The rest of us are too stupid to figure it out. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s a bunch of malarkey. It’s a pipedream, it’s not ever gonna happen. Which makes Heidi Schreck’s play a nice bedtime story but nothing of substance that goes beyond the realm of fantasy.
So there you have it: a complete mirage from a mixed-up playwright. One minute she’s calling the Constitution “magical” and a work of “genius”, and saying it’s “appalling” the next. One minute she’s expressing her fundamental faith in the Constitution because it gives us what we need to make the country better, then calls for “a brand-new positive rights document” the next. Just because she’s conflicted and mixed up about the magnificence of our country’s founding document doesn’t mean we have to be.
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Hey AOC, Why Don’t You Learn About the Constitution Before Spouting Off?
April 3, 2019 It takes a special kind of person not to mind showing their ignorance in public without embarrassment. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently claimed the Republicans changed the Constitution to remove President Franklin Roosevelt from office. In point of fact, the 22nd Amendment was not ratified until 1951, six years after FDR died in office. Res ipsa loquitur - her stupidity speaks for itself, but here are some comments from the Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network (CCGN) -
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‘The Flag is a Rag’ - Shame on Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers!
February 28, 2019 Nebraska state Senator Ernie Chambers compared the American flag to the Nazi swastika on the floor of the legislature, recently:
Senator Chambers, where are the ovens? The 26 million dead? The totalitarian government? The euthanasia of the disabled? The master plan for world domination? |
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By comparing the American flag with the Nazi swastika, you accuse America of equal crimes or worse, yet you are quite content to take your salary from Americans. If you had the courage of your convictions, you would not take our ‘blood money’ and you certainly would not serve in a government institution as a tool of the very oppression you complain about. You, sir, are the hypocrite in this picture.
Moreover, you dishonor the memory of the black soldiers who fought and died for this country in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Over 36,000 black Union soldiers died in the Civil War alone, not to mention the countless other black U.S. soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in other conflicts. They saw something in America worth fighting and dying for. Too bad your anger and your bitterness keep you from seeing it.
They saw a bad situation, rolled up their sleeves, and did something to make it better, unlike you. You’re just complaining and running your mouth when you really have very little to complain about. This country has given you a good life. What would you replace America with, exactly? Let’s hear it. It’s not good enough just to tear everything down. In fact, it’s downright irresponsible.
Nebraska state Senator Tom Brewer had this to say about your rant:
Comments from CCGN members around the country:
Moreover, you dishonor the memory of the black soldiers who fought and died for this country in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Over 36,000 black Union soldiers died in the Civil War alone, not to mention the countless other black U.S. soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in other conflicts. They saw something in America worth fighting and dying for. Too bad your anger and your bitterness keep you from seeing it.
They saw a bad situation, rolled up their sleeves, and did something to make it better, unlike you. You’re just complaining and running your mouth when you really have very little to complain about. This country has given you a good life. What would you replace America with, exactly? Let’s hear it. It’s not good enough just to tear everything down. In fact, it’s downright irresponsible.
Nebraska state Senator Tom Brewer had this to say about your rant:
- It rips our heart out to hear someone say that they refer to the flag as a rag because for those of us that have brought home, those that we’ve lost, it’s hard to refer to the flag as a rag because you have to fold it and you have to give it to the parents - that’s awful hard to do.
Comments from CCGN members around the country:
- From a letter one (Major, USAF [Retired]) sent to Sen. Chambers:
- I would like to see that legislator look into the eyes of one our living recipients of the Medal of Honor and say that. I don't believe he could.
- If an elected Senator shows this blatant disrespect to our country’s flag, his constituents should not rest until he is out of office.
- Which flag do you prefer to wave? Why not spend a few years in other countries and wave their flags, and then compare that life to a life under the banner of the United States. [Read The Man Without a Country to get some sense of what it would really be like to disown America]
A Nice Quiet Dinner with the Unhinged Mob
October 14, 2018
CNN host Don Lemon showed his ignorance about the Constitution on national television this last week. He said it loud and he said it proud. The discussion was about the right to protest, specifically about an angry mob running Ted Cruz and his wife out of a D.C. restaurant. Lemon told his guest to “shut up” so he could pontificate about free speech:
Whenever and wherever you want. Don Lemon is flat-out wrong, as a matter of constitutional law. Free speech is not an absolute right. There are a number of well-established exceptions to the First Amendment right to free speech. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater (or in a crowded TV studio, for that matter). You can’t tell the enemy when our troop ships are set to leave. You don’t get to utter fighting words with impunity. You don’t have the right to tell falsehoods and ruin someone’s reputation – that’s called slander. You don’t have the right to lie under oath – that’s perjury and it’s a felony. You don’t have the right to incite violence or imminent lawless action. You don’t get to break windows at GOP offices as part of your right to protest – that’s a crime.
And you certainly don’t have the right to protest “whenever and wherever you want.” There are time, place and manner restraints that limit your right to protest. Every Tea Partier knows you have to obtain a permit to have a big demonstration on the National Mall. Every Tea Partier knows there are local ordinances that limit your right to protest. In my area, groups larger than 25 people have to get a permit to demonstrate. Smaller groups can’t block public sidewalks, you have to keep moving. You can’t protest on private property, like shopping malls or grocery store parking lots. Or in a restaurant, if the owner won’t allow it. The D.C. subway has rules, too. You can’t demonstrate inside stations, it’s too dangerous. You can’t block the entrance; you have to stay 15 feet away from it.
But Don Lemon has announced a principle: the absolute right to protest wherever and whenever you want. Let’s have a little fun with that, shall we?
I get to protest anywhere and whenever I want, right? I guess that means Don Lemon’s living room at 2 o’clock in the morning. Or a Democratic Socialists of America chapter meeting, or a Sunday service at an A.M.E church when people are trying to pray. Not just one Sunday, but every Sunday.
Now let’s talk about his own show. Don Lemon has a history of shutting off his guests’ microphones when he doesn’t like what they have to say. He did it to radio host John Fredericks and he did it to former Trump aide Jason Miller. In Miller’s case, Lemon specifically told him that being on CNN is a privilege, not a right. Apparently, consistency is not a requirement for being a CNN host. And they weren’t the only ones Don Lemon has silenced. He should be checked for Nazi tendencies.
But he announced a principle that I have an absolute right to protest wherever and whenever I please. I have half a mind to march into CNN’s studios, storm on to Don Lemon’s set with a few hundred of my closest friends and protest his history of antipathy towards free expression. Cut people off, how dare you.
Shame on Don Lemon for supporting mobs. Shame on him for invoking the Constitution when he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And shame on him also for thinking people only have a right to speak when it’s something he agrees with.
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Comments from the Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network:
October 14, 2018
CNN host Don Lemon showed his ignorance about the Constitution on national television this last week. He said it loud and he said it proud. The discussion was about the right to protest, specifically about an angry mob running Ted Cruz and his wife out of a D.C. restaurant. Lemon told his guest to “shut up” so he could pontificate about free speech:
- In the Constitution, you can protest whenever and wherever you want. It doesn’t tell you that you can’t do it in a restaurant, that you can’t do it on a football field. It doesn’t tell you that you can’t do it on a cable news — you can do it wherever you want. (emphasis added)
Whenever and wherever you want. Don Lemon is flat-out wrong, as a matter of constitutional law. Free speech is not an absolute right. There are a number of well-established exceptions to the First Amendment right to free speech. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater (or in a crowded TV studio, for that matter). You can’t tell the enemy when our troop ships are set to leave. You don’t get to utter fighting words with impunity. You don’t have the right to tell falsehoods and ruin someone’s reputation – that’s called slander. You don’t have the right to lie under oath – that’s perjury and it’s a felony. You don’t have the right to incite violence or imminent lawless action. You don’t get to break windows at GOP offices as part of your right to protest – that’s a crime.
And you certainly don’t have the right to protest “whenever and wherever you want.” There are time, place and manner restraints that limit your right to protest. Every Tea Partier knows you have to obtain a permit to have a big demonstration on the National Mall. Every Tea Partier knows there are local ordinances that limit your right to protest. In my area, groups larger than 25 people have to get a permit to demonstrate. Smaller groups can’t block public sidewalks, you have to keep moving. You can’t protest on private property, like shopping malls or grocery store parking lots. Or in a restaurant, if the owner won’t allow it. The D.C. subway has rules, too. You can’t demonstrate inside stations, it’s too dangerous. You can’t block the entrance; you have to stay 15 feet away from it.
But Don Lemon has announced a principle: the absolute right to protest wherever and whenever you want. Let’s have a little fun with that, shall we?
I get to protest anywhere and whenever I want, right? I guess that means Don Lemon’s living room at 2 o’clock in the morning. Or a Democratic Socialists of America chapter meeting, or a Sunday service at an A.M.E church when people are trying to pray. Not just one Sunday, but every Sunday.
Now let’s talk about his own show. Don Lemon has a history of shutting off his guests’ microphones when he doesn’t like what they have to say. He did it to radio host John Fredericks and he did it to former Trump aide Jason Miller. In Miller’s case, Lemon specifically told him that being on CNN is a privilege, not a right. Apparently, consistency is not a requirement for being a CNN host. And they weren’t the only ones Don Lemon has silenced. He should be checked for Nazi tendencies.
But he announced a principle that I have an absolute right to protest wherever and whenever I please. I have half a mind to march into CNN’s studios, storm on to Don Lemon’s set with a few hundred of my closest friends and protest his history of antipathy towards free expression. Cut people off, how dare you.
Shame on Don Lemon for supporting mobs. Shame on him for invoking the Constitution when he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And shame on him also for thinking people only have a right to speak when it’s something he agrees with.
---
Comments from the Champions of the Constitution Grassroots Network:
- Like most Americans, Don Lemon has an infantile view of the Constitution; apparently the document is his to interpret any way he wishes. "In the Constitution, you can protest whenever and wherever you want." Of course, the Constitution says no such thing. The word protest does not appear in the Constitution, "petition" does. And there is certainly a right to petition one's government for a redress of grievances, but "protest" is not mentioned. Perhaps protest is included in in the Freedom of Speech clause, perhaps it is not, that also is open to interpretation. Of course, America has a rich history of public protest, protest against government actions, not the mere appearance of a fellow human being at a public restaurant. That is simply a mob, and an uncouth one at that.
- Mobs, intimidation, and violence are redefined by the Left when it suits THEIR purposes. Remember when they had a conniption when one of Sarah Palin’s campaign ads had an opponent in the crosshairs?
- There is an obvious void in understanding the social contract. He ought to read some history, instead of putting out false histrionics. As citizens we have a right to be responsible for honoring others rights but that does not include volunteering to give up rights just to satisfy a "mob" which was the correct term for these paid political agitators.
Off with Their Heads! (Democracy in Action)
August 19, 2018
Week before last, two socialist authors were granted space in the august New York Times, no less, to push their poison that the U.S. Constitution is an “outdated relic” expressly intended to subvert democracy.
The authors are an editor and writer at Jacobin magazine, a socialist publication which doesn’t mind engaging in the quintessentially capitalistic practice of selling advertising.
The authors make a number of blithe assertions which I will demolish shortly. But, overall, to hear the authors tell it, you’d think the Constitution had unleashed a bloody Reign of Terror. Oh, wait a minute, that was the Jacobins in France in the socialist French Revolution of 1789. Thanks to the authors’ namesakes, France didn’t have a stable government again for 75 years.
The authors assert that the Constitution is “the foundation for a system of government that rules over people,” rather than a means of popular self-government. This shows a complete misunderstanding of the Constitution. The Constitution begins with “We the People” because we have popular sovereignty. We the People rule ourselves; we don’t have a King George ruling over us.
But the authors are right in one respect. The Constitution did not set up a pure democracy, and good thing it didn’t. The Founders were concerned with preventing mob rule and the tyranny of the majority, both of which develop under pure democracy. Even with all our system’s checks and balances, we’ve had instances in this country where one side has gotten too powerful and rammed stuff down our throats, like Obamacare and the New Deal. Do we really want modern-day Jacobins ramming single payer down our throats with real death panels this time - guillotine squads? That’s why the Founders gave us a Republic, as Ben Franklin famously said - to temper the passion of factions with ways for cooler heads to prevail. Warring factions gave England a dictator-for-life, Oliver Cromwell. The Founders knew this history and worked around it accordingly. Property rights, which the socialist authors criticize, actually reinforce self-government, because property gives people freedom and independence, power they wouldn’t have if the government owned everything as in a socialist system. Property rights are best understood as a pillar of popular sovereignty.
The authors say the Constitution prevents redistribution of wealth and the creation of new social guarantees. This is just crazy talk. The authors act as if as if the New Deal, the Great Society and other redistributionist programs never happened, and that we never racked up a $21 trillion national debt as a result.
The authors criticize “the Bill of Rights’s incomplete safeguards of individual freedoms.” There’s something bone-chilling about Jacobin socialists talking about safeguarding individual freedom. They are the self-proclaimed descendants of the French Jacobins who chopped people’s heads off after so-called ‘trials’ that didn’t have any due process whatsoever, or even pretend to dispense justice. When the masters of mob rule start talking about protecting individual rights, run for the hills.
Newt Gingrich just wrote about the horrors of the French Revolution for Fox News. He referred to a book in which the author recounts a story about the French Revolution that tells you everything you need to know about Jacobin socialists: “a woman was charged with the heinous crime of having wept at the execution of her husband. She was condemned to sit several hours under the suspended blade which shed upon her, drop by drop, the blood of the deceased whose corpse was above her on the scaffold before she was released by death from her agony.” This is the intellectual pedigree of the Jacobin authors, whether they want to admit it or not.
The authors don’t want to throw out the entire Constitution like their more revolutionary comrades farther Left, just amend it. Specifically, they recommend a unicameral one-house legislature, and making it easier to amend the Constitution through national referendum. There are good reasons why the Framers didn’t give us either one.
They had the example of the unicameral Pennsylvania legislature which ping-ponged between partisan extremes after each election. This experience and others convinced the Framers that an upper house representing economically successful people was necessary to tame the passions of the bulk of the population who were seen as represented by the lower house. The Framers had the wisdom of the ages on their side on this one. Read the history of political theory from antiquity on down and you will find something called the “mixed constitution” – a government that mixes democracy with meritocracy, that is, the elements of popular representation with some kind of contribution by people who are more versed in governance than the average Jane or Joe. The history of political theory shows that you can’t have political stability without allowing both these elements to participate in government. Leave either element out and you will have nothing but fractiousness and trouble. Our two-house Congress was the Framers’ version of a mixed constitution which succeeded, unlike the French Jacobins, in ensuring political stability.
As for amending the Constitution more easily through national referendums, that would be more problematic than democratic. The Founders deliberately made it hard to amend the Constitution, so people don’t get carried away. But it’s not THAT hard. As I mentioned in a previous webinar [March 19, 2017], it only took one college student 10 years to get the 27th Amendment passed and ratified.
Let me end with three cheers for our Republic and our mixed constitution. It is because of them we have limited government, not the stronger federal government the authors want. No guillotines here.
As for the authors - Off with their heads! Figuratively speaking, of course. Unless I can gather a big enough mob.... Just kidding!
August 19, 2018
Week before last, two socialist authors were granted space in the august New York Times, no less, to push their poison that the U.S. Constitution is an “outdated relic” expressly intended to subvert democracy.
The authors are an editor and writer at Jacobin magazine, a socialist publication which doesn’t mind engaging in the quintessentially capitalistic practice of selling advertising.
The authors make a number of blithe assertions which I will demolish shortly. But, overall, to hear the authors tell it, you’d think the Constitution had unleashed a bloody Reign of Terror. Oh, wait a minute, that was the Jacobins in France in the socialist French Revolution of 1789. Thanks to the authors’ namesakes, France didn’t have a stable government again for 75 years.
The authors assert that the Constitution is “the foundation for a system of government that rules over people,” rather than a means of popular self-government. This shows a complete misunderstanding of the Constitution. The Constitution begins with “We the People” because we have popular sovereignty. We the People rule ourselves; we don’t have a King George ruling over us.
But the authors are right in one respect. The Constitution did not set up a pure democracy, and good thing it didn’t. The Founders were concerned with preventing mob rule and the tyranny of the majority, both of which develop under pure democracy. Even with all our system’s checks and balances, we’ve had instances in this country where one side has gotten too powerful and rammed stuff down our throats, like Obamacare and the New Deal. Do we really want modern-day Jacobins ramming single payer down our throats with real death panels this time - guillotine squads? That’s why the Founders gave us a Republic, as Ben Franklin famously said - to temper the passion of factions with ways for cooler heads to prevail. Warring factions gave England a dictator-for-life, Oliver Cromwell. The Founders knew this history and worked around it accordingly. Property rights, which the socialist authors criticize, actually reinforce self-government, because property gives people freedom and independence, power they wouldn’t have if the government owned everything as in a socialist system. Property rights are best understood as a pillar of popular sovereignty.
The authors say the Constitution prevents redistribution of wealth and the creation of new social guarantees. This is just crazy talk. The authors act as if as if the New Deal, the Great Society and other redistributionist programs never happened, and that we never racked up a $21 trillion national debt as a result.
The authors criticize “the Bill of Rights’s incomplete safeguards of individual freedoms.” There’s something bone-chilling about Jacobin socialists talking about safeguarding individual freedom. They are the self-proclaimed descendants of the French Jacobins who chopped people’s heads off after so-called ‘trials’ that didn’t have any due process whatsoever, or even pretend to dispense justice. When the masters of mob rule start talking about protecting individual rights, run for the hills.
Newt Gingrich just wrote about the horrors of the French Revolution for Fox News. He referred to a book in which the author recounts a story about the French Revolution that tells you everything you need to know about Jacobin socialists: “a woman was charged with the heinous crime of having wept at the execution of her husband. She was condemned to sit several hours under the suspended blade which shed upon her, drop by drop, the blood of the deceased whose corpse was above her on the scaffold before she was released by death from her agony.” This is the intellectual pedigree of the Jacobin authors, whether they want to admit it or not.
The authors don’t want to throw out the entire Constitution like their more revolutionary comrades farther Left, just amend it. Specifically, they recommend a unicameral one-house legislature, and making it easier to amend the Constitution through national referendum. There are good reasons why the Framers didn’t give us either one.
They had the example of the unicameral Pennsylvania legislature which ping-ponged between partisan extremes after each election. This experience and others convinced the Framers that an upper house representing economically successful people was necessary to tame the passions of the bulk of the population who were seen as represented by the lower house. The Framers had the wisdom of the ages on their side on this one. Read the history of political theory from antiquity on down and you will find something called the “mixed constitution” – a government that mixes democracy with meritocracy, that is, the elements of popular representation with some kind of contribution by people who are more versed in governance than the average Jane or Joe. The history of political theory shows that you can’t have political stability without allowing both these elements to participate in government. Leave either element out and you will have nothing but fractiousness and trouble. Our two-house Congress was the Framers’ version of a mixed constitution which succeeded, unlike the French Jacobins, in ensuring political stability.
As for amending the Constitution more easily through national referendums, that would be more problematic than democratic. The Founders deliberately made it hard to amend the Constitution, so people don’t get carried away. But it’s not THAT hard. As I mentioned in a previous webinar [March 19, 2017], it only took one college student 10 years to get the 27th Amendment passed and ratified.
Let me end with three cheers for our Republic and our mixed constitution. It is because of them we have limited government, not the stronger federal government the authors want. No guillotines here.
As for the authors - Off with their heads! Figuratively speaking, of course. Unless I can gather a big enough mob.... Just kidding!