Sure, yes, this is in England, which does not have a First Amendment:
A charity volunteer has been arrested and charged on four counts after she told the police she “might” be praying silently, when questioned as to why she was standing on a public street near an abortion facility.
This appears to be video of the arrest.
Do not doubt, however, that this milestone exists farther down the road that progressives and Democrats want to take the United States, in a world where speech can be violence.
The prospect is even worse than it seems, however. These are not objective, even-handed rules that apply to everybody. The way they get to “speech is violence” is by creating protected classes (e.g., minorities) and favored activities (e.g., abortion) that call for special protection. Your speech is violence, but their violence is speech. Thus, they can shut down roads and attack pro-life organizations, but silent prayer as you stand on the street is forbidden.
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At the moment, it appears to be simply talk, but this is a concerning idea for Democrat Rhode Island Senate President Dominick Ruggerio to float:
Ruggerio floated an outside-the-box idea for the state takeover of Providence schools: He wants to work with the Rhode Island Foundation, the state’s largest philanthropic organization, to see if it will “supplement what’s going on in the city of Providence.” …
“They have money, they can appropriate money for certain things,” Ruggerio said. “The foundation does a great job with fund-raising. I think they could be a great adviser. I think you have some people on that board who would be great mentors.”
Especially since it inaugurated its Civic Leadership Fund in 2012, which is now nearing $1 million in annual donations, the RI Foundation has held a conspicuous place in the state’s governance, as if, like Ruggerio, politicians see it as an adult who can actually help when the kids in the political sandbox can’t cooperate. We shouldn’t expect the organization to be the home of objectively minded angels.
It’s nice that the foundation lists most of the donors to its civic fund, but note that “anonymous” is among them. The truth is, Rhode Islanders can’t know who is giving how much to the foundation or what its internal decision-making involves. Bringing in the foundation, even as a leverage-wielding “advisor” could mean handing the Providence schools entirely over to the labor union… or corporate interests… or left-wing crazies… or (for that matter) right-wing crazies.
I agree with Ruggerio that government is not up to the job of reforming Providence schools, whether at the municipal or state levels. Bringing in non-government organizations is part of the solution, but at the low level of allowing families to choose any schools that they believe will work for their children.
Featured image by Devin Kaselnak on Unsplash.
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That’s the question that comes to mind when I see an historical anecdote such as this from Jean-Marie Valheur (via Instapundit):
You will often hear about his great speeches, wonderful quotes, witty little anecdotes here and there. Or insights into his complex marriage. His mental health issues and how he overcame them and carried on in spite of personal hardships. But what is every bit as interesting, to me, was the man’s physicality. Lincoln’s very body was the stuff of legends.
Everything you will ever read of Abraham Lincoln will tell you he was a man of great contrasts. For instance, his height of 6′4″ was impressive, but his shoulders were narrow and his body slim. His hands and arms were exceptionally strong and his voice rather shrill for a man his size. In his youth he was a wrestler, as well as a day-laborer known to easily do the work of three men. “No man could drive a nail deeper,” his old boss would admiringly say.
The habits of work and the feeling of strength change one’s perspective and affect the way one interacts with others and solves problems. As our society becomes increasingly cerebral, with the conceit that we can figure out everything through the contrivances of “experts” and an awed respect for “subjectivity,” I’ve wondered (in light of my experience with manual labor) why none ever seem to factor in the effect of having labored and been strong.
Featured image by Clark VanDerBeken on Unsplash.
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As readers have surely observed, I’m doing an end-of-year cleanout of my bookmarked links. Oddly, after a news search on Google and Bing, I’m not seeing any local coverage of this story, reported in the Washington Examiner in August, at all. Is that correct?
[Open full post]Nicole Solas and the Goldwater Institute filed the lawsuit against the South Kingstown School Committee after the board refused to allow her to attend the meetings of its black, indigenous, people of color, or BIPOC, advisory board.
It’s a shame the mainstream media (extended to glossy magazines) has no space for illustrated commentary as powerfully accurate as this.
We’re so comfortable these days that progressives can exist many layers of abstraction removed from the consequences of their policies and therefore enact policies that roll painfully downhill while undermining real progress.
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I’m midway through reading a book about the psychology of changing your mind, and the author apparently sees understanding the subject as an important tool in overcoming our polarization. I’ll have much more to say about the book, no doubt, not least to suggest that increasingly subtle psychological manipulation may be causing the polarization. After all, the target of the techniques, even if they work, may feel targeted and generally lose trust in reality. On the other side, a movement has to be pretty confident in its righteousness in order to self-justify manipulation and, where it fails, can feel the recalcitrant opposition is something other than human.
Be that as it may, with the federal government currently performing one of the dances by which the permanent uniparty continues to grow its budget, we should consider a more practical reason we’re so divided. For that purpose, I’ll hearken back to a 2021 commentary by Betsy McCaughey concerning the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill:
Barack Obama, the community organizer who became president, was a master at machine politics. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) outsourced the important job of health plan enrollment to community organizations, handsomely funding them and entrusting them to register people to vote at the same time. Obamacare turned community organizations into a fifth estate with government funding but without government rules.
Now, Build Back Better is funding an even wider array of organizations. It allocates a whopping $5.7 billion “for community-led projects to stabilize neighborhoods.” Translation: rallies and legal action to stop gentrification and “displacement.”
I watched this happening in real time during Obama’s reign. The federal government gave money to state and local governments with the requirement that they hire approved advocacy groups to do the analysis (or whatever it was). Billions of dollars have been flooding into the bank accounts of activists. At a minimum, it keeps them flush and free of the burden of finding other work. More broadly, it gives them money to throw around and multiply themselves. I’d surmise, too, that federal money is helping to fund the research in how to psychologically manipulate public opinion for progressive ends.
These practices must stop. Depressingly, however, a string of revelations show the consequences for those who might disrupt the scheme — from the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups to the reaction to President Trump to the government’s involvement with social media censorship and propaganda to much, much more.
Featured image by Bermix Studios on Unsplash.
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From the other side of the election, with the Hunter Biden laptop known to be real, the J6 commission calling for criminal prosecutions, COVID-related decisions coming under renewed scrutiny, and Elon Musk providing revelations about what really went on inside Twitter to support the Democrat Party, it’s worth revisiting J. Peder Zane’s fictional account of how journalists would be acting if their reality matched the image they promote.
Showing what could be investigated really highlights what is not.
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… as New York has done. It’s to make civilians more vulnerable. Supporters framed their intention as making bad people more vulnerable to the police, as during mass shootings, but the ban doesn’t apply only to bad actors.
As simple common sense, policies designed to make people more vulnerable ought to be approached with suspicion. They are difficult to reconcile with the notion that we are a nation of free, independent people.
Keep in mind that, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center poll, nearly half of Democrat men under age 50 support assassination of political figures they don’t like. Unfortunately, that’s just the biggest cut of the data. The percentages of Republican women (40%), Republican men (34%), and Democrat women (32%) in that age group supporting political assassination are way too high and contrast hugely with those over 50, who remember more-chaotic times and are much less likely to support assassination.
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Although the core political story in Rhode Island is inevitably Democrat, this isn’t a partisan post. The one detail I recall from Amity Shlaes’s book, Coolidge, that detracted from the 30th President’s story was an anecdote from when he was the Republican president of the Massachusetts Senate. A lobbyist persuaded him to go one way on an upcoming question and, holding the vote by voice, Coolidge gave him a win even though reports suggest the shouts of the legislators were clearly in the other direction.
Whether Coolidge was right on the issue (or there was some corruption in the background that history did not capture) is beside the point. The parliamentary leader of a legislative body isn’t meant to be a single decision-maker when it comes to its actions.
Thus, it’s a matter of grave concern that Rhode Island Speaker of the House Joseph Shekarchi seems to think he’s the king of his chamber. Note the following statements from a recent interview with the Boston Globe’s Edward Fitzpatrick (emphasis added). On early voting:
“I heard a little bit of pushback from some of the boards of canvassers that it was too long of an early voting period,” Shekarchi said. “They had to open a polling station at the city or town and man it for 20 days, and the first five, six days no one showed up. They came on the last part of that.”
But, he said, “If someone can convince me that we need it, I’ll keep it. But if someone can convince me to adjust it, maybe we’ll look at adjusting it. I’m not going to eliminate it because I think it has a great benefit.”
On shoreline access:
Shekarchi said the House passed the measure late in last year’s session, so it will try to get the bill over to the Senate early in the 2023 session. But also, the Senate has a “constitutional concern” that the bill would take property from private land owners, he said.
“I personally don’t believe that it’s a taking, or I wouldn’t have passed the bill if I thought it was unconstitutional,” Shekarchi said. “But there are ways to resolve that issue.”
Agreement or disagreement with Shekarchi on the substance of the issues should be less important than the fact that he appears to believe that the decisions are his alone.
The fault is ours as Rhode Islanders for having been manipulated into a system that guarantees one-party rule, and more immediately, the fault lies with the legislators who tolerate their reduction to courtiers for the sake of keeping their seats. Still, this is plain, deep corruption right there on the page for all to see, but few even notice that the king believes he’s wearing a garment of authority that is not there.
Featured image by Vilhelm Pedersen on Wikipedia.
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… but keep an eye out for claims of increased flooding that could be caused by a wobbling moon (which, if it needs to be said, is in no way related to carbon emissions):
Beware, coastal communities. The U.S. is set to face a surge in high-tide floods along its coasts due to a “wobble” in the moon’s orbit coupled with global warming, according to NASA.
Starting in the mid-2030s, a lunar cycle will amplify rising sea levels fueled by climate change, causing rapidly increasing high-tide floods on every U.S. coast, according to findings of a new study by the NASA Sea Level Change Science Team from the University of Hawaii.
The “coupled with global warming” piece is the CYA maneuver. Otherwise, people might begin to wonder if maybe all the “climate change” evidence might have other contributing factors that are even more beyond our control than completely reversing the course of human progress by undermining our energy and industrial bases.
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