Blasphemy and Free Speech

Hillsdale College - Imprimis Issue

Paul Marshall
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

PAUL MARSHALL is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. He has published widely in newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, First Things, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books on religion and politics, including Their Blood Cries Out, Religious Freedom in the World, and Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion. Most recently he is the co-author, with Nina Shea, of Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide.

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., on February 3, 2012.

A growing threat to our freedom of speech is the attempt to stifle religious discussion in the name of preventing “defamation of” or “insults to” religion, especially Islam. Resulting restrictions represent, in effect, a revival of blasphemy laws.

Few in the West were concerned with such laws 20 years ago. Even if still on some statute books, they were only of historical interest. That began to change in 1989, when the late Ayatollah Khomeini, then Iran’s Supreme Leader, declared it the duty of every Muslim to kill British-based writer Salman Rushdie on the grounds that his novel, The Satanic Verses, was blasphemous. Rushdie has survived by living his life in hiding. Others connected with the book were not so fortunate: its Japanese translator was assassinated, its Italian translator was stabbed, its Norwegian publisher was shot, and 35 guests at a hotel hosting its Turkish publisher were burned to death in an arson attack.

More recently, we have seen eruptions of violence in reaction to Theo van Gogh’s and Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s film Submission, Danish and Swedish cartoons depicting Mohammed, the speech at Regensburg by Pope Benedict XVI on the topic of faith, reason, and religious violence, Geert Wilders’ film Fitna, and a false Newsweek report that the U.S. military had desecrated Korans at Guantanamo. A declaration by Terry Jones—a deservedly obscure Florida pastor with a congregation of less than 50—that he would burn a Koran on September 11, 2010, achieved a perfect media storm, combining American publicity-seeking, Muslim outrage, and the demands of 24 hour news coverage. It even drew the attention of President Obama and senior U.S. military leaders. Dozens of people were murdered as a result.
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Don't Ask, Don't........

Gay marines follow in wake of lesbian home-coming kiss | Mail Online
By Laura Cox

An openly gay marine has caused a stir online after sharing the traditional home-coming first kiss with his boyfriend in Hawaii.
Sgt Brandon Morgan of Oakdale, California, was captured as he jumped into the arms of boyfriend, reported by International Business Times to be called Dalan Wells.

The pair embraced and locked lips as they were reunited following the end of Morgan's Afghanistan tour with the US Marines.

Welcome home: Sgt Brandon Morgan's embrace with boyfriend Dalan Wells has gone viral in the blogosphere after it was posted on Facebook. 

They join a longstanding tradition of military personnel vying to share the ‘first kiss’ with their partners on returning home from operational tour. 

The picture went viral after being posted on the Gay Marines Facebook page and popular gay blogs Joe.My.God and Towleroad, receiving more than 18,000 ‘likes’ and almost 4,000 comments since Saturday.

‘Welcome home and thank you for your service!’ wrote one commenter. ‘This is an awesome picture! Love knows no gender, race, creed or sexual preference.’

Read more....... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-210733/Gay-marines-follow-wake-lesbian-home-coming-kiss.html#ixzz1ngFWeFy1

Source: Mail Online

The Mystery Council

Of course, it was all for show...

Quiet fade-out for Obama’s faith council

Whoever designed this fence should be fired.

Santorum campaign suggests Mitt Romney may have done deal to make Ron Paul his running mate - Mail Online - Toby Harnden's blog

23 February 2012 4:56 AM

After tonight's debate, in which Ron Paul and Mitt Romney repeatedly attacked Rick Santorum over his 16-year record in Congress, the former US Senator for Pennsylvania hinted that something nefarious was going on.

"You have to ask Congressman Paul and Governor Romney what they've got going together," Santorum told reporters in the spin room in Mesa, Arizona. "Their commercials look a lot alike and so do their attacks."

Santorum's top strategist John Brabender went even further, charging that the two men had "joined forces" and were coordinating attacks against his man
"Clearly there's a tag team strategy between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. For all I know, Mitt Romney might be considering Ron Paul as his running mate. Clearly there is now an alliance between those two and you saw that certainly in the debate."

2012 Republican ticket? Ron Paul and Mitt Romney

The was also coordination in their attack ads, he charged. "Ron Paul for all practical purposes has pulled out of Michigan. Correct? Where's he running negative ads against Rick Santorum? Michigan.

"It was interesting to me that if you watch Ron Paul when he came into the debate, he wrote negative things about Rick Santorum down because when he started to get questions he would immediately pick up his paper and start mentioning Santorum stuff."

He added: "What is amazing to me this shows a remarkable ability by Romney, who has already proven to be the most negative man in history on TV, now he's even training his opponents to be negative for his benefit and actually I think that takes remarkable skill."

The Romney campaign ridiculed the notion there was any coordination. "If ever there was an iconoclast who got up there and said what he believed, it's Ron Paul," said Stuart Stevens, Romney's chief strategist.

"The President of the United States's political action committee is now running ads that are just like Rick Santorum's. Is Rick Santorum coordinating with the President of the United States? I don't think so.

"So I think that's a sort of whiney silliness. It would not even be a question if he [Santorum] felt that he'd answered these questions better.

"To say, 'People are ganging up on me' in a debate where there's only four people in the debate and they're raising questions kind of speaks for itself."

Source: Mail Online - Toby Harnden's blog

The Dead Horse Theory of Government

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says, “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.” 

However, in government more advanced strategies are often employed, such as: 

1. Buying a stronger whip. 

2. Changing riders. 

3. Appointing a committee to study the horse. 

4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses. 

5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included. 

6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired. 

7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse. 

8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed. 

9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance. 

10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance. 

11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses. 

12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses. 
And, of course … 

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Obama’s Sneaky Treaties

By Dick Morris on February 8, 2012

 

Published on TheHill.com on February 7, 2012

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are entering negotiations over — or seeking ratification of — five treaties that could radically limit our national sovereignty and the reach of our democratic institutions. Particularly scary is that the treaties, once signed and ratified, have the same status as constitutional law and cannot be altered or eclipsed by Congress or state legislatures. And their provisions must be enforced by U.S. courts.


Those who wish to preserve our sovereignty and democratic control over our future must rally to block these treaties, either by pressing Obama and Clinton not to sign them or by blocking their ratification.

- International Criminal Court — Clinton has reversed George W. Bush’s policy and entered into negotiations over U.S. participation in the court. Specifically, the leftists who are sponsoring the court wish to create a new crime of “aggression,” which is essentially going to war without the approval of the United Nations. If we submit to the court’s jurisdiction, our presidents and Cabinet officials could be prosecuted criminally for going to war without U.N. approval. This would, of course, give Russia and China a veto over our military actions. Clinton says she will stop our military’s hands from being tied, but we all must realize that once we accept the International Criminal Court, we go down a slippery slope. The court could even prosecute Americans who have been cleared by our own judicial system.

- The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) has been signed, and the Obama administration — with the aid of RINO Sen. Richard Lugar (Ind.) — will push for its ratification as soon as Lugar’s primary in Indiana is over this year. LOST requires that the United States pay an international body half of its royalties from offshore drilling. The body would then distribute the funds as it sees fit to whichever nations it chooses. The United States would only have one vote out of 160 regarding where the money goes. LOST will also oblige us to hand over our offshore drilling technology to any nation that wants it … for free.

- Small-arms control — Clinton is about to negotiate on a global ban on export of small arms. It would only apply to private citizens but, of course, most small-arms deals come not from individuals or private firms but from governments, specifically those of the United States, Russia, China and Israel. The treaty would require each nation to adopt measures to stop exportation of small arms. It is easy to see how this could be a backdoor way to require national registration of all guns and to assert federal regulation over firearms. It would also require the registration of all ammunition to track its source once a gun is fired. The Second Amendment be damned!

- Outer Space Code of Conduct — Under the guise of stopping debris from accumulating in outer space, the European Union has enlisted Clinton in negotiations over a code of conduct. The code would prohibit activities that are likely to generate debris in outer space — space littering. The code might inhibit or prohibit the United States from deploying anti-missile missiles on platforms in space, denying us the key weapon we need to counter Iranian, Chinese and North Korean missile threats. European leftists reacted angrily when G.W. Bush opted out of the ABM treaty banning defensive weapons. Now they seek to reimpose it under the guise of a code of conduct.

- Rights of the Child — Even more fanciful is a treaty Clinton plans to negotiate setting forth a code of rights for children, to be administered by a 14-member court set up for the purpose. The draft treaty obliges rich nations to provide funds for shelter, food, clothing and education for children in poor nations. This provision could create grounds to litigate to challenge the level of foreign aid we give as inadequate to meet our treaty obligations. Already, leftists in the United Kingdom are using the treaty to attack welfare cuts by the Cameron government.

European liberalism is advancing — masked — by way of these treaties. Defenders of liberty must say no!

Source  Obama’s Sneaky Treaties

Gallup state numbers predict huge Obama loss

February 1, 2012 9:51am

Gallup state numbers predict huge Obama loss

by Conn Carroll Senior Editorial Writer

 

Gallup released their annual state-by-state presidential approval numbers yesterday, and the results should have 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue very worried. If President Obama carries only those states where he had a net positive approval rating in 2011 (e.g. Michigan where he is up 48 percent to 44 percent), Obama would lose the 2012 election to the Republican nominee 323 electoral votes to 215.
Gallup adds:

Overall, Obama averaged 44% job approval in his third year in office, down from 47% in his second year. His approval rating declined from 2010 to 2011 in most states, with Wyoming, Connecticut, and Maine showing a marginal increase, and Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Jersey, Arizona, West Virginia, Michigan, and Georgia showing declines of less than a full percentage point. The greatest declines were in Hawaii, South Dakota, Nebraska, and New Mexico.

 Source: Gallup state numbers predict huge Obama loss