Posted on 04/06/2015 2:55:28 PM PDT by Yashcheritsiy
In a civil, consensual society there exists an unspoken yet very real social contract which serves to make that society possible. No matter what disagreements we may have over politics, religion, or anything else, at the end of the day, we're part of the same society, and we deal with each other in a way that maintains the civility and stability of that society. At least that used to be the case. However, this civil consensus, which has been eroding for at least a decade, has pretty much broken down completely, much of it within the last few weeks.
And the fault for this lies entirely with the Left.
Everyone knows that liberals and progressives and the rest on the Left are stark raving nuts. Unfortunately, they're very dangerous nuts who don't have a concept of "leaving other people alone." For years, even decades, normal people in this country have had to endure their depredations – speech codes, political correctness, harassment, and the like. On occasions, their insanity has turned to violence, with death threats, arson, and vandalism taking the place of frenzied political rhetoric. They've even resorted to actual acts of terrorism, such as when deranged gay rights activist Floyd Corkins, radicalized by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-wing hate group, attacked the headquarters of the Family Research Council back in 2012, shooting and wounding a guard before he was himself shot down.
In earlier times, the broader Left was careful to distance itself from the actions of those who acted upon their hate speech. However, in recent months, we have seen the Left not only begin to openly side with its violent radicals, but even encourage them.
This was shown recently in Indiana, in the case of Memories Pizza, a small-town pizzeria that was harassed and threatened by left-wing fanatics after its owners answered a theoretical question about whether they would cater a gay "wedding." Citing their personal moral objections, they said that they would not. In return, they were badgered, received death threats, arson was threatened against their business, and they went into hiding. It wasn't enough that people disagreed with them – that is fine, that is part of what having an open society is all about – but the Left went a step further to try to personally destroy the O'Connors, the family that owns the pizzeria.
That is NOT fine. That is NOT acceptable. And that is the problem we face today – an entire faction in our nation for whom no depth is too low, no action too nasty that it cannot be wielded against the "enemies of progress." The Left came out into the open about its desire to coerce the rest of us to do what left-wingers want us to do. After the Memories Pizza blow up, many on the Left, from top to bottom, came out openly in favor of coercion and force. Businesses must be forced to serve who the Left wants them to serve. If they won't, then they must be hounded, forced out of business, punished as an example to the rest. It is the commonplace, rather than the exception, for businesses and individuals who run afoul of the cultural marxists and other progressives to be lied about, harassed, personally intimidated, have their employment or livelihoods threatened, and more. Now they're calling for churches to be shut down because they oppose gay marriage. Soon, it will be throwing you into the gulag for saying the wrong thing. It's what they want – only hithertofore, they had not been able to seriously consider being able to do so.
It's time to acknowledge an uncomfortable fact about American society today – which is that we no longer have a common civil society. The Left has destroyed it. They've broken that unspoken social contract, the one which says that we can disagree, but at the end of the day, we're all in this together. Whatever our disagreements, we're all Americans, and we're all looking to the same end, and we'll at least treat each other with enough respect to tolerate our differences and coexist peacefully. That unspoken agreement no longer exists.
This being said, it's time for those of us on the Right to acknowledge something else that may be uncomfortable – we do not owe the Left anything.
Anything.
We do not owe them respect. We do not owe them courtesy. We do not owe them "fair play." We do not owe them the normal restraints of a civil society that operates under polite discourse and civil persuasion. They want to play rough? Then they need to be on the receiving end of it as well. And if they cry, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!", then simply remind them that we're giving them what they indicated that they wanted. They did to others, so they must have wanted it done to them.
Now, I am NOT advocating that we on the Right engage in activities that are illegal or immoral. I do not believe we ought to make death threats, no matter how much we are threatened. I do not believe we should destroy their properties or steal from them, even though they do this to us. However, there are many ways in which we can teach them the lessons of life in a society unrestrained by civil discourse.
If they make threats against one of ours, then challenge them to try to make good on it. But let them know that if they do show up, there will be a dozen concealed carry holders ready to defend the target of their hatred. After all, if you're "shopping" at a bakery, and some nut runs in and threatens the place, you're being threatened too, right? We need to band together for mutual protection. If the Left is going to threaten, then we need to protect. Don't cower or hide when they make their threats. Challenge them. Throw it back in their faces.
Left-wingers do not deserve anything from us. They don't deserve for us to trade with them. They don't deserve to be allowed to shop at our businesses. They do not deserve to be employed by us. Their states don't deserve our sales tax dollars, if we have a choice where to spend our money. Don't buy the products made by their companies.
We do not owe them any sort of slack whatsoever. When they do something wrong, report them to the police. When they break a contract or lie to the public or whatever else, sue them, sue them, and then sue them again. A good first step in this direction is the defamation lawsuit announced today by Phi Kappa Psi fraternity against Rolling Stone magazine, going after them for inventing bogus rape allegations against the fraternity out of whole cloth, all because the SJWs at Rolling Stone wanted to "go after rich white privilege." I have to admit, while I'm certainly no fan of fraternities, it will be satisfying to see a bunch of rich, white privileged frat boys get a multimillion dollar settlement from Rolling Stone as a result of that magazine's lies.
We do not owe them any respect for the freedoms that they would deny to us. We do not owe them free speech. Instead, we should band together and hound them from forum to forum, on or off the internet. Shut them down. Shout them down. Overwhelm them with numbers.
Use the legislatures we control to make laws that will overturn everything they want or hope to gain. Is that unfair? They should have thought about that before. If they won't respect our rights, we have no duty to respect theirs until they change their ways. States and localities should ignore partisan laws that the Left makes solely to enforce their political correctness and identity politics. Nor do we have any duty to respect the courts that they use to unconstitutionally overthrow the will of the people day after day in courtrooms all across this land. So if a court rules something that one of our states or cities does "unconstitutional," so what? Ignore it.
The Left not only has no reasonable grounds to make any complaint. There's a legal principle known as estoppel, which essentially means that a participant in a legal matter "will not be heard" when making an argument that directly contradicts something they have previously said or done – their earlier action is controlling. You can't murder someone, for instance, and then use the wrongness of taking life as a defense in your capital murder trial.
The Left feels free to selectively ignore laws they don't like. So-called "sanctuary cities" openly flout our immigration laws. Obama's "Just Us" Department routinely refuses to uphold laws that are on the books with which it disagrees. Further, the Left has spent the better part of a decade openly spitting on the Constitution, not even making a real effort to provide a fig leaf of legality when their Pres__ent issues blatantly unconstitutional executive orders, or openly admits that he's going to "go around" Congress to get done what he wants. Since the Left hasn't cared about the Constitution up to this point and indeed has openly said that the Constitution is a "dead letter," they are logically estopped from falling back on constitutionality as a defense now. Likewise, if its fine for them to set up sanctuary cities to harbor criminal illegal aliens, then its fine for our states to simply ignore any court rulings, and instead continue to refuse to recognize gay "marriages."
But most of all, we on the Right need to internalize, once and for all, the principle that if we don't hang together, we all hang separately. Too often, when the social justice warriors and cultural marxists attack one of us for saying or doing something that runs afoul of their political correctness, we just cluck our tongues and pity the victim, saying that this is such a bad and terrible thing. This has to stop. We need to start caring what happens to the next guy, instead of ducking our heads and hoping that it doesn't happen to us. We saw this done successfully in Indiana – the SJWs went after Memories Pizza, but who got the last laugh? Conservatives banded together and pitched in to help them financial. As of the writing of this article, $842,442 has been raised for Memories Pizza – a figure which probably exceeds ten years of normal sales by this small-town pizzeria. And further, this figure was raised by 29,161 contributors, which works out to just under $29 per contributor – a small individual price to pay to stick it in the eye of the SJWs. The Lefties know this has blown up into a huge public relations loss for them, which is why they are now engaging in all kinds of wacko conspiracy-theorizing to try to explain away the successful GoFund effort for the O'Connors.
By the way, if you would like to kick in some funds to help defend Baronnelle Stutzmann, the Christian florist in Washington who is in danger of losing her business, her home, and her savings because she stood by her convictions and refused to be coerced into supporting a gay "wedding," feel free to do so here.
Standing together is the best way to beat these people. They depend on us to be isolated, to be absorbed in our own individual pursuits while they run wild ruining the lives of one individual at a time. Band together. Form information networks that are not easily shut down. Spread news as it happens. When a newspaper files a hit piece, thousands should be burning up the phone lines demanding they retract the story, and if they won't listen, then find out who their advertisers are and give them a piece of our minds. Hit them in the pocketbook where it hurts. Demand the jobs of the reporters who lie and slander. When a left-wing outlet publishes their nonsense, thousands of us should be flooding their comments sections, drowning out everything else. The Left is all about control – let's see how they react when WE take control of their sites and drown out their narrative.
If this all sounds "radical" to you, then you don't have a sufficient grasp of just how far down the road the Left has brought us. Wake up. The Left has broken the contract – it's time to make them own up to it.
“...he stepped into a void and held back the tide for 2+ years when there was no one there to help, he had zero chance to win and there wasn’t anyone to go see about it.”
My mother is English. She is 89 now, so lived through WWII in England, the Blitz and all.
She said that there was never a feeling of doom, even “in their darkest hours.” She said there was a stubborn belief that — though it would be a hard, hard fight, with countless setbacks and sorrows — England would somehow not just survive, but would prevail. She said Churchill would never surrender, and the Brits loved that.
The Brits are a warrior people. True, they have become somewhat emasculated lately; but there is a core there that are true warriors. I always want that core of Brits on my side in a fight. Because they WILL fight, and they WILL unleash hell on the foe.
We keep swinging at shadows. The Democrat Party could care less about homosexual wedding cakes. They could care less about homosexual weddings. They could care less about homosexuals.
They care about this as a means to attack their opponents.
It used to be that they would drag out homosexuals in the military to throw up a smokescreen. Now it’s this and gun control.
The leaders of the Democrat Party want access to government money so they can steal it. Hillary Clinton “lost” $6,000,000,000 from the State Department. Have you seen her pay it back?
Did you have an NDE?
But it overlooks some serious realities.
For example, it says: When they break a contract or lie to the public or whatever else, sue them, sue them, and then sue them again.
Sounds good, right? Sounds logical, right? Except that, to sue, you need a lawyer. But try finding a conservative lawyer. They don't exist. At least, they don't exist in heavily liberal areas, which is exactly where the liberals are most likely to run wild. So what do you do then? How do you sue without a lawyer? Yes, it "can be done," but law is an actual profession, and there's lots you don't know that your opponant - a law firm - does know. So you're going into battle with one hand tied behind your back, before a liberal judge and a liberal jury.
Yes, they should be sued. But where's a law firm that will do it?
Thanks for this excellent article which is spot on. I have recently written 3 liberal columnists about their articles. Two I didn’t hear back from but one absolutely attacked me, even insulting my parents just for the strong but very polite letter I sent him.
My initial letter was on point and respectful. But, when he attacked my parents (out of the blue), my second and last letter made the point to him that I must have hit the bullseye calling him a liberal because his response of a “personal” attack while ignoring the subject matter was vintage Democrat/Alinsky.
Some of u Freepers are excellent writers, I hope you take this guy to heart and start pushing back on some of these columnists and pundits!
Is that the only “pic” or thing you have to say?
I agree.
We all agree.
Next.
Nor can I.
L
When we all live in Gods kingdom that would work. Problem is we live here on Earth.
Pray for them all you want and I will thank you for it. But I intend to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.
Good luck,
L
The Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Holy Spirit changed the picture. There are enough biblical accounts of post-Pentecostal churches to make the idea that they were like our modern 2nd amendment societies very suspect.
The failure in your understanding is that you are mistaking the churches for society at large. Trying the treat the one as the other is incorrect.
Yes, the admonition for buying swords was for after the Lord crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. It was for us today. And Jesus was telling us that we can defend ourselves...even with the so-called "carnal" means of physical weapons.
Entirely different from using them *offensively* to "spread the Gospel," as the Catholics claimed to be doing. Nevertheless, "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (I Timothy 5:8) I we don't act to meet the needs of our own, as well as other innocents (mentioned earlier), we are worse than infidels.
This false "spirituality" of "doing anything political is carnal" is a satanic infestation of our churches.
Now remember, voting is carnal and indicates a lack of faith.
In my experience even liberal lawyers like to cash checks. They’ll toss their “principles” out the window quicker than you can say “Bob’s your uncle” if there’s a payday involved.
L
The crazy guy who shot Gabby Giffords reportedly had spoken to her at one point and he'd asked:
"What is government if words have no meaning?"
The first time I heard that I laughed at it wondering at how insane he had to be.
But anymore the words of the Constitution mean whatever some Federal judge wants them to mean or Obama just figures that all the words in it that limit his power don't really mean to limit his power after all.
So what is our government if the words in our laws have no meaning?
Maybe the nutty guy went insane because he saw the truth.
Our thinking is the same, but our experiences differ.
“What, indeed, is a state, if it is not an association of citizens united by law?” - Cicero
The existing theology is the stretch.
He’s right that the social contract has been destroyed. Photographers, bakers, and other professionals who provide expressive services have an obligation to society to be circumspect. They cannot refuse to provide services, or they will feed the hunger of the violent mob. They can, however, be creative in accepting.
“Of course I do weddings, even gay weddings. What is the date?” . . . “Okay. My rate would be $14,000.” . . . “Too much? Even with the custom inscription of your choice? Well, please let me know if you decide to use my services.”
“Of course I bake wedding cakes.” . . . “Why would the fact that you are gay have anything to do with baking a cake?” . . . “Oh, for that cake, it would be $35,000.” . . . “No, I’m not refusing. That would be illegal. I’m negotiating.”
“Yes, I provide wedding services.” . . . “Yes, for gay weddings too.” . . . “I know what you mean about people refusing service based on discrimination against a class. How do you feel about compelling those people to provide services against their will?” . . . “Really? Oh, dear! You must leave. I can not serve you, not because you are gay but because you support slavery. Slavery is a ‘trigger word’ for me, and I cannot work in that environment, please go away from my ‘safe space’.”
“The wedding venue you booked in my B&B, which is also my home? Sorry about the last minute notice, but we’re having septic issues, and I have three trucks here pumping right now. Fortunately, I booked a backup location when I saw the issue emerging, and you can use a pavilion at the park. Even with my coordinator’s fee, that will save you money. I’ll be refunding a third of what you paid, as specified on page 6 of the contract, which says that if there is a need for a substitute location, I will provide a venue within ten miles distance and with comparable capacity, refunding up to one-third of the fee paid.”
Many keep telling themselves that while sitting on their thumbs and doing nothing to even slow the Left down. Just like the RINOs they detest, they are also complicit when they allow an Obama to have a second term.
Would you prefer to win, or be a graceful loser?
When there is Jesus’ way or the highway, the supposed “loss” becomes a win in a context you will never be able to envision ahead of time.
I am weird. I get serious about faith matters. You guys wear it on your sleeve and that is IT.
You are a prophet party of one come to show all the other ones wrong?
Good luck. This sounds much more like excusing a worldly agenda using the language of godliness but denying its power.
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