Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The Respect for Marriage Act violates four clauses of the First Amendment

Posted: December 1, 2022 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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On Tuesday the Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act.  Twelve traitorous Republicans joined with the Democrats to pass this Bill, which will trample on the Religious Liberty of every American, particularly those who believe in traditional marriage. 

Freedom of Religion is one of our most important God-given natural rights.  It is enshrined in the First Amendment.  Thanks to this clause, the federal government is barred from trampling on the religious freedom of every single individual. 

This letter from Republican Senator Mike Lee chronicles just how the Respect for Marriage Act violates the Free Exercise of Religion clause.

As you are aware, we are one step closer to passing into law the Respect for Marriage Act. In the Obergefell oral arguments, there was a now infamous exchange between Justice Alito and then–Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. In response to Justice Alito asking whether, should states be required to recognize same-sex marriages, religious universities opposed to same-sex marriage would lose their tax-exempt status, General Verrilli replied, “ . . . it’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito, –it is going to be an issue.”

And it is an issue. Obergefell did not make a private right of action for aggrieved individuals to sue those who oppose same-sex marriage. It did not create a mandate for the Department of Justice to sue where it perceived an institution opposed same-sex marriage, but the Respect for Marriage Act will. What we can expect should this bill become law is more litigation against those institutions and individuals trying to live according to their sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions.

Should Congress decide to codify Obergefell and protect same-sex marriages, we must do so in a way that also resolves the question posed by Justice Alito. Instead of subjecting churches, religious non-profits, and persons of conscience to undue scrutiny or punishment by the federal government because of their views on marriage, we should make explicitly clear that this legislation does not constitute a national policy endorsing a particular view of marriage that threatens the tax exempt status of faith-based non-profits. As we move forward, let us be sure to keep churches, religious charities, and religious universities out of litigation in the first instance. No American should face legal harassment or retaliation from the federal government for holding sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.

According to this Fox News article, Republicans were able to incorporate a very modest religious liberty amendment, while failing to pass true religious liberty amendments. 

An amendment by Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., was adopted Monday evening aimed at making sure the bill does not undermine religious liberty and states that nonprofit religious organizations “shall not be required to provide services” to a marriage it opposes.

On Tuesday the senate also considered three additional amendments to the bill by Senators Marco Rubio, R-Florida, Mike Lee, R-Utah, and James Lankford, R-Okla., that would have purportedly added stronger religious liberty protections to the measure, but all failed to reach a threshold vote for final adoption. 

The First Amendment consists of the following six clauses. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Respect for Marriage act violates four of them.  Firstly, this act establishes progressive orthodoxy as the official religion of the United States, in direct violation of the establishment clause.  After this act is passed, Americans who hold and espouse views contradictory to progressive orthodoxy will be punished, violating the free exercise of religion clause and the free speech clause.  The freedom to assemble includes the freedom to not assemble.  The Respect for Marriage Act forces private venues to assemble for marriage ceremonies that violate their religious beliefs.

I blame The Chosen for this Change in Me

Posted: December 1, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Yesterday was the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle who was crucified under Nero on an X shaped cross in Greece.

Normally there is a small intellectual connection and a faith connection to these events but this year it’s something different.

For two seasons now I’ve seen Andrew on The Chosen and while it is a dramatic portrayal based on scripture it has “humanized’ the apostle to me not as a saint from long ago, but as a person with all the strengths, faults and foibles that we all have. Someone I can relate to.

So now when I think of Andrew killed on the cross I don’t think of the remote saint dying the death of a martyr, I think of the fellow that Dallas Jenkins and Noah James has introduced me to, someone I know, suffering and dying for Christ. That produces a an emotional reaction and a realization of just what he did for the sake of those who would believe.

Perhaps this is something that should have been the case for all this time before the Chosen came out but regardless of the reason I’ll never look at the feast day of any of the Apostles the same way again.

God Mammon & Apple

Posted: November 30, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized

“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Matthew 6:24

The public be damned. I am working for my stockholders.

William H Vanderbilt

One of the things I’ve learned to dislike over the years is virtue signaling and the worst kind of virtue signaling comes from cooporations.

We saw a lot of this from tech companies, the whole “don’t be evil” BS and the like. It was all about feeling good about themselves as they made a buck they would be thinking like Bogart in Sabrina

But for many of these companies it’s not about what an industry can bring it’s about maxing out the profit and if that means playing ball with a place like China, well Apple is very happy to obligue:

Hidden in the update was a change that only applies to iPhones sold in mainland China: AirDrop can only be set to receive messages from everyone for 10 minutes, before switching off. There’s no longer a way to keep the “everyone” setting on permanently on Chinese iPhones. The change, first noticed by Chinese readers of 9to5Mac, doesn’t apply anywhere else.

In other words, Chinese iPhone users can’t do or say anything without the CCP knowing about it. Dissent can be quashed before it even starts. The Chinese people can be kept under the CCP’s thumb. And Apple is helping.

Now I have no problem with making a profit nor trying to maximize said profit, what bugs me is when Apple makes a big fuss about virtue, and hits they will pull out of Twitter because they don’t like Elon Musk’s way of doing things while at the same time helping Communist China crush dissent.

It insults my intelligence and it should insult yours.

China: A realistic look at the demonstrations

Posted: November 29, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

As the news media focus on stories about Chinese demonstrations against COVID rules, few analysts are looking at the obstacles the protestors face.

President Xi Jinping has installed two of his closest allies as leaders of the Chinese police and security forces.

Wang Xiaohong’s appointment as public security minister in June marked a significant breakthrough for Xi in his consolidation of power.

Xi and Wang have known each other since the mid-1990s when the former rose through the ranks in southeast Fujian province, and Wang was a senior policeman in the provincial capital, Fuzhou.

As China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong, Xi oversaw a sweeping overhaul of the People’s Liberation Army during his first term from 2012 to 2017 when I first visited the country. t the time, China had a robust economy and little dissent.

Xi, however, locked down the propaganda machine even more than his recent predecessors. The party’s most important propaganda organs routinely offer fawning coverage of his activities, such as triumphal recent tours of Hong Kong and Xinjiang, where the dislike for the party leadership is highest.

But the third traditional pillar of Chinese party power, the internal security apparatus, or the “knife,” has been a relative holdout, Peter Mattis, an expert on China’s security apparatus, told The Financial Times.

In the year before Wang’s appointment as China’s top cop, at least three current or former public security vice-ministers were purged for corruption. Two of them were accused of colluding with each other, criticizing “the party’s major policies” and having “hugely inflated political ambitions.” “This is why [Xi’s] rectification campaign against the political-legal apparatus is so important,” said Mattis. “The progression through these areas is how Mao seized power.”

Xi has also worked diligently to install allies at the party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, which oversees China’s police, state security, and courts. In a measure of its importance, the commission enjoys an official budget bigger than the military. Xi protégé Chen Yixin has been the CPLC’s general secretary and de facto head of operations since 2018.

Chen worked closely with Xi 20 years ago in Zhejiang province, where the future president served as governor and party secretary. Xi brought Chen to Beijing in 2015 and dispatched him to Hubei province, the center of the global coronavirus pandemic, to help stabilize the outbreak in 2020.

In a recent speech to internal security officials, Chen said: “Our party, country, and people are so lucky to have Xi Jinping as the core of the party, as the people’s leader and as commander-in-chief.

“He has the aura of leadership, outstanding intelligence, personal charisma, and the people are in his heart,” Chen added. “The more complicated the situation and the more arduous the task, the more we need Xi Jinping as our helmsman.”

While the media focus on et demonstrations, it’s essential to understand precisely the power of the Chinese state to put down any severe threats to the regime.

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