Posts Tagged ‘1st amendment’

First Amendment 101 in North Andover

Posted: November 17, 2023 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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Apparently there was a big fuss about North Andover flying the Palestinian Flag.

When I first heard about it my first thought was “oh brother here is the woke Democrat left in action.”

Then I actually read the story and it changed the picture for me.

Apparently the town (like Fitchburg) allows various flags to be flown if petitioned to do so. Earlier this month the flag of Israel was flown.

A group of Palestinian supporters petitioned to have their flag flown under the same rules. There was a rather contentions meeting over it and a lot of people were angry but in the end the request was lawful and the flag is flying now.

As a very public supporter of Israel actions in Gaza to destroy Hamas let’s cut to the chase.

This was not only the right decision but the smart decision.

It was the right decision because:

  • 1st Amendment rights are supposed to be allowed equally without playing favorites
  • the proper answer to speech someone opposes is more speech
  • the proper procedures and rules were followed
  • It is right because one should always support lawful methods of public expression
  • It is right because it supports the rule of law applied equally
  • The flag in question was not one of a recognized terrorist group.
  • It’s an important lesson in citizenship and civics, particularly for the young and new arrivals
  • It is just

And it is smart because

  • You should always support peaceful forms of expression of ideas
  • You can’t demand enforcement of laws against violent expression when you don’t apply them for peaceful one
  • People who are able to vent peacefully are less likely to cross a line later
  • You can’t expect people to respect your rights if you don’t respect theirs
  • If you don’t defend those rights when in power you won’t have them when you’re not
  • if you’re opinion is worth anything it should be able to stand up to the other guys opinion being expressed
  • the right thing is always the smart thing

I can certainly understand why some would object, frankly my own 1st instinct was against it but either you’re for the rule of law or you are not and this is lawful application of the 1st Amendment.

Now if the city wants to change their rules on flags (consistent with our constitution of course) that’s up to them but the law need to be respected and enforced and the rights of citizens under that law MUST be respected.

Otherwise what’s the point of being American?

Update: A lot of people who generally agree with me disagree on this one but let me make one important point:

The Biden admin and the FBI not withstanding there actually isn’t a “I think those guys are a******s” exception to either the 1st amendment or the principle of equal application of the law.

The Right To Be An Ass With an Evil Opinion & Hate in Your Heart as Long as You Leave People Alone

Posted: October 24, 2023 by datechguy in internet/free speech
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Ben Rumson: It’s where people can someday look civilization straight in the eye and spit. and you don’t have to please anybody and you don’t have to love thy neighbor, you leave the bastard alone!

Paint Your Wagon 1969

Anyone who had read this blog over the last couple of weeks know the following:

  • I say without equivocation that Hamas is a bunch of evil murderous bastards.
  • I saw without equivocation that the anti-Semites marching for Hamas and supporting them are at best deluded useful idiots and at worst murderous bastards who are only held back by a land full of armed folks.
  • I say without equivocation that I support the law firms that have rejected candidates who have expressed support for the murder of women and children and the beheading of babies.
  • I say without equivocation that I support those who would withhold funds from schools who have defended and or expressed support for Hamas.
  • I say without equivocation that I believe schools, pols and public people who express support for those bastards should be denounced.

I believe all of those things and have expressed opinions to this effect

I also believe the following

  • I say without equivocation that the anti-Semites marching for Hamas have an absolute 1st amendment right to march in support of Hamas and even loudly express their antisemitism and even their disgusting support of beheading babies if they so choose.
  • I say without equivocation that voters if they so choose have the absolute right to support and elect if they can people who support Hamas and loudly express their antisemitism if they so choose.
  • I say without equivocation that such elected officials have the right to support policies consistent with Hamas if they so choose

All of those opinions and actions can and should have adverse consequences for said people (all of said consequences being legal) but as long as they don’t

  • physically harm the people they profess to hate,
  • destroy the property of those they hate
  • put the people they hate in physical danger
  • inhibit the rights of those they hate
  • Take any such action(s) that violate local, state or federal laws.

Then as far as I’m concerned these people can believe what they want and say what they want and even hate who they want as long. People have the right to be evil assholes but we also retain the right to call them out for the assholes that they are.

Or to paraphrase Ben Rumson: They don’t have to love their neighbor, they just need to leave him the hell alone.

I suspect they won’t leave them alone and if they don’t they deserve all they get from the law or from folks using their 2nd amendment rights to protect themselves.

Update: Apparently the right to be an ass in public is not restricted to the supporters of beheading babies:

It’s all one horrific attack, and its earliest recorded instance is John 8:44 (of the Jews): “You are of your father, the Devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the Beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth because the truth is not in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

One might forgive Mr. David Mamet for completely misinterpreting Christian scripture figuring that a Jewish man of a Jewish mother whose followers where all Jewish including some members of the Jewish elite and teachers was attacking Jews as a race. He would not be the first to do so. In fact Christ requires us to forgive him for this.

That being said I submit and suggest that at a time when Jews in general and the Jewish state in particular is under attack by enemies within and without who apparently are all in on the idea of slaughtering men women and children raping Jewish women (even the dead) and beheading babies and that the allies of said killers are marching in the streets of European and American Cities and have a huge presence of Universities and that Jews in and outside of Israel are more in need of allies than ever it just might be a bad idea to insult Christianity and Christians by a public statement claiming that the Son of God’s rebuke of those who wanted to kill him was the original blood libel against the Jewish race that he was a member of. That’s seems a pretty damn stupid thing to do right now.

But that’s just me.

Have no fear even a public insult to my God is not enough for me to change my opinion on these events or the right of Israel to respond to them. It simply forces me to pray or Mr. Mamet because that’s a non-optional doctrine of Christianity.

Bottom Line: I’m Still With Trump Because He Was With Me

Posted: January 11, 2021 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, culture
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This looks so familar

I remember the day after the Billy Bush tape dropped when all started running away, people falling for the MSM meme, on that day I wrote a post titled: I double down and re-endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States.

Now as more facts come out and it looks more and more like a lot of what is being said about events in DC from the media is false and people seeking power and position are reacting to ingratiate themselves with the new administration and with the democrat/left/tech fascists’ who demand silence or else, contrary to all that America stand for but consistant with their Communist paymasters.

Thus the time has come one again to say it aloud:

I’m with Trump.

I’m with Trump because he was with me. He improved the economy, he fought for life, he fought for Israel, brought peace to the middle east, made us energy self sufficient and fought for what was right. Yeah he was loud and carried himself with braggadocio but he literally took the wish list of conservatives like myself that republicans have promised for decades and took it seriously doing his best to fill it. You have to go back to President James Knox Polk to find a President who has come close to doing all that he promised.

It’s also personal for me. I was and still am a Ted Cruz guy. I would support Cruz in a heartbeat for president. I came to Trump reluctantly as the only alternative to Clinton.

After 8 years of Obama from which I had fallen from a good high paying job with excellent benefits usually working from home on the day he was elected to a 3rd shift temp job with no benefits making less that half of what I was making before the election. I had very little to lose by voting Trump

After four years of Trump I’m still underemployed but I’m at a full time job with excellent benefits and while I’m only at 65% of the rate I was making when Obama was elected I’m trending up.

Meanwhile both my sons, one college educated one not have during the Trump years gotten good paying jobs with excellent benefits and even my wife pay situation has improved.

I’m not alone in this:

In fact, his presidency saw something extraordinary, even if it was all but invisible from the country’s globalized cities: the first egalitarian boom since well back into the twentieth century. In 2019, the last non-Covid year, he presided over an average 3.7 percent unemployment rate and 4.7 percent wage growth among the lowest quartile of earners. All income brackets increased their take. That had happened in the last three Obama years, too. The difference is that in the Obama part of the boom, the income of the top decile rose by 20 percent, with tiny gains for other groups. In the Trump economy, the distribution was different. Net worth of the top 10 percent rose only marginally, while that of all other groups vaulted ahead. In 2019, the share of overall earnings going to the bottom 90 percent of earners rose for the first time in a decade.

As Glenn Reynolds put it at the time “Democrats have a plan to fix that“.

That President Trump did this is remarkable. That he did this with all of DC all of Hollywood, all of Academia and all of media trying to destroy him makes it nothing short of incredible.

In short Donald Trump has earned my support and my loyalty & he’s going to get it.

Does that mean I’ll be supporting him in 2024? That depends. If there is a primary then I’ll see who is there and decide at that time. After all I was a Santorum man in 2012 but I went with Cruz, not because I didn’t like Santorum but because I thought Ted was a better choice. Cruz remains the only person who is guaranteed to get my support ahead of Trump if he runs anyone else I’ll have to judge at the time, but if President Trump is the GOP nominee I’ll have no problem supporting him and if the GOP nominates a Romney or a Romney lite and Trump goes 3rd party, then he’ll almost certainly get my support as well.

So I’m with Trump, I remain with Trump and if it means some people stop reading or some people have bad things to say about me or I face retaliation, so be it.

I expect nothing but trouble for this, both from individuals and from the incoming administration, in fact despite being a minor blogger with a small following I expect retaliation for expressing these views in public.

But I was born into an America where speech was still free and people were unafraid to speak their minds and I’m too old and too Christian to marry myself to a life of lies and fear.

You don’t have to be with Trump if you don’t want to. It’s a free country and as far as I’m concerned people have the right to be wrong, but as for me I’m with Trump

If you don’t like it, tough.

Black Lives Matter has become O’Brian & Madred I refuse to submit

Posted: June 4, 2020 by datechguy in culture, News/opinion, personal
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“You pay me tribute, by which you become my slaves. I have, therefore, a right to order you as think proper.”

The Dey of Algiers to Capt William Bainbridge USS George Washington 1800

We have reached the point where people are being fired for stating that all lives matter (which is true) vs “black lives matter” (which is true because they are a subset of all lives)

We have also reached a point where business’ that I go to have found the need to state very emphatically that “black lives matter” out of fear that their will be looted or vandalized while not daring to state publicly “all lives matter” for fear that they will be punished for it.

To be unable to express the point that all lives matter, which is a central theme of Christianity, because of either financial property or physical retribution is oppression and to submit this is to become a slave to fear.

Furthermore more once you give in on this there will be a new demand and then a new one and then a new one, or as the Dey of Algiers told William Bainbridge when he balked at running an errand with his warship for him after delivering American tribute , a payoff to keep US ships from being attacked he said: “You pay me tribute, by which you become my slaves. I have, therefore, a right to order you as think proper.”

We are told by the left, by the media but the democrat that if we only submit we will not be hounded or fired or have our business looted or smashed.

This is unacceptable to me. What would my father who fought in world war 2. Who defended his business when thugs and/or officials demanded tribute from him over the years so I could have the life I do, and suffered for it, say if I agreed to this demand? What example will I be giving my sons to pass on to their children if I gave in?

So knowing the cost and the risks let me say this on this public platform:

I refuse to submit.

There are four fingers, there are four lights

All Lives Matter

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