Redstate

Posted at 8:45am on Jun. 27, 2008 One tendentious opinion away.

From the same tyranny.

By Paul J Cella

A quick read of this article will surely leave you outraged. The story is simple enough: a neat amalgam of barbarism and PC bureaucracy, the sort of anarchy compounded by oppression that Liberalism so excels at producing.

A former British soldier endures as his neighborhood terrorized by a pack of feral young thugs (“yobs,” as they call them over there) for several days. He calls the police; they never come. He looks for an officer; finds none. Coming home one day to find his wife in tears and terrified, he finally has enough, and goes out to execute a citizen’s arrest, dragging one of the thugs into house and calling his mother. Thereupon the police arrive with the mother — and naturally arrest the homeowner.

This is justice under Liberalism.

Let it be noted that there was a somewhat similar case in Illinois five years ago, where a man who fought off an intruder in his house was charged with a handgun violation. State Sen. Obama voted against bills to remedy this manifest injustice twice.

Yesterday we all sat around in worried anticipation, hoping the Supreme Court would manage, this time, to maintain the plain meaning of the words of our Constitution and restore to us our self-government. The outcome was a good one — barely. But the tyranny of the Court is still in place. The four Liberals very frequently succeed in persuading Justice Kennedy to join them in their usurpations. They care not one whit about the plain meaning of the Constitution. They do exactly as they please.

Here in America, packs of feral youths exist in appalling abundance, just like in Britain. But most of them are well aware that their potential victims may be armed. On that fact, friends, much of our liberty hangs.

And we are only a tendentious opinion from one of the Liberal Usurpers on the Court, or their creature Kennedy, under the spell of the New York-DC elite adulation — one tendentious opinion citing foreign law, or sweet mystery of life, or mystical evolving standards, away from the same tyranny that would send the homeowner who defends his wife against thugs to jail, while showering the thugs with sympathy.

Posted in D.C. v. Heller | Great Britain | Guns | Law | Supreme Court | thugs — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:35am on Jun. 26, 2008 Christians still persecuted in Iraq.

By Paul J Cella

The situation in Iraq is improving, alright, but we should never forget the persecution suffered by Iraqi Christians. This New York Times article details at length the re-reappearance of the jizya, the ancient method of extortion reserved for Christians and Jews under Islam’s celebrated system of tolerance for People of the Book. It appears that a refusal to pay the jizya is what cost Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, the leader of the Chaldean Catholics in Mosul, his freedom and then his life.

Meanwhile, a Canadian parliamentary committee has uncovered some horrifying details of the unspeakable campaign against Christians in Iraq:

Muslim militants are crucifying children to terrorize their Christian parents into fleeing Iraq, a parliamentary committee studying the persecution of religious minorities heard yesterday.

Since the war began in 2003, about 12 children, many as young as 10, have been kidnapped and killed, then nailed to makeshift crosses near their homes to terrify and torment their parents.

One infant was snatched, decapitated, burned and left on his mother's doorstep, the committee was told.

May our Lord give them strength, comfort, and that peace which passes all understanding. May His justice find their persecutors swiftly. And may the religion of fire and sword which enjoins this persecution be discredited and banished from the world of men.

Posted in dhimma | Iraq | Iraqi Christians | Islam | War — Comments (13)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:17pm on Jun. 25, 2008 Lou Barletta for Congress

By Paul J Cella

Lou Barletta is one of the good guys. An unsuccessful baseball player but very successful businessman, he entered local politics in his hometown of Hazelton, PA, as a Republican in a very Democratic place. Then in 2000 he was elected mayor, above all on his commitment to bring prosperity to his town, which he did, earning several state-wide awards in the process.

Mayor Barletta came to national prominence when he shepherded through a series of city ordinances designed to resist the mischievous and impoverishing effects of illegal immigration. These ordinances included provisions imposing a $1,000-per-day fine on landlords who rent to illegals, revoking the business license of any employer who hires them, declaring English as the official language and barring city employees from translating documents to another language without approval.

A federal judge overturned most of these ordinances in 2007, on the grounds that immigration is a federal matter. The ordinances, he wrote, “disrupt a well-established federal scheme for regulating the presence and employment of immigrants in the United States.” Whether the judge was aware of the bitter irony that the ordinances would be quite unnecessary if the federal government was not itself “disrupting” the “well-established” “scheme” of federal maintenance of America sovereignty, namely by its studious neglect of immigration law, is a question that remains unanswered.

Read on and contribute here.

Posted in 2008 | congressional races | Immigration | Lou Barletta | Paul Kanjorski — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:35am on Jun. 19, 2008 Tolerance and tyranny.

By Paul J Cella

Only a man of uncommon obtuseness could fail to predict this. In New Jersey, a homosexual couple wants to get married on a pavilion owned by a Methodist organization.

When Bernstein and Paster asked to celebrate their civil union in the pavilion, the Methodist organization said they could marry on the boardwalk — anywhere but buildings used for religious purposes. In other words, not the pavilion. [Rev. Scott] Hoffman says there was a theological principle at stake.

“The principle was a strongly held religious belief that a marriage is between a man and a woman,” Hoffman says. “We’re not casting any aspersions or making any judgments. It’s just, that’s where we stand, and we’ve always stood that way, and that's why we said no.”

The refusal came as a shock to Bernstein, who says Ocean Grove has been revived by the gay community.

“We were crushed,” she says. “I lived my whole live, fortunately, without having any overt prejudices or discrimination waged against me. So while I knew it was wrong, I never knew how it felt. And after this, I did know how that felt. It was extremely painful.” [. . .]

So the couple filed a complaint with New Jersey’s Division of Civil Rights, alleging the Methodists unlawfully discriminated against them based on sexual orientation. Attorney Lawrence Lustberg represents them.

“Our law against discrimination does not allow [the group] to use those personal preferences, no matter how deeply held, and no matter — even if they’re religiously based — as a grounds to discriminate,” Lustberg says. “Religion shouldn’t be about violating the law.”

Do I even need to tell you which side the court found for? Read on.

Posted in Christianity | Culture | Liberty | Same-Sex Marriage | Tolerance | Tyranny — Comments (100)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:35am on Jun. 18, 2008 BREAKING NEWS: Tiger out for the season.

By Paul J Cella

This just crossed the wires: "SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Tiger Woods will miss rest of golf season, says a person familiar with the decision." More from MSNBC. ACL damage and stress fracture. Wow. The guy really was playing golf like a hockey player.

Posted at 11:13am on Jun. 14, 2008 Betraying Free Speech.

By Paul J Cella

Canada persecutes Mark Steyn for writing that Islam is a threat to the West. The New York Times, having ignored that drama for months, takes the opportunity to dilate tendentiously on the uniqueness of American tolerance for Free Speech, implicitly comparing Steyn to Nazis, and naturally burying his response in the last two paragraphs of a long article. The few European politicians and thinkers with the guts to stand up to creeping Islamization, find themselves betrayed and denounced in America, and likewise compared to Nazis and fascists, by prominent bloggers. Readers will recall the pitifully tepid response from the West to the beleaguered Danes during the Cartoon Jihad.

And now we have this, as reported by Josh Trevino: In Kuala Lumpar, at the Third International Conference on the Muslim World, three prominent Muslim leaders called on the West to renounce Free Speech in order to accommodate Islamic sensibilities; and the three Westerns who spoke uttered not a word of protest.

Read on.

Posted in Anti-Free Speech Liberals | Archived | free speech | Islam | Liberals | Mark Steyn | the Jihad — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:56am on May 30, 2008 Yonder stands your orphan,with his gun.

By Paul J Cella

Men who have forgotten more about the earthy rough-n-tumble of politics than I shall ever know assure me that the device of “email blasts” — occasional notifications, sent out to a self-selected list, of the need for action on specific issues of consequence — is a highly useful one. “We're already having an impact with our Redstate Action Emails,” one of these political savants tells me. “But the bigger the list, the more impact we have.”

It has long been a lament of political operatives that Conservatives, traditionalists, libertarians, reactionaries, populists — all the raucous panoply of the American Right — are peculiarly resistant to the kind of organization that lends itself to success in democratic politics. Some of the reasons for this are plain enough: Conservatives are more likely than Liberals to be busy with private life — families, businesses, churches — and to hold public life in a certain disdain. They are much better at stopping bad things, than they are at organizing to achieve good things. But all this is only true as a generality. In specific cases it does not apply; and I venture to speculate that there are quite a few Conservatives out there who, though busy indeed, would not be averse to occasional activism which is focused and effective. Even the rough-n-tumble of politics, and all its frustrations and indignities, may now and then be necessary to vindicate a just cause.

The fact is — whatever we may think of the GOP’s failings — we face the real possibility of a party winning control of both the Legislative and the Executive branches, which, to saying nothing more, does not inspire confidence as to its judgment, its patriotism, its fortitude in the face of the Republic’s enemies. Very likely Conservatives are going to be called on again to do what they are genuinely good at: stopping bad things— resisting folly, fraud and utopian delusion.

Take heart, friend: this we can do. Contemplate the noble work that a disparate coalition of Conservatives has accomplished, in the teeth of the zealous craving of the elites of virtually every sector of our society, against the project to dispossess America by another massive, disingenuously promoted immigration amnesty. We have triumphed, many times. But the other side is regrouping, and shall hurl themselves against our ramparts again soon enough.

With all that in mind, I invite you to sign up for the Redstate Action Email list. There is no cause for despair, but there is cause for alarm. My language may be extravagant and antiquated, even comical; but the future of the Republic is no laughing matter. If by this small effort of organization we can do our part to secure that future from Socialism, from Degeneracy, from Jihad and Sharia, and a dozen other menaces, we shall have done well.

We shall have avoided the taunt that the Left is preparing for us — a taunt which, though it misuses the material, would heap scorn upon us with the famous lines of Bob Dylan:

Posted in action alerts | Bob Dylan | Conservatives | Miscellanea — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:37am on May 29, 2008 California tolerance.

By Paul J Cella

Suppose you are a government employee in California, authorized to conduct civil marriage ceremonies, and you object on moral or religious grounds to same-sex marriage. According to the plain logic of the California Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month, you are simply a bigot; the spring of your objection is irrational prejudice. There is no ground for tolerance for your views, precisely because your views impinge upon the fundamental rights of others. Recall that even someone (like Senator Obama) of the view that while marriage should remain an institution exclusive to a man and a woman, civil unions should be established for homosexuals, is also a narrow-minded bigot, again according to the force of the Court’s logic.

Fortunately, San Diego County is more magnanimous than the judicial despots of the Court. County employees will not be forced to perform marriage ceremonies to which they have a moral objection. Los Angeles County employees will not be so lucky. Tolerance forbids their objections. Wrote the City Attorney: “County clerks have no legal standing to grant county employees the authority or ability to choose which marriages they wish not to officiate at, based on their personal views or biases. [The Court] has been crystal clear on this issue — same-sex couples must be afforded equal protection under the law.”

It is instructive to observe the machinations of Liberalism on this issue. It is not enough that approval of same-sex marriage be institutionalized in law; disapproval of its opponents, too, must be institutionalized in law. We cannot “agree to disagree,” in the common catchphrase. For a state employee to resist blessing same-sex unions is tantamount to his denial of equal protection to a certain class of people; in short, unconstitutional.

Libertarians can hardly go a day without denouncing the “imposition” of morality by traditionalists; yet the imposition contemplated by Los Angeles County, in accordance with the Court’s clear logic, eludes their attention. In this our dear Libertarians simply resemble Liberals in their quaint innocence of what a public orthodoxy is. To use their cherished parlance, never has there existed a society that did not impose morality. The imposition of morality is a concomitant of social order. No orthodoxy, no society. That Liberals and Libertarians are uncomfortable with words like “orthodoxy” in no way changes the fact that they seek to impose one just like anyone else.

In our country, no one imposes morality like supreme courts. We are at the point where it is possible to answer the question, Who rules America? with a single word: “Courts.” Perhaps someone among out Liberals and Libertarians would like to make a forthright argument for judicial aristocracy. That at least would have the virtue of candor.

Posted in California | Culture | gay marriage | Tolerance — Comments (414)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:42am on May 28, 2008 Barbarians in London.

By Paul J Cella

Parts of London are overrun by barbarism, and officials answer with euphemisms and cut-rate Marxism. Melanie Phillips reports. The whole grim story is reminiscent of American cities about twenty years ago: that bloody union of barbarism and Leftism. When the technocrats of urban government are confronted with the fact that they have failed in the most basic task of governing — the maintenance of public order — they naturally fall back on the view that “society” is at fault; and indeed they are more right than they know. Liberal society is at fault — that society which elevates personal autonomy above all else, dissolving bonds of hierarchy, just authority, and fellowship. Marriage is but a weak contract; parenthood a choice, repudiated it will; criminals are simply misunderstood; punishment minimal or nonexistent. Let us hope that new London Mayor Boris Johnson lives up to his reputation for independence of thought. We in the States have learned, by hard lessons, that it is possible to check the advance of barbarism and crime; that it is possible to rightly govern a large city. What is needed is intellectual toughness: above all the courage to stand up to Liberalism.