The lies we were told about who would silence free speech

art credit: National Coalition Against Censorship

John Kass at The Chicago Tribune comments on the liberal reaction to conservative speech, which is, essentially: “Shut Up.”

The lie we were told as kids was this: The end of American liberty would come at the hands of the political right.

Conservatives would take away our right to speak our minds, and use the power of government to silence dissent. The right would intimidate our teachers and professors, and coerce the young.

And then, with the universities in thrall, with control of the apparatus of the state (and the education bureaucracy), the right would have dominion over a once-free people.

. . .

But the lie is obvious now, isn't it?

Because it is not conservatives who coerced today's young people or made them afraid of ideas that challenge them. Conservatives did not shame people into silence, or send thugs out on college campuses to beat down those who wanted to speak.

The left did all that.

It's there in front of you, the thuggish mobs of the left killing free speech at American universities. The thugs call themselves antifas, for anti-fascists.

They beat people up and break things and set fires and intimidate. These are not anti-fascists. These are fascists. This is what fascists do.

. . .

What is the cost for all this?

Free speech, without which there is no republic.

American universities were once thought to be the last great refuge of ideas, where ideas could flourish and be challenged and debated. But today, the university is the place where liberty and ideas go to die.

. . .

Right-wing provocateur Ann Coulter has been silenced at Berkeley, where the free speech movement was born. And other intellectuals, including Charles Murray and Heather Mac Donald, have been silenced at other colleges, attacked by mobs.

If the left agrees with your views, you may speak. If the left doesn't agree, they will shut you down. This is America now.

. . .

University administrators have made a show of wringing their hands. But they're hypocrites. They're part of this. They are of the same cloth. They allowed this seed to bloom. They watered it, by giving in to the young who demanded a safe space from intellectual challenge.

Safe spaces are not about learning or critical thinking. Safe spaces belong to education camps, where future bureaucrats are trained in the Orwellian shaping of language and the culling of threatening ideas.

. . .

All speech challenging the status quo is offensive — to the establishment. And free speech is what American liberty is about.

Unless, of course, you're of the hard left, and can hunt free speech at American universities and crush it.

That's not fiction. That's not fantasy. And it is not a lie. It's happening now, in the United States.

Read the rest here.

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Richard Dreyfuss on Fox

Photo credit: pinterest

 

When Fox News dumped Bill O’Reilly and 'The Factor,' it moved Tucker Carlson into the 8pm slot. While I have not watched most of his debut week, I did watch his interview with Richard Dreyfuss. This was not your usual Hollywood celebrity interview. Have a look (Dreyfuss segment starts around the 1:15 mark):

 

 

Dreyfuss's website describing the initiative to reinstate civics in school curricula is here. 

 

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Trump Derangement syndrome

Cartoon credit: A.F. Branco at Liberty Alliance via RedState

We've seen the syndrome before with George W. and Sarah Palin. It's baaaaack with a vengeance. American Thinker contributor David Zukerman reports that “Trump Derangement Syndrome sends NYT’s David Brooks off the deepend”

Once upon a time, David Brooks was considered the house conservative at the New York Times.  But in his April 21 New York Times column, he put President Donald J. Trump on a list of "strong men" that includes Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and North Korea's Kim Jong-un.  Mr. Brooks noted that Erdoğan has "dismantle[d] democratic institutions and replace[d] them with majoritarian dictatorship."  The Times columnist went on to assert: "While running for office, Donald Trump violated every norm of statesmanship built up over these many centuries[.]"  Mr. Brooks, however, does not elaborate, explain, or elucidate the nature of the alleged violations.

But when it comes to discussion of President Trump, NeverTrumps like David Brooks feel no need to place their anti-Trump views on a foundation of fact.  For Trump-haters, the truth is in the accusation.  And so, comparing President Trump to Turkey's Erdoğan, Mr. Brooks does not set forth the democratic institutions dismantled by Mr. Trump, nor does he provide evidence of the "majoritarian dictatorship" that was constructed during the first 100 days of the Trump administration.  How could he, there being no such dismantling, no such dictatorship here?

Mr. Brooks recognizes "the collapse of liberal values at home," citing "fragile thugs who call themselves students [who] shout down and abuse speakers in a weekly basis."  But are these illiberals to be found under the banner of Trumpism – or under the banner of the totalitarianism of left?

. . .

The threat to the American spirit of liberty is not to be found among conservatives, or in the corridors of today's White House.  The threats to democracy, to free speech, to the free flow of information are to be found on the left side of the political divide, from neo-totalitarians who, like the execrable Howard Dean, would limit free speech to persons who agree with the political biases of leftists – with the encouragement of NeverTrumps in the media like David Brooks, who lack the ability to distinguish a duly elected American president from the brutal dictator of a totalitarian state.

Read the rest here.

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Word of the day: “electable”

From Fox News Insider, when Mitch McConnell 

claimed 'We're Going to Crush Tea Party Everywhere' in Primaries"

Alexander Bolton at The Hill reports ("Picking 2018 candidates pits McConnell vs. GOP groups"):

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and conservative groups are headed toward a showdown over GOP primaries in 2018.

McConnell has voiced confidence that Republicans will nominate “electable” candidates as they seek to grow their narrow majority during an election cycle in which Democrats will be defending 23 seats to just eight for the GOP.

. . .

A few battles are already shaping up in 2018.

In Ohio, it is unclear whether the GOP establishment will back Mandel, who lost to Brown in 2012.

The Club for Growth is backing Mandel. In 2010, it helped defeat former Sen. Bob Bennett (Utah), one of McConnell’s best friends, in a GOP primary.

Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, has amassed $6.3 million in campaign funds and might be seen as a stronger candidate by Washington Republicans.

“We’re supporting Josh Mandel in Ohio. I think the establishment would probably prefer Pat Tiberi, but any competent Republican consultant would strongly advise Tiberi not to run,” said Andrew Roth, vice president for government affairs at the Club for Growth. “The establishment should like Mandel.

That word “electable.” The GOPe wanted Jeb! as the 2016 candidate, because he was “electable.” That’s how they described Mitt Romney. Sounds like the GOPe is going to go to the mat to keep the UniParty intact (read: their noses in the trough).

Read the rest here.

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Marine amputee runs Boston Marathon carrying American flag

Photo credit: Runner's World

The Boston Marathon took place earlier today, and The Washington Examiner reported the following inspirational story:

Retired Texas Marine Staff Sgt. Jose Sanchez is a recovering amputee, but that didn't stop him from leaving an indelible mark on this year's Boston Marathon.

Sanchez was injured in 2011 while serving in Afghanistan and has been private about the incident until now.

For five years, a gift Sanchez received from his fellow Marines remained unopened. Yet, it was that gift that changed his perspective and spurred him from his antisocial state.

The gift was a large American flag signed by his fellow troops with notes of encouragement and inspiration.

Sanchez was determined to not merely put the flag away, but to display it in honor of the troops who motivated him to get past his anger and depression and find a positive outlet to give back. So he proudly displayed the flag as he ran the Boston Marathon.

Read the rest here.

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Easter Egg Rolling at the White House

“A color-tinted magazine illustration of children 

being watched by their caretakers 

at an 1880s White House Easter Egg Roll. 

Source: whitehousehistory.org”

It was probably First Lady Dolley Madison who introduced the egg roll to Washington, DC.  A White House “frozen in time” page provides the history of the White House egg roll here.

The countdown to the Trump Administration's first Easter Egg Roll is here. (And if you do an online search, you will find the usual media carping about the 2017 White House Easter Egg Roll, from Vanity Fair wailing over how disorganized the administration is, to the NY Times reporting in its "Politics" section how behind the staff is in its planning, to claims that the Egg Roll was cancelled for this year. Is there anything the MSM won't use to try to discredit the Trump Administration?

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Pentagon awards contract to United Airlines

Michael Yon's FB page linked to this gem:

Pentagon awards contract to United Airlines to forcibly remove Assad

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Coulter on free market healthcare

Image credit: North Country Public Radio

Sorry, I have been off the air for a couple of weeks, and when I got back online this weekend, I found a column by Ann Coulter on HER solution to the healthcare repeal-replace dilemma. Here’s are several extracts and the whole thing (from a little over a week ago) is here.

It’s always impossible to repeal laws that require Ann to pay for greedy people, because the greedy run out on the streets wailing that the Republicans are murdering them.

Obamacare is uniquely awful because the free stuff isn’t paid for through income taxes: It’s paid for through MY health insurance premiums. This is unfortunate because I wanted to buy health insurance.

Perhaps you’re not aware — SINCE YOU EXEMPTED YOURSELVES FROM OBAMACARE, CONGRESS — but buying or selling health insurance is illegal in America.

Right now, there’s no free market because insurance is insanely regulated not only by Obamacare, but also by the most corrupt organizations in America: state insurance commissions. (I’m talking to you, New York!)

Federal and state laws make it illegal to sell health insurance that doesn’t cover a laughable array of supposedly vital services based on bureaucrats’ medical opinions of which providers have the best lobbyists.

As a result, it’s illegal to sell health insurance that covers any of the medical problems I’d like to insure against. Why can’t the GOP keep Obamacare for the greedy — but make it legal for Ann to buy health insurance?

This is how it works today:

ME: I’m perfectly healthy, but I’d like to buy health insurance for heart disease, broken bones, cancer, and everything else that a normal person would ever need, but no more.

INSURANCE COMPANY: That will be $700 a month, the deductible is $35,000, no decent hospital will take it, and you have to pay for doctor’s visits yourself. But your plan covers shrinks, infertility treatments, sex change operations, autism spectrum disorder treatment, drug rehab and 67 other things you will never need.

INSURANCE COMPANY UNDER ANN’S PLAN: That will be $50 a month, the deductible is $1,000, you can see any doctor you’d like, and you have full coverage for any important medical problems you could conceivably have in a million years.

Mine is a two-step plan (and you don’t have to do the second step, so it’s really a one-step plan).

STEP 1: Congress doesn’t repeal Obamacare! Instead, Congress passes a law, pursuant to its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, that says: “In America, it shall be legal to sell health insurance on the free market. This law supersedes all other laws, taxes, mandates, coverage requirements, regulations or prohibitions, state or federal.”

The end. Love, Ann.

There will be no whining single mothers storming Congress with their pre-printed placards. People who want to stay on Obamacare can. No one is taking away anything. They can still have health insurance with free pony rides. It just won’t be paid for with Ann’s premiums anymore, because Ann will now be allowed to buy health insurance on the free market.

Americans will be free to choose among a variety of health insurance plans offered by willing sellers, competing with one another to provide the best plans at the lowest price. A nationwide market in health insurance will drive down costs and improve access — just like everything else we buy here in America!

Within a year, most Americans will be buying health insurance on the free market (and half of the rest will be illegal aliens). We’ll have TV ads with cute little geckos hawking amazing plans and young couples bragging about their broad coverage and great prices from this or that insurance company.

The Obamacare plans will still have the “essential benefits” (free pony rides) that are so important to NPR’s Mara Liasson, but the free market plans will have whatever plans consumers agree to buy and insurance companies agree to sell — again, just like every other product we buy here in America.

. . .

Until the welfare program is decoupled from the insurance market, nothing will work. Otherwise, it’s like forcing grocery stores to pay for everyone to have a house. A carton of milk would suddenly cost $10,000.

. . .

STEP 2: Next year, Congress formulates a better way of delivering health care to the welfare cases, which will be much easier since there will be a LOT fewer of them.

No actual money-making business is going to survive by taking the welfare cases — the ones that will cover illegal aliens and Mara Liasson’s talk therapy — so the greedy will get government plans.

But by then, only a minority of Americans will be on the “free” plans. (Incidentally, this will be a huge money-saver — if anyone cares about the federal budget.) Eighty percent of Americans will already have good health plans sold to them by insurance companies competing for their business.

With cheap plans available, a lot of the greedy will go ahead and buy a free market plan. Who wants to stand in line at the DMV to see a doctor when your neighbors have great health care plans for $50 a month?

. . .

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