Tim Dunkin
Why do Democrats and left-wingers hate the First Amendment?
By Tim Dunkin
Left-wingers hate the Constitution. You know it. I know it. Anybody with any sense knows it. Their disdain for the 2nd amendment is manifest for all to see. Despite supposedly being a bunch of hippies, they've never passed up an opportunity to expand the police powers of the state at the expense of the 4th amendment. The 10th amendment – never heard of it. Those on the Left can't be bothered to even assure that their presidential candidates meet the Article II, Section 1.5 requirements for presidential eligibility.
Yet, many on the Right have always assumed that at least the liberals would draw the line at the 1st amendment. Maybe it was because they always raise such a fuss about "Bible thumpers" trying to "force everyone to go to church" while making their childish and ridiculous arguments about "the constitutional provision for the separation of church and state" that people just naturally assumed that liberals would not cross this particular line for fear that we do it back to them whenever we got back into power ourselves. Perhaps it was the assumption on the part of many that because the left-wing controls the press, by for the most part, that they would naturally be more sensitive to infringements upon speech and press rights.
Then, there are those of us who knew better.
Having seen the Left push for "Hush Rush" laws to muzzle talk radio for nearly two decades, I fail to see how anyone could continue under the delusion that liberals support free speech. Were folks on our side of the aisle ignoring the politically correct speech codes used on college campuses all across America to shut down freedom of thought and expression? Could there be any doubt that, given the flimsiest of opportunities, the Left in this country wouldn't make an effort to shut down anyone who disagrees with them? Of course not. It ought to be apparent to anyone who observes liberals in this country that half of them are psychopathic fascists and the other half are ignorant dupes who do whatever the psychopathic fascists tell them to do.
So it was with very little surprise that I saw this recent development in which a US Attorney from Eric Holder's "Justice" Department for the Eastern District of Tennessee argues that posting "inflammatory" comments about Muslims or Islam on social media violates federal civil rights laws, and that this trumps the constitutional protections of free speech and a free press. The federal government is actually preparing to argue that American citizens can be prosecuted for saying things that Muslims don't like. Five years ago, that would have seemed unbelievable. But what does one expect from a government headed by a man who famously told the United Nations last year that "the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." Apparently our Manchurian Muslim Pres__ent intends to act on that promise. After all, why else would Obama be appointing a record number of Muslims with ties to radical terrorist organizations to positions in our government? Why else would this administration be instructing law enforcement agencies to ignore Islamic terrorism, while focusing on conservative Christians and Tea Partiers? Why has the judicial Left been countenancing the introduction of theocratic Islam's shari'a law into our courts in this country?
So why would America's Left – which normally goes into conniptions at the mere suggestion of religious influence in the government – go along with the novel notion that part of the President's duties (under the 1st amendment?) is to ensure that Americans are prevented from "slandering" the "prophet" of Islam?
As I pointed out a year ago, the radical Left and radical Islam actually have several goals in common – not least of which is the destruction of the United States of America as it has been formulated for the past two and a quarter centuries. Both parties in this "Red-Green Alliance" hate capitalism, they hate Israel, they hate biblical Christianity, and they hate freedom. They hate us for our freedom, and they hate us when we use our freedom to say and do things that they don't like. The Muslims behead people, while the Left puts them into concentration camps, but the end result is the same. Each thinks they're using the other until they're no longer needed.
Liberals in America are the great enemies of our liberty. We're seeing this now, not only as they consort with hostile foreign powers from the outside, but also as they try to use the power of our own government against their ideological opponents. They've used the IRS as a tool to punish organizations and individuals for exercising their 1st amendment rights to speech, to print, to assemble, to petition and redress in ways that they don't like. They've been sending the IRS out to harass conservative donors to conservative groups as well, essentially punishing people for exercising what the Supreme Court has repeatedly said is protected political speech. Now we find out that the IRS has even been (illegally) leaking the list of donors to conservative groups to their political opponents, presumably so they can be stalked and harassed like the supporters of Prop 8 in California were.
What's really sad is that the efforts at defending this type of behavior aren't limited to the Obama administration and its spear catchers in the media. All across America, there are millions of rank-and-file liberals – I've dealt with some of them myself – who think that it's perfectly acceptable, just fine and dandy, for the government to completely disregard the American ideal of the rule of law and legal fair play and use the power of the state to punish those who disagree with the Left. Shut down conservative talk radio? Sure, why not – after all, those wackos like Limbaugh and Hannity just lie to people by telling them things that contradict the Democrat Party talking points memo. Use the IRS to strong arm a conservative pro-marriage group into giving up their donor list and then handing it over to a pro-gay marriage organization so they can be harassed at their homes and businesses? Serves them right for being "haters"! Seriously, the capacity of liberals to justify any illegal, immoral, unethical, dishonest, and anti-American action by this administration is truly breath-taking. As long as the ends justify the means, who really cares about "the Constitution," anywise? Right-wingers deserve to be punished by the IRS. Because.
Frankly, it's time to openly acknowledge that the Left in this nation is anti-American. By and large, American liberals are not patriotic people who love this country but who just happen to believe differently than we do. Instead, they love the idea of what this country can and will be, once they get done fundamentally transforming it, as our undocumented executive in the Oval Office promised to do during his first campaign in 2008. America as it has been throughout our history, the good with the bad, warts and all? Not so much. Liberals love the concept of an America that is more like Europe, unmoored from those quaint, reactionary notions like "individual liberty," "free enterprise," "self-reliance," and the rest. That's why those on the Left prefer the nonsense collectivist notion of "civil rights" over actual constitutional rights. That's why they think, for instance, that gays ought to be able to force business owners to give them services regardless of the owner's personal religious and ethical convictions. That's why they think radical Muslims ought to be able to use the power of the U.S. government to prosecute people who say things that they don't like on Twitter or Facebook or a blog.
Left-wingers who hold to all of this – who think it's perfectly fine to use the IRS against their political opponents, who perhaps even think they have it coming to them for opposing their viewpoints, and are defending this behavior – don't deserve to be considered Americans. They need to resign their citizenship and move somewhere else where they'll fit in better, because using the government to politically punish the opposition is not what America is about, it's not what we were founded on.
In the meantime, I intend to keep on saying what I think, doing what I want, and supporting or opposing whatever I jolly well feel like. My hope is that millions of my fellow Americans will do so as well, and will show the Left that they cannot win through intimidation and injustice. It's time to hit them back – hard, fast, and often. Do it for the future of our country.
© Tim Dunkin
Left-wingers hate the Constitution. You know it. I know it. Anybody with any sense knows it. Their disdain for the 2nd amendment is manifest for all to see. Despite supposedly being a bunch of hippies, they've never passed up an opportunity to expand the police powers of the state at the expense of the 4th amendment. The 10th amendment – never heard of it. Those on the Left can't be bothered to even assure that their presidential candidates meet the Article II, Section 1.5 requirements for presidential eligibility.
Yet, many on the Right have always assumed that at least the liberals would draw the line at the 1st amendment. Maybe it was because they always raise such a fuss about "Bible thumpers" trying to "force everyone to go to church" while making their childish and ridiculous arguments about "the constitutional provision for the separation of church and state" that people just naturally assumed that liberals would not cross this particular line for fear that we do it back to them whenever we got back into power ourselves. Perhaps it was the assumption on the part of many that because the left-wing controls the press, by for the most part, that they would naturally be more sensitive to infringements upon speech and press rights.
Then, there are those of us who knew better.
Having seen the Left push for "Hush Rush" laws to muzzle talk radio for nearly two decades, I fail to see how anyone could continue under the delusion that liberals support free speech. Were folks on our side of the aisle ignoring the politically correct speech codes used on college campuses all across America to shut down freedom of thought and expression? Could there be any doubt that, given the flimsiest of opportunities, the Left in this country wouldn't make an effort to shut down anyone who disagrees with them? Of course not. It ought to be apparent to anyone who observes liberals in this country that half of them are psychopathic fascists and the other half are ignorant dupes who do whatever the psychopathic fascists tell them to do.
So it was with very little surprise that I saw this recent development in which a US Attorney from Eric Holder's "Justice" Department for the Eastern District of Tennessee argues that posting "inflammatory" comments about Muslims or Islam on social media violates federal civil rights laws, and that this trumps the constitutional protections of free speech and a free press. The federal government is actually preparing to argue that American citizens can be prosecuted for saying things that Muslims don't like. Five years ago, that would have seemed unbelievable. But what does one expect from a government headed by a man who famously told the United Nations last year that "the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." Apparently our Manchurian Muslim Pres__ent intends to act on that promise. After all, why else would Obama be appointing a record number of Muslims with ties to radical terrorist organizations to positions in our government? Why else would this administration be instructing law enforcement agencies to ignore Islamic terrorism, while focusing on conservative Christians and Tea Partiers? Why has the judicial Left been countenancing the introduction of theocratic Islam's shari'a law into our courts in this country?
So why would America's Left – which normally goes into conniptions at the mere suggestion of religious influence in the government – go along with the novel notion that part of the President's duties (under the 1st amendment?) is to ensure that Americans are prevented from "slandering" the "prophet" of Islam?
As I pointed out a year ago, the radical Left and radical Islam actually have several goals in common – not least of which is the destruction of the United States of America as it has been formulated for the past two and a quarter centuries. Both parties in this "Red-Green Alliance" hate capitalism, they hate Israel, they hate biblical Christianity, and they hate freedom. They hate us for our freedom, and they hate us when we use our freedom to say and do things that they don't like. The Muslims behead people, while the Left puts them into concentration camps, but the end result is the same. Each thinks they're using the other until they're no longer needed.
Liberals in America are the great enemies of our liberty. We're seeing this now, not only as they consort with hostile foreign powers from the outside, but also as they try to use the power of our own government against their ideological opponents. They've used the IRS as a tool to punish organizations and individuals for exercising their 1st amendment rights to speech, to print, to assemble, to petition and redress in ways that they don't like. They've been sending the IRS out to harass conservative donors to conservative groups as well, essentially punishing people for exercising what the Supreme Court has repeatedly said is protected political speech. Now we find out that the IRS has even been (illegally) leaking the list of donors to conservative groups to their political opponents, presumably so they can be stalked and harassed like the supporters of Prop 8 in California were.
What's really sad is that the efforts at defending this type of behavior aren't limited to the Obama administration and its spear catchers in the media. All across America, there are millions of rank-and-file liberals – I've dealt with some of them myself – who think that it's perfectly acceptable, just fine and dandy, for the government to completely disregard the American ideal of the rule of law and legal fair play and use the power of the state to punish those who disagree with the Left. Shut down conservative talk radio? Sure, why not – after all, those wackos like Limbaugh and Hannity just lie to people by telling them things that contradict the Democrat Party talking points memo. Use the IRS to strong arm a conservative pro-marriage group into giving up their donor list and then handing it over to a pro-gay marriage organization so they can be harassed at their homes and businesses? Serves them right for being "haters"! Seriously, the capacity of liberals to justify any illegal, immoral, unethical, dishonest, and anti-American action by this administration is truly breath-taking. As long as the ends justify the means, who really cares about "the Constitution," anywise? Right-wingers deserve to be punished by the IRS. Because.
Frankly, it's time to openly acknowledge that the Left in this nation is anti-American. By and large, American liberals are not patriotic people who love this country but who just happen to believe differently than we do. Instead, they love the idea of what this country can and will be, once they get done fundamentally transforming it, as our undocumented executive in the Oval Office promised to do during his first campaign in 2008. America as it has been throughout our history, the good with the bad, warts and all? Not so much. Liberals love the concept of an America that is more like Europe, unmoored from those quaint, reactionary notions like "individual liberty," "free enterprise," "self-reliance," and the rest. That's why those on the Left prefer the nonsense collectivist notion of "civil rights" over actual constitutional rights. That's why they think, for instance, that gays ought to be able to force business owners to give them services regardless of the owner's personal religious and ethical convictions. That's why they think radical Muslims ought to be able to use the power of the U.S. government to prosecute people who say things that they don't like on Twitter or Facebook or a blog.
Left-wingers who hold to all of this – who think it's perfectly fine to use the IRS against their political opponents, who perhaps even think they have it coming to them for opposing their viewpoints, and are defending this behavior – don't deserve to be considered Americans. They need to resign their citizenship and move somewhere else where they'll fit in better, because using the government to politically punish the opposition is not what America is about, it's not what we were founded on.
In the meantime, I intend to keep on saying what I think, doing what I want, and supporting or opposing whatever I jolly well feel like. My hope is that millions of my fellow Americans will do so as well, and will show the Left that they cannot win through intimidation and injustice. It's time to hit them back – hard, fast, and often. Do it for the future of our country.
© Tim Dunkin
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
