I wrote the following in response to a terribly misguided post, written by Jeffrey Imm, of the group Responsible for Equality and Liberty (R.E.A.L.). A related post was linked to (and praised) by a certain husky pony-tailed blogger, which should tell you all you need to know about it! To boil it down, Mr. Imm believes that it is a ‘human rights violation’ to protest religious institutions, including those run by the Muslim Brotherhood. So he, in response, affirmatively defends the right of Muslims (including extremist Muslims, such as the Muslim Brotherhood) to worship wherever they want, including at Ground Zero. Below is an email I wrote in response. Please use the content in this email as helpful information whenever these topics come up with friends, colleagues, and/or family.
———————
To R.E.A.L.,
You are seeking to deny the legitimate moral and constitutional right that I and others have to protesting hate mosques being in our neighborhoods.
I have the first amendment right to protest, including protesting religious institutions. The problem is not that SIOA, Westboro Baptist Church, or MAS (the Muslim American Society, an organization that is considered a Muslim Brotherhood front group) protests a synagogue, mosque, or church. “Holy places” are not beyond reproach, and there is just as much a right to protest a church, synagogue, and/or mosque as there is a right to protest a community center. This is simple and basic American constitutional law that you (as a former FBI agent) were sworn to uphold.
Certainly, no one has the right to use intimidation tactics to block a mosque that include violence and/or threats of violence. I never said otherwise (and no one of merit would). However, I have every right to lobby a public official, or private individuals, and express displeasure about a new church, mosque, and/or synagogue being built. This is a basic American right that I enjoy as a citizen of this country. Yet you oppose any and all protests against mosques – even peaceful ones using no intimidation tactics.
When al-Awda/Code Pink/MAS/Adalah/etc protests outside synagogues and/or Jewish events (as they have done), I never think that the mere act of their protesting outside a house of worship is itself violative of human rights and decency. If in fact Judaism were a human rights violating faith, then perhaps Jews would deserve to be picketed! (but obviously, since the opposite is true, al-Awda/Code Pink/MAS/Adalah/etc are the haters) No, my problem with these organizations is the message found within their protests. In contradistinction, you appear to believe that simply protesting a house of worship is ipso facto evidence of a “human rights violation” (and/or hate speech) taking place. That is not only absurd and offensive, is the sort of reasoning that ultimately advocates on behalf of blasphemy laws.
This is not about whether or not the government is or should banning the building of a new mosque/synagogue/church. No – that is a separate matter altogether (and oddly enough, we may be in agreement on that matter).
The problem in China, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, et. al., is not one of protests of churches and/or synagogues. It is that the governments themselves ban churches/synagogues, and/or that the citizens themselves are violent towards certain religious and ethnic groups.
In fact, I believe that the USA needs to expand the definition of “terrorist organization” to include the Muslim Brotherhood and MAS. This would be most accurate, in light of Steve Emerson’s extensive work (as well as the body of evidence uncovered in the Holy Land Foundation trial), and then apply those laws when/if MAS wants to open a new mosque. But until then, I don’t think there is a way of writing a law that could survive constitutional protection that would be narrowly tailored enough to simply block MAS from opening a mosque, simply due to the fact that it is MAS, without then preventing me from building a synagogue. (Don’t believe me? Check out Geert Wilders’s trial in Holland for “hate speech,” to see how hate speech laws can go awry.) If you want to stop a mosque, you can do so legitimately due to zoning concerns and/or the loudness of the Shahada (call to prayer five times a day). However, if the zoning checks out, I believe you are really out of luck if you seek to have the government prevent a mosque from being built.
However, it is ludicrous to claim that somehow when Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer/SIOA protest a mosque, this is leading us down the path of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, etc. No, it is R.E.A.L. that is leading us down the path of China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc, by claiming that SIOA and others should be condemned (and/or prevented) for simply exercising their first amendment right to lobby and protest mosques.
This is about the right of individuals to protest a religious institution, which you impliedly – from all you have written in the past few weeks – believe they do not deserve.
After all, Pamela Gellar, Robert Spencer, and SIOA are not the government. They have no ability to prevent a mosque from being allowed in one place or another. What they are doing is ultimately lobbying to prevent future mosque building – which is their right. If you have a problem with the message they have (i.e., if you disagree that MAS is a bad organization, or that Islam is a bad religion), then feel free to explain why you disagree with them. Otherwise, even Dove Church has the right to say “Islam is of the Devil,” just as Westboro Baptist Church has the right to say “Judaism is of the devil.” And I have that same right to say that Westboro Baptist Church and Dove Church are hateful institutions, due to the messages they convey. It’s called a marketplace of ideas and freedom of speech – something I thought R.E.A.L. stood for.
In fact, I thought R.E.A.L. stood for human rights, consistency, and the constitution. However, your abject rejection of freedom of speech shows that R.E.A.L. is not consistent in support for universal human rights.
I am disappointed with what you have turned R.E.A.L. into. This is no longer a human rights organization when it does not stand for basic freedom of speech.
Rodan Update: In related news, a massive
blow to the Islamic Imperialist Colonization of America has been dealt.
The board of trustees of a Staten Island Catholic Church have rejected the controversial sale of a church building to a Muslim group looking to open a mosque.
The collapse of the deal – which would have transferred the vacant convent of St. Margaret Mary Church to the Muslim American Society for $750,000 – came amid a national
controversy over efforts to construct a mosque near Ground Zero.
Americans finally have stood up and said no to Islamic Imperialism!
Tags: Blasphemy, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Ground Zero Mosque, Human Rights, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, MAS, Pamela Geller, Protesting, Robert Spencer, SIOA
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on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Free Speech, Islam.
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I’ll bet you he was whistling a different tune when the Catholic pedophile priest issue was the topic of discussion.
Wake Up, Little Jewsies
—apologies to the Everly Brothers and “Wake Up, Little Susie”
Wake up, little Jewsies, wake up
Wake up, little Jewsies, wake up
While you’ve been sound asleep,
Political attentions have creeped
Talk of what was lost back in the Holocaust
And everyone falls asleep
Wake up, little Jewsies
Wake up, little Jewsies
Well, antisemitism’s the oldest hatred
It comes back—what did you expect?
How you gonna defend yourself
Against the “politically correct?”
Wake up, little Jewsies
Wake up, little Jewsies
Well, I know that this time you really dreamed and hoped
At long last you weren’t the automatic scapegoat
Wake up, little Jewsies
Wake up, little Jewsies
No, nothing has changed
Wake up, little Jewsies, wake up
Wake up, little Jewsies, wake up
You expect the world to be fair,
But for injustices nobody cares
And instead they buy the flotilla lies
Of Khalidi, Dohrn and Bill Ayers
Wake up, little Jewsies
Wake up, little Jewsies
Well, antisemitism’s the oldest hatred
It comes back—what did you expect?
How you gonna defend yourself
Against the “politically correct?”
Wake up, little Jewsies
Wake up, little Jewsies
If this goes through Americans will be seen as weak, and it will be proof that they can use our own system against us.
This is ultimately a freedom of speech issue. A human rights violation is not taking place when you protest a religious institution, simply because it is a religious institution. And hate speech is only hate speech if it is gratuitous, false, and/or sets out only to enflame anger. Saying that MAS is simply the Muslim Brotherhood, and that a mosque will only increase the influence of the Brotherhood in America…is TRUE! Truth clearly cannot be hate speech.
Good article.
As Buzzsawmonkey has pointed out dozens of times, “human rights” is a red herring used to deny civil rights. People have a civil right, granted by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, to protest. No one has a “human right” to stop them.
Human rights, if the term ever meant anything useful and honest, is now but a cynical tool.
There is no place in this country for “human rights.” None.
“Human rights” are “rights” that are gifts from the government, grantable or revocable at will. Our Declaration, our Constitution, and our tradition decree that we have liberty—which means that we can do as we will, except insofar as the government absolutely must transgress on our personal liberty to keep the necessary public order—and the purpose of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is to limit the powers of government and to give us protection from and redress against the government should the government transgress (as all governments do) and exceed the powers granted to it.
There is no place whatsoever in this structure for “human rights.” We do not look to the government for our rights; we look to our rights to protect ourselves from the government.
Nobody who argues from a “human rights” perspective can be regarded as understanding the unique American form of government, or what rights American citizens have.
thanks delectable. the muzz and their fellow travelers have to be stopped.
this would be a great place to start.
If they have a right to build their stupid mosques then we have a right to evangelize them without getting thrown in jail and having video equipment confiscated.
Delectable wrote:
Oh, that is soooo it… Off to the William Ayer’s Memorial Community Re-education and Patriotic American Elimination Facility with you…
mjazz wrote:
Nope… Go join Delectable at the William Ayer’s Memorial Community Re-education and Patriotic American Elimination Facility…
free speech for me, but not for thee, sez the muzz and their supporters.
coldwarrior wrote:
Just like Mad King Yertle, who has decreed to his posters that he will “Muzzle ‘em for the Muslims.”
mjazz wrote:
Same basic issue: their “human rights” trump our civil rights. this is not only wrong, it’s illegal.
@ doriangrey:
noooo! no the WAMCRePAEF!
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Uh-oh. You referred to a piece of canine anatomy in the same sentence as a holy follower of The Prophet™. Off to the elimination camp with you.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
islam is not compatible with our constitution and traditions.
coldwarrior wrote:
Nor are “human rights”—regardless of the interest group demanding them.
coldwarrior wrote:
islam is not compatible with our constitution and traditions.
Even if that is so, that is not the point here. Islam could be a perfectly peaceful religion (say, like Buddhism), and yet a “human rights organization” would be remiss to write that a protest of a new mosque is a “human rights violation.”
This is not about human rights, even if Islam were the most peaceful religion on earth. It’s about our civil right to protest, which Buzzsawmonkey so eloquently explained.
coldwarrior wrote:
Sure it is, Just ask our emanate Constitutional Scholar and Chief (Pig Piss be upon him) Obama, the US Constitution is after all a suicide pact…
@ buzzsawmonkey:
@ Delectable:
no doubt. i certainly agree.
i’m gonna bet that if the catholic church were the ones being protested, there would crickets form the left
islam is a political movement. it is not a religion.
Delectable wrote:
Which is why Buzzsawmonkey’s next job is going to be as a front door greater at the William Ayer’s Memorial Community Re-education and Patriotic American Elimination Facility…
That case in Dearborn is a perfect example of how they would trample our rights given the opportunity. Suppose a firebomb crashes through your window and the muslim fire department takes two hours to arrive at the scene? You know, maybe you wrote a letter to the editor critical of something islamic. Don’t think it can’t happen here.
Outsiders might read this and think I’m nuts or paranoid, but this Christian maid in Pakistan got struck by her employer every time she refused to denounce Christ and when her mother tried to intervene, they set her on fire. These people are creeps. If 9/11 didn’t wake us up, what will?
@ coldwarrior:
Remember that the Ground Zero Mosque is not the only thing currently being sold as “human rights”; healthcare, same-sex marriage, mortgage guarantees, etc., etc.
doriangrey wrote:
Hey, it’s a job. Have you seen the latest figures?
@ buzzsawmonkey:
too many think the UN declaration of human rights trumps the constitution.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
You know the old Russian joke. “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us”. That’s our wonderful future under 100% state ownership.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
ROTFLMAO… I’ll be lucky to have the job holding your soap bucket as you wash the doors…
coldwarrior wrote:
The UN “Declaration of Human Rights” is a feeble feint to try and convince despotisms to occasionally go easy on their repressed subjects. It has nothing whatever to do with us.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
they way this govt is going…
Man Glen Beck is on a serious tear today… “Ever see that movie the Stand?” According to Glen, that’s where we are today…
Bravo. You have ably exposed Jeffrey Imm’s self-contradiction.
One small point: it’s “Geller,” not “Gellar.”
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Too true. The founding fathers didn’t even want rights enumerated in the Constitution because those rights come from God, not government. The first ten amendments were added in order to get the Constitution ratified. Good thing too, IMHO.
@ doriangrey:
Not quite. Obama hasn’t gotten to Las Vegas yet….
Robert Spencer wrote:
Are you by chance the Robert Spencer from Jihad-Watch? If so, it is genuinely an honor to see you here sir…
Robert Spencer wrote:
and good afternoon to you.
Rancher wrote:
Had our rights against the government not been secured in the Bill of Rights, we’d have been in much deeper excrement long before Obama.
Rancher wrote:
yeah, great call by those guys…they knew that govts could get evil real quick if there were no stops in place.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
No kidding. Obama feels that the Constitution is flawed because it says what the government can’t do instead of what it should do. Like provide healthcare and other “human rights”.
@ Rancher:
There was a lot of debate about the Bill of Rights. One side felt that if you didn’t have written restrictions on Government, then Government would grow to control nearly everything. The other side felt that if you enumerated the restrictions on the Government, then Government would grow as though those were the only restrictions on government. As it turns out, both sides were right. Look at how much trouble it has been to put any meaningful restrictions on the Government’s ability to restrict the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Despite the plain wording of the Second Amendment, it took over two hundred years to put any break on the Government’s ability to restrict individual rights, and even now we have barely started to defend this fundamental right. But imagine if there wasn’t a Second Amendment! We’d be well and truly screwed. Even though it should be obvious to anyone who has studied history that there is not only a fundamental right to self-defense, but that that right must encompass defense against a rogue State, there can be no doubt that without the Second Amendment there would be no right to keep and bear arms respected by this government. As is, it will be interesting to see if the Court ever protects it as strongly as the unenumerated right to abortion. Even with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, so much of what we unthinkingly refer to as the “Rule of Law” is arbitrary and capricious.
coldwarrior wrote:
What they knew from personal experience was that government cannot be trusted to not act in their own best interests even when their best interests conflict with the best interests of those being governed.
@ Iron Fist:
i always wondered why the 2nd amendment isnt as vociferously defended by certain types as the 1st amendment?
(rhetorical)
@ Iron Fist:
Speaking of the Second Amendment, whatever happened to those Guardsmen that were forcibly rounding up people’s guns after Katrina?
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Boy, howdy, has anti-semitism made a comeback! You should see the yahoo chats -- Europeans and muzz all over the world populate that site with the most hateful stuff imaginable -- all pretending to be Americans. It’s clear to me they really fear the US-Israel connection and are trying to sever it. It doesn’t matter that the government is doing a bangup job there -- they know the heart of the American PEOPLE are WITH Israel and they fear that!
One of you folks posted a link to a ad firm in California, hired by the UAE, to smear Israel. I want you to know I gave that link to a friend of mine who is a lawyer, who has passed that information to “those” who could be helpful in either exposing or halting these people altogether.
Rancher wrote:
Obama probably hired them to run the BAFT…
doriangrey wrote:
Errr BATF…
Of some note:
The commie Democrats and the MSM took the side of the VC and NVA back in the Vietnam war time, they will side with anyone who is anti-American. They are what they are and will always be, traitors.
Their siding with islamic ones of terror is not a suprise to me.
@ vapig:
heh…good move. the thread of lawyers is a fine tool.
Father Time,,,is now working more for U.S. than them. Each day more of the old 1960′s commies bite the “dust to dust” thingey.@ taxfreekiller:
Delectable wrote:
Thank you for the article and letter, Delectable. I haved to disagree with your definition of “hate speech” though. I really don’t care how hateful someones speech is -- it should be protected under our 1st Amendment. Speech that everyone agrees with doesn’t need protection -- it’s the objectinable that should be protected and exposed to light so people can make up their own minds.
Once you (and our government has already started down this road) label speech as hateful (mean?) then everything can be deemed hateful and banned with the full force of the law behind it. I also feel the same way about “hatecrime laws.” Crimes are already mean, hateful and ILLEGAL without tacking on extra gratuitous time because the criminal either said something to or their crime was against one of the protected classes of people. Fact is, we shouldn’t have pretoected classes of people!
Rancher wrote:
Nothing happened to them.
The city was successfully sued, however. They’ve basically ignored the verdict, and most of the guns are still sitting in cargo containers rusting away even today.
@ coldwarrior:
They are laying the groundwork for that. McDonald defines the Second Amendment as a “fundamental” right. If the Second Amendment doesn’t deserve the same level of protection as the First, why not? If it does deserve such protection, it is difficult to see much of any gun control actually being Constitutional. If we look at Roe v. Wade as a sweeping precedent, it becomes almost impossible to see Constitutional restrictions on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. If 12 year old girls have a right to an abortion without even informing their parents of the decision that they have made (or the need for such a decision at all), how can the court uphold that you must be 21 to purchase a pistol? After all, it is impossible to deny that an abortion stops a beating heart. No one is saying that you have an unlimited right to kill people with your guns. Just that as long as you don’t illegally kill anyone, they have no right to tell you what kind of gun you may own.
That seems reasonable to me…
For the children present and of the future…licence journaljizzers and humanities chairs now…before they murder the Republic any further
@ taxfreekiller:
@ taxfreekiller:
the triumph of death is unstoppable, even with all that botox…
@ vapig:
yeah…the hate speech/crime stuff is no good. too slippery is that slope
crime is crime.
doriangrey wrote:
I chose the old lady!
@ lobo91:
Instapundit had an interview with a Congresscritter (Republican, of course, but I’m not sure which branch) who said that he would be interested in legislation on the order of the Civil Rights Act to protect the Second Amendment rights of citizens from cities like Chicago. That would be cool, but I’d settle for them repealing the NFA and ’68 GCA. I don’t know that they could get it through, and Obama would probably veto it if they did right now, but it would be interesting to watch the Democrats squirm if they tried, wouldn’t it? A lot of the Class of 2006 gave lip service to the Second Amendnment when they were running. Make them actually vote on the issue. Do so early and often. Being pro-Second Amendment (and really pro-Second Amendment) won’t cost the Republicans any significant amount of votes, and those would be more than made up for by people who would turn out to vote for peopel who actually were defending their rights.
coldwarrior wrote:
LOL! Yeah -- there was two schools of thought even back then. The “heads in the clouds guys” who thought everyone was inherantly good and given liberty would be good little angels towards ona another -- and those who believed in original sin and that people could turn into evil selfish oafs real quick given the opportiunity and needed roadblocks to thwart them.
I’m with the second folks!
lobo91 wrote:
Nothing should have happened to them, I should have phrased the question “what ever happened to Ray Nagin”.
Iron Fist wrote:
As I pointed out in my blog post “Shall not be infringed.”
The progressive movement has been eroding this amendment since early on in the 20th century. Hiding their actions behind such vile and detestable terms as reasonable regulations and public safety.
The real truth is that the founding fathers left zero wiggle room regarding the regulation of firearms ownership. They made their thoughts on the subject absolutely crystal clear.
Our founding fathers would be mortally offended and insulted by our gun control laws, the idea of even restricting convicted felons of the right to own a gun would have been an offense that could not have tolerated. Their own published word make that indisputably clear.
@ doriangrey:
and class III holders never commit crime. ever.
@ Rancher:
He was re-elected as mayor, as I recall.
Which should have resulted in the immediate cutoff of all federal aid to the city, in my opinion…
coldwarrior wrote:
Neither do cancealed carry permit holders, for the most part.
@ Rancher:
The cops who enforced that unconstitutional order should have lost their jobs. Civil rights aren’t rights if the government is free to ignore them at a whim. There was nothing that happend during the aftermath of Katrina that merited the government confiscating citizens’ firearms. In fact, with the collapse of order and complete failure of local, State, and Federal Government, I’d say people needed their guns for self-protection more than they would have in a time that wasn’t an emergency. IIRC, the Courts said as much, but, as Lobo said, they are just ignoring what the Courts said.
lobo91 wrote:
hell..having the permit makes me think twice evry time i carry.
Rancher wrote:
I disagree -- what they did was illegal. Some punative action should have been taken. I do know four cops are up on first degree murder charges there. I don’t recall all the details but it seems to me they killed people they were trying to disarm.
Iron Fist wrote:
why should the govt listen to its citizens that are unarmed?
just sayin
again, if this were a clampdown on free speech, what would happen
coldwarrior wrote:
There is no evil so great on the face of the earth as that done to restrict the rights of those rights are stripped from them for their own protection.
@ Iron Fist:
While I agree that there was no valid reason for them to confiscate people’s weapons, you can’t really base the argument on civil rights grounds, because at the time it happened, that was not the prevailing view.
And it’s not the job of beat cops or National Guard members to make determinations of what orders they should or should not follow on Constitutional grounds.
@ mjazz:
That happened during Kristallnacht. The fire department didn’t come to put out the fires at the temples; instead they burned them to the ground.
@ Iron Fist:
True -- those people needed their guns. That city was overrun with gangs from surrounding states that came explicitely to loot a city they knew would be kaotic.
@ vapig:
The cops who enforced that order didn’t break any laws that were in effect at that time. Those who issued the order should have been held responsible, though.
And the cops who were charged with murder weren’t trying to disarm anyone. They shot people who were trying to cross a bridge into their town.
lobo91 wrote:
I honestly suggest that you stop dead in your tracks and seriously consider the stupidity of that statement, You have just made the argument every rational person on the face of the earth has not only rejected by ridiculed… “I was only following orders”… It didnt fly in Nuremberg in 1946 and it still doesnt fly…
Iron Fist wrote:
Well I was talking about the National Guardsmen but it’s all the same, they have all sworn to protect the constitution, it’s even in our oath to become correctional officers in New Mexico. However for a first responder to disobey an order during an emergency is going pretty far, I don’t know if I would have had the balls to do so.
i dont try to second guess anything that happened in NORLA during katrina.
every aspect of that situation was a mess…it was an interesting insight into the minds of certain types of americans when it hits the fan.
@ lobo91:
“I was just following orders” doesn’t cut it. Some of those cops following orders killed some people. From what I recall, they are facing murder charges. Cops have a lot of discretion in those kind of situations, and they chose poorly. If this were another civil right they violated, they’d be lucky if all they lost was their job.
lobo91 wrote:
Thanks for the clarification -- the story I read left it vague by also mentioning the gun confiscation. Those sorts of reporters like to write in such a way that “lead” a person to draw conclusions that were never exactly written in the article. Crossing the bridge wasn’t even mentioned.
lobo91 wrote:
You can’t seriously believe that that is a credible arguement.
Iron Fist wrote:
You must’ve read the same article I did!
@ doriangrey:
if i recall, confiscation was lawful in that situation.
@ doriangrey:
Gee…how did I know that you were going to say that?
And no, it’s not the same thing at all.
If you can’t grasp the difference between following an order to do something like shoot unarmed prisoners and the niceties of Constitutional law, there’s not much I can do for you.
The question of whether or not it was Constitutionally permissible to confiscate people’s weapons clearly wasn’t settled law, since it ended up being litigated afterwards.
If there was enough of a question that it had to be settled in the courts, it’s certainly not something a cop or national Guard member should be forced to determine.
coldwarrior wrote:
The NRA disagreed and successfully sued. I kid you not that if kaos ensued over a natural or national disaster I would probably be shot dead by some yahoo who thought it’s safer to disarm me than to trust me to only use the gun in self defense. I would never allow myself to be disarmed!
Iron Fist wrote:
What gives you the idea that I consider that a credible defense?
All I was doing was clarifying the facts of the incident. It had nothing to do with the New Orleans order to confiscate guns. They weren’t even New Orleans cops.
I’m pretty sure they’re all going to end up spending the rest of their lives in prison, where they belong.
coldwarrior wrote:
Try again…
New Orleans Mayor Admits Illegal Gun Confiscation
@ vapig:
lile i said, it wanst illegal to confiscate the guns in NORLA at that time.
they woulndt have got my guns either because i am smart enough to know WHEN TO LEAVE!
@ vapig:
And that would be a hard decision to make, wouldn’t it? Fortunately, now we have some guidance from the Courts. Hopefully, next time (because there will be a next time sooner or later) wiser heads will prevail over panic, and such orders won’t be given.
@ vapig:
Yes, they did, but that’s not the point.
At the time that incident took place, there was no law or precedent preventing them from doing so.
Now there is.
@ doriangrey:
litigated well after the fact. AND I AGREE IT WAS A BULLSHIT MOVE to take the guns
still isnt illegal at that time and place under their laws for emergencies.
mtc wrote:
Actually, according to the information at the central synagogue in Berlin, which I visited some years ago—now preserved as a ruin after the Nazis trashed it—during Kristallnacht the Berlin chief of police attempted to defend that building and several others from the Nazi mobs of Kristallnacht. He was, IIRC, later broken and imprisoned for doing so.
Remember that during Kristallnacht the Nazis had not yet consolidated their power. There were still individuals in Germany who attempted to use their authority to preserve genuine law and order, and they should be remembered and honored for attempting to do so.
lobo91 wrote:
Better try again…
@ Iron Fist:
A number of states--Louisiana included--have since passed laws that explicitly forbid their authorities from issuing orders like that now.
It was a really off the wall order, when I first heard it had happened I didn’t believe it and neither did the radio talk show host that I was listening to. I hope that had I been there I would have refused the order but it isn’t a given that the courts would have backed me up if I had been fired or court-martialed. NO settled the case, it wasn’t ruled on.
@ coldwarrior:
But now there is plenty of litigsation to access the situation with. If the mayor ordered the National Guard to go into the city and arrest or detain every black man on the street, no one would obey and whomever ordered such a thing would be cashiered post-haste. This is no different.
lobo91 wrote:
Sorry, try again…. Wait for it….wait for it…..wait for it….
unconstitutional
The US Constitution wasnt ratified yesterday, or last year, or even in 2008… Are you getting it yet? They admitted that their actions were unconstitutional, that means, yes there actually was a law against what they did, yes it was already illegal for them to confiscate peoples guns.
@ doriangrey:
As soon as you can show me a statute that existed prior to the date of the confiscations that specifically says that it’s illegal to confiscate weapons from citizens in the event of a natural disaster, I’ll agree with you. There is such a statute in Louisiana now, but it didn’t exist at the time.
And don’t bother citing the 2nd Amendment, because as I’ve said several times already, it’s not the job of cops or National Guard members on the street to make Constitutional determinations.
@ doriangrey:
you are being especially bullheaded today, have been boozin all day.
coldwarrior wrote:
True dat. If I saw a whopper mega 5 cat hurricane coming at me and had a weeks notice I’d be around 500 miles away by the time it hit! I have lots of family that lived in that area -- some in NOLA, some in places in Mississippi that were totally wiped off the map. Trust me -- no one was home when it hit!
Opened a can of worms here and now I’m going home. See ya all later.
Iron Fist wrote:
While it may have been foggy in NOLA, I fortunately live in an in-your-face open carry state. I don’t think the question would come up here.
Quit While You’re Ahead
@ vapig:
there is no honor lost in retreating form a storm like that.
Iron Fist wrote:
It’s no different now, because of legal determinations and laws that have been passed since then.
To use your example, would they have thought twice about following such an order in, say, Atlanta in 1870?
coldwarrior wrote:
How can you tell? I didn’t notice anything unusual…
@ doriangrey:
You can post links to Infowars all you want, but I’m not clicking on them.
coldwarrior wrote:
I haven’t been boozin all day and do get quite animated and excited when discussing the US Constitution.
Rancher wrote:
Have a great weekend!
infowars???
please. fucking lying bastard on that site.
coldwarrior wrote:
I kid you not that one of my cousins and her husband returned to their home (close to Gulf Port and close to the beach) and the only thing left was splintered remains of the stilts the home was on. They had flood insurance but the adjuster told them they were denied because the surge washed their home away and not a flood (??????!!!!).
Fortunately, the adjustor was a yankee and got hit with their southern charm when they invited him to eat off the BBQ grill they had brought with them. By the end of the meal (from people who clearly had NOTHING!) he had approved their claim!
snork wrote:
i got one of the those intractotools form cj!
@ lobo91:
Of course they would have obeyed the orders? Nathan Bedford Forrest’s troops followed his orders at Fort Pillow. Does that make it right? Things are different now. Anyone who obeys such orders now should be subject to the full force of the law for unlawfully violating the civil rights of American citizens.
I wasn’t questioning their authority, though that is tenuous. I am questioning their judgement. A reasonable man could look at the breakdown in the legal structures and reasonably conclude that obeying such orders put more people at risk. That discretion should have been used enforcing such an edict. That is well within the job description of either National Guard or (especially) professional law enforcement.
It is moot, now. Such an edict is unconstitutional and, in many jurisdictions, actually illegal. That is a good thing.
@ Iron Fist:
It’s absolutely not within the job description of National Guard members. The only training they receive that’s any different from the rest of the military is in crowd control tactics.
There’s no training in Constitutional law.
@ Iron Fist:
believe me, you dont want pvt smokie adjudicating the subtleties of law in a declared emergency zone from his hmmwv.
coldwarrior wrote:
Exactly.
Yes, someone in the chain of command should have questioned it.
But not the 20 year olds on the ground enforcing it.
lobo91 wrote:
Since when did ignorance of the law become a valid defense? OK, I’m off to do the boozin that coldwarrior refuses to do… (oh, and the infowar link was just the first convenient link to the article google displayed, the fact that infowar carried the article does not invalidate the article or the judges ruling.)
doriangrey wrote:
already one martini in!
lobo91 wrote:
I was just following orders… still doesnt work…
@ coldwarrior:
Better than his, say, shooting someone who refused to turn over their rifle. Fortunately that didn’t happen here, but it was certainly a possibility. I don’t want officers or civillian leadership giving these orders. And now, as I think we all agree, there is plenty to go on legally. Anyone who gave such orders now should be court martialled if they are millitary, or arrested if they are civillian.
lobo91 wrote:
full colonel or someone from JAG would be appropriate there.
they are ‘officers’ after all and have that sort of authority.
Iron Fist wrote:
NOW ya got a right to refuse that is ingrained in the training.
good did come from this, the law is very clear now.
Gotta go, gang--Shabbos calls.
Remember that “human rights” are a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
oh, and the bar is open…martini’s anyone?
coldwarrior wrote:
Chill that djinn, baby…
lobo91 wrote:
I hope someone in the chain of command does more than question it, when zero tries to put the full force of law enforcement and the military on us when he declares martial law and starts rounding up people, like a dictatorial sob.
@ coldwarrior:
“When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpecual peace.
“They swore, if we gave up our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
“But when we disarmed they sold us and delivered us bound to our foe’
“And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘Stick to the Devil you know.’”
coldwarrior wrote:
I think I’ll go for quadruple rum & coke, or whiskey sour.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
joyous sabbath!
FurryOldGuyJeans wrote:
clear or spiced rum?
appleton or bacardi
Empire1 wrote:
yep…the bigger question here is why havent NOLA given back the guns or why should they bother, the citizenry has lost its arms, therefore lost its threat of real violence and unrest against the tyrants.
@ coldwarrior:
That situation is actually a good example of why you don’t want the military involved in law enforcement actions against civilians.
The most they should have been doing is supporting the civilian cops. They never should have been out there on their own going into people’s houses.
Funny how conservative dissent is unpatriotic (well not that funny).
coldwarrior wrote:
Montego Bay Gold Rum, actually. I’m a cheap drunk.
But do like Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum, Bacardi Spiced is good, too. Just way too expensive with the Washington State liquor sin taxes.
@ coldwarrior:
Why do Democrat politicians do anything? Because they can.
@ lobo91:
exactly, have the guard in hmmwv drive one leo around…and support his actions
This is interesting:
If all this were reversed (white intimidators, white Republican Administration), this would probably bring down the President. I certainly don’t expect it to get that far with Obama, but it is going to be interesting to see how far the Republicans take it before they pussy out.
unclassifiable wrote:
19 months ago, and the 8 years prior, it was the height of patriotism to dissent. Now the Progressives want anyone who even hints at dissent rounded up.
@ unclassifiable:
Progressives are totalitarian.
coldwarrior wrote:
Yup. You might, maybe, get me to buy into letting MPs do something like that.
But not just random troops.
lobo91 wrote:
NO.
NO.
NO.
and i was an MP.
NO NO please NO.
not enough legal training outside the ucmj
FurryOldGuyJeans wrote:
amazing, no?
/
coldwarrior wrote:
One here, please!
@ FurryOldGuyJeans:
Wray & Nepheww Rum & Coke
Rough week in Commufornia.
@ vapig:
coming up:
2.5 oz stoli crystal 100proof
dash of sweet vermouth
dash of dry vermouth
stir vigorously in ice, pour into frozen martini glass, garnish with one kalamata olive and one cocktail onion
enjoy
unclassifiable wrote:
comming up:
3 oz wray and nephew
6 oz mexican coke a cola (cane sugar not hfcs)
ice
twist lime garnish.
@ Iron Fist
Hey if a Caucasian said what Sherrod said with race roles reversed, you’re damn straight it would be “racist” — no question about it.
@ coldwarrior:
Gracias. Gulp. Keep it coming (hic).
@ unclassifiable:
cheers!
i’m not up on my rums…gotta do some research
@ Rodan:
Progressives ain’t.
@ coldwarrior:
Not good to smoke with this stuff. Fire hazard.
BTW Take the extra w off of Nepheww. Typo on my droid.
Facebook admits to “automatic” of anti-Islamic posts:
http://www.thejidf.org/2010/07/cnn-facebook-admits-automated-censoring.html
PIMF
automatic deleting. Maybe I should take up drinking.
unclassifiable wrote:
Unless said Caucasian is a mu’min, of course. Because, you know, Bosniak is the new Black!
yenta-fada wrote:
*urp*
As good an excuse as any, what with the prospects for severely bad political times ahead.
unclassifiable wrote:
i did and put up the link for it to make up for the spelling error
coldwarrior wrote:
You see, the Democratic Party is the Party of the Black Man.
Thus, if you dissent from its platform, you are an incorrigible racist colonialist bigot who is probably a Christian Taliban.
FurryOldGuyJeans wrote:
Can’t drink. Can’t smoke. Can’t run around. Can’t think what bad habit that might actually help.
Philip_Daniel wrote:
Aaaaand an oldie but goodie…Mike Wallace and Morgan Freeman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3cGfrExozQ&feature=player_embedded
@ Philip_Daniel:
Race is now relative (to whatever situation you need to play the race card to stifle dissent).
@ Philip_Daniel:
thats me! reactionary american
yenta-fada wrote:
Live Free and Conservative, pisses off the Progressives.
FurryOldGuyJeans wrote:
OMG. Up here in Canada if I did that, I wouldn’t have any friends left. Not to mention family members.
coldwarrior wrote:
Oh hell no. Rita came just weeks after that and left massive destruction where I live. Was there rioting here….no. We helped each other. And no I didn’t stay the few people I did know who stayed said they would never stay again. Trust me in the fact evacuation is a nightmare. It took 9 hours to travel just two hours north of here. Yet people were still helping each other along the way.
@ yenta-fada:
Just be a full time conservative anus. The
proregressives will attribute it to one of those vices (plus some mental defects for good measure) and it will be as if you actually had “issues”.unclassifiable wrote:
Whadya mean? I GOT issues.
I’m here, aren’t I? It’s a meeting place for people with issues. We just have the right issues.
Do@ Lily:
10 hour trip to Dallas I took was considered fast.
BTW Cats & MILs don’t do evac well.
Islam should be outlawed. I know some will say that is against the 1st amendment but it is fundamentally why we left England to begin with. It is a Church endorsing a Government, or is it the other way around… This is not just the State endorsing a Religion, it is the State being the Religion and should be banished from the land forever and without reprieve as it is fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution of the USofA. I find it funny that while the left argues against a baby in the manger, they seem to be fine with a totalitarian and militant religious group bent on ruling the country, oh wait that is just the Christians that they are worried about because they have a long and recent history of Stonings, Beheadings, Bombings and general terror and mayhem.
BBFN droid is running out of juice.
@ Philip_Daniel:
That’s true when I was growing up, the Bosnials and Turks were considered Black by the 5percenter Muslims. Even though they were white, by being Muslim, they found their inner Blackness! Islam is for the Black Man, that’s why the Kaaba is black!
That’s what they claimed.
@ rgranger:
islam is not a religion, its a political movement
snork wrote:
Any ideology whose adherents put out a fatwa against DOGS (I am not kidding, it happened quite recently) is clearly insane.
coldwarrior wrote:
AND a pathology, IMO.
rgranger wrote:
It would probably take a Constitutional amendment narrowly focused on Islam to outlaw Islam without opening the door to government restrictions against the practice of Christianity and Judaism at some point in the future. But I’m with you on that.
FurryOldGuyJeans wrote:
I’ll go for a little whiskey, neat.
Lily wrote:
9 hours is a walk in the park, I spent over 20 hours inching along during the Rita evacuation. I live near Beaumont.
doriangrey wrote:
I thought every government official, at all levels, had to take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and (if under State jurisdiction) the Constitution of their State.
If beat cops or National Guard members aren’t being required to take such an oath, that needs to be changed PDQ.
It is not just the SCOTUS that is charged with evaluating whether something is Constitutional and acting accordingly. It is ALL government officials. For that matter, it’s every citizen’s duty to abide by the Constitution.
Bordm wrote:
Yep because Houston was evacuating and some were towards Louisiana….it was gridlock. My friend who met up with me here to go to Alexandria was from Houston took her 10 hours for the two hour trip to here then another 9 hours from here to get to Alexandria….what a trip that was. (hubby knew all the back roads and even those were bumper to bumper) we stayed off I-10.
Bordm wrote:
That was a hell of an evac on Rita wasn’t it?…..you don’t live far from me.
Rodan wrote:
Anyone who asserts that, according to canonical Islamic scripture and exegetical works, is “guilty” of fabricating an unjust bid’ah outside the boundaries of the tenets of tawhid as “revealed” in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and thus is “guilty” of shirk al-hakimiyyah (polytheism of legislation) and kufr al-istibdaal (disbelief of trying to substitute Shari’a with man-made laws). The term for such a zalim (transgressor), according to Shari’a, is a zand (a heretic) and what’s more, a murtadd and mohareb…
NOI has committed among the worst varieties of kufr and shirk, of taghoot and zulm, of dhulm and fusooq and fitnah and fasaad according to orthodox Sunnism…
Zanadiqa must invariably be killed, per the commands of rasul’allah in the sahih ahadith…
@ Lily:
It was interesting to say the least. I was amazed by the number of people who did not have a map. I had a crowd around me, wanting to see where we were on my map. 95% of the people around me were very nice and friendly, after all we were all stuck in the same mess. There were a few assholes and I loved the remarks that were made about them. It was pretty funny at times.
@ 1389AD:
I thought every government official, at all levels, had to take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and (if under State jurisdiction) the Constitution of their State.
Then please explain Keith Ellison.
@ Bordm:
Oh my they didn’t have a map? Thankfully when we do have to evac either to Texas or more north up in Louisiana the maps are in both me and my husbands heads. Try and take the off beaten path to avoid most of the bumper to bumper evacuations. On the evac for Rita…there was no road that wasn’t bumper to bumper. Yeah it was interesting to say the least..we didn’t come across any a$$holes at all. Everyone like you said was in the same mess. Now restrooms were to say the least hard to find all gas stations had lines and lines of cars and so did the lines to the restrooms…..oh boy…I’ll never forget Rita.
@ Lily:
The kicker was, I had some friends that left just ahead of the storm and they got there about the same time as I did. Yeah, I’d say less then an hour away if you are on the west side of Lake Charles, a bit more if on the east side. I’m about 12 miles south of Beaumont, in a little spot in the road called LaBelle.
@ Bordm:
I’m about 45 minutes away from Beaumont in small town called Sulphur.
So you and me got damage from Rita…our house was fine except for a huge tree limb in the patio cover, one huge tree went down in our yard but away from the house and into the street, our fence was knocked down. The tree damage was massive you should have seen the streets….if felt like you were driving through tunnels once people came home and started to clean up and repair. At least 6 to 7 ft high of tree limbs and brush on both sides of the street lined nearly every street in town. One house just two doors away had 3 trees crash into it. Pines they snapped midway…from the strong wind. If I never hear a chainsaw again I will be fine oh never hear the sounds of new roofs being but on either.
@ Bordm:
No kidding I had some friends leave that Friday of the morning that the storm hit that night of and she said I-10 was clear sailing all the way. We left that Thursday mid-morning….
@ Lily:
Rita ripped half my roof off, Ike only broke a couple windows. I’m not looking forward to spending several weeks listening to generators again. On the other hand the MRE parties were fun.
Lily wrote:
Same here but we left around 5:30 or 6:00 PM, one of the members of my convoy was supposed to be ready to leave that morning. When I went be to get her, she was running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, it took the rest intervening hours for me to do what she was supposed to have done the day before. Oh well, no good deed goes unpunished. It’s actually a long but extremely (now) funny story.
Bordm wrote:
Oh good lord I forgot the about the generators….magically our didn’t even lose a shingle. We stayed for Ike..not much damage at all here some pretty good winds though..you got board up those windows!
I guess living along the coast you just have that instinct of when to go and when you know you can handle it. On Rita I saw how it was tracking and knew it was going to hit right down the Texas and Louisian border line and it was going to pack a punch. Even a blood moon was out before Rita…felt it in my bones.
Bordm wrote:
Oh wow we traveled in a convoy also. The day before we left I told the husband it was going to hit here and he needed to board up the windows he didn’t listen to me and didn’t think it would hit here.
….of course I had everything else ready.
Well the next day when mandatory evac was issued he came home from work and was having to board up all the windows as fast as he could (he should have listened to my bones)
@ Lily:
I stayed for Ike also, cat 2 with cat 5 surge. Rita was a cat 5. I’ll stay in a cat 2, I’ll think hard about leaving in a cat 3. Cat4 and up, no contest, I’m running like a scalded cat. I might be a bit crazy but I’m far from stupid.
Bordm wrote:
Yeah I think we are both far enough inland to avoid the surge Cat 1 or Cat 2 I’m with you there but if they were at one time a Cat 5 they would still be packing some punch. I suppose it is just a way of life around here and many people don’t understand. No one needs to tell us when to evac…all you have to do is look at the storm on the radar and what the winds are and you know. I’m not stupid either.
I make sure I stock up on things.
The funny thing with Ike is the only storm my friend from Houston and I didn’t meet up together with. It has been a standing thing for us we go through storms together. She stayed in Houston and when I talked to her she said never again. We stay together through these damn storms.
I told her you broke the tradition. We have been best friends for 33 years. I don’t think she’ll break with storm tradition again.
@ Lily:
Both sides of my family have been down here since they were kicked out of Nova Scotia. My mom’s family ended up south of Abbeville, my dad’s family moved to Texas (from La) in the 1820′s. I grew up on stories of the big storms and Cajun lore.
Bordm wrote:
So did I. Audrey especially because my mom and grandparents went through it. The National Weather Service screwed up on that one. Told the people of Cameron it would be safe to evacuate the next day. When the people of Cameron woke up early to evac water was nearly in there houses. Audrey picked speed and strength during the night before anyone could evac and about 500 people died. Then they blamed it on people just not evacuating. Looked into the history of that storm as I got older. Many of my grandparents friends died because they NWS cut it too close on evacuation. Grandfather was mayor of Vinton and the eye went right over….heard many, many tales of that storm and others.
The underlining message was TAKE HURRICANES SERIOUSLY.
So you have some cajun in you huh? So do I.
Wow, I was talking with one of my cousins about Audrey earlier today. She was caught in it too, she said the same thing you did. Both sides of my family are Cajun, though there is a little bit of swamp Irish on my mom’s side.
@ Bordm:
Irish on my father’s side, cajun on my mother’s side.
On Audrey…it was a terrible thing the National Weather Service did.
Not so much that they got it wrong…but they lied and said it was because the people of Cameron didn’t want to evacuate. These people took storms seriously. But to lie and cover up their mistake is like spitting on them.
Lily wrote:
Bureaucrats and liberals never admit when they make a mistake. Some things are constant and that’s one of them.
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