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The First Amendment Needs Your Prayers
The Wall Street Journal ^ | December 4, 2015 | Peggy Noonan

Posted on 12/06/2015 8:09:35 PM PST by TBP

You can see a coarsening in how we respond and react on social media. No one feels ashamed to exploit the tragedy for political purposes even while it is happening.

But as soon as the story broke Wednesday afternoon, and while it was still going on, there were accusations and bitter words flung all over the Internet. The weirdest argument came almost immediately. A person named Chris Murphy, who is a U.S. senator representing Connecticut, sent out what struck me as the most manipulative message of recent political history.

The background is that Republican presidential contestants responded online to the shootings with the only helpful thing you can say—or do, frankly, from faraway—when a story like this occurs. “Praying for the victims, their families & the San Bernardino first responders,” said Jeb Bush. Mike Huckabee said he was “praying.” John Kasich: “My thoughts & prayers go out to those impacted.”

This managed to enrage the progressive left. You can take your prayers and stuff ’em. The answer and the only answer to this tragedy is gun control, and if you’re not for it you’re not allowed to be part of the conversation. “Please shut up and slink away,” tweeted a reporter. Another: “Your thoughts and prayers don’t mean a damn thing.” A reporter at the Huffington Post damned public officials’ “useless thoughts and prayers.” Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos: “How many dead people did those thoughts and prayers bring back to the life?”

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: freedom; liberty; noonan; peggynoonan; prayer; prayershaming; progressives; sanbernardino
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Subhead: "Jumping on anyone who publicly expressed a religious feeling after the San Bernardino massacre. Where are we heading?"

Now we're attacking people for praying. This is a sad state of affairs.

1 posted on 12/06/2015 8:09:35 PM PST by TBP
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To: TBP

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/the-first-amendment-needs-your-prayers-1449187707-lMyQjAxMTI1NDA1NDQwMzQ1Wj


2 posted on 12/06/2015 8:11:00 PM PST by TBP (Nous sommes tout Francais.)
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To: TBP

First amendment?

The entirety of the US Constitution needs twelve Rosaries, fifty Our Fathers and 75 Hail Marys.


3 posted on 12/06/2015 8:15:12 PM PST by RandallFlagg (With the things that are about to come to light. People might just need a little old-fashioned.)
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To: TBP

The First and Second Amendments need your open and in-your-face defiance of those who would seek to destroy them.

No more Mr Nice Guy.


4 posted on 12/06/2015 8:18:38 PM PST by Noumenon (Resistance. Restoration. Retribution.)
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To: TBP

Note who is doing the attacking.


5 posted on 12/06/2015 8:20:20 PM PST by rockinqsranch ((Dems, Libs, Socialists, call 'em what you will. They ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.))
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To: TBP

First amendment needs support of the second amendment.

Americans not willing to do that do not and never will deserve those rights.


6 posted on 12/06/2015 8:25:25 PM PST by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: TBP

You know, there were surely some muslims who were horrified about the murders and prayed to their god for him to bless the victims/families. Wonder if Kos and his ilk were including these muzzies in their rants.

I didn’t think so; only Christians, I’m sure.


7 posted on 12/06/2015 8:30:55 PM PST by TXBlair (We will not forget Benghazi.)
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>> A reporter at the Huffington Post damned public officials’ “useless thoughts and prayers

Anyone else having a FR related browser issues where certain punctuation characters are getting mangled? This has been a recent issue for me. I’m using Opera on Win 10.


8 posted on 12/06/2015 8:31:30 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: TXBlair

‘You know, there were surely some muslims who were horrified about the murders and prayed to their god for him to bless the victims/families. ‘

Did any of them do it publicly? I dont recall reading any.


9 posted on 12/06/2015 8:42:32 PM PST by joshua c (Please dont feed the liberals)
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To: Noumenon

“The First and Second Amendments need your open and in-your-face defiance of those who would seek to destroy them. No more Mr Nice Guy.”

Oh, shit, not that! Hahahaha. No, no indeed. No more Mr. Nice Guy. And they really won’t like the change.


10 posted on 12/06/2015 8:45:28 PM PST by jessduntno (The mind of a liberal...deceit, desire for control, greed, contradiction and fueled by hate.)
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To: TBP

Lynch needs to resign. You just don’t go around threatening the American people. Abuse of power.


11 posted on 12/06/2015 8:50:21 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (Who is fact checking the state controlled, leftwing media's fact checkers?)
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To: TBP

And don’t let the AG hear you pray...


12 posted on 12/06/2015 8:52:26 PM PST by G Larry (ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS impose SLAVE WAGES on LEGAL Immigrants.)
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To: TBP

How does one pray when God is bringing judgment on a nation?- this is a serious question- Do we pray “Your will be done”? or “Help us to endure it”? Or should we rather pray that God will change His mind?


13 posted on 12/06/2015 9:02:55 PM PST by Bob434
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To: TBP

[[Now we’re attacking people for praying. This is a sad state of affairs. ]]

And one of the many reasons I believe God is judging this nation for kicking Him out the way the left has done

I often think back though to the times of the kings- they had good kings, then bad kings, and the bad ones were really bad- killing Christians for not bowing to idols, killing them for not converting- barring them from practicing their religion in public etc- God allowed these times, and usually the people repented, Will we repent today?


14 posted on 12/06/2015 9:06:05 PM PST by Bob434
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To: joshua c

Other than the male shooter’s family, no, not that I heard. It’s just a guess on my part that there are some muslims (a few, anyway) who didn’t want something like San Bernardino to happen. They are probably the REAL muzzie extremists because they actually do just want to go abut their lives with no trouble (the so-called “extremists” are really the typical ones). They don’t fit in with their muzz peers and should just get out of that mess while they can.


15 posted on 12/06/2015 9:10:34 PM PST by TXBlair (We will not forget Benghazi.)
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To: TBP
Positively hellish, not just sad.

But when the devil comes out and shows his flank, then he's more vulnerable. While he's hiding in the shadows of a foggy semi-niceness, nobody gets a clear shot at him.

This is the MSM but has anyone asked what Joe Redneck's response is? It's like shoot yeah, God please bless America because it has no other choice, and God please bless our defensive weapon as we accost enemies in flagrante delicto.

16 posted on 12/06/2015 10:14:44 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: TBP
Now we're attacking people for praying.

I am a committed Christian, and I'm smart enough to know that praying at time you ought to be doing something is a cop-out.

What should be done is not to harbor a leader who wishes to take away our Constitutionally-recognized right to keep and bear arms, but rather exercising our Constitutional right to arrest, jail, and bring to justice the treasonous individual and his cohorts who are determined to flood our country with alien invaders, undocumented dross who desire to consume our resources, destroy our trust in each other, and bring us to the sorry state of the kind of national situation they are trying to escape.

Why is this happening, without any effective opposition?

17 posted on 12/06/2015 10:15:59 PM PST by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: Gene Eric
I’m using Opera on Win 10

Doesn't matter what you are using. The problems come when the person posting an article uses characters with non-ASCII-compliant characters like slanted quotes, em-dashes, question marks, etc. that the FR HTML interpreter doesn't recognize, and instead renders nonsensical characters as its output.

It doesn't matter what your browser or operating system is. They are not the fault. For this to go away, the poster has to go back in the FR posting edit window, and replace these ill-behaved non-ASCII characters he has entered by cut-and-paste (even from his own Notepad app) with the standard ASCII characters supplied by the text editor, and placed there by the keyboard of the posting contributor.

Tell me, is this understandable to you? I want to know if I am communicating this to the FR audience.

18 posted on 12/06/2015 10:31:11 PM PST by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: Gene Eric; imardmd1
Corrected: You can see a coarsening in how we respond and react on social media. No one feels ashamed to exploit the tragedy for political purposes even while it is happening.

But as soon as the story broke Wednesday afternoon, and while it was still going on, there were accusations and bitter words flung all over the Internet. The weirdest argument came almost immediately. A person named Chris Murphy, who is a U.S. senator representing Connecticut, sent out what struck me as the most manipulative message of recent political history.

The background is that Republican presidential contestants responded online to the shootings with the only helpful thing you can say--or do, frankly, from faraway--when a story like this occurs. "Praying for the victims, their families & the San Bernardino first responders," said Jeb Bush. Mike Huckabee said he was "praying." John Kasich: "My thoughts & prayers go out to those impacted."

This managed to enrage the progressive left. You can take your prayers and stuff 'em. The answer and the only answer to this tragedy is gun control, and if you're not for it you're not allowed to be part of the conversation. "Please shut up and slink away," tweeted a reporter. Another: "Your thoughts and prayers don't mean a damn thing." A reporter at the Huffington Post damned public officials: "useless thoughts and prayers." Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos: "How many dead people did those thoughts and prayers bring back to the life?"

19 posted on 12/06/2015 10:39:44 PM PST by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: imardmd1; John Robinson

>> Tell me, is this understandable to you?

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense.

Here’s an example where the parsing problem is compounded:

>> I’m using Opera on Win 10

I resubmitted the text you quoted.


20 posted on 12/06/2015 10:55:42 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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