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LEFTISM: A Study in Hate

Wise people use words carefully to ensure their real intention is understood. But these days many people throw the word “hate” around carelessly. One must wonder if they know what it means. Examine a dictionary and you will discover it associated with words like intense dislike, detest, and loath. In the Bible the word is sometimes used to refer to the results of foolish actions, such as stating that a parent who fails to discipline a child hates him, because an undisciplined child is at great risk. A spoiled child, who does not get something he wants from a parent, such as a toy, may complain that the parent “hates” him. Much like Leftists who claim that those who resist their immorality “hate” them! Like anarchists they demand the freedom to do whatever they wish.

I suppose my first encounter with an anarchist was in second or third grade. An older student would take our personalized pencils, (Christmas gifts from the teacher), cut our names off and claim them as his own. Or, if we left possessions unattended, he would break them. Needless to say, he would threaten us against reporting him. As I grew older, I witnessed the same behavior from troublemakers who harassed students who worked hard. They were of the same character as people I ran into years later who smashed mailboxes, or keyed nice cars, or became Leftist anarchists. In the “good-ole days” there were adults in the room who kept these troublemakers at bay.  Today, adults are conspicuously absent. Government, the primary purpose of which is to protect the good citizens of the state, is now siding with the anarchists against the law-abiding citizens.

As a child I could not understand these people’s delight in destroying things or callously hurting others without cause. As I studied God’s Word, however, I came to understand better the relationship between rebellion against God and anarchy. Such are the “scoffers” referred to in Proverbs 29:8:

“Scoffers set a city aflame, but wise men turn away wrath.”

It also notes that reasoning with such people is impossible as they have no interest in truth, Prov. 29:9,

“If a wise man contends with a foolish man, whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace.”

And I also came to see that anarchists target anyone who seeks to do right. The animosity exhibited by failing junior high students toward good students is the same as that we have seen in recent times by Leftists smashing police cars and burning down businesses. In their pride they resist all authority. They hate God who is THE Authority, and they hate those who represent Him.

“The bloodthirsty hate the blameless. . . .”  Prov. 29:10

“He who is upright in the way is an abomination to the wicked” Prov. 29:27b.

It is as Mark Twain noted, “Nothing is more irritating than a good example.” And we conservatives, especially Christians, as poorly as we represent Christ at times, are still VERY irritating to the Left.

It is important to counter the deceptive messaging of BLM, Antifa and the MSM. Yes, there are significant racial problems in America and yes there are individuals who harbor resentment against people of other races. However, Leftists use such issues cynically for their own political gain but have no desire to actually improve racial relations. Just as predators in the wild have many ways to disguise themselves, Leftists camouflage themselves as caring for the oppressed even as they plot the destruction of the country, which, by-the-way, would only exacerbate the situation of marginalized citizens. There has been nothing more detrimental to the young people of America’s inner cities than the Left’s attack on the nuclear family, the destruction of which has caused more deaths of teens and children than any other factor.  An intact family is a child’s best hope for health and success. Yet BLM publicly states its desire to eliminate the traditional family altogether! In what universe is that loving?

Two things are abundantly clear about anarchists: they hate what is morally right and those who represent it. Second, they understand that the object of their hatred is truly good and right. They are not confused about where the lines are. We are not dealing with good hearted but confused people. They understand that right is right, and wrong is wrong, and they hate what is right and love what is wrong. They demonstrate that they know the difference every time they accuse conservatives of the very things they themselves do. They declare that there is no “Truth,” and lie without any evidence of conscience, and yet cry “liar” at those who oppose them because they know that lying is wrong and that there is, in fact, Truth. Accusing someone of lying would be pointless if lying were not immoral.  In their foolishness they think the public is blind to their lying but will turn against those they accuse of lying. Their hypocrisy manifests in a host of ways.  If you examine their conduct, virtually every evil they accuse others of doing they practice themselves.

Case in point: if you disagree with them at all they immediately slur you as a hater. They know a lot about hate, for they are the worst of haters.  It characterizes everything they do, as their ideology is so destructive, but they are seldom called out for it.

One of the leaders of the group who violently took over several blocks of Seattle in 2020 published a note to followers after leaving the area calling them “comrades.”  Besides thus categorizing them as Leftists and Marxists, it notably did not refer to them as friends. Marxists and Leftists do not really have friends, for to have friends one must be willing to love and do what friends do. However, study the history of Marxism and you will find that loyalty is not a Leftist or Marxist value. Among other things, they are noted for bloody purges and those purges generally included “comrades.” So very friendly of them!  An irony discovered in the third chapter of Daniel corroborates the world’s willingness to destroy their own. King Nebuchadnezzar had three Israelite men thrown into a furnace because they refused to bow before his idol.  However, it was not the Jews who died in the fire at Nebuchadnezzar’s command, but his own soldiers. Which brings us back to God.

Marxism is atheistic. Rejection of God is foundational to the theory. But, where there is no God, there can be no love, for “God is love.” And without love there can be no true friendship. George Eliot noted that “friendship is that inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person having to neither weigh thoughts nor measure words.”

With a true friend you can say whatever you like without fear. In simple terms, a friend is someone who cares so much for you that it is virtually impossible to sever that relationship. He or she naturally gives you the benefit of the doubt, trusts you and lets nothing separate you. It is a founding principle of this Republic, is enshrined in our Constitution and is ultimately sourced in God and the Bible. “Innocent until proven guilty” is the legal manifestation of this principle, and it is how you naturally treat your friends. It is the heartbeat of a mother who needs overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing before admitting to one of her children’s errors. This accurate definition of true friendship exposes the vileness of the Left.  For despite their protestation of caring for others, they care for no one but themselves.

Jimmy Kimmel is merely one of many celebrities to have discovered that although he has gone out of his way for years to show he is a Leftist, supported Leftist causes, and hates all who are on the Right, it meant nothing when they discovered he had unwittingly stepped over the line a few years ago. Regardless of all he has done and his solidarity with their cause they instantly threw him under the bus for his sins. They were never his friends. They are not good people.

Karlyn Borysenko, a Democrat who attended a Trump rally and others like her, have discovered how hateful the “Loving Left” really is and how in a moment comradery turns to hate. Former Leftists have also commented on how they lived in constant fear of being “found out” for disagreeing with some point of Leftist dogma. It is clear that there is no love among Leftists, for as the Bible says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” I wonder if Jeff Bezos still drinks the Kool-Aid now that Robespierre has shown up at his door? (Go online to read about the guillotine set up at his house by Leftists!).

The “Cancel Culture” of BLM, Antifa and other Leftists is more ominous than many would have us believe. The idea that destroying those who disagree with you is acceptable is the rationale that has led to most every war in human history. Leftist tactics portend a totalitarian state under which all disagreement is squelched.  Today, a few radicals terrorize the majority into either compliance with their agenda or silence. While these Leftists, I expect, would declare that they wish no one dead, what else can one deduce from their efforts to destroy their opponents’ ability to provide for themselves by getting them fired? Such oppression is eerily reminiscent of the Anti-Christ of the Bible who will require everyone to accept his ”mark” in-order-to buy or sell. At this point Leftists’ power is focused primarily on shaming truth tellers into silence but imagine what suffering they will create if they gain the political power necessary to bring criminal penalties against their opponents!

Such is the nature of the Left.  With friends like that. . . . Well, you know the rest!

So much for the compassionate, caring Socialists. Do not be fooled. Despite their protestations, neither they nor their cause are good.

Good people, upon hearing something unsettling about a friend, before rendering a judgment will seek clarification, hoping that it was a mistake or a misunderstanding.  People with good hearts, if you have transgressed in some way against them, upon your confession and request for forgiveness will happily grant it. That is what GOOD people do. They also understand that good people can disagree about just about anything and still be good people and even be friends.

It is decidedly not the way of BLM, Antifa, or leaders of the political Left. Violate one of their norms and you are done. No investigation. No calls with regrets. No explanations. You are just unceremoniously cut off. They are finished with you forever. Whether you violated a long-held tenet of Leftism or one just discovered five minutes ago, or, they discover you participated in some conduct which was “normal” thirty years ago, but recently has been determined to be offensive to the wrong group.  Too bad. You’re evil!

This is no incidental oversight on their part. They are not merely caught in the “emotions of the moment.” It is at the core of who they are and what they seek to accomplish. Ask what their objective is, and you will not receive an explanation as to how Americans will get along better under their plan, or the process by which more Americans will be able to participate in the Nation’s opportunities. No, what you will hear is simply “Destroy it all!”  They cannot and will not tell you what they will replace “it” with because they are not builders. They are destroyers, just like the punk who slashes tires, breaks other’s toys, or smashes mailboxes.

It also goes without saying that good people do not hijack worthy causes for bad ends. Returning to an earlier point: of course, EVERY BLACK LIFE MATTERS! They especially matter to God before whom we will all give an account someday. The issue of racism and all that goes with it is worthy of serious consideration and action.

Evangelist Billy Graham noted that the racial divide was one of the most egregious problems Americans face. But BLM and Leftists care nothing about the minorities they so publicly profess to champion and are not improving racial relations. Leftists and Left leaning Democrats have run most major U.S. cities for decades yet the slaughter of young minorities in those inner cities continues unabated. Over a hundred people were shot and several children were murdered in Chicago in just one weekend last year yet not one of these Leftists said a word or lifted a finger to do anything that would bring real change.

But why would they? They truly do not care.  Their objective is power, not peace.

And so, as we consider “hate,” we see that it is the Leftists who truly practice it, either directly through physical confrontation and injury, or by limiting their opponents’ ability to make a living, yet at the same time complaining like children that those who will not give them what they want “hate them,”

If you find yourself sympathizing with those experiencing difficulty in America, especially children, understand that the most visible and vocal ones pontificating on these issues are not the ones who are actually bringing relief. Tragically, most of the faces highlighted by the MSM are divisive and self-serving. Regardless of what they say, and how the Media portray them, BLM, Antifa and the others like them are not helping and you don’t want to affiliate with them. Look rather to the multitude of good people who are daily, away from the cameras, changing lives for good.

If you want to make a difference, support them!





Are ALL “Gender Stereotypes” Bad?

The homosexual, flamboyantly faux-feminine, HIV-positive actor Billy Porter, known for his farcical, LOOK-AT-ME female gowns, will play Cinderella’s fairy godmother called Fab G in the upcoming live action movie to be released exclusively on Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Prime Video.

The movie’s writer claims Fab G “transcends mundane human labels,” and, in what passes for profound in Hollywood, Porter proclaims “magic has no gender.” Maybe “magic” has no gender, but humans have a sex. Sexed humans are designed by God for purposes. And families and societies have critical roles in recognizing, affirming, and reinforcing sexual differentiation through “gender stereotypes,” more accurately called sex-based conventions. Sex-based conventions are good and important phenomena that Hollywood, feminists, homosexuals, drag queens, and the “trans”-cult—all of which are spiritually lost—view as evil.

I am a member of a private, non-partisan Facebook group with people of diverse views on many issues but united in our opposition to “invasive, harmful, unproven medical interventions for gender-confused children.” This group includes radical feminists, lesbians, and theologically orthodox Christians. Members are prohibited from expressing either religious or anti-religious views, but there is not a similar prohibition on what may be expressed regarding sex-based societal conventions. What has developed is that feminists and lesbians post a fair number of harsh critiques of “gender stereotypes,” but dissenting views—for example, the view that sex-based conventions, particularly regarding dress, can serve important, good, and necessary functions—are largely absent and would be vociferously condemned by feminists and lesbians.

The patent hostility to sex-based conventions from feminists and lesbians is not a view I share. Nor are their beliefs about sex-based conventions anything other than a set of socially constructed assumptions. Feminists and lesbians who feel antipathy for all sex-based conventions promote one set of assumptions while rarely if ever acknowledging that their beliefs about such conventions are socially constructed and arguable.

While I agree society should not have overly restrictive (e.g., that women can’t or shouldn’t be pilots) or inappropriate sex-based conventions, I disagree that all social conventions that reflect and reinforce the good of sexual differentiation are harmful. Quite the contrary. It is a very good thing for societies to acknowledge and reinforce identity with one’s own objective, immutable sex via sex-based conventions.

All societies throughout history have had such conventions, particularly regarding dress. While the specifics of sex-based clothing styles look different in different parts of the world and throughout history, the existence of sex-based clothing styles is universal. Sex-based conventions, particularly in dress (and hairstyles), seem to emerge organically.

G.K. Chesterton warns that before we destroy something, we ought to know why it exists. I would argue that sex-based conventions do more than merely help us distinguish males from females. Rather, they reflect, affirm, and reinforce the good of sexual differentiation. Sex-based conventions help children develop a sense of true sexual identity through membership in a sex-based group.

I would argue that the eradication of all sex-based conventions and the concomitant erasure of all taboos against cross-sex-behavior—particularly regarding dress—harm society in multiple ways. Children become confused about their own nature (i.e., ontology) and purpose (i.e., teleology) as males and females. Foundational sexual and familial relationships become disordered. To use Freud’s term, “polymorphous perversity” supplants sexual morality. And the erasure of public recognition of sexual differentiation erodes privacy and safety.

Rebellion against sex-based clothing styles signifies rebellion against sexual differentiation. Erasure of the taboo against cross-dressing both reflects and reinforces rebellion against one’s sex and leads ineluctably to public affirmation of both homosexuality and “trans”-cultism.

While radical feminists argue that clothing styles are arbitrary, socially constructed, and contribute to the development of cross-sex identification, I would argue that the rejection of sex-based conventions is caused by the prior rejection of one’s sex. Boys and girls reject the styles associated with their sex because they reject their sex. Not the other way around.

In short, it is not good for society or boys for boys to wear tutus, pink lace panties, and lipstick. And it is not good for society or girls for girls to wear men’s swim trunks, boys’ briefs, and buzz cuts. And if swim trunks and boys’ briefs come to be accepted as neither a male nor female convention, women like Ellen Page won’t want to wear them. She wants to wear boys’ clothing because she has rejected her sex. In other words, she—like Bruce Jenner—loves sex-based conventions. She—like Jenner—rejects her sex.

“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon Collude to Crush Conservatives

Chinese Translation – 中文翻译

No matter what you think of Trump’s character or rhetoric (I’ve never been a fan of either), his presidency accomplished many great things for America, perhaps chief among them getting the left—especially Big Tech—to expose its purulent underbelly. The real power today rests in the delicate fingers of the tech Oligarchs sitting behind their screens moving walls to trap Americans in their prison-like mazes equipped with virtual solitary confinement cells and freedom-crushing language rules euphemistically called “community standards” and “policies.” Trump was the immovable force that stood for a brief moment in their way.

The tyrannical nature of leftists has emerged more fully following the indefensible and shocking 90-minute assault on the Capitol. The fury of those robbed of faith and family by leftist ideologies turned from the theft and arson of businesses and police precincts—targets Dems couldn’t have cared less about—to the Capitol. The monsters who were created and abandoned have turned on some of their Frankensteinian creators, that is Congressmen and women.

Yes, leftist ideologies create lawless anarchists on both the left and right. Violence is the business of fatherless, faithless, anchorless young men. Always has been, always will be.

After five months of lawless leftist anarchy during which CNN, AOC, and scores of other leftists defended and egged on alienated leftist anarchists who attacked symbols of government, law, and order, alienated far-right anarchists decided to attack a symbol of government, law, and order too.

Of course, Congress hasn’t worked alone on the pernicious project to destroy humans from conception to unnatural death. Leftists and RINOs in Congress colluded with among others, leftist academics, Hollywood, Christian apostates and heretics within the church, propagandists who self-identify as “journalists,” and, of course, Big Tech.

Big Techies have been colluding during a long game of 3D chess while Republicans have been in a corner playing tiddlywinks and occasionally wondering where their winkies disappeared to. (They disappeared long ago during the Great Gelding of Republicans in year … oh, I can’t remember. It was so long ago.)

And now we’re on the verge of the Great Purge of conservatives from society.

Those who had eyes to see discerned the oppression goose-stepping toward the center in stocking feet. Those with 20/5 vision tried to warn the flocks. They’re still trying to warn them. But the tyrants are now in our midst, and they’re replacing noise-cancelling socks with speech-cancelling jackboots. The center is not holding.

First Twitter suspended the accounts of President Trump, General Michael Flynn, and Sidney Powell. The collaborators at Google, Apple, and Facebook joined in the Purge.

Next came Amazon banning Parler—the up and coming Twitter competitor—from its web-hosting service. Apparently Jack Dorsey held his breath and stomped his feet at the mere thought of competition. Once servers refuse to host social media platforms like Parler, those platforms are toast. This is Big Brother on steroids.

And then there’s CNN business “reporter” Oliver Darcy who wrote this on Friday:

[I]t is time TV carriers face questions for lending their platforms to dishonest companies that profit off of disinformation and conspiracy theories. After all, it was the very lies that Fox, Newsmax, and OAN spread that helped prime President Trump’s supporters into not believing the truth.

This from the “news” organization that refused to ask Biden any hard questions before the election and that censored news stories in order to shovel Biden, the malleable and dim marionette, into the seat of power.

Even a Democrat lawmaker got into the rollicking censorship fun. New Jersey assemblyman Paul Moriarty (distant relative perhaps of Professor James Moriarty, arch-nemesis of Sherlock Holmes?) texted a Comcast executive with this subtle message:

Fox and Newsmax, both delivered to my home by your company, are complicit. What are you going to do??? You feed this garbage, lies and all.

Some conservatives have drawn a line in the virtual sand, saying they refuse to be forced off Facebook. They don’t see that the Tech Oligarchs—now including Bezos-the-Bezillionaire—are not trying to force them off. Quite the contrary. The Oligarchs and Overlords are trying to keep conservatives trapped in their virtual prisons. They’re trying to prevent conservatives from leaving by cutting off all other means of communicating ideas in the public square or to friends.

If you want to communicate far and wide with friends old and new, you will be able to do it only on platforms created by the Oligarchs and Overlords and only within the speech parameters they create and impose—on their “neutral platforms.” The Tech Oligarchs don’t want us to leave their fiefdoms. They want us to stay and remain under their sclerotic poisoned thumbs.

It’s not just conservatives who are concerned about tech tyranny. Kate Ruane, attorney for the ACLU, issued a statement via Twitter last Friday saying,

[I]t should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions.

And Kevin Roose, technology columnist for the New York Times echoes the worries of many on both sides of the political aisle—but mainly on the right—about the power of social media wielded with no accountability and no transparency:

Above all, Mr. Trump’s muzzling provides a clarifying lesson in where power resides in our digital society — not just in the precedent of law or the checks and balances of government, but in the ability to deny access to the platforms that shape our public discourse. Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Zuckerberg’s names have never appeared on a ballot. But they have a kind of authority that no elected official on earth can claim.

While leftists have spent four years calling Trump a Nazi, tyrant and dictator, did he ever try to do what leftists are doing now? Has Trump or any other Republican ever attempted to compel or censor speech?

And this is what Never-Trumpers and their small-minded obsession with Trump’s pugilistic rhetoric have brought to our doorsteps. Never-Trumpers with their beady little myopic eyes still can’t see that without Trump’s pugilism, leftists would not yet have revealed their game plan, because unlike Trump, leftists, like the unctuous Obama and arrogant Oligarchs in charge of Big Tech—which is to say, our lives—are more practiced at the art of political deception.

Leftists and RINOs scorn the idea that drove thousands of law-abiding non-insurrectionists to Washington D.C., which is that the election was stolen. Curiously, those same scorners keep their gimlet eyes and forked tongues focused on the Kraken, never acknowledging other concerns of non-insurrectionists like, for example, what liberal Democrat and Biden-voter  senior research psychologist at the  American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology Robert Epstein—a Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden—said in Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee hearing on the Constitution in July 2019:

Google presents a serious threat to democracy and human autonomy. … Data I’ve collected since 2016 show that Google displays content to the American public that is biased in favor of one political party—a party I happen to like, but that’s irrelevant. No private company should have either the right or the power to manipulate large populations without their knowledge. … [D]emocracy as originally conceived cannot survive Big Tech as currently empowered.

Epstein’s earlier research showed that millions of votes were shifted to Hillary in 2016, and post 2020-election research showed that millions were shifted to Biden by Google’s tricksy algorithms.

They’re also ignoring what liberal Democrat Senator Ron Wyden said in Feb. 2020 and which sounds a lot like what conservative non-insurrectionists are being pilloried by leftists for saying:

I fear the 2020 election will make 2016 look like small potatoes. The list of threats and vulnerabilities is enough to give you a migraine.

There were the ES&S voting machines that for years came with preinstalled remote access software.

There’s the fact that Russia hacked an election vendor called VR Systems in the summer of 2016.

VR systems machines in North Carolina malfunctioned on Election Day that year, and one polling place had to shut down for hours. It took two and a half years before the Department of Homeland Security investigated what happened.

Right now, many election officials across the country are buying election systems they believe are high-tech, but they’re vulnerable to hacking and out-of-date the moment they come out of the box.

There is the spread of mobile voting apps like Voatz that have never been vetted by top security experts.

There’s a reason cybersecurity experts have been sounding the alarm for years, warning that putting computers between a voter and their ballot is a recipe for disaster.

What happens when the “glitch” changes a candidate’s vote totals by just 2 or 5 percent, instead of 50 percent? What happens when a glitch shuts down machines in some precincts and not others, disenfranchising voters and skewing election results?

Five states still exclusively use hackable, paperless voting machines, and nine other states still use paperless machines in some counties.

The problems are daunting … but the solutions are clear.

My bill, the PAVE Act, mandates the three key priorities that experts most universally recommended—paper ballots, routine, post-election risk-limiting audits, and federal cybersecurity standards for election systems.

… Senator Klobuchar introduced the Senate version of the SAFE Act, which I’m proud to co-sponsor. The SAFE Act has all three key elements recommended by our nation’s top cybersecurity experts: paper ballots, security standards and post-election audits, as well as the funding necessary to make sure states can live up to the new standards.

There is another obstacle to the Oligarchs’ domination of infinity and beyond. It is Senator Josh Hawley, virtually the only Congressman to take on Big Tech by calling for social media platforms to lose Section 230 protections from liability. Section 230 protections apply to “neutral platforms” which Twitter and Facebook with all their censoring, de-platforming, and slammer-tossing clearly are not.

So, the whipsmart and courageous Josh Hawley had to be taken out by the delicate-fingered. His effort to demonstrate that Pennsylvania’s illegal and unconstitutional extension of the voting deadline matters provided just the opportunity the slimy Tech Oligarchs, Dems, and RINOs needed to do just that.

The problem for the delicate-fingered and their congressional collaborators was Hawley’s objections alone would not have been sufficient. The Oligarchs, conscience-free Dems, and RINOs needed something more.

And then the anarchists gave them the crisis they needed. Flying to their virtual barns, the Oligarchs and their collaborators hauled out their waiting pitchforks, tar, and feathers. Sparks flying from their fingertips, they demanded Hawley resign, accusing him of contributing to an insurrection. Then more gelded Republicans came creeping out of their dark corners squeaking in their high castrated voices that they would no longer support Hawley’s effort.

Somehow the well-respected and reasonable journalist Byron York didn’t notice how crazy the idea that Pennsylvania violated the Constitution was. In a piece titled “The Election Lawsuit Trump Should Win,” York wrote:

The court fight over Pennsylvania’s election rules … involves a fundamental issue that is important to all 50 states. … putting aside the specifics of the Pennsylvania situation, the matter concerns a hugely important principle, which is the constitutional authority of state legislatures to make election law for their states.

York’s essay is an important read for anyone who may not know the details of the Pennsylvania mess.

Not even Trump is guilty of “incitement to insurrection,” let alone Hawley. In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, attorney Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, known during his years as a D.C. prosecutor as “protestor prosecutor,” writes that “The president didn’t mention violence on Wednesday, much less provoke or incite it.”

All tyrants use crises to expand powers that are never relinquished. They inflame public fears about threats to their safety from disease, from foreign enemies, or from dangers lurking in their midst. They are skilled at fomenting social division, imposing censorship, and disseminating propaganda to acquire more control. What’s next? Facial recognition cameras everywhere? Then a social credit system like China has?

There’s something rotten in the Upside Down ruled by the Oligarchs and administered by their algorithmically determined minions who control the speech by which ideas are disseminated. Somewhere along the life journeys of the Oligarchs, they lost sight of the meaning of the First Amendment, which was intended to protect unpopular speech—not just the speech leftists like. Who knows, maybe one day the only way conservatives will be able to communicate is via underground newspapers. So, hold on to those archaic printing presses, my friends. I think we’re gonna need ‘em.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 


 

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Why Many Americans Want to Secede (pssst, look at the Bidens)

“Progressives” are variously amused, baffled, or outraged by talks percolating around the Internet about secession, viewing it as not only impracticable but also wacky. If, however, leftists would take a few moments from their narcissistic, navel-gazing search for their authentic selves, which often involve strange sexual preoccupations, to really listen to conservatives, maybe they could understand why many them no longer want to live under the progressively tyrannical rule of “progressives” who self-identify as open-minded, tolerant, and compassionate even as they seek to destroy fundamental rights and institutions.

Compared to the legal recognition of same-sex unions as “marriages,” double-mastectomies on healthy teen girls who wish they were boys, “neo-vaginas” for men forged by turning their penises inside out, and drag queen story hours for toddlers in public libraries, secession sounds not only sane but like a breath of fresh air after living chained to a wall in miasmic cave for decades.

Maybe “progressives” are furious about the quixotic idea of secession because it would mean a place would exist where they couldn’t control the dissemination of ideas or the indoctrination of children.

Maybe they’re enraged at the prospect of a country where imperfect, unwanted humans have a right to exist.

Maybe the existence of people anywhere on the planet who hold moral views that “progressives” can’t abide turns their stomachs—well, except for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) whose moral views leftists overlook as they eagerly collude with the CCP for fun and profit.

Maybe leftists are angry at the mere thought of not having conservatives to kick around anymore.

There’s no better illustration of all that’s wrong in America—all that has led to both the rise of populism and increasing calls for secession—than the tale of Hunter Biden and the collusion that covered up the Biden crime family’s enduring influence-peddling—until, that is, after the electors met on Monday.

It’s a tale of stunning and yet utterly commonplace corruption, hypocrisy, deceit, elitism, deep state bureaucratic rule, influence-peddling, greed, sexual immorality, and the corrosive effects of the collusion of Big Tech and the Fourth Estate to promote leftism.

Many have long known that Hunter Biden was kicked out of the military and lived a sexual life as irresponsible and unethical as his professional life—if leeching off his father’s career can be considered a “profession.”

I knew he had been married and had three children with his first wife. I knew he began a sexual/romantic relationship with his deceased brother’s widow shortly after his brother died. I knew that while he was in a relationship with his brother’s widow, he had a fling with a stripper from a strip club he frequented that produced a child whom Hunter denied was his until paternity testing proved otherwise. And I knew he married yet another woman who gave birth to his fifth child.

What I didn’t know was the whole story about his military history, so …

Once upon a time there was a 43-year-old man who decided he wanted a “direct commission” into the U.S. Navy Reserve, which, as explained by a man who pursued this path, is a “little-known entry point to get into the military; it’s mostly done for doctors, nurses and dentists. But age 40 is pretty much the brick wall for those outside of those disciplines.”

Wikipedia explains a direct commission in more detail that warrants some attention in light of the background of the hapless character at the center of this story:

A direct commission officer (DCO) is a United States uniformed officer who has received an appointed commission without the typical prerequisites for achieving a commission, such as attending a four-year service academy, a four-year or two-year college ROTC program, or one of the officer candidate school or officer training school programs. … Civilians who have special skills that are critical to sustaining military operations, supporting troops, health and scientific study may receive a direct commission upon entering service.

The problem was our hapless middle-aged man was three years past the permitted age of 40 and he had a prior “drug-related” incident. In addition, he had none of the usual special skills direct commission officers have. In fact, he had few skills other than lobbying and living parasitically off his father’s connections.

His first job out of law school in 1996 was with a banking holding company that was “one of the largest donors” to Joe Biden‘s U.S. Senate campaign. Hunter’s salary was over $100,000 with a signing bonus. Within two years, he was bored and done with practicing law, so it was time for Biden to find another one of his father’s connections to latch on to.  That connection was William Daley, a name with which all Chicagoans are familiar.

In a 2019 profile in the New Yorker, one of the beneficiaries of Hunter Biden’s “earmarking” skills, which go back decades, said that Hunter had, “a very strong last name that really paid off in terms of our lobbying efforts.”

And then there is this fascinating tidbit—fascinating at least to many unconnected deplorables:

By the mid-two-thousands, a growing number of lawmakers were criticizing earmarking as a waste of taxpayer money and a boon to special interests. Hunter was concerned about his future as a lobbyist, and his financial worries increased in 2006, when he bought a $1.6-million house in an affluent neighborhood. Without the savings for a down payment, he took out a mortgage for a hundred and ten per cent of the purchase price.

His life of leeching and lobbying continued, until one day he decided what he really wanted was some kind of military honor—but one that didn’t require any actual sacrifice or service. The problem was the honor he sought would require multiple, extraordinarily difficult-to-come-by exemptions for his advanced age, drug history, and absence of requisite skills.

Fortunately, he did have a special skill just for a situation like this: He knew how to ply the unctuous trade of feeding off connections, and by now his connections were really big connections. His father, the prevaricator and plagiarist Joe Biden, was the vice president of the United States. Joe Biden had the honor of administering his son’s “commissioning oath in a White House ceremony.”

For one glorious month, Hunter Biden served his country by acting “as a public affairs officer; mostly, he went to Norfolk, Va., once a month and did a weekend of service.”

Sadly, after all that arduous string-pulling, he was discharged a month after his service began when a urinalysis revealed cocaine, which Hunter Biden claimed was the result of smoking a cigarette borrowed from a friend that must have been laced with cocaine.

Yeah, that’s the ticket—a borrowed cigarette laced with cocaine. I guess he’s learned some other skills from dear old dad.

Now that the cognitively impaired Joe Biden has almost been ensconced in the sanctuary White House where no implacable reporters can access him and knowing the contents of Hunter’s infamous laptop will soon become known, the dis-informationists at CNN, the New York Times, and Jeff BezosWashington Post feel it’s the perfect time to say, “What ho, Hunter Biden appears to have been on the take! Who knew?”

The Bidens are dishonest, inept, unethical profiteers, and the mainstream press, Facebook Overlord Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s otherworldly emperor Jack Dorsey, and CNN’s Jeff Zucker and his stable of minions run cover for them.

I know secession sounds crazy, but the reasons for desiring it are not.

Many Americans do not want to live in a country where neither they nor their children have free speech, the right to exercise their religion freely, or the right to bear arms.

They don’t want to live in a country where they can’t publicly say that homosexual acts are morally repugnant, that marriage is a sexually differentiated union, that cross-sex hormones and mastectomies don’t turn women into men, or that men have no right to participate in women’s sports or be present in women’s locker rooms.

They don’t want to live in a country where the state may legally appropriate children from their parents, if those parents won’t participate in and facilitate the fiction that their children are the sex they aren’t.

And they don’t want to live in a country where their hard-earned money is taken by the government and used to slaughter tiny, defenseless humans.

I know, I know, secession is too complicated, but a girl can dream about letting the tyrants go their own way and create their own hellhole untouched by rationality and morality. Maybe if they were to live for a time in the anarchical, debauched dystopia for which they long, they might come around to moral sanity. And until that time, the rest of us would be free people once again.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Why-Many-Americans-Want-to-Secede_audio.mp3





Censorship of Wrongthink = Loss of Freedom

Censorship today looks like my three-day stint in the Facebook pokey over Thanksgiving weekend during which my mad keyboarding fingers were (almost) crushed in tiny Facebook thumbscrews engraved with a photo of Lord Zuckerberg. The reason for my imprisonment by Facebook Overlords in one of their many Cells of Iniquity beggars belief.

It all started when I posted about the image Facebook created to advertise their new avatars. As you can see, this image doesn’t include any white male avatars.

I wrote:

I totally get why there are no white, male avatars here. White males are so creepy. In all my old family photos, I’m colorizing my grandpas, dad, husband, brother, uncle, cousins, son, sons-in-law, grandsons, and nephews.

No, that’s not what sent the Overlords to their fainting couches.

A friend commented, “Some inclusion is more equal than others,” an allusion to George Orwell’s Animal Farm (which I now believe may be an allusion that escaped the Overlords’ limited understanding). Here is the sentence from Animal Farm, to which my friend was alluding and which is spoken by pigs who control the government: “Some animals are more equal than others.”

In response to the Animal Farm allusion, I replied sarcastically, “That reminds me, white males are pigs too.”

That was what got me thrown in the clink.

Ironically, by using irony to criticize Facebook’s exclusionary avatar image and the hatred of white males by “progressives,” I was punished for allegedly violating Facebook’s Ministry of Truth standards on hate speech. The Overlords definitely don’t get sarcasm.

I hope everyone sees the danger illustrated in this one Facebook jail sentence—the danger in the brave new world that Big Brother Biden, zillionaire Zuckerberg, and the “progressive” plutocrats who control America hope to create. In that new world, nameless, faceless algorithms that are unable to recognize sarcasm or satire will censor books and cancel articles, posts, and speakers that deviate from the leftist beliefs of their creators.

To make such imprisonments—which are very bad PR for tyrants—less necessary, leftists have taken a few pages from Red China and added “struggle sessions” to their indoctrinating toolbox in which, for example, non-racist whites are humiliated into confessing they’re racists.

Those intransigent few who refuse to capitulate to leftist dogma and diktats will be publicly named and shamed for their allegedly dangerous, unwoke ideas. Currently, those ideas pertain to race and sexuality, but there is no reason to expect the boundaries of banned ideas won’t expand.

First a little necessary history before the surprising news.

“Struggle sessions” were a tactical tool the Chinese Communist Party used during the Communist Revolution to secure compliance from those deemed opponents of Chairman Mao. An article in the Atlantic describes these precursors to today’s ubiquitous naming and shaming sessions:

In such sessions, everyone from politicians to teachers would be dragged before a large audience and forced to humiliate themselves with withering self-criticism, denunciations of their friends and allies, and pleas for forgiveness.

Sounds remarkably like what Critical Race Theorists, diversity trainers, and BLM activists are doing all over the country in schools, corporations, and our increasingly lawless streets.

Struggle sessions emerged from the earlier Chinese Communist practice called “Speaking Bitterness.” From his chapter titled “Speaking Bitterness” in a collection of essays in a 2019 book on Chinese Communism, Jeffery Javed explains how the Chinese Communist Party mobilized workers and peasants to support the revolution:

To relate abstract ideologies to the lived experiences of ordinary people is the great task of all revolutionaries. How do we then explain the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) remarkable success in mobilising workers and peasants, many of whom had little interest in Marxism-Leninism, to join its fervent, violent cause? One of the key foundations of the CCP’s successful mobilisation was its ability to tap into human emotions, which it did most notably and effectively through a practice known as ‘speaking bitterness’ (suku)—the public expression of an individual’s woes with the intent to cultivate sympathy toward the speaker and outrage against those who caused his or her suffering. As one of the foremost strategies the CCP used … its principal purpose was to leverage morality and emotion to inculcate in the populace new mass identities that accorded with the Party-state’s ideology of class struggle. Operating through outrage and sympathy, it sought to build hostility towards an outgroup of class enemies and solidarity among an ingroup of ordinary villagers.

Now here’s where things get really interesting. Jeffrey Javed—someone few Americans have heard of—has a fascinating new job that he describes on his website (emphasis added):

Hello! I am a mixed methods researcher on the Ads Delivery team at Facebook. My research uses survey, interview, and experimental approaches to understand social perceptions of AI and machine learning, particularly in the context of fairness and responsibility. …

 My research on social media built on my research on violent mobilization in Maoist China to understand how false news content harms and divides communities in the US. Combining survey experimental and machine learning approaches, we found that sensational content, rich in moral-emotional language, provokes outrage and fear and amplifies support for violence and aggressive online behavior.

Javed was hired by Facebook in Election year 2020—the year Facebook and other social media platforms with whom Facebook colludes communicates began “fact-checking” for allegedly false news and defending their warnings and punishments by claiming commitments to fairness and social responsibility.

Does Javed oppose the use of public expressions of an individual’s woes with the intent of cultivating sympathy toward the speaker and outrage against those who purportedly caused the speaker’s purported suffering? Does he oppose leveraging morality and emotion to inculcate in the populace new mass identities that accord with “progressive” ideologies? Does he oppose public humiliation or other forms of social oppression to coerce capitulation?

Javed’s Twitter feed reveals his anti-Trump, pro-Biden sentiments as well as his support for reporters trying to influence elections. Javed supported this 2016 tweet from New York Times religion reporter Liam Stack:

The Electoral College was meant to stop men like Trump from taking office.

The Electoral College is important to leftists–until it’s not.

I wonder if Javed is friends with Yoel Roth, head of “Site Integrity” for Twitter, who multiple times tweeted that President Trump and members of his administration—including Kellyanne Conway—were “actual Nazis.”

Leftists have no need to worry about any feeble resistance that may be bubbling up beneath the surface. No need to fret that wrongthink may spread. No sleepless nights fearing that leaders will emerge to oppose the oppressors who control corporate America, the castrated press, and the ideological lemmings in academia and Hollywood who produce soma for the masses.

No need for worry because Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai, the New York Times, and Jeff BezosWashington Post will step into the breach to hide stories and ideas that may interfere with their quest for global domination fairness and responsibility. Power and money, money and power.

Liberty, freedom, tolerance, inclusivity, and justice for those who think just like them.

Submission for the rest of us.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/No_Whites_3.mp3


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We encourage you to join us in our efforts. Your support will help us to continue our vital work in 2021. A vigorous defense of biblical truth is needed more than ever in Illinois. 




Wealth Tax: The Envious Enabler of American Socialism

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to become President. If elected, one of her plans is to implement a wealth tax. She said:

We need structural change to get our economy and our democracy back on track – and no billionaire is going to get in my way of fighting for it.[i]

While a wealth tax would bring in revenue, its most important effect might be fast-tracking a complete government takeover of the economy. Merely change some tax rates, some thresholds, and the government taxes everything into its own hands. Behold! The socialist dream of “the people” owning everything.

If we sleep while others work, then this scenario will become our reality. This article will teach you what the stakes are. You’ll learn these things:

  • What a wealth tax is, and how it eats away at your wealth and financial security.
  • How a wealth tax can be used to rapidly institute an actual socialist economy.
  • What is blocking this tax, and the attempts to overcome the block.
  • Steps to stop this “structural change” before it is implemented.

What is a wealth tax?

A wealth tax is a tax on what you already own, not on new income. An annual wealth tax means you get to pay it over and over again. Keep this going long enough and all of your wealth is taxed away – the government, bite-by-bite, dispossesses you.

Warren’s plan would create an annual wealth tax of 2% to 3% of everything that rich people own.

All I’m asking for is a little slice from the tippy, tippy top. A slice that would raise — and this is the shocking part, Jim — about $2.75 trillion over the next 10 years.[ii]

What would a wealth tax cover?

  • To start, tax your bank accounts, stocks, bonds, and other sorts of financial instruments.
  • Then comes taxes on real estate, starting with your house. If you’ve a farm then tax its land and improvements. Even the vacation retreat, or time share, gets taxed. Even though there could be constitutional concerns, wealth tax proposals generally include taxing real estate.
  • Certainly, businesses and corporations are going to get taxed. This includes buildings, machine tools, inventory, and even the value of inventions, copyrights, and other intellectual property.
  • And finally, tax personal property. Artwork, cars, even your wedding band have taxable value.

Of course, the government doesn’t like people who try to evade the tax man. Senator Warren says so.

So the way that this is written is to say is to say first all of going to tax all your assets wherever located around the globe. So if you were planning to move them to Switzerland or some island, doesn’t make any difference. They are all going to be taxed.[iii]

Why have a wealth tax?

Why a wealth tax? Its proponents don’t fully reveal their hand. Senator Warren touts a national day-care system, saying:

That’s money we need so that every kid in this country has a decent child care opportunity, has an opportunity for pre-K, has an opportunity for a decent school.[iv]

But national child care is merely political cover. Her progressive friends have more ambitious plans for wealth tax money, implementing a “universal basic income.” At his campaign site, presidential candidate Andrew Yang provides a decent definition of the term.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a form of social security that guarantees a certain amount of money to every citizen within a given governed population, without having to pass a test or fulfill a work requirement.[v]

Every U.S. citizen over the age of 18 would receive $1,000 a month, regardless of income or employment status, free and clear. No jumping through hoops. Yes, this means you and everyone you know would receive a check for $1,000 a month every month starting in January 2021.[vi]

That is, the government becomes everybody’s parent, providing each of us enough to get by. It pays if you work and if you don’t work. This is underscored by Kelsey Piper, writing for Vox:

“That is, instead of people working poorly paid jobs they hate, they’d feel able to work jobs that might be similarly poorly paid but which they love — founding a company, opening a restaurant, managing a community theater, making art, running kids’ programs. That’s a way UBI could avoid affecting the labor supply at all, while making the world a better place.”[vii]

That $12,000 per year figure is merely a starting point. Soon someone will notice that this is less than a “living wage,”[viii] and the cry will be for its equivalency, $30,000 per year or more.

Note that this money isn’t poverty relief. Everyone is supposed to get it, because it is meant to be the fulfillment of the second part of the socialist pledge,

“… to each according to his needs.”[ix]

Soon enough, this becomes your only income as what you have, and what you can get, is taxed away. That will fulfill the first part of the pledge,

“from each according to his ability.”[x]

When a wealth tax is combined with a universal basic income you easily get a socialist economy. The government takes all of the fruit of your labors. All you have left is the government-supplied, but guaranteed, income.

The power to tax is the power to destroy

Through a wealth tax, Senator Warren only wants “a little slice from the tippy, tippy top.” That little slice will surely, and rapidly, drain its victim dry. Do some simple math, where you are the target.

  • 2% annual wealth tax: One-half of your wealth taxed away in 30 years.
  • 3% annual wealth tax: One-half of your wealth taxed away in 22 years.
  • 7% annual wealth tax: One-half of your wealth taxed away in 10 years.
  • 12% annual wealth tax: One-half of your wealth taxed away in 5 years.

Although U.S. Senator Warren is thinking 2%, others hope for more. Thomas Piketty is the progressives’ favorite economist, because he has schemes for pauperizing the wealthy. He has an opinion about how stiff a wealth tax should be:

We are not going to wait until Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg reach the age of 90 before they begin to pay taxes. With the 3 percent annual rate proposed by Warren, a static estate worth $100 billion would return to the community in 30 years. This is a good beginning but, given the average rate of progression of the highest financial assets, the aim should undoubtedly be higher (5 to 10 percent or more).[xi]

That is, the government should eat these estates, these holdings (“return to the community”) in maybe a decade. This would be a vigorous implementation of the old socialist cry.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.[xii]

Before your children have grown up their college fund, your retirement money, and your bank accounts will have been devoured by the government. It gets still worse, for at some point you’ll find that you no longer have ready cash to pay these taxes. You’ll have to sell things, even your home, to pay up.[xiii]

Don’t think that only the very rich will be targeted by a wealth tax. All the money obtained from them will be consumed by expanded social programs. Once the rich are fully drained more victims will be needed. The wealth tax rules will get changed to include the “merely wealthy,” and then the “middle class.” This wealth tax is coming for all of us. It will tax away all of your wealth, not merely that of some wealthy person you never knew.

A wealth tax is a legal implementation of envy. Our envy will give us socialism, and in turn that will consume us. Quoting the great economist Ludwig von Mises:

More and more the policy of taxation evolves into a policy of confiscation. The aim on which it concentrates is to tax out of existence every kind of fortune and income from property, in which process property invested in trade and industry, in shares and in bonds, is generally treated more ruthlessly than property in land. . .

Nothing is more calculated to make a demagogue popular than a constantly reiterated demand for heavy taxation on the rich. Capital levies and high income taxes on larger incomes are extraordinarily popular with the masses, who do not have to pay them. . .

The destructionist policy of taxation culminates in capital levies. Property is expropriated and then consumed. Capital is transformed into goods for use and consumption. The effect of all this should be plain to see. Yet the whole popular theory of taxation today leads to the same result.[xiv]

What does Bible say?

A wealth tax would have the government take money from our richest people, all in the name of “income inequality.” The Bible has a word for that: envy.[xv] We want the government to act on our behalf, steal money from the rich in the name of “the people,” and give it to others. Each of us who supports a wealth tax are guilty of a mix of envy, covetousness, and encouraging lawbreakers (i.e., the government’s tax agents).

But isn’t income inequality itself a sin, and something that the government should address? According to the Bible, no and no. The Bible expects that some people will be rich, even wildly so, and that others will be poor. God rewarded Abraham with so much wealth that Abraham needed what amounts to an army to take care of it (Genesis 14:14). And Jesus used income inequality approvingly in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). To read more on capitalism and monetary rewards, see the article Is Capitalism Immoral?[xvi]

The government is Gods’ minister of righteousness (Romans 13:1-4). This commission shows that it is answerable to God for its actions (Luke 12:42-48; 1 Corinthians 4:2). Stealing through a wealth tax isn’t right, and even if instructed to do so by popular vote.

The money obtained from a wealth tax is meant to implement a socialist economy. Socialism changes how society works. It breaks our morals, our families, and what we’re allowed to say or do. A socialist government not only moves the boundary stones (Deuteronomy 19:14; Proverbs 22:28), it throws them far into the sea. It is like the sin of Jeroboam, where he changed the peoples’ worship (1 Kings 12:26-33).

By every Biblical measure, a wealth tax is a license to steal, pressed into being by envious voters, so that the government may destroy our traditions, our freedoms, and our right to worship. A triple threat.

Wealth tax is currently blocked

A federal wealth tax would be a boon for starting a socialist economy. But it can’t become law because the Constitution forbids it. Or does it? The answer depends on whether we have an “originalist” or “activist” U.S. Supreme Court.

The fate of a wealth tax depends on what the U.S. Constitution means by “direct tax.” This phrase appears only twice in the U.S. Constitution, in Article I:

  • Within Section 2: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.[xvii]
  • Within Section 9: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.[xviii]

Over time, the Court has come up with definitions for “direct tax.” Its first meaning was supplied through the 1796 case Hylton v United States. In it the Court had to decide if a federal tax on carriages was constitutional. Having no established meaning for “direct tax,” the Court invented one.

“The boundary, [between direct and indirect taxes] then,” he argued, “must be fixed by a species of arbitration, and ought to be such as will involve neither absurdity nor inconvenience.” Then followed HAMILTON’S distinction: “The following are presumed to be the only direct taxes: capitation or poll taxes; taxes on lands and buildings; general assessments, whether on the whole property of individuals, or on their whole real or personal estate. All else must of necessity be considered as indirect taxes.”

The court accepted HAMILTON’S reasoning and the three judges who delivered opinions took the stand that only taxes which could be apportioned should be considered direct.[xix]

The Court ruled that the carriage tax was constitutional, and that it was an indirect tax. Property couldn’t be taxed, but some income could.

Then came the 1895 case Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. In it the Court had to decide if a federal tax on state and municipal bonds was constitutional. In its ruling the Court knocked down the tax, while redefining “direct tax” as follows:

[Chief Justice Fuller] then says that a tax upon the income derived from real estate is a tax upon real estate, because as Lord Coke says, “What is the land but the profits thereof ?” And therefore that the tax upon income derived from rents and real estate is a tax upon land, and that a tax upon land is a “direct tax ” within the meaning of the Constitution, and unconstitutional because not apportioned.[xx]

Property still couldn’t be taxed, and income derived from it also couldn’t be taxed. Subsequent events, like the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment (income tax), have diluted the effects of the Pollock decision. However, its version of “direct tax” still holds in the legal community. The Pollock interpretation of direct taxes would likely prevent a wealth tax that targets stocks, bonds, and real estate.

Many scholars would like the Court to return to the Hylton version of “direct tax.” Other scholars, like Walter Dellinger, want the Court to go even further.

Devising a progressive tax system that effectively taxes the wealthy is notoriously difficult, but whether a wealth tax is part of that system should depend upon the policy choices of democratically elected representatives, not faulty constitutional understandings.[xxi]

That is, he wants the Court to rubber-stamp whatever Congress devises. That is effectively a “living Constitution,”[xxii] one that accepts whatever tyranny Congress may devise. Such a U.S. Constitution is worthless, as is the Court that implements it.

Senator Warren has many advisors intent on assuring her that this wealth tax is constitutional.[xxiii] Yet many of these scholars, such as Dellinger and Bruce Ackerman,[xxiv] also campaign for expensive social programs like a universal basic income. Does their opinion come from their social advocacy, or is it the other way around? They are conflicted witnesses, and their judgment on constitutional matters can’t be trusted. We really don’t know how good their advice is on this matter.

How would the U.S. Supreme Court rule on a wealth tax, and on the critical phrase “direct tax?” Since its precedents are disputed, there will be pressure to decide based on political goals. Pray for judges to resist political pressures to be activist, and instead to rule impartially (Leviticus 19:15).

What can we do?

Everybody can do something. Some have more time, or skills, and can contribute more keeping this wealth tax evil far from us.

Repent of envy. There are no grounds to take money from the rich simply because they have a lot of stuff. We understand that rich people are responsible to God for how they use their wealth. For example, they ought to be generous and wise. But that is a problem between them and their Maker, and doesn’t include Uncle Sam.

Everybody has time for prayer. We need God to have mercy on us, and his Church. We need peace from government persecution and from harassment by libertines and progressives (Genesis 19:4-11). We must be the righteousness that is a model for society (Matthew 5:14-16), the yeast of change that permeates society (Luke 13:20-21), so we bring the nations into obedience to Him.

Try a little light reading. There are summary articles to help you navigate through this issue.

  • Learn about the disaster called socialism. The article To Know Socialism is to Hate It[xxv] will teach you what socialist leaders want to do to our economy, or families, and our right to worship. You may not want socialism, but socialism wants you. The less we all like socialism, the less we all want a wealth tax to empower it.
  • Learn why capitalism is OK by God. The article Is Capitalism Immoral?[xxvi] will show you that God accepts capitalism, and that being even extremely wealthy isn’t a sin. Having money isn’t the issue, but rather being righteous and merciful in our dealings.

Get politically involved. If you have free time to affect the campaign season, here are activist things to do.

  • Research the legislators and candidates. Does your legislator support, even advocate, a wealth tax? Do they agree with those who do? What you want is someone who is virulently opposed to a wealth tax. We don’t need more lukewarm, pleasing everybody legislators. Our opponents treat this tax like war, as the most important of issues. There is no room for compromise.

After you have done your research, spread it around. Get your friends, even your church, equally alarmed about this tax. Tell them who the good guys, and bad guys, really are.

  • Keep after the legislators and candidates. Lobby your legislators to support you on this. Show them this article, and others, so they are informed and can’t say they never knew. Be a squeaky wheel, until they acknowledge with you that a wealth tax is a really bad idea, a non-negotiable issue.
  • Go after the fellow travelers. A campaign has accompanying PR flacks, and maybe even scholars who wrote letters of support. These people also need to be pestered, so that their support of “the evil wealth tax” is considered a detriment, not a benefit. This creates the perception that a wealth tax isn’t an advantage, but rather a millstone about their candidate’s neck.
  • Always label a wealth tax with pejoratives. It isn’t just a “wealth tax.” It is “legalized envy,” “license to steal,” “enabling socialism.” Where possible, use phrases like “socialist wealth tax,” or “envy tax,” or “socialist takeover tax.” After all, those who really want the tax are either misinformed and envious, or malicious and socialist. What they would do isn’t nice, so why play nice with words?

In our day, going before the U.S. Supreme Court has become a gamble. Because the Court is political, we don’t know if it will rule by law or by politics. It is best if a wealth tax law were never passed, and the Court not tempted to do the wrong thing. If it ever were ruled constitutional then we’d never really be rid of it. Things will go much better for us if a wealth tax is never tried.

Footnotes

[i] DeCosta-Klipa, Nik, Elizabeth Warren is clashing with billionaires over her wealth tax plan. But would it be constitutional?, Boston Magazine, January 29, 2019, https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2019/01/29/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax-constitution

[ii] Axelrod, Tal, Warren: Billionaires should ‘stop being freeloaders’, The Hill, January 31, 2019, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/427967-warren-billionaires-should-stop-being-freeloaders

[iii] Schwartz, Ian, Warren on Wealth Tax: Assets Worldwide Will Be Taxed With A “Very High Rate of Monitoring, Auditing”, Real Clear Politics, January 25, 2019, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/01/25/warren_on_wealth_tax_assets_worldwide_will_be_taxed_with_a_very_high_rate_of_monitoring_auditing.html

[iv] Axelrod, Tal, Warren: Billionaires should ‘stop being freeloaders’, The Hill, January 31, 2019

[v] What is Universal Basic Income, Andrew Yang Campaign web site, https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Piper, Kelsey, The important questions about universal basic income haven’t been answered yet, Vox, February 13, 2019, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/13/18220838/universal-basic-income-ubi-nber-study

[viii] Amadeo, Kimberly, Living Wage and How It Compares to the Minimum Wage, The Balance, March 12, 2019, https://www.thebalance.com/living-wage-3305771

[ix] Marx, Karl, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Chapter 1, 1875, found online at  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Piketty, Thomas, A tax on wealth is long overdue, Boston Globe, February 11, 2019, https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/02/11/tax-wealth-long-overdue/AULwxlT7ZGu4uuB7dkpXTJ/story.html

[xii] Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists, Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

[xiii] In one scenario an owner sells stocks to satisfy a 3% wealth tax on them. Because of income taxes, and capital gains taxes, due on the stock sale a total of 20% of the stock must be sold to satisfy that 3% tax.

See the article by Adler, Hank, 70 Percent Income Tax, 3 Percent Wealth Tax, Townhall, January 28, 2019, https://townhall.com/columnists/hankadler/2019/01/28/70-percent-income-tax-3-percent-wealth-tax-n2540324.

[xiv] Hayward, Steven, Taxation, or Confiscation?, Power Line Blog, March 12, 2019, https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/03/taxation-or-confiscation.php

The link quoted Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, Part V, Chapter II (The Methods of Destructionism), Section 7 (Taxation), 1951.

[xv] What does the Bible say about envy?, Got Questions, https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-envy.html

[xvi] Perry, Oliver, Is Capitalism Immoral?, Illinois Family Institute, November 30, 2018, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/faith/is-capitalism-immoral/

[xvii] https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/articles/article-i

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] Riddle, J. H., The Supreme Court’s Theory of a Direct Tax, Michigan Law Review, Vol. 15, No. 7 (May, 1917), pp. 566-578, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1275429.pdf

[xx] Jones, Francis, Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Oct. 25, 1895), pp. 198-211, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1321669.pdf

[xxi] Johnsen, Dawn, and Dellinger, Walter, The Constitutionality of a National Wealth Tax, Indiana Law Journal, Volume 93, Issue 1, Article 8, Page 111, https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11279&context=ilj

For an opposing view see:

Jensen, Erik, Taxation and the Constitution: How to Read the Direct-Tax Clauses, Scholarly Commons Faculty Publications School of Law Case-Western Reserve University 2006, https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1526&context=faculty_publications

[xxii] Leef, George, How The Ruinous “Living Constitution” Idea Took Root, Forbes, July 15, 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2014/07/15/how-the-ruinous-living-constitution-idea-took-root/#10804cb46784

[xxiii] https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Constitutionality%20Letters.pdf

[xxiv] Sunstein, Cass, Cash and Citizenship (a review of The Stakeholder Society by Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott), The New Republic, May 23, 1999, https://newrepublic.com/article/62855/cash-and-citizenship

[xxv] Perry, Oliver, To Know Socialism is to Hate It, Illinois Family Institute, February 13, 2019, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/uncategorized/to-know-socialism-is-to-hate-it/

[xxvi] Perry, Oliver, Is Capitalism Immoral?, Illinois Family Institute, November 30, 2018, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/faith/is-capitalism-immoral/




Hate, Inc. Loses the Pentagon But Gains Silicon Valley

The hate business may not be what it used to be – at least on the government level.

The Defense Department has become the latest federal agency to sever ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an Alabama-based, hard-left group whose “hate map” is being used against Christian groups.

Well, bully for the Pentagon for showing that bully to the door.

The DOD’s pullback from the SPLC was reported by the Daily Caller, which said that a Justice Department attorney stated in an email that the DOD “removed any and all references to the SPLC in training materials used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI).”

In 2014, the FBI dropped the SPLC from its resources page after congressional staff, acting on behalf of the Family Research Council (FRC) and other Christian groups on the “hate map,” met with FBI officials to discuss their concerns, according to the Daily Caller.

Once hailed for tracking the Ku Klux Klan and other extremists, the SPLC has in recent years been wielded against mainstream Christian organizations over their defense of Biblical sexual morality and marriage.

If you say out loud that men are different from women, you just took a big step toward the “hate map.”  If you say that marriage necessarily involves both sexes, bingo.  And if you say that it’s not loving to steer boys into identifying as girls, you might earn an SPLC mention alongside skinheads and Neo-Nazis.

The SPLC also targets those who oppose illegal immigration and those who believe Islamic expansionism is a threat to freedom.  All in all, the SPLC might want to consider changing its name to Hate, Inc.

In 2015, the SPLC placed presidential candidate Ben Carson, who now heads the Department of Housing and Urban Development, on an “extremist” hate watch list.  After taking considerable flak, the SPLC removed the citation and apologized to Dr. Carson.

But this guilt-by-association ploy is having a huge effect in Silicon Valley, where cyber giants who fancy themselves do-gooders look to the SPLC for guidance.

“Right now, [the SPLC is] cutting off hate groups from sources of financing by pushing digital companies like Amazon not to allow hate groups to use their services,” said SPLC’s founder, direct-mail wizard Morris Dees.

Google, Facebook and Twitter are under congressional scrutiny for allegedly “shadow banning” conservative and religious postings.

“The most dangerous aspect of this high-tech offensive on pro-faith groups and individuals is buried deep in the algorithms of these gatekeepers for the new economy,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.

Google now supports a “hate news” database that links to articles referencing Liberty Counsel and other Christian groups on the SPLC “hate” list.  The SPLC’s smears have led Amazon Smile, a charity donation program run by Jeff Bezos’ Amazon company, to ban pro-family Christian groups.

Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a $1 million Apple donation to the SPLC and added a portal so iTunes buyers could donate directly. Big Tech, meet Big Hate.

The SPLC’s perfidy has led to “hate” labels on Christian groups listed in GuideStar, the charity group database, which removed some labels after a public outcry.  Discover/Diners Club is now blocking transactions with some pro-family groups, according to Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver.

Making false accusations of hate is profoundly hateful, but it’s also lucrative. The SPLC, which has raised millions since its 1971 founding, has fattened its endowment to more than $477 million, according to its latest Form 990.

In August 2017, D. James Kennedy Ministries, for which I have written several books, finally had had enough and filed a defamation lawsuit against the SPLC in Alabama and also sued GuideStar and Amazon.com, Inc.  The ministry withdrew the GuideStar suit but continued the other litigation.  Liberty Counsel also sued GuideStar, but that suit was thrown out last January by U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson, a Bill Clinton appointee.

In August 2012, Leo Johnson, the building manager at FRC headquarters in Washington, D.C., was shot while preventing an attempted mass murder by a man who said he was inspired by FRC’s presence on the SPLC’s “hate map.”

The shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins II, planned to kill as many people as possible and jam Chick-fil-A sandwiches into their faces to protest Chick-fil-A’s and FRC’s support for natural marriage.  He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in September 2013 for committing an act of terrorism while armed and other offenses.

Apparently, the SPLC did not find this compelling enough to remove FRC from its “hate map,” where it remained until very recently.  However, FRC – along with D. James Kennedy Ministries, the American Family Association, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Ruth Institute, the American College of Pediatricians and many other reputable Christian groups, along with the Jewish-led parents group MassResistance – is still listed on the SPLC’s “Hate Watch” page.

For pro-family activists, it’s become a badge of honor.




The Labor Union that Runs the Media

One of the major speakers at last week’s “New Populism” conference was Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a labor union which represents  on-line writers, reporters, editorial assistants, editorial artists and correspondents at major news organizations.

Cohen gave his speech after returning from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) conference, where Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, was announced as winner of the title of “the world’s worst boss” for trying to keep prices low for consumers and opposing union control of his workplace.

Bezos, the new owner of The Washington Post, will have to negotiate with The Newspaper Guild, which merged with the CWA in 1995 and represents nearly 900 editorial and newsroom workers at the Post.

“Amazon has successfully fended off U.S. labor unions since its founding in 1994,” notes Time magazine.

Bezos has been described as a libertarian, but the Post was known as a liberal Democrat newspaper under its previous owners, the Grahams.

It will be interesting to see if he cuts this union down to size. The survival of the paper, with declining revenue and readers, may depend on it.

As the “populism” conference indicates, the progressives—once called liberals—are now calling themselves something else, in order to fool the electorate.

Don’t look for the media to blow the whistle on themselves.

Whatever they call themselves, they are in control of much of the news and editorial content of major news media organizations.

We look forward to the Post, under its new owner, telling the truth about how the CWA functions as a major component of the progressive movement, and how liberal bias is killing the appeal of the so-called mainstream media.

In addition to the Post, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild represents employees at such news organizations as The Baltimore Sun and Bloomberg-BNA. Not surprisingly, CWA says thousands of its members also work for public broadcasting entities.

A partisan political operative who serves as a member of the Democratic National Committee and endorsed Obama in 2008, Cohen is a regular guest on the MSNBC cable channel.

Cohen’s tone last week was desperate, as the “progressives,” or “populists,” apparently understand that their President’s popularity is declining, and that their base is becoming increasingly demoralized and less likely to turn out to vote in November’s elections.

One member of the audience openly griped that she was being forced to liquidate her retirement fund in order to pay for her Obamacare plan.

The CWA’s “Education Department” has published a 38-page document entitled “Building a Movement for Economic & Democracy,” which describes in detail how various components of the progressive movement are said to make up more than 71 million people, enough to create a working majority of the voting population, and guarantee victory in national elections.

This might be news to the Republicans who think they will retain the House and take the Senate in this year’s national elections.

Holding up a copy of his “Building a Movement” booklet, Cohen told the “populism” conference that the political left needs to push a “common narrative” and “common collective action.” It is a message of “economic justice,” he said.

But it’s really more of the same Marxist agitation and propaganda about such issues as “inequality.”

“CWA is working to build a movement of progressive organizations to win progressive changes,” the CWA website says. “A founder of The Democracy Initiative, CWA works with labor and worker groups like Jobs with Justice, American Rights at Work, the AFL-CIO, and Change to Win, but also civil rights and consumer groups, such as the NAACP, Alliance for Justice, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Blue Green Alliance, and Common Cause.”

The endorsers of the Democracy Initiative are a who’s who of the political left.

One key to the group’s success is preventing the media, which they essentially control, from reporting on their plans.

But another factor is money.

CWA rails against “big money” in politics, but spends a lot of its members’ money on candidates for office through the CWA Political Action Fund.

Equally significant, Cohen is in bed politically with some of the “big money” he supposedly abhors.

The conservative Washington Free Beacon reports that Cohen is a “partner” of the Democracy Alliance, a group co-founded by billionaire hedge fund operator George Soros, that funnels money to various liberal groups. Lachlan Markay, of the Washington Free Beacon, said Democracy Alliance “partners” are individuals who every year must pay $30,000 in dues and contribute at least $200,000 to the groups that DA supports. Markay reports that George Kohl, senior director of the Communications Workers of America, is also a partner of the Democracy Alliance.

Members of the Democracy Alliance, including Soros, have helped finance influential national liberal groups such as Media Matters for America.

So the CWA, through its Newspaper Guild affiliate, produces much of the material we see in the media, while Media Matters puts pressure on those in the media who attempt to bolt the Democratic Party line. It’s a strategy of pressure from above and below.

Gara LaMarche, President of the Democracy Alliance, previously served as Vice President and Director of U.S. Programs for the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations.

There’s no doubt that Soros, a convicted inside-trader, is calling the shots.

“Membership in the Alliance is by invitation-only,” the Democracy Alliance says. “We provide you [the big money liberal donor] with personalized products and services to help you navigate the progressive landscape and make the most of your philanthropy.”

But the “progressive landscape” also benefits from taxpayer dollars.

One of CWA’s coalition partners is CASA de Maryland, a taxpayer-funded entity described by writer Jim Simpson in an AIM special report as “the illegals’ ACORN.” On June 5, CASA de Maryland is hosting a “Justice Awards Night” fundraiser featuring Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and Tefere Gebre, Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO. The Master of Ceremonies is Erika Gonzalez, an anchor for NBC 4 in Washington, D.C.

“All proceeds from the event will benefit CASA’s services for immigrant families and its grassroots advocacy for social justice,” the group says.

Its CASA in Action affiliate claims more than 50,000 members and issues endorsements for political office, virtually all of them liberal Democrats. It is financially supported by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, agencies of the Maryland State Government, and private liberal funders such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundation.

It seems the left has its own sources of “big money.” But don’t look for the CWA to expose that in the media.


 

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.