Obergefell was a close decision, replete with warnings
Peggy Noonan observes:
Not fully acknowledged in the past days of celebration on one side, and profound reservation on the other, is that the court in Obergefell v. Hodges was split 5-4 on same-sex marriage, and that the dissenting opinions were truly remarkable. They were fiery and in some cases colorful, but they also showed a court divided on the essentials of the Constitution. Most strikingly, some of them included ominous warnings.
“The truth is that today’s decision rests on nothing more than the majority’s own conviction that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry because they want to,” the chief justice argues. “The Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?”
That grandiosity endangers the Court’s very legitimacy, which rests on public respect that “flows from the perception””and the reality””that we exercise humility and restraint in deciding cases according to the Constitution and the law.”
…And the decision raises serious questions about religious liberty. Every state that has adopted same-sex marriage democratically has, “out of respect for sincere religious conviction,” included accommodations for religious practice. There are none in this decision.
Will Obergefell end up increasing animus against gay marriage rather than decreasing it? After all, opinion was already changing, and quite quickly at that. Gay marriage was becoming the law of the land, state by state. But a significant number of people who support gay marriage itself—or at least have no objection to it, if a state’s citizens want to legalize it—are against the overreach embodied in Obergefell, both for what it declares about federalism and for the way the decision stretches and distorts the Constitution.
Mark Steyn has some related things to say:
…[T]he US Supreme Court decision was a twofer for the left. As I said the other day, even if one disagrees, one can respect the process in Dublin (gay marriage by referendum) or London (gay marriage legislated by the people’s representatives in parliament). But the American left preferred to go the Supreme Court route – because, if you’re hardcore about these things, to divine a right to gay marriage in an 18th century parchment or to insist that “established by the State” refers not primarily to states but to the Secretary of Health and Human Services is a totalitarian act that destroys both law and language by rendering them meaningless: what’s not to like?…[T]he justices’ total capitulation to the zeitgeist is all but complete. Modifying Wonderland’s Queen, the Supreme Court of Wonderland seems to work on the principle of “Verdict first – reasoning afterwards, if at all.”
He’s right, but there’s even more.
It is no accident this was not done through the state courts or by referendum, state by state. The common wisdom is that supporters of same-sex marriage didn’t want to wait for such a slow process, because although public opinion was changing in their favor it was not changing as universally or as quickly as they wanted. No doubt that was true.
But there were several other, more basic reasons to do it the SCOTUS way. The first is that if it had been done merely in those first two ways, law or referendum, state by state, it would continue to be subject to repeal in those states or to a new referendum outlawing it in those states. Too easy to accomplish a reversal, if people changed their minds after the law was passed and they decided they didn’t like it for some reason.
The second is that people could opt out of servicing same-sex marriages (the florist/baker crowd), because the states usually were passing provisions to protect the rights of the religious to refuse to participate. The proper analogy is not to refusing to serve a black person in your business. Gay people are served by those very same bakers and florists all the time. The proper analogy is to not serving a black person (or any person, actually) who wanted a cake for some sort of ceremony that violated that person’s religious beliefs. That’s not discriminating against the black person because of race, but it’s instead a very specific refusal to participate in a certain activity.
But the SCOTUS decision changes all of that (at least for Christians; I continue to think there will be no lawsuits against Muslims). It establishes a right to same-sex marriage marriage and to either impose participation on others or make them give up their livelihood if they refuse. This is very different from the passage of legislation allowing same-sex marriage. It’s a much better way to accuse people of bigotry and to punish them if they don’t get with the program.
Laws passed on a state-by-state basis can be repealed by that state. Even federal laws can be repealed by Congress (or, if you’re President Obama, by failing to have the DOJ enforce the law). But with a SCOTUS decision such as Obergefell the only way to overturn it is by a later SCOTUS ruling overruling it. I suppose there could instead be a constitutional amendment undoing it (not that that would ever happen; it’s already too popular for that), but would such an amendment be itself unconstitutional? This is not an idle question, either, although it might sound that way. Here’s a discussion of the issue (see also this).
I repeat, it is no accident whatsoever that same-sex marriage activists wanted this case before SCOTUS, and not just because they were impatient. They wanted to cement the institution of same-sex marriage in a way that would be nearly impossible to undo.
Okay, Daniel Greenfield wrote about the assault on marriage thus:
As Orwell understood in 1984, tyranny is essentially about definitions. It is hard to fight for freedom if you lack the word. It is hard to maintain a marriage if the idea no longer exists. Orwell’s Oceania made basic human ideas into contradictory things.
The left’s deconstruction of social values does the same thing to such essential institutions as marriage; which becomes an important impermanent thing of no fixed nature or value.
The left’s greatest trick is making things mean the opposite of what they do. “Stealing is sharing. Crime is justice. Property is theft.” Each deconstruction is accompanied by an inversion, so that a thing, once examined, comes to seem the opposite of what it is, and once that is done, it no longer has the old innate value, but a new enlightened one.
To deconstruct man, you deconstruct his beliefs and then his way of living.
You deconstruct freedom until it means slavery.
You deconstruct peace until it means war.
You deconstruct property until it means theft.
And you deconstruct marriage until it means a physical relationship between any group of people for any duration. And that is the opposite of what marriage is.
The deconstruction of marriage is part of the deconstruction of gender and family, and those are part of the long program of deconstructing man.
Once each basic value has been rendered null and void, inverted and revealed to be random and meaningless, then man is likewise revealed to be a random and meaningless creature whose existence requires shaping by those who know better.
The final deconstruction eliminates nation, religion, family, and even gender to reduce the soul of man to a blank slate waiting to be written on.
That is what is at stake here.
Those of us who are religious see even more at stake than this, but what Greenfield is saying here, we can all see.
”That grandiosity endangers the Court’s very legitimacy”
She’s pullin’ our leg… yes? The Court had become illegitimate with the Roe v Wade ruling. Everything since then has been an effort to bastardize the Constitution and legitimize the devolution. There is no end to Ms. Peg’s polish, finesse, and graciousness, is there? I would love to read an exposition of hers on the Holocaust. I wonder what she’ll have to say of Armageddon?
If there are clashes between religious liberty and same sex marriage, wouldn’t the courts be able to draw a line? Kennedy seem to try to evade this by eliminating the exercise of religion in his argument, but I don’t know if this will hold up. Doesn’t more than 200 years of precedent count for something?
“The final deconstruction eliminates nation, religion, family, and even gender to reduce the soul of man to a blank slate waiting to be written on.
That is what is at stake here.” Beverly
Yes. The field must first be prepared, as mankind’s nature cannot be perfected nor utopia constructed lest all is first swept away.
And, every resultant failure is excused as ‘improperly implemented’ with success certain if only the current elite’s intentions are pure… enough.
Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven… no matter how horrific the price others must pay.
expat:
Well, precedent counted for nothing in Obergefell.
Unless you consider Roe v. Wade, where abortion was made a basic right embedded in the Constitution instead of a state-by-state process. That’s the precedent, in reality (although technically I don’t think it would be the legal precedent at all).
And you don’t get away from the problem by not mentioning it in your decision. That leaves the door wide open.
Lawfare….
Pure and simple.
The LAST time the USSC went bonkers — Dred Scott v Sanford.
And we all know how swell that turned out.
It was JUST as tortured as Obergefell.
In both of these decisions, the minority opinion (nationally) was rammed through the USSC because it played well — politically — with the Court.
Neo,
But freedom of religion is specified in the 1st amendment. Kennedy didn’t say the new ruling takes away the right to practice your religion. He just wishy washed around that. It seems like a clarification is in order.
expat:
Of course a clarification is in order. It will come with a flurry of new cases. And it will probably change over time, if the results don’t suit the same-sex marriage supporters.
Freedom of religion is not unlimited:
More at the link.
One of the most remarkable things to me is that all but one of the circuit courts created SSM but four Justices of the Supreme Court vigorously dissented. And the Left has portrayed any judge who was against SSM as insane or a complete idiot. Well, if Tony Kennedy wasn’t so wrapped in his legacy the case would have gone the other way.
The OWH ran a story today that the first gay divorce in NE was filed on Monday. The women were married in IA but one must be a resident of IA for a whole year to file a divorce. The story was entirely sympathetic and how put out these women were.
And here’s an interesting tidbit. The governor of NE was against SSM but he attended his own sister’s SSM in Illinois recently. She is a also a big lefty and is a giant donor to the Dems.
Kennedy didn’t say the new ruling takes away the right to practice your religion.
The problem appears to be that they believe that practicing one’s religion = attending a religious service (you may have noticed Obama explicitly says “freedom of worship”). They do not extend that freedom to expressions of religion applied to the policies/standards/values of a given organization or business. Mark Steyn explains how this distinction plays out:
Justice Anthony Kennedy, in an actual bit of jurisprudential footnoting…said that organizations would still be free to teach and promote the old form of restrictive straights-only marriage. That’s awfully sporting of him, but the Boy Scouts of America provide a clue as to how it’s likely to work out. In the late Nineties, the BSA said no to gay scoutmasters….
Over the next decade, gay-friendly churches (Episcopalian, Congregational, and the other post-Christian ones) booted the scouts from church halls where they’d met for decades; Disney cut them off the list of approved charities to which their employees were permitted to donate their “Ears To You” fundraising proceeds; other corporate benefactors from the US soccer league to Lockheed Martin severed their ties …and the number of new recruits to scouting dwindled remorselessly, and so did their finances.”
I would imagine that with this SCOTUS victory, the activists will now be suing organizations like the Boy Scouts, such as Evangelical universities with an honor code that includes not engaging in homosexuality, Catholic adoption agencies that have a policy against placing children in same-sex couples’ homes, religious schools with policies against hiring openly gay teachers, etc.. These all fall outside of the scope of “freedom of worship” to the Left.
The Left is going to go after religious college in America. Boston College and Georgetown will be on top of the list.
Now they need to rationalize selective exclusion of other relationships, and they cannot afford to associate pro-choice doctrine (e.g. indiscriminate killing) with the “equal” campaign.
Soon 3 or more gay/lesbians will want to marry each other, and next polygamy and polyandry relationships must be allowed to marry, and not much later incestuous relationships and nambla relationships must be allowed a place at the altar. Then there will be a backlash that will stun the lesbian, gay, bisexual, confused puppy alliance.
Waiting for the backlash. Not holding my breath.
There is no such thing as Gay Marriage. Period.
How emblematic of our current state of lunacy that the issue is even taken seriously. It’s a joke, a cruel one but a joke nonetheless.
The real problem is that the Supreme Court has lost all moral and legal legitimacy. In reality, the Supreme Court is from now on neither Supreme nor a Court. It is an oppressive wing of an oligarchical tyranny.
No American has any legal, moral, or ethical duty to listen to or respect the so-called court on anything at all. There is prudence – acting so as not to bring the thug-state down on you or your family – but that is all.
Roberts – the most traitorous Chief Justice ever, already trashed our Constitution and way of life when he ruled in the Obamacare decision that words mean what he says they mean, nothing more and nothing less. There is a scene from Alice in Wonderland that captures that beautifully. He belongs on the Mount Rushmore of American Traitors and Villains.
“Justice is mine, sayeth the Lord”. He will take care of these oppressors the way he took care of the Pharaoh. That is our only hope now: that we become like Moses and that God take care of the Pharaohs who enslave us.
Cornhead: “The Left is going to go after religious college in America.”
It won’t be to go after the schools directly, rather, it will be to go after their tax status or the tax monies they receive such as student loans.
Religious institutions (including colleges) will still be “free” to believe as they want; however, the purse strings will be cut.
Just Like ROTC and the Boy Scouts were kicked out of “public places” so, too, will mainstream churches be shut out or shut off from public funding/tax status.
Although, for some reason, I don’t see that happening to Mosques anytime soon. It will be Roman Catholic and Protestant institutions they will go after.
there is more…
They out and out said judges, even of lower courts, can not start making whatever they want ‘rights’ (like the left always want to proclaim things…. see FDR positive rights, USSR Constitution, EU, et cetera).
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420564/obergefell-and-constitution
“In Obergefell, Justice Kennedy made it clear to lower courts that, after he eliminated Glucksberg, the only remaining limit on new judge-made rights is a judge’s imagination. He noted that “when new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim for liberty must be addressed.”
wish I could edit. Above should say ‘now’ not.. not.
State of Oregon fines Christian bakers $135,000 over a wedding cake. “Not only did [Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian] levy a $135,000 judgment against the Kleins for ‘emotional damages’ to the couple denied a wedding cake, he slapped a gag order on them that forbids the Kleins from explaining to potential customers of Sweet Cakes why they won’t bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.”
I blame the voters.
Avakian put his name on it … we know …
Oldflyer: Waiting for the backlash.
You are witnessing part of it here. That every Republican candidate for president has blasted the decision is an indication they feel comfortable in doing so because they know what’s coming.
While I agree with Neo in general terms on the specifics there are some points that are off.
1. It establishes a right to same-sex marriage and to either impose participation on others or make them give up their livelihood if they refuse.
I fail to see the connection. These are two separate issues, gay marriages vs. public accommodation. The best analogy I can think of is the case of Muslim cab drivers who refuse service to people with dogs based on their religious conviction that dogs, even seeing eye dogs, are unclean. They advertise they are open to the public and then find a reason to serve only those who meet certain religious criteria. The obvious solution in these cases is for private businesses that cater to weddings or wedding receptions to become clubs catering only to those members who meet their religious standards, much like religious and fraternal organizations do with members only bars, retirement complexes, and campgrounds. (The Pizza Restaurant owners that were set up was a case of free speech infringement because they never even had a chance to refuse service. It was a despicable act of leftist hooliganism.)
2. Neo seems to agree with expat’s statement:
Well, precedent counted for nothing in Obergefell.
Of course on the most specific issue, same sex marriages vs. every other type of marriage issue that had ever come before the court, yes. But there was a long list of precedent including Loving, the miscegenation case. So you can’t really say that marriage issues per se were not decided by the court. Kennedy went to quite a length in recounting what he called the expansion of liberty in these prior cases. In addition he recounted the history of marriage as an institution from polygamy on through chattel marriages to the current equal protection afforded each spouse, the point being the evolution of the institution.
Finally, I do wholeheartedly agree that the reasoning was weak, even as I support same sex marriage. As to the attack on Christianity, it would go on with or without gay marriage. The left since Obama came to power has been on a rampage trying to provoke an armed response, the endgame being total statist control. Social conservatives may just give it to them if they keep pushing, and especially after this.
After California passed Prop 8 a federal judge held a bench trial which found the law unconstitutional. Then he came out and married his buddy.
Established by the state means established by the federal government.
State legislature means appointed commission.
Marriage is a noble estate and who among us would withhold nobility?
Forcing us to engage in commerce is not a tax. Forcing us to engage in commerce is a tax.
$800 billion for shovel-ready jobs. There were no shovel-ready jobs.
The Romans had to assassinate a general and fight a civil war to bury their republic. All we had to do was do nothing.
In my city, Independence Day was observed in the park closest the to State Capital Friday evening – only the next door to the largest and most important gay neighborhood between St. Louis and the West Coast, where I live.
Following Sultanknish’s two column’s, I went rogue: I made a sign, wide black marker on white posterboard, 18″ X 30.”
On it, I wrote “MONARCHY DAY!” on one side; on the other, “ABOLISH CONGRESS.”
I walked and marched and smiled, spouting slogans in ironic (but barbed, veiled disgust) in front of streams of city traffic and hundreds and thousands of people.
I hooted and hollered “CELEBRATE MONARCHY DAY!” THESE WISE OLIGARCHS AND BUREAUCRATS RULE US! LET’S ALL THANK OUR WASHINGTON OVERLORDS! [Flipping the sign around] LET’S ABOLISH CONGRESS! USELESS AND CORRUPT! OUR MONARCH’S WILL PROTECT THE WEAK AND VICTIMIZED FROM OURSELVES!”
And, “WE DON’T TRUST THE PEOPLE HERE! OUR MONARCHS ARE WISER THAN WE ARE!”
Much of my hollering was impronptu – people have become so passive and drone-like over the past years and decade.
I live near one of the major local TV stations. I was on their corner as one of their trucks drove by me to the event, waving the sign.
Predictably, ignored me. I got far more reaction from older people and families and possible family men in cars than I did from the young – except for obviously young straight couples. They reacted more like the boomers and elders.
The most visible and audible reaction was giggling and laughter; a few passersby wanted to photograph me and my signs.
Independence day? Rasmussen polling, via Drudge, reports much skepticism and distrust for our rulers:
“The Declaration of Independence, the foundational document that Americans honor on the Fourth of July, says that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, but just 25% believe that to be true of the federal government today.
“Only 20% now consider the federal government a protector of individual liberty. Sixty percent (60%) see the government as a threat to individual liberty instead.”
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2015/support_grows_for_states_to_ignore_the_federal_courts
Noonan and Neo is not just correct. The irony is inescapable. The answer to Neo’s query above, “Will Obergefell end up increasing anger against gay marriage rather than decreasing it?” is not “Yes,” but HELL YES!!”
This huge wedge issue – and I’m thinking not only of Obergefell but all FOUR of the painful decisions made on malleable Living “Constitutional” ‘grounds’ – needs to be a defining one for the coming presidential campaign.
The perfect comeuppance would be a candidate’s President-To-Be promise to COMPLETE the threat that FDR was dissuaded from going through – to EXPAND the Supreme Court substantially because of increased workload – of course, so putting it with a practical and pragmatic front-loading – but also to chastise the lawless, out of control “Justices” on the High Court and reshape, if not reverse, the damage that Robert’s Court has already done.
If Obama and SCOTUS are going to “Legislate in Place of The People” in our sovereign People’s Republic, then – a la Rome – the next Imperator can play the same game.
Revenge is a dish best served cold, indeed.
Again, the candidate(s) who embrace this campaign promise ought not to focus on Obergefell, but on the lawlessness of Obama and the useless Constitutional Check that that the lawless Court has become to restore Rule of Law.
Now, will The People get to see it? So that the frozen food may be served? And the ruling class scum can eat their %@ !$%@#& crow? (There’s plenty of time for it to…defrost.)
If American liberty is ever to be saved, it can only be saved by utterly and completely INFLAMMING a deep and serious conversation about what kind of freedoms our primary instrument of governance is going to be.
If not, we don’t deserve what our Founders gave us. And We are truly and deeply unworthy of their posterity.
If not now – then when? If not us – then who will do it?
Geoffrey Britain wrote “Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven… no matter how horrific the price others must pay.”
That’s funny, because in saving a copy and sharing my long post with friends, I gave an excerpt of Neo’s post this title: “A Same Sex Marriage Made in Hell?”
Or perhaps I ought to say “forged in Hell?” Forging nd melding into “Obamunism” is what is at stake.
A last reflection – the irony in my Independence Day street theater is that the holiday celebrates the REJECTION of Monarchy – Divine Right of Kings to Rule here in God’s name – for individual sovereignty. Because under Protestantism, the Believer has a direct relationship with the Deity. As such, one’s own opinion and authority governs one’s own conduct in most matters – personal as well as political.
Now, under the New King Kennedy Dispensation (and Robert’s in at least two Obamacare cases), Law can be created and altered entirely to suit the SCOUTUS-legislature! No need for written laws (until they are needed), and no need for legislators; there is no need to “vote” and authorize representation, then!
And thus, from Kingship to Revolution, thence to multiple Kings! That’s such brazen, BREATH-TAKING logic that only a “progressive” can appreciate the “progress” without irony. I can’t.
If this path forward that I’ve sketched a bit comes to the pending presidential debates, this could be a highly educational, as well as seriously entertaining election. Comparable to the hanging chad theatrics lasting many months after November 1999.
To reverse the cliche, TRY THIS (the signage stunt) AT HOME!
Polygamy is a sure thing.
$135,000 fine is so out of line especially when compared to the bakery’s gross sales.
The tax exempt status is how the Left and government will reeducate and bring into line religious dissenters. If a small school like Creighton lost its tax exempt status, it could NOT survive financially.
I don’t see any backlash because the Progs will make it too expensive to dissent. Gayness will be constantly celebrated and they will get even more open and flamboynent.
LOL! I see that the ever-active law prof, Glenn Reynolds – at Instapundit – beat me to the (above) punch yesterday morning:
“YOU MAY NOT LIKE TED CRUZ’S SUPREME COURT PLAN, but the Supreme Court is already a ‘third political branch.’
“How about this alternative: When Cruz is elected President, Congress ends the filibuster, then expands the Court to 15 justices.
Posted at 7:42 am by Glenn Reynolds
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/209932/#respond
From comments @ State of Oregon fines Christian bakers $135,000 over a wedding cake:
Carl Pham
Or let us say we have a DJ who hires himself out for wedding receptions. In walks a 55 year old public school teacher, with his 18 years and 1 day old bride to be, who happened to be his former pupil. They actually got it on while she was in his class, but giggle that’s all water under the bridge now, luckily. They want to hire him to play at the reception, where the bride will take off her top, wearing only tassels, and do a lap dance for her new husband while the DJ plays Sting’s Don’t Stand So Close To Me. He thinks it’s all in execrable taste and an appalling match, so he refused the commission. Does the State of Oregon come down on him like a ton of bricks?
Carl Pham
In walks two Goths, spiked hair and pierced lips and all. Apparently they’re heavily into non-vanilla relations. They want their wedding cake to be sculpted in the shape of him sodomizing her while she’s chained and gagged, and offer the cake-maker some photographs so he can get the proportions exactly right. She declines to take their money. Whomping big fine from Oregon, right?
Carl Pham
The cake-maker is gay. In walk two obnoxious idiotic evangelicals, who want a wedding cake for a covenant marriage celebration which will be celebrated by an outspoken preacher opponent of gay marriage who said personally offensive things to our hero a few years ago during a street march. Good friend of the couple, they’ve donated money to his anti-SSM cause. Cake guy better swallow his feelings and bake the cake, right? Otherwise the State will be on his ass.
Carl Pham
Jewish baker. Survived the camps, but as an orphan. Amazingly, still remembers the face of the SS guard who beat his mother to the ground and hauled her by the hair to the gas. In walks a young groom-to-be, German blood, and by golly he’s the spitting image of the guard. No relation, fortunately. Did have a grandfather who served in the Wehrmacht, however. The baker better lock down the shaking of his hands long enough to take the money and bake the cake, though. Looking at a big, big fine and public shame otherwise, right?
If the Supreme Court can arbitrarily choose which laws to follow, make up its own laws, radically alter our national culture and throw the doors wide open to tyranny, there is no reason for me not to make up my own laws, or to choose which ones I will obey.
There is no reason why my belief in what is better should not trump what they believe is better.
It is not possible for the Kennedys of the world to be unaware of the vast sense of futility they have spawned: “there is nothing you can do about it.” Hold signs, create “activist” groups, vote for the lesser evil, all for naught.
(Assuming Roberts to be pure of heart [I don’t], does he really think his abandonment of unambiguous meaning and objectivity are justified by letting the political process take its course? Here is a new political process now available to all – – we make up our own definitions whenever we want and act accordingly).
The Roberts/Kennedy Rule: there is no morality or ethics in government, there is only aligning yourself with the regime, or survival on your own terms.
The social contract has been broken. We owe no more to the government than we do to the mafia.
The lawlessness of tyranny is the new law, where the rule makers must be ready to play by their own rules.
I have just seen the future.
The future looks like Harnaam Kaur…
That is all.
“The Roberts/Kennedy Rule: there is no morality or ethics in government, there is only aligning yourself with the regime, or survival on your own terms.
The social contract has been broken. We owe no more to the government than we do to the mafia.
The lawlessness of tyranny is the new law, where the rule makers must be ready to play by their own rules.”
That is correct. The Left does not know what it has done, because it is a two-edged sword.
John Roberts – a man I think more despicable than Obama – has enshrined the following ethical norm into what used to be America: “Might makes right.”
Get used to it. That is the new morality, which is not new since Hitler had the exact same moral principle.
Tonawanda Says:
July 4th, 2015 at 9:27 am
I’ve been saying for a long time that government is just a form of organized crime.
The Founders created the Constitution and the Rule of Law in an attempt to rein in the worst excesses of human arrogance and greed, and to try to keep it under some kind of control. Both schoolchildren and immigrants were taught that.
Today we are told that we should disregard all of their work because they were nothing but a bunch of rich white slaveowners. Both schoolchildren and immigrants are being taught that now.
So, it looks like it’s going to be the Law of the Jungle from now on. The criminals are in complete control and lord it over us. They are increasingly brazen about their criminality because they know there will be no consequences.
There are absolutely no grounds for optimism. Happy Fourth.
Tonawanda:
“Hold signs, create “activist” groups, vote for the lesser evil, all for naught.”
I agree and disagree.
I agree that the measures you listed are insufficient as stated.
But I disagree that they are “all for naught”.
Becoming fully activist and organizing activists are necessary steps. But they only unlock the door to the arena and serve you entry into the only social cultural/political game there is.
Winning the championship versus the reigning champs of the activist game requires a lot more competitive effort than the actions you listed.
Tonawanda:
“It is not possible for the Kennedys of the world to be unaware of the vast sense of futility they have spawned: “there is nothing you can do about it.””
Only if you’re not an activist.
For activists, they’ve validated the real power of activism that surrounds and suffuses the formal legal-political process.
Activism is power of the people. Not just Left people. Any people smart enough and willing enough to commit fully to activism and do the work, lose and learn, and compete non-stop and always in order to win “by any means necessary”.
It only seems futile to non-activists because only one side has been willing to act to sufficient degree to compete to win the only social cultural/political game there is.
The left is a cult. Treat them as one. Belittle them as one. Go after them as one.
Steve Says:
July 4th, 2015 at 11:29 am
And we’re all living in Jonestown now.
The Other Chuck (July 3rd, 2015 at 11:59 pm) warns that Obama is just waiting for an armed insurrection to start so he can squash it and go full-Stalin.
So what are we to do? Nothing? Just get on the trains going to Auschwitz? or convert to the New Religion? Or go underground like the Spanish Jews in the Inquisition, now becoming pretend Leftists? So that the concepts of Natural, God-given Law survive?
What are we to do?
I prefer to take a bullet like a man rather than lick the hand of him who beats me.
Roger Simon warns today at PJM: “If we want the country back that we grew up in, whether we are 30, 40 or on up, we have to fight for it as hard as they did in 1776.”
Just as hard, but with different weapons. We need some asymmetry here!
Such fines, at such levels, are un-Constitutional on their face.
The Other Chuck has lectured us that there is no Stazi, Gaystapo, or Gestapo organization in American suppressing dissent, just so you know where Chuck is coming from.
Informant or informant in training, if you ask me.
http://neoneocon.com/2015/06/27/thoughts-on-the-rapidity-of-the-same-sex-marriage-sea-change/#comment-904653
The Gaystapo controls the homo communities much as the Hitler Youth and SS controlled their neighborhoods, or the Stazis used informants and secret police.
It’s not about being a majority, being a majority just means you obey the Authority that the rest of the majority normals obey.
Independent humans are rare, less than 1%. And homos being less than 1% of the pop, has even fewer independent humans in that sample. And those few independent humans, are not the majority, not even of the 1%.-Ymar
The proof was pretty obvious right now and later on in the thread, but for some reason Leftist hating Chuck over there refused to deal with it. For someone that claims to be disgusted by the Left, Chuck really likes supporting a lot of Leftist social warfare. Coincidence?
Chuck’s feelings are not as genuine or as strong, as he likes to think it is.
Ymarsakar, as a libertarian leaning conservative I support the expansion of liberty wherever and however it happens.
I agree that the left is on a campaign of social warfare along with its longstanding economic warfare. Where I strongly disagree with you is lumping several million homosexuals under the banner of The Gaystapo. There is a very noisy, belligerent cadre of them that grabs all the attention. But according to some figures, approximately 30% of them vote Republican.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/05/gay-voters-republicans-doubled-2008_n_779111.html
Let me ask you a civil question. Because a small percentage of black people pillage and burn cities, does it follow that ALL, or even a majority of blacks are looters? You are assigning collective guilt. It is the same thing in reverse that The Gaystapo does to Christians.
And by the way, there is such a thing as collective innocence. Not all Christians are deserving of a free pass.
Should have said: …there is NO such thing as collective innocence.
Here’s how opponents in businesses should handle it. They should keep a sign stating that they oppose homosexual marriage, and consider it a perversion. (Be creative–whatever your grounds are, tell it.) When a gay couple comes in for their slave service (since it is no longer voluntary), bring out the sign and keep it present as the orders are taken, and at every meeting and presentation.
Apparently gays think that the goods they demand are tainted by the providers’ opposition to gay marriage. Then vendors who oppose gay marriage should make sure the taint of words is front and center.
David:
Are you joking? Such proprietors would be the target of demonstrations, boycotts, and probably violence.
After California passed Prop 8 a federal judge held a bench trial which found the law unconstitutional. Then he came out and married his buddy.
The judge was on the CALIFORNIA Supreme Court.
He deemed it against the California State Constitution, as amended.
Then Attorney General for California, Jerry Brown, refused to represent the people’s interest in sustaining the Proposition.
This polity was so upset with Jerry that they made him Governor at the next opportunity.
This was/is the whole point of gay “marriage”: get sanction from the state and then use that sanction to to beat up on people who criticize homosexual deviancy in general, including churches.
Anything they might say about “religion is safe” is false. Going after churches has been the goal from the beginning.
blert:
I don’t think that judge actually has gotten married. At least, I can’t find any evidence of it. He did come out, and he has been with his partner in a same-sex relationship for at least ten years, but I see no sign of marriage. Do you have a link to a report on that?