Part-Time Pundit

ACLU Brings War on Christmas to Fort Collins, Comes Up Short

Much like the Christmas shopping season, the ACLU's War on Christmas begins earlier and earlier every year. This year in Fort Collins, Colorado, the city council decided to revise their policies to honor appropriately the holiday that almost ninety percent of America celebrates as Christmas. A task force was drawn up, given their task, and put to work.

Like most task forces set up by governing bodies, the result is only as good as the people you put in charge. In this case, the head of the ACLU in Fort Collins was tasked with running the committee. The result was obviously predictable.

The task force recommended no Christmas lights, no recognition of Christmas, no use of the colors red and green, no Christmas trees, and to otherwise squelch anything even remotely connected to Christmas. Instead, they suggested decorations of icicles and prominent use of the color brown. In short, they suggested returning Christmas to its millennia old pagan roots.

At the city council meeting to vote on the proposal, hundreds of people showed up to voice their concern (instead of the 10-15 people who usually show up) and the proposal was shot down 6-1. The lone dissenting voice protested saying that residents would feel left out and alienated by the city recognizing that the overwhelming majority of citizens are celebrating Christmas.

It's an interesting argument. Tolerance requires that people practice their faith in such a way that never leaves anyone out. Even if you took this argument at face value; that would effectively mean that no one could practice religion because the moment you identify with a group, you tacitly isolate those who are not part of that group. The idea that the First Amendment, designed to protect citizens from government, requires a destruction of all uniqueness is odd indeed.

However, it isn't a matter of simply suppressing religion from public life. These calls simply do not exist (even in the Fort Collins matter) when the religion in question is Judaism or Islam. The ACLU's goal, based on their track record, appears to be to prevent the public proclamation of Christianity in the name of the First Amendment. The bastardization of the Establishment Clause far beyond its intended meaning to require the government to enforce secular humanism on the people is to get the entire Bill of Rights backwards.

Horace Cooper, senior fellow with the American Civil Rights Union stated that it is inappropriate for "the government to pick and choose with faiths it will support and denigrate." The Establishment Clause, followed immediately by the Free Expression Clause, does not allow the suppression of a religion in the name of "diversity." In this case, the champions of diversity aren't really interested in what they preach; they simply want to redirect hate and intolerance to their desired targets. It's using the government to play the game of power politics. However, in this case — because of the efforts of the ACRU — the effort failed.

The ACLU generally uses intimidation to achieve victories that even the courts won't provide. By intimidating local officials with the threat of the ACLU, many simply cave and give the ACLU what they want. It is telling indeed that the Fort Collins ACLU head was in charge of this task force. In this case, it was the vigorous opposition of the local people combined with the ACRU that prevented the suppression of free speech and expression of an overwhelming majority of the community.

This intimidation has led to groups being formed to counteract the far-reaching agenda of the ACLU to build and impose a societal view outside the framework of the democratic process. Examples include the ACRU, which also has a courtwatch project to monitor Bush's judicial nominations, and other groups like the Thomas More Law Center and the American Center for Law and Justice.

One fact that should give everyone pause is that these debates about society now take place in courtrooms, argued by lawyers and decided by unelected judges. While there is a degree of balance with these groups, the wholesale removal of large social questions from the people has done much to not only undermine the notion of American self-government, but also call into question whether this country is really a republic anymore.

While this latest battle in the War on Christmas has subsided, the removal of the battle from the people to lawyers and courtrooms, and the fact that free expression of Christianity is under fire by the largest "civil rights" group in the country, should make us all think. This year, we can at least be thankful those who celebrate Christmas can still do so publicly as those who celebrate Ramadan or Hanukkah can do. Time will tell if the ACLU will succeed in telling us which religions and holidays we're allowed to recognize.

November 27th, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Around the US, Columns, Freedom of Speech, Law / Legal Issues, Politics, Religion, StoptheACLU | no comments

A Constitutionally Protected Right to Market Pornography to Children?

A federal district judge has recently ruled that the Children’s Online Protection Act is an unconstitutional suppression of free speech. The law requires porn site operators to verify that patrons are 18 years old before giving them access to pornography. The lawsuit, brought by the ACLU on behalf of several sexual health sites and salon.com, states that this is a burdensome requirement and has a chilling effect on free speech. This position is absurd.

The law has been in effect now for 9 years. There is a clear track record to how the law is applied and to what content it applies to. If the law was signed 9 days ago, one could make a claim about a potential problem. However, after 9 years there have been apparently no cases in which a legitimate sexual health site has been prosecuted or that other speech has been curtailed.

More importantly, this law requires no change to the content of these websites. People remain as free before and after this law to peddle pornography. The law is only a regulatory requirement on how the content is accessed not on what content can be produced. It is a rather silly argument that sexual health sites would be blocked when they contain similar content as most comprehensive sexual education classes in public schools taught to 7th graders.

There is no apparent evidence that any sexual health site has been shut down because of this law. Even more apparent is that salon.com (a news and commentary site) has never been targeted by this law. It says something that salon.com is concerned about an on-line porn law, and I’m not sure it’s the message they want to convey. Apparently politically pornography is not limited to Rush Limbaugh anymore.

The ACLU, apparently, agrees that there is a legitimate interest in keeping minors from pornography. They simply argue it would be a better policy to have parents install internet filters on their computer. This would help if parents controlled every computer a child might access.

Considering that a majority of home computers on the internet don’t even have anti-virus installed, however, means that likely parents, as a rule, aren’t technically proficient to install and maintain these filters, much less keep their technically-savvy children from bypassing those filters. They do make a good point that parents should be responsible for what children see online, but that point should be made to the Legislature not the Judiciary.

The argument that the law is burdensome on websites is simply false. After a one-time installation of the software and arranging a credit-card verification system (that would likely have to be in place anyway considering most porn sites are in the business of making money), there is next to no maintenance on such software. The burden is on the consumer to enter their information. That burden is about 30 seconds. It is hard to see what the entire weight of the US Constitution needs to be brought to bear to save internet chat room perverts 30 seconds in getting to their porno.

The most dangerous thing about this lawsuit and those like it, is that it is an obvious usurpation of the Legislature. By taking this case to court there are only two parties who get to influence the outcome, one solitary lobbying group (the ACLU) and a government lawyer who is accountable to no voter. The ACLU could have lobbied Congress to change the law, they have not. Since the argument isn’t over the right of children to access porn, but for regulation on how a website distributes content, it is obviously a political question that has no place in the courts. No one seems to be arguing that children have an absolute right to pornography; it is simply the means by which their viewing can be restricted.

The constant running to a court to change democratically passed laws indicates contempt for the voters of this nation. Yet again, the ACLU has created another issue in which the voters cannot be trusted. The issue of how children should be restricted from access to pornography could easily be solved in the legislature, apparently voters and legislators can’t be trusted to act appropriately. So much for freedom.

After 9 years of this law being in place, there is no reason to strike it down for “chilling” free speech that is in no way regulated by this law. There is no legitimate fear that sexual health information will be restricted. There is certainly no fear that political pornographers will be taken offline. This is a brazen attempt by the ACLU to end-run the legislative process and the will of the voters to impose values on America that Americans obviously don’t want.

March 22nd, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, Freedom of Speech, Law / Legal Issues, Politics, StoptheACLU | 6 comments

The ACLU is Fighting for the Trafficking of Women Worldwide

AIDS is a growing epidemic in the world. There was a time when it was considered a “gay-only disease” but those days are gone. International agencies and world governments are working to solve this problem before a demographic nightmare takes place. However, the ACLU is on the case to push their usual agenda.

The ACLU is arguing before a federal appeals court that the United States is funding AIDS prevention unconstitutionally. Specifically, they argue that having a ban on funds to organizations that promote commercial sex work inhibits free speech. It should be no surprise that the ACLU is in bed with those who want to legalize prostitution.

It is true that advocating the legalization of prostitution is free speech. That doesn’t mean that such speech needs to be funded by the government. As much as some like to think otherwise, Uncle Sam isn’t an ATM machine for every special interest. The old saying goes, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” If one doesn’t like the government’s rules, don’t take the government’s money.

More importantly though is that the advocacy for legalized prostitution and AIDS prevention are mutually exclusive. One cannot support the reduction of AIDS infections and support legal prostitution at the same time. Prostitution remains one of the leading vectors for AIDS infection. This is true in the case of both legal and illegal prostitution.

Prostitutes, because of their many partners, have a greatly increased risk of exposure to HIV. They are likewise able to spread HIV to many other partners. While a promiscuous society can approach a similar infection rate, prostitution is a leading avenue of spreading HIV. While on its face condoms seem like they could prevent the spread of AIDS, the trust is that they don’t. HIV infection rates increase in countries that have condom distribution programs. Abstinence programs, on the other hand, has been shown in Uganda to reduce AIDS infections. The simple truth is that when one only has sex with one’s spouse, the risk of AIDS exposure approaches zero.

The redefinition of prostitution as “commercial sex work” is just an attempt to legitimize sex trafficking. It should come as no surprise the ACLU and Planned Parenthood have signed on. While both groups are considered “pro-woman”, it is odd that they support an industry of flagrant abuse of women. Planned Parenthood in the United States has even been shown to enable to abuse of little girls.

There are a multitude of studies to show the high level of abuse that prostitutes suffer (see a few here). Women are literally bought and sold as property. The incidence of drug addiction is high among women, partially explaining why they became prostitutes to begin with.

The argument for legalization goes something like this. Prostitution will happen anyway but legalization and regulation will help stem the abuses. The argument has 50,000 foot appeal. Using the same logic, slavery (which still exists in many places) should be legalized so underground slaves can be given some measure of human rights. The fact that the ACLU and the bevy of left-wing international groups don’t argue for the legalization of slavery shows the logical inconsistency of their position.

Further, the legalization of abortion has shown that it lead to a radical increase in abortion. The legalization will lead to an untold number of women being forced into sex slavery. Make no mistake, women will be forced into commercial sex work in greater numbers if it were legalized.

The government need not be forced into funding programs that have no hope in every helping fix the problem. It certainly should not fund programs that will make the problem worse. Lastly, nothing in the constitution requires the government be forced to fund groups who support the most unthinkable human rights abuses known to man. AIDS prevention dollars should be used for AIDS prevention, not for the promotion of sex slaves.

January 2nd, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Columns, Freedom of Speech, International, Law / Legal Issues, Politics, StoptheACLU | no comments

City of Chicago: “Christianity is a Cancer on the Soul of the City and We Will Have it Out!”

The Associated Press is reporting that the City of Chicago has threatened the organizers of an annual German festival, Christkindlmarket, over one of their sponsors. This sponsor, according to the City of Chicago, would be “insensitive to the many people of different faiths… [and] contrary to acceptable advertising standards…”

Was this sponsor the KKK? The World Church of the Creator? No. The sponsor was a movie studio, New Line Cinema. New Line Cinema sponsored the event (until their money was turned down because of the threats of the City of Chicago) with advertisements of the movie, “The Nativity Story”.

Predictably, the City tried to hide behind the “separation of church and state” doctrine. Skipping past the fact that the First Amendment requires institutional separation, not the purging of all things religious, the characterization of New Line Cinema as a religious institution is somewhat contrived.

Some of the movies New Line has put out include such religious classics as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Snakes on a Plane”, the Austin Powers series, and “Blow.” New Line is a thoroughly secular company that produces movies that range from the pornographic, to the flippant gore, to children’s movies. They’ve decided to make a movie about the Nativity, an event that is indisputably consequential in the history of mankind no matter what you believe.

The City of Chicago could have had a problem sponsoring a festival called “Christkindlmarket” but they don’t. They could have a problem with the nativity scenes that take place in this festival, but they don’t because they include celebrations of other faiths. They had a problem that the included a small ad from New Line, who paid for it, for the movie “The Nativity Story”.

There is no outright religious imagery at all in that ad. No crosses, no mention of religion, only the name of a film the references the same event celebrated by Christkindlmarket.

There is no War on Christmas, the War is on Christians. Organizations such as the ACLU and the City of Chicago hold that they do not have the right to exist, to live their lives as they see fit, nor speak their mind in anyway where someone might overhear them. As was put on Captain’s Quarters blog, “they reject on culture in order to keep from offending others.” Diversity and multiculturalism means a certain culture needs to be purged from public view in the City of Chicago.

Even when Christians choose to create their own cities and live by their own rules, the ACLU brings out the big guns to stop it. If one in a hundred thousand pharmacists want to live by their conscience and not dispense pills to murder babies, Illinois issues “emergency laws” to stop them. It isn’t enough that 99,999 of 100,000 pharmacists would fill the script, it’s that there is one pharmacist out there who has values that need to be excised from society as if it were a cancer.

The City of Chicago’s decision has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with separation of Church and State or multiculturalism. It is censorship, pure and simple. It’s yet another declaration of war on Christianity’s right to exist.

November 28th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Corruption, Freedom of Speech, Law / Legal Issues, Politics, Religion, StoptheACLU | 2 comments

ACLU Against Free Speech if the Speech is Religious

As is typical for this time of year, the ACLU is shaking down towns and schools to keep them from acknowledging Christmas. Despite the fact that everyone gets off December 25th and the only holiday that is being celebrated is Christmas (sorry Kwanzaa is a joke), the Republic will crumble if that fact is acknowledged.

The latest battle took place in Berkley, Michigan where the ACLU threatened a lawsuit if the city did not remove a nativity display from public grounds. For the most part, the episode is exactly what has played out in most other fronts of the War on Christmas. One interesting anecdote, however, stands out.

One of the compromises that was suggested to the ACLU was the creation of a “free speech zone.” This would be an area outside most government control where citizens could put up holiday displays of their own choosing. The ACLU was dead set against this idea. Their rationale? Citizens would use their free expression to support Christmas. The “defenders” of the Bill of Rights stood against free speech.

The First Amendment is clear, while establishing a state religion is illegal, so is prohibiting free expression of religion. The First Amendment requires institutional separation, not public atheism.

If someone wants to put up a Hanukkah display, fine. If someone wants to put up a Kwanzaa display, they need to find a holiday that’s not a complete invention. A diverse and pluralistic society doesn’t seek to squelch cultures; it seeks to respect them all. The ACLU isn’t interested in a diverse and pluralistic society.

This nation celebrates the same holiday on December 25th, that holiday is called Christmas. As the name implies, it celebrates the birth of a person who did, in fact, exist in history. It is undeniable that this person has a profound impact on the world and history. Many people, even atheists, celebrate a secular version of this same holiday.

It is time for the ACLU to stop rewriting our institutions, our culture, our history, and our traditions. A free nation doesn’t need a band of elite lawyers to tell us how to behave in public. It certainly doesn’t need an aristocracy of lawyers and jurists using government power to keep us from exercising our freedom.

November 21st, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Law / Legal Issues, Politics, StoptheACLU | 4 comments

ACLU Earns Money on the Backs of Immigrants

The ACLU is upset that New Jersey schools are asking students for Social Security Numbers when they enroll for school. As usual they are upset for the wrong reasons and deceiving the public in the process.

First, the ACLU is at the forefront of litigation and lobbying to prevent the United States from having a national identification card (the kind of thing the 9/11 Commission suggested we do to prevent terrorism). The problem is that we already have a national identification; we call it a Social Security Number. If someone steals that number, they own your identity, it’s just that simple.

Instead of adopting some form of strong identification for citizens, we are stuck with the easy to steal SSNs which have greatly contributed to over $24 billion in compromised assets belonging to US citizens that is available to be stolen at any moment by malicious hackers.

With SSNs being so valuable, schools have no business having them. They simply shouldn’t be spending their money on data protection when our schools are rivaling the third world for the gutter. If we are going to continue to waste money on public schools, at least they should try to spend it on students.

However, the key point of contention of the ACLU isn’t privacy; it is that immigrants will be scared off from sending their students to public schools “both documented and undocumented.” The problem is that all documented students can get Social Security Numbers. If you are in this country legally, you have no problem with the Social Security Administration. They are simply throwing that up there to make the policy sound xenophobic.

The only people who would potentially have problems with this policy is illegal immigrants, or more specifically, the illegal immigrants who don’t bother to steal an SSN for their kid. The sticky part here is that despite both the government of Mexico and the government of the United States refusing to actually enforce their own laws, there is still a group of people who don’t strictly speaking have a legal right to be here.

No politician has suggested we just dissolve the border, or for that matter, abolish immigration law, but they continue to act as if the law doesn’t exist. Amazingly enough, failure to enforce the law has lead to lawlessness and confusion. This case wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the US government deciding certain laws aren’t really laws without bothering with what some of us like to call “the democratic process”.

The ACLU, for its part, is at least open that it believes the United States really isn’t a nation but just a spot on the map where everyone who can manage the trip is entitled the full privileges of citizenship. Despite everything to the contrary in the Constitution and US Code, the ACLU believes every foreign citizen has the full rights to be in this country, regardless of what the law says.

If the ACLU was truly intellectually honest, however, they’d be suing to have the entire body of immigration law thrown out. That seems to be what they really want, no regulations on immigration whatsoever. It’s a rather startling departure from a pro-regulation group.

Instead, they keep the laws on the books and the dyslexic approach to immigration this nation takes so they can continue to file lawsuits. Immigration lawsuits have become an income stream and the ACLU doesn’t want to see that go away because the problem was “solved”. Much of the lawyer industry has adopting tactics that ensure litigation and maximum possible lawyering, why should the ACLU be any different? After all, they are the beneficiaries while the common man picks up the tab.

The biggest deception of the ACLU is thus leveled right on the shoulders of the undocumented workers they claim to support. They don’t try to solve their problems; they simply try to prolong them so they can keep racking up legal fees. Protectors of the Bill of Rights?  Hardly.

August 30th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Law / Legal Issues, Politics, StoptheACLU | no comments

Federal Court Rules Protecting America is Unconstitutional

The ACLU has convinced a federal judge that monitoring overseas communications of terrorists is against the constitution. Despite the fact the preamble lists defending the nation as an acceptable federal government function, the ACLU and US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said that the risk “innocent” communications could be intercepted far outweighed the risk of Al Qaeda attacking the United States. Despite programs such as ECHELON, CARNIVORE, and others that existed happily (albeit controversially) under the Clinton Administration, the possibility that George Bush might actually defend the country is a threat the Constitution cannot bear.

Despite the evidence, the media still calls the case a matter of “warrantless wiretapping” despite the fact that the clear intention is to monitor international calls. This ongoing deception is an attempt to create hysteria that the US is becoming a “police state” and that the treats are from Republicans, not terrorists. This is the same political quarter that brings you the idea (despite all evidence to the contrary) that George Bush and not Al Qaeda is behind 9/11.

The judge in this case, an appointee of Jimmy Carter, doesn’t seem to understand the difference between overseas surveillance and domestic surveillance. Will the CIA start needing warrant the next time the spy on a terrorist overseas?

According to the ruling:

The President of the United States, a creature of the same Constitution which gave us these Amendments, has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders as required by FISA, and accordingly has violated the First Amendment Rights of these Plaintiffs as well.

Let’s skip past the FISA court idea, one that is still in dispute publicly and in the courts (other district courts either ruled for the government or declined to rule at all) and discuss the First Amendment issue. Debating what due process should exist for wiretapping is something that can and will take place, however, the idea that plotting terror attacks against the citizens of the United States of America could even possible be protected by the First Amendment should make everyone who cares about the safety of their family cringe. What other possible meaning is there to that phrase?

Many scoffed at the idea of framing resistance to the Patriot Act and the “warrantless wiretapping” programs as an attempt to establish an “Al Qaeda Bill of Rights”, however, with Judge Taylor’s ruling and the help of the ACLU, the shroud of the First Amendment has been extended to protect those who plot to kill Americans.

August 17th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Law / Legal Issues, National, Politics, StoptheACLU | no comments