All we have of freedom, all we use or know–
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw–
Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law.
Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the king.
Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue
Free speech has never been free. It has been paid for down the centuries in the precious coins of human blood and tears. I fear another installment payment may be due if moronic would be tyrants like John Fetterman have their way.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” – Thomas Jefferson
So said by Jefferson who never served a day in the Continental Army. If he had I suspect he wouldn’t have made such a glib statement about blood. The context makes the quote worse:
I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.1 The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted.2
Mercifully Jefferson was long dead before our Civil War cost 650k-750k lives. Blood sometimes must be shed for freedom or some other worthy goal. but it should ever be a matter of grim necessity.
Make America Poor Again.
One would have thought that when they set out to steal the elections, they would have employed puppets that weren’t complete idiots.
If you want to know how we know they stole the election. See below.
True, Mac. The First Civil War cost more than “600,000 lives and $6,000 million to abolish the system of slavery, destroy the doctrine of state sovereignty, and begin the career of the US as a nation-state.’ Rossiter Johnson
We know what they did last November.
If they hadn’t stolen the elections, they would have cooperated with complete audits/investigations of all the ballots. They could not allow it because it would have proven the steal.
That’s a thing. My oldest sons are in college, and they say no few of their peers are absolutely convinced that things like free speech or religious liberty (or even forgiveness) have merely been tools of white supremacy and Western colonial oppression. The phrase ‘hate speech is not free speech’ is completely embraced by entire swaths of their fellow students. They believe this because they’ve been taught – by schools, textbooks, pop culture, not a few religious leaders in recent years, and society as a whole. They didn’t come up with this idea on their own.
They didn’t come up with this idea on their own.
I’d say that such people rarely come up with any ideas on their own Dave. Courageous Conformists!
Fetterman is recognized by members of both parties in Pennsylvania as someone who has ideas–let’s see, how do I say this and avoid libel charges–that are very unconventional and most unlikely to be adopted by any party in power. He is, IMO, a person of no political consequence. (views on drugs, ponytail, etc.) There is a move afoot to make the nomination for lt. gov. independent of that for gov; dems don’t want another fool in that office, be he dem or repub.
There is a move afoot to make the nomination for lt. gov. independent of that for gov; dems don’t want another fool in that office, be he dem or repub.
Why not scrap the quasi-elective Lt. Governor? (And, while you’re at it, is it really necessary to elect a mess of specialized state officials?). Have a set of appointed Lt. Governors to supervise blocs of state agencies. If the governor’s chair falls vacant, you can have an order of succession from among the state executive officers for an interim period and have the county legislators elect a new governor.
The only speech which is or needs protection is that which I, or you, find offensive, repulsive, untrue, or hateful. It started with hate crimes. What jerk could oppose these. Well, there was a time when when what you did was determinative of criminality, reguardless of your state of mind or big mouth. Often the road to tyranny starts with seemingly innocuous propositions. I always felt that if murdered the perpetrator’s love or hate of me would be of little consequence.
Now who’s being naïve.
10 years ago would you have predicted the democrats adopting the “men can be women” idea?
At this point I don’t assume any idea is too crazy for a political party to adopt.
Women are Not appreciated in today’s culture, if women don’t act like men they don’t count.
Women are Not appreciated in today’s culture, if women don’t act like men they don’t count.
I’ve never encountered many women who act like men (and the ones I have encountered usually have a feminine side as well). I have encountered women who are demanding and shrewish, but they’re not acting like men. They’re acting like ill-mannered women.
Art, women today are expected to be creatures that can have sex and not get pregnant, and their most important attribute is what they “do”.
These are masculine expressions.
On a related topic, the despicable David French is not only using the “DC insurrection” to call for limits on free speech:
https://twitter.com/DavidAFrench/status/1350486775941230595
but also on religious liberty (but just for Christians):
https://twitter.com/DavidAFrench/status/1350649923247681537
I confess that I look forward to the day where David French and his buddies are inevitably devoured by the left.
I confess that I look forward to the day where David French and his buddies are inevitably devoured by the left.
Buddies? Other than his wife and a handful of other NeverTrump deadenders, I don’t think there are many people who aren’t done with him.
I notice David French has never written for First Things, Touchstone, Christianity Today, Books & Culture, or World. He doesn’t appear to have placed any articles in law reviews. AFAICT, other than a stint as a JAG, he hasn’t practiced law in 15 years or more. He’s on someone’s patronage, but it’s not clear just whose.
Say goodbye to your oil and fracking industry PA!
BINGO, Captain! We are going to get the bad government we deserve – good and hard.
Look at it as penance.
After years of chasing the car, the mad dog has seized it. Let’s see what they do with it. It will not be pretty.
See Chicago.
See Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle
See NY.
See Venezuela.