Eliminating The Remains (UPDATED)

     A number of years ago – just after the first inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, in fact – I wrote:

     To say that some public policy must not be changed is to say that it is right and necessary: right meaning "not a violation of the rights of the unconsenting," and necessary meaning "the costs, however measured, of dismantling it would be unacceptable." But to shout down those who disagree, or to manipulate elections to deny conservatives their fairly earned victories, is by liberals' own standards a denial of others' rights. Not only is this hypocrisy -- "we'll respect your right to disagree as long as you refrain from using it" -- it's a revelation of liberals' deep convictions about both rightness and practicality:

Liberal Conviction #1: Only liberals have rights.
Liberal Conviction #2: What advances the liberal vision is good regardless of its practical effects.

     ...Over the next four years, the "desiccated remains" of Americans' traditional freedom will come under ever more intense assault. This is guaranteed by liberals' assumption of their moral superiority and the steadily accumulating evidence against the beneficence and benevolence of liberal policies. Conservatives and libertarians must expect harsher and harsher attempts, both within and without the law, to silence them and to defraud them of victories at the polls. Violence will be involved more and more often as liberals' failures mount.

     What I did not foresee was that the real, all-stops-out effort to suppress conservatives’ freedom of expression and their exercise of the franchise in a fair election would follow the Obama Interregnum. Indeed, it’s much more intense today than it has ever been. Moreover, it’s ceased to be a covert undertaking. It’s poised for a “battle of the bulge” magnitude offensive. Here’s a bit of evidence:

     Terry Smith, a visiting professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, offers a different response in his new book, "Whitelash: Unmasking White Grievance at the Ballot Box." Rather than excuse racist voters or try to figure out how to live with their choices, he argues that racist voting is not just immoral, but illegal. The government, Smith says, has the ability, and the responsibility, to address it....

     "When voters go to the booth, they're not expressing a mere personal preference," Smith told me. According to Smith, voters who pull the levers to harm black people are violating the Constitution. If the Constitution means that overt racist appeals undermine the legality of union elections, it stands to reason that they undermine the legality of other elections, as well.

     I submit that no deep analysis of this citation is required.

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     I’ve cited the following passage more than once, but in light of the material in the previous segment it is massively relevant yet again:

     [W]e are told that there is no need to fear the concentration of power in government so long as that power is checked by the electoral process. We are urged to believe that so long as we can express our disagreement in words, we have our full rights to disagree. Now both freedom of speech and the electoral process are important to liberty, but alone they are only the desiccated remains of liberty. However vigorously we may argue against foreign aid, our substance is still drained away in never-to-be-repaid loans. Quite often, there is not even a candidate to vote for who holds views remotely like my own. To vent one's spleen against the graduated income tax may be healthy for the psyche, but one must still yield up his freedom of choice as to how his money will be spent when he pays it to the government. The voice of electors in government is not even proportioned to the tax contribution of individuals; thus, those who contribute more lose rather than gain by the "democratic process." A majority of voters may decide that property cannot be used in such and such ways, but the liberty of the individual is diminished just as much as in that regard as if a dictator had decreed it. Those who believe in the redistribution of wealth should be free to redistribute their own, but they are undoubtedly limiting the freedom of others when they vote to redistribute theirs.

     [Clarence Carson, The American Tradition]

     Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch will already be aware of the Left’s various sallies against free expression, especially as practiced on the World Wide Web. Those thrusts have succeeded to an ominous extent, so further pressure against the free expression of opinion from the Right may confidently be expected. The Left is unabashed about its aim to silence “hate speech,” by which it means any expression of opinion it dislikes. Couple that to the opinion of “Professor” Smith as expressed above that voting can and should be limited according to the Left’s assessment of the voters’ “racism.” Note that that opinion was provided to us by a major media corporation. What does all this tell us? What can it tell us, other than that the desiccated remains of Americans’ freedom are under an assault intended to be sweeping and permanent?

     Don’t wave it aside as harmless blather, unlikely ever to command any significant power. We once said that about the income tax, the welfare state, and the right to keep and bear arms. The danger is real and daily draws nearer. They who would rule over us in all things, absolutely and permanently, are measuring the remains of our freedom for its coffin.

     Spread the word.

     UPDATE: Here’s a bit more evidence of the Left’s intentions, in case you had any remaining doubts. I rest my case.

Making The Right Enemies

     It’s easier to assess a man, or an institution, according to who assails him / it than by any other method. Gab, the completely-free-speech Twitter competitor, has the Social Media Establishment and their enablers in something of a panic. Their condemnations of Gab have been many, lurid...and almost entirely untrue. But Gab, it develops, was only the first chapter in an increasingly dramatic story.

     The Gab development team recently released Dissenter, a commenting system not unlike Disqus except for one critical feature: whereas a Web page must add Disqus to itself for Disqus comments to appear there, Dissenter takes the opposite approach. One registers a URL – any URL – with Dissenter and it becomes possible to post comments about the page at that URL!

     For the moment, logging into Dissenter requires a Gab account. There are two ways to make use of it: directly, through the Dissenter Website, or through a browser extension. Extensions are available for Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and several other browsers. Once installed, the Dissenter extension permits the user to bring up the Dissenter comment stream for whatever URL has caught his interest. In neither case can the proprietors of a URL that has been registered with Dissenter do the least thing about it.

     The ability of tendentious, biased Websites to exclude commentary, whether selectively or in toto, has been destroyed forever. Dissenter doesn’t need anyone’s permission to establish a comment stream for a registered URL. And as you might expect, the Left’s bastions on the Web, which depend on their ability to exclude unfavorable commentary, are furious. They’re calling Gab, Dissenter, and those associated with them “everything but white.” Here’s an example:

     Gab, the social network of the far right, has extended its free-speech platform with a tool that allows users to bypass “rampant corporate censorship” and comment on almost anything, the company said Tuesday.

     Called Dissenter, the new service lets users comment on news articles, YouTube videos and even individual social media posts — even if those sites don’t have comment sections or have comments switched off.

     The article is worth reading to grasp the degree of hatred VICE has for anyone to the right of V. I. Lenin. And of course, Dissenter users are having a blast lampooning the VICE article in Dissenter’s comment stream.

     Get yourself a Gab account, even if only to have access to Dissenter. Registration is free. You won’t regret it.

Get On Gab And Help To Defend It!

     A Gab user has just captured the following on Twitter:

     How much do you value freedom of expression in the digital domain?

The Battle For Freedom Of Expression

     The real freedom of any individual can always be measured by the amount of responsibility which he must assume for his own welfare and security. – Robert Welch

     God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. – Daniel Webster

     The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. – Thomas Jefferson

     It would be easy to say “Freedom of expression? Yeah, we’ve got that already.” The First Amendment, don’t y’know. The Left would purely love that. It opens the door to word-mincing of a sort they’ve made their specialty. The legislative-political campaign against freedom of expression is based on reinterpreting the plain language of that amendment to omit protection of “hate speech:” i.e., anything the Left dislikes.

     No, they haven’t gotten very far with that approach in the legislatures or the courts. That’s why we’ve been reading about open street warfare. “Antifa” and “Black Bloc” thugs haven’t been attacking persons of a conservative, libertarian, or otherwise pro-freedom inclination because we’re breaking some law; they’re doing it because we aren’t — and they purely hate it that other Americans are listening to us.

     Up to recently, the thugs have had their way. Those they’ve attacked have scurried meekly away, tails between their legs. Speakers they’ve disliked have been forced to cancel scheduled appearances for fear of their lives and the lives of their supporters. Only in the most recent encounters have the scales begun to tip the other way.

     But they are tipping the other way. It’s not only a heartening, positive development; it’s a reminder of a basic truth about freedom of any sort: It must be exercised as frequently as possible, lest simple neglect cause it to pass into desuetude.

     They who have taken up cudgels against the thugs are not “securing” our freedom of expression. Freedom cannot be secured; it can only be exercised – and the most important exercises of any specific freedom occur when it’s being violently opposed. We are regaining our freedom of expression, reasserting it by exercise, for one overriding reason: the willingness of patriots to do physical battle in the streets against those who would silence us.

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     This morning, Kurt Schlicter declaims thus:

     Liberals should be ashamed of themselves, but then they wouldn’t be liberal if they were born with shame genes. So, since we patriots are the only ones who actually support free speech, what do we patriots do to protect it?

     Whatever it takes.

     We fight peacefully in the political arena, in the courts, and in the shrinking marketplace of ideas while we can, but we must also be ready to fight in the streets when those punky puffboys try to shut us up. No quarter, no compromise, no surrender – we fight and win, or they shut us up forever.

     Look, the left has told us what it wants – the power to force us to be silent and submit. That’s not wacky supposition; that’s not fevered imagination. They are open about their agenda, and it’s happening before our eyes. To pretend that our republic is not facing an existential threat from progressives who would use violence to silence their political opponents is to willfully ignore the evidence, just like a climate cultist ignores cold weather. And the violence has already begun: in fact, it is key to their plan for a free speech-free future. Today it’s gangs of masked thugs attacking us. Tomorrow, it’s uniformed men with guns – or at least those few spineless cowards among our security forces will ignore their oaths to defend the Constitution in exchange for a paycheck and a pension – dragging us off to jail for illegal speech. Or worse.

     That’s as plainly as it could possibly be said. Nor is there anything about it to repel the man of unclouded mind. Every freedom comes with an associated responsibility: the responsibility to defend the exercise of that freedom, by any and every available means. If violence should be required, violence must be used.

     The implications for the immediate future are grim. There will be bloodshed. Indeed, blood has already been shed, though as far as I’m aware no one has yet been killed in one of these street encounters. There will be reams of angry rhetoric and numerous calls for governments to “do something.” Families will be divided as they were at the time of Christ (Cf. Matthew 10:34-35). And the clashes will get worse, possibly much worse, before they get better.

     Only two outcomes are possible. Which one you prefer will depend upon how much you value the freedom of expression. Ponder well whether you might have a personal interest in exercising it some day.

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     When I wrote that:

     A man is free if, and only if, he has the unchallenged right to do as he damned well pleases with his life, his property, and with any other responsible, consenting adult, provided only that he respects the equal freedom of all other men. That clearly includes the right to buy space for a political ad from any newspaper or broadcast organ willing to sell it to him.

     ...I was thinking only of challenges to freedom of expression from a government or governments. Today’s “privatized” struggle over who may speak and be heard is of a different color, yet the issues are exactly the same. If a preponderance of force is all that will preserve that right, then we who love freedom must choose between mustering such a preponderance or surrendering. That our opponents are “private” thugs makes no essential difference.

     Mobilized, violent minorities have reduced other nations to totalitarian tyrannies. We fought a hot war against one such nation and a cold war against another. Now a violent minority has mobilized to snuff out freedom of expression in our own land. It has financial backing and political protectors. We don’t yet know how far its street troops are willing to go to have their way.

     It’s time to rise to the challenge.

No Law Abridging

     [I have a heavy schedule before me today, so please forgive yet another resuscitation from the ancient past. In this case the ancient past is December 12, 2003, when the following essay first appeared at the late, deeply lamented Palace of Reason. In light of the current foofaurauw over “free speech” versus “hate speech,” it strikes me as timely. -- FWP]

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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 citation is, of course, Amendment I to the Constitution, an integral part of the document and one of the most revered legal proscriptions, both in theory and in practice, in the history of the world. There are only two possibilities for interpreting that passage:

1. It means what it says;
2. It means nothing.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

     The second citation is from Article VI of the Constitution of the United States. It's the most important paragraph in the whole document, for it sets the dictates of the Constitution above all other considerations. There are only two possibilities for interpreting this passage:

1. It means what it says;
2. It means nothing.

     The late Associate Justice Hugo Black liked to say "I have always read 'no law abridging' to mean 'no law abridging.'" He said it often. And indeed, it is rather difficult to evade the plain meaning of those three plain words.

     If the Constitution means what it says -- that is, if choice 1 in both cases above is the correct one -- then two days ago, the Supreme Court declared itself to be a lawless organ in service to a totalitarian State. The five Justices who voted to uphold the clearly unConstitutional McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act placed their notions of "compelling government interest" and "the good of society" above the Supreme Law Of The Land, which for two centuries it has been the Court's sworn duty to safeguard.

     Let that thought sink in for a moment. Five Justices of the Supreme Court have abrogated the very contract from which their authority and responsibilities derive. There's no room for hedging here. They didn't just interpret an ambiguity in the Constitution in a way that, though novel, could be squared with the public meanings of words and the traditions of Constitutional law. They dropped the document in the mud and pissed on it.

     No, it isn't the first time, only the most egregious. Only the most appalling.

     It appears that power has gone to the Justices' heads. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes once said, "We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is." The warning sounded by this statement has gone unheeded.

     As long as freedom of speech and of the press were respected, there was a chance that the country might rally, might right itself and demand the rolling-back of government's usurped powers in a voice too loud to be ignored. If matters as of Tuesday are permitted to remain as they are, that chance is gone.

     The Supreme Court is not alone in its perfidy. The McCain-Feingold Act passed by hefty margins in both houses of Congress. President Bush signed it. The three supposedly counterpoised branches of the federal government have colluded to nullify the Constitution from which they derive their powers.

     Perhaps the legislative authors of the bill hoped that President Bush would rescue them by vetoing it. If so, they misled themselves.

     Perhaps President Bush hoped that the Supreme Court would rescue him by striking the Act down on First Amendment grounds. If so, he misled himself.

     The five Justices in Tuesday's majority had nothing to hope for. Nor does the country, unless We The People rise in anger and defiance. If this Supreme Court ruling is not completely disregarded by the press -- if it is not the explicit subject of an overwhelming campaign of civil disobedience -- the word "freedom" will have lost all meaning for Americans.

     A man is not free because he's permitted to vote for his political masters. The subjects of the late, unlamented Soviet Union enjoyed that "right." So did the subjects of Saddam Hussein.

     A man is not free because some portion of his earnings is still his to spend on a variety of attractive goods. Not if the government can punish him for choosing goods it has not approved.

     A man is not free because the long arm of the law has not yet descended on his neck. That's more properly called a stay of execution.

     A man is free if, and only if, he has the unchallenged right to do as he damned well pleases with his life, his property, and with any other responsible, consenting adult, provided only that he respects the equal freedom of all other men. That clearly includes the right to buy space for a political ad from any newspaper or broadcast organ willing to sell it to him.

     So long as speech was protected, Americans could claim with some justice that we were in some sense free. If Tuesday's Supreme Court decision prevails, we will not be able to call ourselves even partly free. We will be a people in chains. Chains forged to protect incumbents from having their records in office publicized in the press as they stand for election. Chains forged to increase the power of the Old Media, granting their journalists and editors the last word on political campaigns. Chains forged by (and for) men to whom "the people" are not only not sovereign, but are a force to be fastened down and made to do as they're told by those who know better.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home.... We ask not your council or your arms.... May your chains [sit] lightly on you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams

     "No law abridging" means no law abridging!

Moo-oo! Don't you LOVE the sound of skewered feminist-sacred-cows in the morning!

As one of many supporters of "The Red Pill" (including the humble founder of Liberty’s Torch, whose name I spotted in the credits, but not mine, because I guess I was too much of a cheapskate to qualify for that perk), and now a recent pre-release viewer, I presumed (like I imagine director Cassie Jaye did) going on this documentary-adventure would hold no big surprises for me.

LOL

My arrogance came, I suppose, because I was "Red-Pilled" a while back. I thought I knew enough not to be surprised - or impressed. But turns out her film did both! I became aware of the Men’s Rights Movement (via avoiceformen.com) in late 2011 - participating actively there for several years: commenting often and writing a few pieces that Paul Elam published on the site. (The photo-collage within the collage, above, is of me with just a few of the amazing people I met at AVfM's 1st International Conference on Men's Issues, held outside Detroit, in 2014.)

A most remarkable thing about documentary creator, Cassie Jaye, is that she is a young woman who boldly went where most of her Feminist sisters will never go...to their ideological opposition. Even more radical, was HOW she went: NOT screaming, NOT blockading, and NOT making threats of violence, but rather, with a willingness to listen. To learn. And to reconsider, even jettison, intellectual inconsistencies, without regard for the personal paradigm-shifts such honesty can bring...

Based upon my experience, both in the world of the Men's Rights' Movement and in watching this film about it, I can guarantee 100% that you will learn something unique and valuable. And because I believe this so strongly, I’m very confident that if you watch it with an open mind (and heart) - intuitively grasping the significance - you will become a better person for having done so. I hope you will take the transformative Red-Pill journey made possible by this amazing young filmmaker, and then pass it on to others.

If you can bear the entirety of my 1900-word review/analysis, please visit my blog: housewife3-0.com.