When is a Constitution "unconstitutional?"

The ongoing left-right political battle in the US is at root a battle between two conflicting and contradictory moral systems, as mediated by a battle between two conflicting and contradictory constitutions: the written US Constitution of 1787, on the one hand, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (*) and its penumbras and emanations, on the other hand.

When the Republicans enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they weren't content simply to overturn the Democrats' various "Jim Crow" violations of the Constitution, which unconstitutionally differentiated citizens by race before the bureaucrats of various of the States and which violated citizens' rights of association by compelling them to differentiate one another by race in private association. Oh, no! The Republicans were too clever by half, imagining that there were going to "pwn" the Democrats, and so they were played by the leftists: they drafted a law which violates citizens' rights of association by compelling them to differentiate one another by race in private association (but in the opposite direction to what the Democrats had been doing theretofore) and laid the groundwork for future legislative acts and court rulings which unconstitutionally differentiate citizens by race, and eventually by "identification", before the bureaucrats of the totalizing administrative state.

"Woke culture" is the natural and inevitable out-working of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the subsequent additions to it.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- much of which is actually unconstitutional -- is being used by the leftists as the means to destroy the legitimacy of our Constitution and thus to destroy our Republic.

For example -- In 2008, the citizens of California passed Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to overrule a state-court imposition of "gay marriage" on the citizens of that State. A federal court later ruled that this legally-enacted provision of California's Constitution was "unconstitutional".

One might ask, "On what grounds was this amendment to the California Constitution decreed to be unconstitutional?" Why, on the grounds of the judge's interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mind you, this was years before the US supreme court imposed "gay marriage" on the citizens of the entire nation, in contravention of the written US Constitution.

For example -- You may be aware of a Turkish-born rabid leftist by the name of Cenk Uygur, who claims (or claimed) to be running for the Democratic nomination to the US Presidency.

Now, Cenk Uygur is a naturalized US citizen; which is to say, the US Constitution expressly forbids him to occupy the office of the US Presidency. And what do you think is Mr Uygur's strategy to get around this encumbrance? Why, and of course, it is to try to get a federal judge to rule that the US Constitution itself is "unconstitutional" ... on the grounds that by the Civil Rights Act it is "unfair" for the US Constitution and US law to distinguish between a naturalized citizen and a natural born citizen, wedded to the false assertion that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution erases the distinctions between classes of citizenship.

(*) A deep dive examination of these conflicting constitutions will take us from the false constitution's rancid fruiting in Current Year's "Woke culture", to its flowering in Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society", to its growth in Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal", to its cultivation in Woodrow Wilson's and Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Movement, and will ultimately find the seed of the false constitution in Abraham Lincoln's violations of the written Constitution ... in the name of "preserving" that Constitution and the Union therewith established.

Auron MacIntyre: "Civil Rights Law Is a Problem"

Auron MacIntyre: "Why We're No Longer Governed by the Constitution"

Jury Duty in the Time of Covid-1984

I have jury duty for the next couple of weeks.  Yesterday, I had to go to the courthouse for jury selection -- and, of course, because all the bureaucrats are still playing the absurd Covid-1984 Game, we potential jurors were "asked" (*) to wear face-diapers and practice "social distancing", and their procedure for processing us  has been stood on its head to play the game of "social distancing".

So, as instructed, 40+ of us (plus at least 10 waiting to go before the other judge for "re-entry") were there in the hallway-as-lobby outside the two courtrooms at 9:00 AM.  You know, practicing "social distancing" ... by sitting and standing next to one another.

I brought a face-diaper, but I did't put it on ... and no one at all gave a damn for an hour, until the bailiff came out to register us.  That's right, we (the jurors, *and* the defendant and some of his relatives, and the "re-entry" people) practiced "social distancing" in that hallway for an hour or more, before anything public happened.

Eventually, a lady sitting across from me, there for moral support for the defendant, noticed the writing on the face-diaper I was holding, and asked what it said.  I told her, "These face-diapers are not helping, Karen" and everyone within earshot laughed.  So, I was cheered by that.  What I mean is, when I go to the grocery store, I see no faces, just face-diapers, and it's easy to begin to believe that the majority of people actually believe this cargo-cult bull-shit that that a piece of cloth hiding your face -- hiding your humanity -- can stop viruses.  Turns out, most people are just trying to avoid being harassed by the Karens.

Eventually, the bailiff came out to register us, and she was a Karen -- she even sported the "I want to speak to the manager" hair-do (**) popular with Karens.  Eventually, Karen said to me, "We need (***) you to wear your mask". So, I put the face-diaper on ... and *pointedly* did not cover my nose ... and that was OK ... because the point of face-diapers is not about anyone's health, but rather about the bureaucrats forcing us mere tax-cattle to understand that they rule us.

Eventually, Karen seated us in the courtroom, entering the room one at a time to assigned seats spread over the room.  You know, to maintain the "social distancing" delusion.  I think it was 11:00 when the judge finally entered, and spent the next hour telling us how important-to-justice our role is ... but mostly, listening to himself talk.  Judges *are* just lawyers, after all.  And lawyers don't really give a damn about *justice*.

So, naturally, with all that talking, the judge eventually needed to take a drink.  And so, of course -- because the demand that we hide our faces has nothing to do with anyone's health -- he removed his face-diaper several times and did drink.  Meanwhile, the (armed) sheriff's deputy, who was sitting directly across the room from me (I was one of the last potential jurors assigned a seat, and I was in the jury-box), sometimes had his nose out of his face-diaper, and sometimes removed it entirely to drink from his thermos-cup.  Surely, you have guessed by now that Karen also removed her face-diaper more than once to take a drink.

Well, noon rolled around and the judge had finally heard his voice for a satisfactory amount of time, and was going to have the prosecution (there were three of them, but the second-in-rank did their part of these proceedings) begin their part of the 'voir dire' stage of the trial. However, she (the prosecutor) convinced him to call a lunch break.

Since I had walked to the courthouse, I wasn't about to go back outside.  So, other than a few minutes to go to the concessions room on the floor below, I sat in the hall/lobby -- face uncovered -- with several others, some also with human faces.  During this hour, I saw *many* employees of the "justice system" walking around without face-diapers: some were putting one on *as* they exited various offices, some (who looked to be mainly cops of various sorts) didn't appear to even have a face-diaper on their person.  I was sitting near the door to the family court lobby; on the door was one sign saying the only one person at a time could be in that lobby (never mind conditions just outside the door), and another sign saying that anyone who entered the room without a face-diaper faced a charge (i.e. an automatic *conviction*) of "contempt of court", with a $250 fine and/or 30 days in jail. Toward the end of the day, they send us out again while the prosecution and defense agreed upon which of us would be empaneled as the jury: again, I saw several "justice system" employees clearly violating the absurd face-diaper protocols and "rules" that they impose on us mere tax-payers.

EDIT: I had meant to mention that as the defence lawyer, a *very old man*, was speaking and asking various potential jurors questions, his face-diaper slipped from his mouth, and he, as a *sensible* old man, ignored that and continued to speak.  Eventually, Karen (who was seated behind him and to the side) noticed that the lawyer's face was uncovered, and so she came out on the floor and interuppted him to "remind" him to hide his face again.

(*) I *loathe* the use of "ask" to mean "demand"; but that is (of course) how they phrased it.

(**) One of the funny things about this 'do' is how silly it looks from the back, especially when it is done the way this woman's was: with the hair less than 6 inches long and relying on product to give it poof and body, but resulting in an amusing void at the crown of her head.  Do these women never *look* at their soul-sisters sporting that same look?

(***) And I really loathe the passive-aggressive "I need you to ..." construction.

The Senate ... and The Constitution!

O.M.G. ... the US Constitution *forbids* an Amendment to create "proportional representation" in the Senate.

One may recall that the one of the drums the leftists are pounding is about how "unfair" and "undemocratic" it is that North Dakota has equal weight in the Senate with California and New York; and that they seem to imagine that they can "fix" this "problem" by decree. To which many on the right have responded to the effect that, "No, you can't do it by decree ... but you're welcome to try to amend the Constitution to get the result you desire."

Well, it turns out that the US Constitution forbids such an amendment --

ARTICLE V: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Again: "The Congress ... [may] propose Amendments to this Constitution, ... Provided ...that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"

So, it wouldn't be enough that California and New York might agree to deprive North Dakota of its equal vote in the Senate; North Dakota would have to explicitly agree to deprive itself of this fundamental equality as a Sovereign State of the Union.

h/t Francis W. Porretto at Liberty's Torch

The presence of that clause in Article V, the Amendment Article, excludes the equal representation of the [S]tates in the Senate from the possibility of amendment. This is beyond dispute. The Senate, in other words, was created to guarantee that each [S]tate would have a voice in the Senate equal to any other [S]tate. The electoral system for choosing a president reinforces this oft-neglected aspect of the Constitution: it was intended to protect the small [S]tates from abuses perpetrated by the large ones.

The phrase “checks and balances” should come to mind at this point. My Gentle Readers have no doubt been muttering that phrase for some time already. Lesser intellects might consider suing their civics teachers.

The Framers knew full well what they were doing. The very last passage of the Constitution emphasizes the importance of the [S]tates as elements in the Constitutional design:

ARTICLE VII: The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

The Constitution was conceived and ratified as a compact among the [S]tates. The [S]tates retained nearly complete internal sovereignty. Their equal representation in the Senate was intended, in part, to preserve that sovereignty, the exclusions in Article I, Section 10 being the sole exceptions. This aspect of the Constitution’s design is sometimes cited as an argument for a [S]tate’s power to nullify federal laws on the grounds of federal overreach.

The federal government has done many unConstitutional and extra-Constitutional things since the Wilson Administration. Some of them have been undeniable encroachments on [S]tate sovereignty. (Where, for example, is Congress given the power to legislate a federal penal code? But that’s a subject for another day.) This latest talk - of amending a part of the Constitution explicitly protected against amendment! - merely indicates how far Americans’ knowledge of the deliberately designed-in features of our Union has slipped.

ps: Repeal the 17th Amendment!

"I always think I am right, but I don’t think I am always right"

Exactly.

Douglas Wilson: "interviewing" himself --

Me: A critic might say that you always think you’re right. You leave no room for discussion, no room for the possibility that you might be wrong.

Me: It is true that I always think I’m right. But I don’t think I am always right.

Me: Come again?

Me: Thinking you are right is the same thing as thinking. Everyone does it. Stepping back and looking at the sum total of your thoughts, of course it would be folly not to see that you have been guilty of mistakes and errors. But while you are thinking at all, you are thinking you are right. So that is why I say I always think I am right, but I don’t think I am always right.

Me: But isn’t that arrogant?

Me: The curious thing is that out of all the people I have met who think so (and I have met a number of them), they think so. And they think they’re right. No one ever came to me in a spirit of rebuke, but with the prefatory proviso that they might be the arrogant one and I might be the innocent baaa lamb. Furthermore, I don’t ask them to. But I do find it curious that they ask me to. And so it is that I conclude, 9 times out of 10, that the goal is not to admonish and edify me, but rather to steer me.

The "arrogance" charge is almost always cynical intellectual dishonesty meant to play on the emotions of the easily-steered. It is an attempt to convince others (i.e. the easily-steered) that the view or conclusion the accuser detests is false, by the mere allegation that it is false, without making any *effort* to demonstrate *any* error.

What it's about

Americans of Southern extraction are the single-most patriotic group in America. This is true whether their ancestors were Confederates, or, like mine, Unionists.

The leftist push to obliterate the Confederate past -- the American past -- is not about "fighting" slavery or "racism" or any of the other things the leftists claim; it is about asserting the leftist conquest of America. It is about marking America as conquered territory. It is about forcing the American people to acknowledge that they are a conquered people.

So far, our leaders and the public faces of conservatism have been quite OK with this, which rather calls into question whether they are *our* leaders and just how "conservative" they really are.

Ultimately, it will come down to this question: Do the American People agree that we are a conquered people?

=========
The target of these leftists is not the Confederacy, it is the USA.

Coming Soon to a Christian Music Festival Near You

Jihad Watch: UK: Christian festival to feature Islamic worship chants

How marvelously broad-minded! Pope Francis [along with the muckity-mucks of the Church of England] would be thrilled! But once again we see that this kind of gesture of good will is all one-way. When is the Islamic festival featuring Christian liturgical chant? Why, the very idea would be absurd, of course. ...

Christian worshippers at this year’s Greenbelt Festival will have the opportunity to learn Islamic worship chants – thanks to an organisation which says its primary aim is to ‘guide seekers of Allah’.

Rights or Commodities?

Steven Crowder: On Rights vs Commodities (from the 17:36 mark) -- This is a good demonstration and explanation of how leftists intentionally hijack and make meaningless the term 'rights' ... and seek thereby to secure your willful cooperation in the theft and destruction of your own rights.

Mohammedan, not “Muslim”

JMSmith at The Orthosphere: Mohammedan, not “Muslim”

My response (which will never see the light of day over there, because most of the "orthosphereans" are cowards who cannot stand up to *any* criticism ) --

I refuse to call them 'Muslims' because that's what the Kool Kids insist we must say (*). I grew up calling them 'Moslems', while being aware of and understanding 'Mohammedan'.

Moreover, it is *claimed* that 'Moslem', when prononced as we English-speakers pronounce the word, is an insult to the precious-and-delicate sensibilities of the Muzzies (albeit the truth).

For instance, according to this page on History News Network:

According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies,"Moslem and Muslim are basically two different spellings for the same word." But the seemingly arbitrary choice of spellings is a sensitive subject for many followers of Islam. Whereas for most English speakers, the two words are synonymous in meaning, the Arabic roots of the two words are very different. A Muslim in Arabic means"one who gives himself to God," and is by definition, someone who adheres to Islam. By contrast, a Moslem in Arabic means"one who is evil and unjust" when the word is pronounced, as it is in English, Mozlem with a z.

So, I'm all for calling them either 'Moslems' or 'Mohammedans' (or, for that matter, 'Muzzies').


But, getting back to the argument of the OP; it sounds persuasive, but does it hold up in other situations? Does it even hold up internally?

Other situations --
Suppose there is some tribe which call themselves, as many peoples do, a term that in their language means "The Human Beings", implying that they *alone* are real human beings. And suppose that there is another tribe, historical mortal enemies to the former, who call the former a term that in *latter's* language means "Shit-Eating Snakes". And now suppose that we English-speakers make contact first with the second tribe and from them learn of the first tribe ... and learn-and-adapt the second tribe's name for the first. Now, further suppose that fifty years later, our leftist Special Juicebox Wankers are having continual snits because we always refer to the first tribe as "Shit-Eating Snakes" rather than as "The Human Beings". What is a sane and moral man to do? Nothing! We are speaking English, and in English the second tribe's name for the first tribe is just a noise with no inherent meaning; that is, we are *not* calling them "Shit-Eating Snakes". Moreover, *refusing* to bow to the demands of leftist Special Juicebox Wankers is a moral good in itself.

The point bring that in English 'Islam' does not mean "Submission to God", and 'Moslem/Muslim' does not mean "One who submits to God". In English, those sounds merely signify a particular social-political-religious ideology and its adherents.

So, the reason for us English speakers to refuse to call them 'Muslims', rather tham 'Moslems' or 'Mohammedans', is not because doing so implies that their religion is The One True Religion, but rather because they, and our internal enemies (i.e. the leftists), insist that me must.


Internally --
The OP's argument depends upon the premise that 'Allah' *is* God, and thus that 'Mohammedans' *are* "monotheists" (**). I reject the premise and its implication.


(*) In similar wise to how when they refer to a Mexican by name, they pretend suddenly to have morphed into a Castillian.

(**) For that matter, I object to being called a "monotheist", as though Christianity (and Judaism) were on the same continuum as classical Greco-Roman paganism or present-day Hindu paganism.

==========
Edit:
Here is another point in favor of calling them 'Mohammedans' -- Mohammad looms larger in the daily life of not-even-particularly-devout Moslems than Christ does in the daily life of even the most saintly-and-devout Christian.

Consider --

If a saintly-and-devout Christian announced that she (*) were going to make it her life's work to determine how Christ took his bowel movements, so that all saintly-and-devout Christians may do likewise, what would the rest of us say to her (*)? We'd say, "You aren't saintly-and-devout, you're insane!"

But, to the 'Mohammedans', it is a very important matter -- sometimes even a life-and-death question -- to know how Mohammad took his bowel movements, and to do likewise.

(*) I am, of course, mocking those fools who, vainly imagining it is even possible to appease the Kool Kids, deliberately use 'she' when English demands 'he'.

Atheism and Infanticide

Shadow to Light: Atheism and Infanticide

Shadow to Light: “As Coyne’s reasoning makes clear, the legalization and normalization of abortion has provided the slippery slope toward infanticide. I can’t be sure, but I bet if you look at the arguments of those opposed to legalizing abortion back in the 1960s and 70s, you’d find people warning about this exact development and you’d find such warnings being dismissed.”

Ilíon: I can be sure, I remember it. And it wasn’t just in the 60s and 70s. I wasn’t really aware of the abortion regime until about 1980 … and at least into the 1990s, if not into this century, the pro-abortionists were pooh-poohing the argument not only that that “the legalization and normalization of abortion has provided the slippery slope toward infanticide”, but that it *must* lead to infanticide.

At some point in the very recent past, the pro-abortionists totally switched it up — whereas previously they had pooh-poohed the argument that “the legalization and normalization of abortion has provided the slippery slope toward infanticide”, they began to actively argue that *since* there is no moral difference between a pre-birth human being and a born human infant and *since* the killing of a pre-birth human being is legal, that *therefore* the killing of a born human infant must also be legalized.

You know, exactly as we anti-abortionists had argued they eventually would and must.

Here is an exchange from Facebook occasioned by the post at Shadow to Light --

Ian Bibby: The "Slippery Slope Fallacy" - the one "fallacy" that somehow results in correct predictions 100% of the time.


Bradley Nartowt: Strictly speaking, the slippery slope States that A does not mandate B as a consequence.

Often, people will misuse this and think "because slippery slope, if A, then B is prohibited." Which, of course, is nonsense.


Ilíon: There is also a Slippery Slope which can be stated as "He who says 'A' must say 'B'", and that's the one that the people who want 'A' and don't really object to 'B' always pooh-pooh.

"He who says 'A' must say 'B'" -- that is, given that 'A' entails 'B', if someone asserts 'A', then ultimately he will assert 'B'.

Here, 'A" is abortion (because that is the moral outrage that our society accepted first), and 'B' can be either euthanasia or infanticide. Here, the Slippery Slope does indeed apply. As Ian said, "he "Slippery Slope Fallacy" - the one "fallacy" that somehow results in correct predictions 100% of the time." The Slippery Slope applies becasue the same *premise* that justifies any one of euthanasia or infanticide or abortion -- denial of the Imago Dei, and thus denial that all persons possess the inalienable right to life -- also justifies all of the others.

An irony of 'liberalism'

Laura Rosen Cohen: Can Someone Remind Me Why Australia Needs a Grand Mufti?

How will 'gay' mirage affect *your* marriage?

One of the favorite non-arguments of the proponents of "gay" mirage -- that is, when they're pretending that they are willing to try to get what the want through democratic means, and accept the consequences when the demos says, "No, thanks" -- is to pose the rhetorical question: "How will 'gay' [mirage] affect or harm *your* marriage?" And, of course, the approved, albeit false, answer is, "It won't!"

Here, Mr and Mrs America, is one of the ways that "gay" mirage is going to harm *your* marriage -- since it is impossible that a woman is a 'father' or that a man is a 'mother', and since it is also impossible that the leftists will acknowledge that marriage exists only between one man and one woman, the "solution" to this dilemma will be to remove the words 'Father' and 'Mother' from birth certificates, replacing them with 'Parent A' and 'Parent B'.

So, thanks to the judicial imposition of "gay" mirage upon the nation, once this particular logical implication works its way through the courts, you will no longer legally be your children's mother or father; at best, you will be 'Parent A' or 'Parent B'.


Eventually, even the word 'parent' will have to be scrubbed from birth certificates, for it still whispers, a bit too loudly, the truth.

Pervertitarians never rest

Alexander Boot (from 2015): German government says incest is best

LifeSite News (from 2007): German Government Publication Promotes Incestuous Pedophilia as Healthy Sex Ed

Christian Telegraph (from 2008): Christians stopped sexual depravity of German kids

I think "stopped" is probably too strong a word; "delayed" probably more accurately captures the nuance, for pervertitarians never rest in their quest to pervert all good things.


Now, Gentle Reader has been around the block a time or two. One knows, from repeated experience, that the very people who are continuously promoting this sort of thing -- the very human termites who are intentionally gnawing relentlessly at the roots of our civilization, which is the very thing that makes our comfortable lives possible -- will point to the fact the the German government was successfully shamed into withdrawing this particular publication and then say, "Ah-ha! You conservatives are just fear-mongering!" And the fence-sitters, the people who don't want to see what's right under their noses, will say, "Yeah! What's the big deal? It all woked out."

But, the point is, as Mr Boot put it in an email response to me, "what's staggering here isn't the dates, and not the fact that the booklets were eventually withdrawn, but that the government of a Western, formerly Christian, nation could have produced them in the first place."

The other enormities he mentions in the article are more recent -- because the pervertitarians never rest in their quest to pervert all good things.

And, in the meantime, with respect to Germany, it is still illegal, as per laws left over from the Nazi era, to try to remove one's own children from the open sewer that is "public education".

Does Gentle Reader recall the case, from just last year, of the Romeike family? This is a German family that fled to the US, seeking political asylum, to escape imprisonment by the German government for refusing to send their children to the sort of state-approved cess-pits that would "teach" them that parents ought to diddle their kids, so that they won't "be ashamed of their bodies." And the Obamanation was working with the German government to force the family back to Germany, to have their children stolen from them and to be imprisoned for daring to object.

The last I read of the case, the family had been granted "indefinite deferred action" status -- or, to translate that into English: "this case is presently too 'hot' to deport them back to Germany, so let's decide to not decide anything just yet; see if people forget about them, then we'll decide to decide."


Quoting Mr Boot's article:

For religion isn’t all about what people do on a Friday night or Sunday morning. It’s also about the way man defines himself.

If a father sees himself as the creature God made in His image and likeness, then he’ll raise his daughter to be proud of her humanity, not her vagina.

He’d try to instil in her certain eternal truths that can be best absorbed in a state of innocence, the longer-lasting the better. He’d try to teach the little girl that life has a profound meaning, and her genitals aren’t the place where it can be found.

If, however, a man believes that, when he dies, he turns to fertiliser and that’s it, then life to him can have no meaning - or rather the process of life becomes its own meaning.

Deriving as much pleasure out of every moment from the earliest possible age becomes the ultimate desideratum. In fact, the very definition of pleasure has to be pushed downwards, ideally all the way down to the crotch.

So why wait until the girl grows up and, God forbid, marries, reactionary as such a possibility may sound? Why waste the valuable years between 1 and 3, when she can receive hands-on tuition in what her clitoris is for? No reason at all.

Such is the ledger sheet of our much-vaunted progress, ladies and gentlemen. On the credit side, children operating computers with nothing short of wiz-kid dexterity. On the debit side, fathers encouraged to masturbate their one-year-old daughters.

You can't have "just a little bit" of sin -- as individuals, and as societies, either we must reject sin and perversion, root and branch, or we must become sin and perversion, which is to say, death. The choice before us is the same choice it has always been: life or death. Choose one, because you can't have both.

No Truce With the Left

Daniel Greenfield: No Truce With the Left

There comes a time when every conservative thinker tries to find some common ground with the left in some area. Today it's criminal rights and the headlines have Rand Paul denouncing the racist justice system while Grover Norquist and the Koch Brothers join with the left to back their reforms. As usually happens, the conservatives or libertarians turn out to be the useful idiots of the left.

Liberals have a long history of being the left's useful idiots. It's only fair that libertarians get a turn.

...

To understand the left, you need to remember that it does not care about 99 percent of the things it claims to care about. Name a leftist cause and then find a Communist country that actually practiced it. Labor unions? Outlawed. Environmentalism? Chernobyl. The left fights all sorts of social and political battles not because it believes in them, but to radicalize, disrupt and take power.

The left does not care about social justice. It cares about power.

That is why no truce is possible with the left. Not on social issues. Not on any issues.

The left is a drunk in a bar trying to pick a fight with you. Trying to convince him that you didn't disrespect him, put something in his beer to make him dizzy or make his feet so heavy won't work. There's no 'agree to disagree' possible here. He's picking a fight with you because he wants a fight.

The left does not care about Bruce Jenner. It does not care about gay rights, equal pay, police brutality or even slavery. Its activists 'care' about those things a great deal right now, but they could easily be persuaded tomorrow to be outraged by telephone poles, shredded wheat or people in green sweaters.

They care mainly about emotional venting and exercising power over others. It's the same phenomenon witnessed during the Salem Witch Trials, the French Revolution or any other mob scene. Except the individual elements of the mob are on social media and have a hashtag.

The outraged social justice warrior was laughing at tranny jokes a few years ago. Now he's ready to kill over minor verbal missteps. A few years from now he'll be laughing at them again.

I especially liked the last one

The Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse Some Fights You'll Never Win

Rue Britannia!

Jihad Watch: UK: Imam accused of recruiting for jihad group doesn’t have to wear electronic tag — it breaches his human rights

Marriage legal and moral

Victor Reppert has (yet another) post concerning the anti-debate in the US concerning same-sex mirage. Among other things, it's exploring a typically libertarian version of surrender to the leftists on the issue. In this post, I intend to expand upon the response I posted to his blog.

Mr Reppert's (new) post is called Marriage legal and moral --

Some people would argue for a distinction between the legal acceptability of same-sex marriage and its moral acceptability. Consider the following case: a man leaves his wife and three kids, and runs off with a Playboy bunny half his age. He divorces his wife, and goes down to the courthouse to get a license to marry his new girlfriend. The courthouse won't ask any questions about whether he was moral or not in starting this relationship which began as an adulterous affair. They just check to see if his divorce is final, and if it is, they issue the marriage license. But if a photographer who knew about how the relationship starter, and who believes in the Seventh Commandment (Thou shalt not commit adultery) was asked to photograph the wedding, would such a photographer be reasonable in saying "I recognize that you are getting married legally, but I can't be part of the celebration of your new union, given what I know about how you got together. Sorry, please find another photographer."

(Interestingly enough, the above case seems to be one of the stronger reasons in support of same-sex marriage, since it points out that in heterosexual cases like this one, the government doesn't hand out licenses based on what they perceive to be moral or not, either on religious grounds or on any other grounds).

If that is reasonable, then could someone who object morally to a same-sex marriage do the same thing, since they are being asked, really, to be part of the celebration of something they don't feel right about celebrating?

My posted response was:

The (ahem) argument given above begs the very point at question. Moreover, it commits one to a slippery-slope that can only end in the destruction of the institution of marriage.

But then, that it the whole point of "gay" mirage.

Concerning Mr Reppert's scenario of adultery and divorce and re-marriage -- now, aside from the inconvenient fact that it is more frequently the woman who torpedoes a given marriage, the other fact is that the ubiquity of divorce in present-day America (and Western civilization as a whole) is a direct result of our collective decision to refuse to fight against the former leftist assualt on the very meaning of marriage, via "no-fault" divorce ... which is to say, divorce-on-demand.

Indeed, in the "bad old days", there were men who behaved shamefully toward their wives as in Mr Reppert's scenario -- Charles Dickens comes to mind. But, it was not "socially acceptable", and *everyone* thereafter looked askance at such a man, even if they didn't say anything to his face.

As an example: my paternal grandmother had been married four times (the other, three: I know a bit about the costs of divorce). Her first husband died, leaving her a young widow with two children. She remarried and they had a son. Then she discovered that her "husband" was married to another woman, so she divorced him, to make it "legal". He died soon after, and she married my grandfather; they had two sons (the elder died in infancy) ... and then she divorced him (my father told me that his older sister used to stir up trouble between his parents; but it's also a fact that my grandmother was not an easy woman to live with, and so she was probably very stirable). When my father was nine, his parents were going to remarry (I think my aunt was herself married by then); they had the marriage license already. But then my grandfather died of pneumonia (he was 59/60, she was 44/45). Sometime after that, my grandmother married for the fourth time ... and thus we called her "Grandma Brown", and similarly did not call my mother's mother "Grandma Brown" due to her own final marriage.

Now, I want to draw Gentle Reader's attention to something that will seem very odd to persons having been reared in the present-day anti-Christian "no-fault" divorce culture: my grandmother did not re-marry until her previous husband -- even though she had divorced him, or even when the "marriage" hadn't been a real marriage in the first place -- had died.

Now, don't take this as that my grandmother was some sort of holy Christian. Rather, our culture was so informed by Christianity that even non-Christians lived the public/social aspects of their lives in accordance with Christianity. And, according to Christianity, a marriage is the permanent union of a man and a woman, ending only by the death of one of the spouses, for it is a "type" of the promise of our union with God --and "long-term relationship" is emphatically not a Christian concept.

Even as recently as 1936, even the King of Great Britain wasn't free simply to marry a woman with two living husbands; this is how "socially unacceptable" Christianity had made divorce, in contrast to the pagan Romans after they had become so morally decadent that they could not maintain their own republic.

This is what we, as a civilization, have already given up -- have already willingly destroyed -- in choosing to have our ears tickled by the lies of people who have always intended the utter destruction of the institution of marriage ... and the marginalization of the very foundation of our civilization, which is Christianity.

(Interestingly enough, the above case seems to be one of the stronger reasons in support of same-sex marriage, since it points out that in heterosexual cases like this one, the government doesn't hand out licenses based on what they perceive to be moral or not, either on religious grounds or on any other grounds).

As seen above, the argument implied here is a bit disingenuous. Moreover, until quite recently, "the government" didn't license one to marry; rather, "the government" legally acknowledged what Christianity said had or had not happened (this is why my grandmother's second "long-term relationship" was not a marriage, despite the license from "the government").

Let us look at something I have written several times, in various places. These are the requirements for entering a valid marriage, one that is both moral and legal, and upon which the laws in all the polities of Christendom had been based until quite recently --
0) A marriage is the publicly recognized exclusive life union between two human beings for the primary purpose of:
a) forming a new family-unit;
b) thereby domesticating their sexual activity for the benefit of society -- and of the individuals themselves -- as untamed sexual activity is destructive, both to the individual and ultimately to society as a whole;
c) and creating a stable environment for the rearing the the new human beings who are the natural result of the sex act;
d) and thus establishing just who is responsible for the up-bringing of those new human beings;
1) Therefore: a marriage may be contracted between two, and only two, human beings:
1a) one male;
1b) one female;
2) both parties must be free to contract a marriage; that is, neither party is already married;
2a) both by what a marriage is, as in 0) above, and by this requirement, a marriage involves the promise of sexual exclusivity;
3) the two parties may not be within a prohibited degree of biological or familial relationship to one another;
4) the two parties must mutually consent to the marriage;
5) from which it follows that the two parties must be legal adults, legally competent to consent to a marriage;
5a) or, if not yet legal adults, must be of some minimum age and must have the approval of their legal guardian.

DO NOTE: in no wise do these requirements prevent persons afflicted with homosexual desire from marrying -- the point being that the leftists' primary charge against marriage in the present phase of their centuries-long war to destroy marriage is a deliberate lie. But then, The Lie has always been the preferred tool of leftists in their continual war against what is.


Now, consider the above tendentious argument for homosexual "marriage" in conjunction with the above given requirements for, and definition of, marriage.

Clearly, in order to pretend that a homosexual "marriage" is a real marriage, we must pretend that sub-items 1a) and 1b) are not the first requirement of a marriage. Moreover, as homosexual "unions" do not, and cannot, result in the issue of children, then most of the sub-points of 0) must be removed from the social meaning of marriage. Similarly, as homosexual "long-term relationships" are emphatically *not* about sexual exclusivity, then item 2a), and indeed the very definition of marriage as an "exclusive life union", must be denigrated, even moreso than has already been done via "no-fault" divorce.


But, if sub-items 1a) and 1b) can be removed as requirements for a real marriage, why cannot requirement 1) be removed entirely? Who says that a marriage may be contracted between two, and only two, persons? Hell, who says that a marriage may be contracted only between persons?

And -- as everyone knows ... despite that some of us have (leftist) political reasons to lie about the matter -- we are already seeing people "marrying" animals and inanimate objects and multiple "partners".


Why cannot requirement 2) be removed? Who says that a marriage may not be contracted by a person already married to someone else?

And -- as everyone knows ... despite that some of us have (leftist) political reasons to lie about the matter -- we are already seeing people advocating that polygamous "marriages" and "open" "marriages" are just as real as real marriages.


Why cannot requirement 3) be removed? Who says that a marriage may be contracted only by two persons who are not within a prohibited degree of biological or familial relationship to one another?

And -- as everyone knows ... despite that some of us have (leftist) political reasons to lie about the matter -- we are already seeing people advocating that incestuous "long-term relationships" may be just as validly marriages as real marriages.

Gentle Reader may recall that I have "predicted" that once the meaning of marriage has been deliberately destroyed in the name of a false "equality", we will be seeing people "marrying" their heirs, so as to evade estate taxes.

Already we see a case of an adoptive 'father' "marrying" his adoptive 'son' -- and the whole point of the adoption was "estate planning".

What? You say that these two men were not *really* father and son, despite that they had obtained a state-issued document stating that they were, in fact, father and son? But, then you turn around and say that, now, they *really are* man and husband, simply because they have obtained a state-issued document (as forced upon the polity by unelected and unaccountable judges) stating that they are, in fact, married to one another?

So, which is it?

If the issuance of the document of legal adoption really did make these two men father and son, and if the issuance of a marriage license really did make them married, then we *already* have the legal precedent of a publicly acknowledged, incestuous "marriage".

If the issuance of the document of legal adoption did *not* really make these two men father and son, then by what token does the subsequent issuance of a marriage license really make them married?


Why cannot requirement 4) be removed? Who says that a marriage may be contracted only by two persons who willingly consent to the marriage? Who says that the "marriages" that ISIS commits upon captured women are not real marriages?

And -- as everyone knows ... despite that some of us have (leftist) political reasons to lie about the matter -- we will soon be seeing people advocating this very thing here in America.


Why cannot requirement 5) be removed? Who says that a marriage may be contracted only by two persons who are adults, possessing the legal capacity to consent to the marriage? Who says that the "marriages" that ISIS commits upon captured girls are not real marriages?

And -- as everyone knows ... despite that some of us have (leftist) political reasons to lie about the matter -- we will soon be seeing people advocating this very thing here in America: both by Moslems and by NAMBLA types.



Recall, the argument from Mr Reppert's original post, and my posted response to it --

(Interestingly enough, the above case seems to be one of the stronger reasons in support of same-sex marriage, since it points out that in heterosexual cases like this one, the government doesn't hand out licenses based on what they perceive to be moral or not, either on religious grounds or on any other grounds).

The (ahem) argument given above begs the very point at question. Moreover, it commits one to a slippery-slope that can only end in the destruction of the institution of marriage.

But then, that it the whole point of "gay" mirage.

And recall, after listing the requirements for contracting a real marriage, I had pointed out that in no wise do these requirements prevent persons afflicted with homosexual desire from marrying.

Just just as, per the argument Mr Reppert presented in his post, The State does not refuse to issue a marriage license (subsequent to his divorce) to the adulterous couple, neither does The State -- nor ever Christianity, for that matter -- enquire whether, for instance, the male party to a marriage would rather "dip his wick" in "strange flesh".

Real marriage has never been prohibited to homosexual persons, and the rule has always been the same for everyone: one man, one woman. What? Are we going to pretend that heterosexual men(/women) have been permitted to "marry" other men(/women), and that only homosexual men(/women) have not?

So, redefining the requirements for, and meaning of, marriage is *not* a matter of "equality before the law". For there is not, nor never has been, any legal, or moral, prohibition of homosexual persons marrying.

The truth is, "gay" activists do not *want* to marry: they are leftists and they want advance the leftist project to destroy marriage. The current strategy of the leftists is to define marriage out of existence.

So, the issue is not "equality before the law" with respect to marriage. Rather, the point at dispute is "what is marriage? what is its purpose? what are its requirements?"

Now, we already have answers to those questions, and have had for thousands of years: those answers are the foundation of our very civilization. The leftists are disputing those answers. Therefore, as they are disputing long-settled, and indeed fundamental, matters, it is incumbent upon them to show that the answers we have are wrong.

The sort of argument Mr Reppert presented in his post does not even attempt to show that the answers upon which our very civilization is built are wrong; such arguments simply assume the long-settled answers are wrong: question-begging.

==============
If we, as a society, insist upon pretending that the leftists, in general, and the "gay" activists, in particular, are not intentionally and deliberately lying about the matter, then we will be cooperating in the lie. And we will find, and in not too many years, that what we have agreed to is the total destruction of marriage; which was the leftists' goal, all along.

===========

If that is reasonable, then could someone who object morally to a same-sex marriage do the same thing, since they are being asked, really, to be part of the celebration of something they don't feel right about celebrating?

This is dangerous ground for "liberals" (i.e. "soft" leftists) and most "conservatives" (i.e. "soft" "liberals"): for to reason in this manner may eventually lead one to a certain unwelcome, yet correct, conclusion: namely that our "anti-discrimination" laws are both immoral and unConstitutional. That is, such "laws" are illegal, with respect both the moral law and to the very basis and legitimacy of the American government.

It's not about cakes

It's not about cakes (or pizzas), and it's not about wedding bands, and it's not about "equality", and it's cerainly not about tolerance (that's so old-school, anyway). It's about forcing you to approve the perversions by which they choose to define themselves: So, a couple of Canadian sexual perverts (*) walk into a jewelers

(*) is "Canadian" and "sexual pervert" a redundancy, as I've seen some (jokingly) claim?


Edit:
Douglas Wilson: A Mound of Pink Cotton Balls

Rotherham is what happens when you deliberately ...

K T Cat: Rotherham, 1980

K T Cat: In Rotherham, They Believed Us

Sartorially Inappropriate

I've seen several references to this incident -- New Jersey vet says military T-shirt led to denied entry at Six Flags amusement park -- which leads to an observation/comment:

Some years ago -- right out in public (*) -- a saw a guy walking around with a tee-shirt on which was printed a life-size photo (***) of a guy performing auto-fellatio (**). What do you think are the odds that Six Flags would deny him entry?

(*) not in San Francisco, not at some parade of perversion, but at a computer show at which anyone might being children

(**) Talk about an education! Who would have thought of that? Who would have thought it possible?


(***) Two photos, actually. On the back of the shirt was a photo of the far too nimble guy taken from behind, and on the front was a picture taken not from behind. As I said, talk about an education.

Contrast and compare

Mark Steyn: Holiday Memories You'll Cherish Forever -- The Republic is dying: it is, in fact, being murdered by the leftists (appointed and elected) in government.