Pro-Lifers Arrested in People's Republic of Maryland

There is considerable debate within the pro-life community as to whether shocking photos of the reality of abortion do more harm than good for the pro-life message.

Some believe such ghastly images turn people off toward the pro-life message, while others believe the horrible reality of abortion needs to be faced by society--and say that people have told them that these images have convinced them to oppose abortion.

Regardless, according to this video, it seems our government--built on the First Amendment--is getting into the business of "approved speech" and "disapproved speech."

This video says the Alliance Defense Fund is defending the pro-lifers here, and since the ADF has won at least 3 out of 4 cases they pursue, it's a good bet they're going to win here.

Obama Gets By With a Little Help From His Friends

I'd better get this one out there before the thought police sanitize it from the internet.

This ad from the American Issues Project is making waves on the Left. It seems it may be illegal because it's produced by an incorporated 501c(4), and under that stupid McCain-Feingold (aka the Incumbent Protection Act) assault on the First Amendment, that isn't allowed.

Some folks see no problem with unions shaking down workers to spend their money on political activities the workers may not even support, or with government suing itself with taxpayer money to get more taxpayer money, but oh my, this kind of free speech is abominable.

Anyway, here it is. It points out some important facts about the kind of people Barack Obama calls friends. Can you say, "Domestic terrorist Bill Ayers?" I knew you could.

A Free Speech Graveyard at the Democratic National Convention

By John W. Whitehead

“Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”—First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

If there’s one thing the United States stands for, it’s unfettered free speech. It is vital to a functioning democracy. Unfortunately, the increasing use by government and law enforcement officials of “free speech zones” and other stifling tactics to purge dissent has largely undermined the First Amendment’s safeguards for political free speech.

For example, President Bush’s Presidential Advance Manual outlines the specific strategies his administration has used to “minimize the demonstrator’s effect.” It includes such Orwellian tactics as selling tickets exclusively to presidential supporters and creating “rally squads” of supporters who will surround and drown out protesters with pro-Bush chants. The manual also discusses the strategy of asking local law enforcement to create a designated protest zone, “preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route.”

Free speech zones have been employed by both Democrats and Republicans at past political conventions. This year, however, Democrats face the embarrassing possibility that they will be the only party actually caging dissenters. Protesters at the upcoming Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Denver in late August will be corralled into caged “free speech zones” made of chicken wire and chain link fences which are located more than two football fields from the delegates’ entrance. Those who attempt to exercise their First Amendment rights outside this makeshift cage, which is partially obscured by trees and sculptures, will be arrested. (Ironically, protesters at this year’s Republican National Convention will not face a cage or even policemen in riot gear.)

Even the news media, once considered a vital stronghold for ensuring accountability in government, is also conspiring to keep protesters out of sight and earshot. Members of the media are urging Denver officials to move the designated protest zone away from where media tents will be situated, reportedly due to concerns that loud demonstrations could disrupt broadcasts or that reporters and photographers could be doused with tear gas or pepper spray if there are confrontations between police and protesters.

With the news media having seemingly sold out the First Amendment rights of protesters for the sake of their own financial interests, it has been left to a handful of civil liberties organizations and protesters to challenge these restrictions in court. The courts have previously ruled that protests can be restricted in keeping with a reasonable time, place and manner. But if you’re two football fields away and no one can see or hear you, it renders you all but invisible and irrelevant—which, of course, is the point of these so-called free speech zones.

It is only a slight exaggeration to refer to free speech zones as temporary concentration camps. Although the Holocaust has largely transformed our modern understanding of concentration camps, they were historically intended to “concentrate” populations of “dangerous” individuals into a small area so the government could monitor them more easily.

The 2004 DNC in Boston utilized such a camp, with surveillance cameras to record the individuals inside the cage. Conditions were so appalling that U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock referred to the designated protest zone as a “grim, mean, and oppressive space,” which had the overall feel of an “internment camp.”

As one visitor to the 2004 DNC free speech zone remarked:

Last night, I had my first direct experience with the so-called free speech zone. It left me with one conclusion: whatever you do, do NOT go inside. It’s not only a blatant offense to free speech, but also highly dangerous and unsafe. I would suggest protesting anywhere in Boston but inside of it. No amount of hyperbole can accurately describe how disastrous the interior actually is. It’s like a scene from some post-apocalyptic movie – a futuristic, industrial detention area from a Mad Max film. You are surrounded on all sides by concrete blocks and steel fencing, with razor wire lining the perimeter. Then, there is a giant black net over the entire space.

Concentrating, monitoring and minimizing the effects of protests are the real reasons for using designated protest zones. Protesters are only perceived as dangerous because their message challenges the status quo. It’s the message that is feared. Thus, efforts to confine and control the dissenters are really efforts to confine and control their political messages, whatever those might be. This is true whether they’re challenging environmental policies, free trade agreements or, as in Denver with the upcoming DNC, the political campaigns of candidates running for public office. And if Barack Obama is serious about being an active defender of civil liberties, he needs to openly condemn the fencing off of protesters at the upcoming DNC.

By severely restricting protesters’ access to the media and to convention delegates, free speech zones destroy the power of dissenting viewpoints to foment debate and bring about change. Just imagine if the hundreds of thousands of participants in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which culminated with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, had been forced into free speech zones. There likely would not have been a 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The right of political free speech is the basis of all liberty. It’s the citizen’s right to confront the government and demand that they alter policies. But first, citizens have to be seen and heard. That’s what “we the people” is all about. And only under extraordinary circumstances should free speech ever be restricted.

Caging people who want to exercise free speech goes against the entire concept of our Constitution, the Bill of Rights and what the revolutionary generation stood for. When political protest is caged, it’s not just the rights of a few protesters that are at stake. The very definition of freedom is in danger. Freedom cannot be exercised from within a cage.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

Global Warming Skepticism: Crime Against Humanity

I'd normally write something like this off as the demented ravings of another Leftist, but with some people advocating jail for speaking against homosexuality, and people getting fired for blasphemy against the religion of global warming, I suppose I have to take it seriously.

Climate scientist James Hansen is calling for trials against global warming blasphemers; from the language, if liberals believed in capital punishment, I'd expect he'd be looking to execute global warming skeptics.

From the Guardian in Britain:

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Ooooooookay!

If anyone should be put on trial for using their free speech in an abusive manner, it should be Hansen and others like him. They have bad data, flawed claims and a lot of conjecture to back up their sci-fi claims that defy common sense, ignore historic temperature cycles, ignore temperature changes on planets with no SUVs, and pretend that tens of thousands of other scientists who disagree with them don't exist. And they have the call to imply that skeptics are deceiving people?

This takes the saying about the pot calling the kettle black to a whole new level!

Religious Discrimination Suit Brought Against Ohio Library

Reprinted by permission of The Christian Post

By Alexander J. Sheffrin
Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Jun. 12 2008 05:44 PM ET

A Christian legal group is suing in federal court an Ohio public library over what the group argues is a case of anti-Christian religious discrimination.

In its lawsuit filed last week, the Alliance Defense Fund said the Clermont County Public Library denied a Christian couple access to their public meeting rooms because of their intention to hold a seminar that would make use of Scripture-based financial related materials through Crown Financial Ministries.

Although the library’s public policy states that “meeting rooms are available to all community groups and non-profit organizations,” the biblically-based financial group was denied access to a meeting room because of what the library said was a policy against “quoting Bible verses.”

According to the library's policy, meeting rooms are prohibited for use for political, religious or social events.

In a statement, ADF Legal Counsel Tim Chandler said that the lawsuit would seek damages against the library because of what he described as their “blatant viewpoint discrimination” against Christians.

“Refusing to grant this group permission to hold a seminar at a meeting room in a public library because they planned to quote the Bible is about as blatantly un-American and unconstitutional as you can get,” he said.

“What’s next? Will the library board attempt to keep patrons from checking out Bibles and reading them on government property?” he asked.

In his summary of the case, ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot said that the library was clearly in the wrong and had done much harm to Christians everywhere.

“The denial sends the message to Christians that they are not deemed a valuable part of the community,” he said. “This is a financial planning seminar, and the library has previously allowed meetings that discuss financial planning. The fact that they may quote Bible verses during the meeting does not legally matter.”

The suit asks that the library's rule against the use of meeting rooms for religious events be overturned, and that compensatory damages be awarded to the couple and the organization.

“The Vandergriffs and the institute believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and as such is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, including all wisdom and knowledge concerning financial matters,” the suit states.

Copyright 2008 The Christian Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

A New Stealth Fairness Doctrine

Since Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, they've been hot to muzzle talk radio (they know Rush Limbaugh was largely responsible for the 1994 Republican Revolution) by reimplementing the Fairness Doctrine that Ronald Reagan did away with.

That effort was successfully blocked last year, but we we knew they'd be back.

National Review says the Left is still working on the Fairness Doctrine, only repackaged under a new name: localism.

In 2007, the Center for American Progress issued a report, “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,” that cleverly recasts the Fairness Doctrine as “localism” by stating that “any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism.”

The center’s report also urged quotas by race and sex for radio-station ownership, because a survey of all “10,506 licensed commercial radio stations reveals that stations owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows.”

So what would that look like and how would it work?

What does “cultural diversity” mean in practice? One witness at an FCC localism hearing actually complained that a “population of 60,000 Somali Americans” in Minneapolis-St. Paul were forced to get by with a mere “10 regularly-produced TV series on vocational training, acculturation, health education and other topics of vital importance” accounting for “approximately 20 hours of programming a week . . . because the community is not deemed to be a viable market.”

This cultural diversity is to be enforced by professional ethnic activists and other perpetual malcontents: All “licensees should convene and consult with permanent advisory boards.” These advisory boards “should include representatives of all segments of the community.”

Basically, a vocal group of a particular ideological bent or "identity group" could dictate programming on local radio stations--regardless of whether such programming is marketable. In other words, while people can now "vote" for or against programming with their purchasing dollars in conjunction with advertising dollars, the listening public will now have programming forced on them whether it's financially viable or not, whether they want to hear it or not. The diversity mandate will require the broadcast of material whether anyone outside a small but vocal constituency wants to hear it or not.

Since there are only so many hours in a day, forcing new programming onto the air waves will force other programming off, to make room. What will go? Perhaps the point-of-view programming that offends these vocal groups?

Rather than start their own radio station and develop the marketability of their own programming, liberals are forcing radio stations to offer their drivel whether anyone wants to hear it or not.

Actually, they tried going the "free market" route with Air America, which was a colossal flop. So now they want to use the power of government to regulate free speech.

The last time I checked, that was prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. But then, what does that matter anymore?

Freedom of Speech Takes Another Hit in Canada

From LifeSiteNews comes a report of Alberta pastor Stephen Boissoin being fined $7,000 by the Alberta Human Rights Commission. What was his terrible crime? He uttered non-state-approved speech.

Pastor Boissoin sent a letter to the editor of a newspaper in which he said homosexuality is immoral and dangerous, and questioned the wisdom of new homosexual rights curricula being used in Alberta's educational system.

From the article:

"The point I am trying to make here is what's being attacked at the core is what I believe, according to my personal beliefs and my religious beliefs."

The pastor also maintained that his beliefs are founded not on hate or malice, but derive from a personal concern for the family and society, a concern that is rooted not only in faith, but also in science.

"I am not allowed to hold my views, but the Lunds of the world are allowed to bring gay ministers into schools, they are allowed to present scientifically baseless teachings to kids that people are born gay."

By the way, Pastor Boissoin says he will NOT apologize as the commission also required: "Absurd - beyond absurd. I will never make a public apology; I stand by what I said."

Canadians don't have the same Bill of Rights we enjoy in the United States which enshrines our liberties in our nation's highest law. They do, however, have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which essentially has a similar function. Section 2 of the Charter does guarantee, among others, "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication."

Politically correct Canadian laws, along with their Gestapo-like "human rights commissions" are running roughshod over Canadian freedom of expression with hardly a bleat from the rest of Canadian government.

"Well, that's just Canada," you might say if you're an American. "We have the Bill of Rights to protect us here."

Have you forgotten that the United States Supreme Court has already been consulting foreign law in the "interpretation" of U.S. judicial decisions? Have you forgotten that the American Left is perpetually telling us how America needs to be like the other socialist countries around the world?

Consider this statement by Justice Russell Juriansz, Ontario Court of Appeals on the American approach to free speech:

It seems fair to say that the American view is becoming a minority one in the world. Canada is part of what appears to be growing global consensus, which observes that careful restrictions of some forms of speech are both desirable and necessary.

In other words, if your group is deemed to be one of the "protected class" then no one can even speak against you, much less do real harm to you. And if you want to speak out against one of the "protected" ones for whatever reason, then you become a criminal if you do.

How long until the assertion that the United States, the first and foremost leader of freedom in the world, is branded "out of step" with the ideas of "freedom" shared by the rest of the world? And how long until this assertion is leveraged to force U.S. government to abandon any semblance of true freedom of expression?

Since people are already starting to be punished in the United States for exercising their freedom of expression and freedom of religion, probably not long...

Free and Open Exchange of Ideas?

I don't know what to say about such ignorance and disregard for the rights of others who happen to disagree with prevailing sentiments. A quote from George Orwell comes to mind: “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”



UPDATE: Apparently this episode occured on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. Blogger Mary at "Freedom Eden" has the inside story.