This is grotesque.

I never imagined that I would ever see the press advocate censorship, but apparently their fear about competition and ideological meltdown has turned the former guardians of free speech into another corrupt guild bent on using government power to stifle competition.

Or could they be desperately trying to stifle a pedophile scandal from being exposed?

//White House press secretary Josh Earnest was forced to remind the press corps the federal government can’t censor news because of the First Amendment, in a bizarre exchange during a White House press briefing Monday.

“Obviously, there are some important First Amendment issues that come into play when we’re having this discussion,” Earnest said, rebuffing a call for the White House to work toward censoring “fake news” on social media. He brought up the constitutional prohibition on censorship three more times before the conversation ended.

New York Times White House correspondent Gardiner Harris had asked Earnest whether the administration treats threats based on “fake news” — such as the man who recently entered a Washington, D.C., pizza shop with a gun to investigate something he read online — the same as it treats terror threats. The implication was that the White House should get Facebook to censor “fake news” the same way it has pushed Facebook to censor these terrorists.

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“I’ve never heard you talk about what the administration is doing, even not just on a law enforcement basis but a policy basis, reaching out to these Silicon Valley companies,” he said to Earnest. “I mean, the President has recently been discussing the problem of fake news on Facebook. Why hasn’t there been a concern — a growing concern on the part of the administration about what seems to be a growing amount of vitriol directed at a variety of people, sometimes violent vitriol, within the United States?”//

Christian organization crackdowns on dissenting voices.

Cardinal Ratzinger was often described as "cracking down" on people who just wanted to talk when he took the radical position that Catholic schools should teach Catholic doctrines.

Now we have repeated instances of nominally Evangelical organizations "cracking down" on Evangelicals who do not teach the most recent iteration of secularist doctrine.

Weird.

//I thought book banning was supposed to be a thing of the past–particularly among the self-proclaimed liberal elites.  We live in a more sophisticated time where all views are accepted. Tolerance should be our highest priority.

Or so we are told.

But, apparently book banning is back in vogue.  Dr. John Kutsko, executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature, has just proposed that InterVarsity Press–one of the largest evangelical presses in the country– be suspended from having a book stall at the annual SBL meeting (starting in 2017).

The reason for this ban is the recent decision by InterVarsity to uphold the biblical view of marriage and to ask their employees to do the same (see IVP clarification on their policy here).

Since I have a current book with IVP Academic, The Question of Canon, and a forthcoming book with them on Christianity in the second century, SBL would effectively be banning my books from the annual meeting.  And that would be true for hundreds and hundreds of other IVP authors.

Of course, the overt hypocrisy of this is stunning. An organization that professes to be for tolerance and for accepting all opinions, has now decided to be, in effect, a “confessional” institution where the ideologies of the ruling committee decide what people should and shouldn’t believe.//

Liberal Fascism/Academic Fascism.

Virtue Community at John Hopkins demand that school condemn heretics who argue that transgender is a psychiatric condition.

Because, we know, that the best way to truth is when centralized institutions impose it on science.

//The basic gambit of the Western mode of scientific inquiry is that the competition of ideas will ultimately produce scholarly truth, or at least something close to it. This process must be decentralized and unencumbered by political dogma. For the Johns Hopkins administration to throw the weight of its authority behind one side or another in an ongoing scholarly debate in order to appease political activists would corrupt the process Jonathan Rauch has called “liberal science.” The university can help protect the integrity of academic thought by sending a strong message to the outraged petitioners that it will let its scholars’ work stand or fall on the merits.

More liberal fascism.

This is getting so common that it is getting boring and/or a sign that a person has arrived as a perceived threat to the liberal way of lift.

Dilbert author "shadowbanned" from Twitter.

How dare he support Trump and ask for examples of violence against Trump supporters.

"Everyone must conform," explained the liberal.

Liberal Fascism was once an oxymoron.

Now it is "conventional wisdom" and "You got a problem with it?"

//Hillary Clinton has vowed to prosecute climate change deniers if she is elected President of the United States.

The Democratic Platform Drafting Committee issued a statement on Friday urging the Justice Department to investigate “alleged corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies who have reportedly misled shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change“.

This announcement represents the beginning of a much larger move to criminalize anybody who speaks out against orthodox climate change dogma//

How is this not an unconstitutional restriction on the First Amendment right of Free Speech/Free Press?

While the Left distracts everyone with hysteria about Trump's "fascism", it sets about "liquidating" the First Amendment.

How did this get passed and signed without warning cries about incipient "fascism"?

Notice also how the rhetoric of "anti-discrimination" gets used to trump the express Constitutional language of the First Amendment that mandates that there be "no law" that restricts the right of the press.

Obviously, the age of actors is a minor issue, but the principle that "discrimination" concerns can be used to restrict any speech is a big deal.

Also, the concern is idiotic. Most people who read IMDB are not hiring actors and the people who do hire actors have other resources to find out this information.  Also, there is a law already in place that prohibits age discrimination.

//“On behalf of everyone in the industry who has struggled with age discrimination, whose opportunities to showcase their talent may have been blocked, I want to thank Gov. Brown and the bill’s author, Assemblymember Ian Calderon," says SAG-AFTRA’s Gabrielle Carteris.
California Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed legislation that requires certain entertainment sites, such as IMDb, to remove – or not post in the first place – an actor’s age or birthday upon request.

The law, which becomes effective January 1, applies to entertainment database sites that allow paid subscribers to post resumes, headshots or other information for prospective employers. Only a paying subscriber can make a removal or non-publication request. Although the legislation may be most critical for actors, it applies to all entertainment job categories.//

If you want to know who your elites are, find out about whom you may not know their ages.

Love that academic freedom.

Instapundit under investigation for his Tweet.

To summarize what we've learned about Progressives:

//Related, from Judge Danny Boggs:
All of MY SIDE’s references and statements are to be taken in the coolest, hip-ironic, culturally aware, benign-metaphorical way possible (see Watts v. United States, and [granting my side the full benefit of the] the conflicting interpretive modes the various judges/justices on the Supreme Court and the Court[s] of Appeals [have approved]),

AND

All of YOUR SIDE’s references and statements are to be taken in the most mindlessly literal, threatening way possible.

That should work for almost all of our commentators, of whatever persuasion.

Also, any charge against MY SIDE requires exquisite legally admissible proof of its accuracy,

WHEREAS

Any charge against YOUR SIDE must be true if it was asserted by anyone, anywhere.

People on MY SIDE are responsible only for what they said personally, in full-quotation context.

BUT

People on YOUR SIDE are responsible for the inferred implications of anything said by anyone who ever held any idea vaguely similar to what your people think.

OK?//

Obama's Third-Term.

Obama and Hillary's instinctive reaction to an attack on America was to forthrightly blame....

...Americans.

Specifically, American free speech.

We were told - falsely - that the free speech of an obscure Youtube video maker had killed Americans in Libya.  The implied message was "be careful not to say bad things about Islam because Americans are at risk."

Stockholm Syndrome as National Policy.

Those who can remember back to 2007 can remember that Dissent Is The Highest Form of Patriotism and It is Evil to Question Patriotism.

But look at Hillary play the "Free Speech is Dangerous" card before her media enablers:

//“Hi!” Bloomberg’s Jennifer Epstein said to Hillary Clinton yesterday, when the Democratic candidate took questions from the press in White Plains, N.Y. Mediaite reports Epstein then asked this question:

“Are you concerned that this weekend’s attacks or potential incidents in the coming weeks might be an attempt by ISIS or ISIS sympathizers, or really any other group, maybe the Russians, to influence the presidential race in some way, and presumably try to drive votes to Donald Trump, who is, as you’ve said before, widely seen as perhaps being somebody who they would be more willing to—or see as an easier person to be against?”

Mrs. Clinton dodged the nutty Russian-conspiracy theory, but her answer still exerted upward pressure on eyebrows:

Well, Jennifer, I don’t want to speculate, but here’s what we know. . . . We know that a lot of the rhetoric we’ve heard from Donald Trump has been seized on by terrorists, in particular ISIS. . . .

They want to use that to recruit more fighters to their cause by turning it into a religious conflict. That’s why I’ve been very clear; we’re going after the bad guys and we’re going to get them, but we’re not going to go after an entire religion and give ISIS exactly what it’s wanting in order for them to enhance their position.

Secondly, we know that Donald Trump’s comments have been used online for recruitment of terrorists. We’ve heard that from former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who made it a very clear point when he said Donald Trump is being used as a recruiting sergeant for the terrorists. We also know from the former head of our Counterterrorism Center, Matt Olsen, that the kinds of rhetoric and language that Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries.

Politico observes that “aid and comfort to our adversaries” is “the constitutional definition of treason.” That’s not quite accurate; the Constitution uses the word “enemies,” which is more specific than "adversaries” (Vladimir Putin’s Russia, for example, is an adversary but not an enemy). But in this particular case, the distinction lacks a difference, since she’s referring to ISIS, which is undoubtedly an enemy.//

Apparently, the thing about a "living Constitution" is that it means that....

...the power elites can decide what freedom you can have.

The US Commission on Civil Rights isn't concerned with the First Amendment that protects religious freedom so long as it gets in the way of what really counts, i.e., the freedom men to marry men, which was invented a few years ago.

//The chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said that “religious freedom” and “religious liberty” have become merely “code words” for intolerance, “Christian supremacy” and committing every form of identity-politics sin, and thus they must yield before anti-discrimination laws.
The remarks, released Thursday in a report on “Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties,” is the latest example of an increasingly hostile reception in liberal circles to one of the six specified rights at the core of the First Amendment — the “free exercise” of religion.
“The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance,” said Martin R. Castro, a Chicago Democrat named USCCR chairman by President Obama in 2011.
“Religious liberty was never intended to give one religion dominion over other religions, or a veto power over the civil rights and civil liberties of others,” he said in the 307-page document.
At the heart of the “Peaceful Coexistence” report is a USCCR assertion that granting religious exemptions to nondiscrimination laws “significantly infringe” on the civil rights of those claiming civil rights protections on the basis of “race, color, national origin, sex, disability status, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”//

If she had used the "N word" or voted for traditional marriage, she would have been unemployable on college campuses everywhere.

In the right places, liberal fascism has resume appeal.

Liberal Fascism.

Why is it that Trump supporters keep getting called fascist"...

...when the Brownshirt goons keep showing up on the other side?

//A group of aggressive protesters were caught on video harassing and assaulting Trump supporters as they left a fundraising event on Friday in Minneapolis.

“Racist!” one protester shouts in the video.

“This is how we treat racists!” another screams.

As the American Mirror’s Kyle Olson described it, the Trump supporters were essentially forced to run a “gauntlet” in order to leave.//

This seems to be a theme of this election cycle.

Liberal Fascism - How hate-speech is eliminating our freedom.

The coin of comedy is absurdity.

This was probably not a funny joke, and in questionable taste, but the idea is absurd.

//Canadian comedian Mike Ward was fined a whopping $42,000 by Quebec’s Human Rights Tribunal for jokes he made about a disabled boy.

The child, Jérémy Gabriel, who suffers from Treacher Collins Syndrome, is a bit of a national celebrity in Canada after he sung for the pope in 2006 essentially because everyone thought he did not have long to live. Ward’s joke was a rant about how the child was supposed to die, that he “stole a wish” and is unkillable. Sure, not in great taste, but certainly not in violation of the kid’s “human rights.”

His joke was never televised, but after he talked about the bit in an interview, Gabriel’s parents found out and dragged the comedian to the human rights tribunal last month. He fought the fine, but lost in court.//

The ABA wants to suppress my exposition of Catholic philosophical and moral teachings. It's simple: define everything that the urban secular elites don't like as "bias" and define all bias against ideas that the urban secular elites don't like as not bias,and - Hey, Presto! - you have a world of thoughtcrime. //The American Bar Association has adopted a new provision in its Model Rules of Professional Conduct — an influential document that many states have adopted as binding on lawyers in their state. I blogged about it when it was just proposed, in slightly different form, but I thought it was worth repeating my analysis now that the ABA is formally recommending it to state bars and state courts. Here is the relevant text (emphasis added): It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to . . . engage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law. This paragraph does not limit the ability of a lawyer to accept, decline, or withdraw from a representation in accordance with Rule 1.16. This paragraph does not preclude legitimate advice or advocacy consistent with these rules. Discrimination and harassment . . . includes harmful verbal or physical conduct that manifests bias or prejudice towards others. Harassment includes sexual harassment and derogatory or demeaning verbal or physical conduct. Sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other unwelcome verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. The substantive law of antidiscrimination and anti-harassment statutes and case law may guide application of paragraph (g). Conduct related to the practice of law includes representing clients; interacting with witnesses, coworkers, court personnel, lawyers and others while engaged in the practice of law; operating or managing a law firm or law practice; and participating in bar association, business or social activities in connection with the practice of law. Lawyers may engage in conduct undertaken to promote diversity and inclusion without violating this rule by, for example, implementing initiatives aimed at recruiting, hiring, retaining and advancing [diverse] employees or sponsoring diverse law student organizations. So say that some lawyers put on a Continuing Legal Education event that included a debate on same-sex marriage, or on whether there should be limits on immigration from Muslim countries, or on whether people should be allowed to use the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity rather than their biological sex. In the process, unsurprisingly, the debater on one side said something that was critical of gays, Muslims or transgender people. If the rule is adopted, the debater could well be disciplined by the state bar: 1. He has engaged in “verbal . . . conduct” that “manifests bias or prejudice” toward gays, Muslims or transgender people. 2. Some people view such statements as “harmful”; those people may well include bar authorities. 3. This was done in an activity “in connection with the practice of law” — Continuing Legal Education events are certainly connected with the practice of law. (The event could be labeled a bar activity, if it’s organized through a local bar association, or a business activity.) 4. The statement isn’t about one person in particular (though it could be — say the debater says something critical about a specific political activist or religious figure based on that person’s sexual orientation, religion or gender identity). But “anti-harassment . . . case law” has read “harassment” as potentially covering statements about a group generally, even when they aren’t said to or about a particular offended person, and the rule is broad enough to cover statements about “others” as groups and not just as individuals. Indeed, one of the comments to the rule originally read “Harassment includes sexual harassment and derogatory or demeaning verbal or physical conduct towards a person who is, or is perceived to be, a member of one of the groups.” But the italicized text was deleted, further reaffirming that the statement didn’t have to be focused on any particular person. Or say that you’re at a lawyer social activity, such as a local bar dinner, and say that you get into a discussion with people around the table about such matters — Islam, evangelical Christianity, black-on-black crime, illegal immigration, differences between the sexes, same-sex marriage, restrictions on the use of bathrooms, the alleged misdeeds of the 1 percent, the cultural causes of poverty in many households, and so on. One of the people is offended and files a bar complaint.// We are a long, long way from the understanding of freedom of speech that existed when I was in law school.

Liberal Fascism - The DNC steps forward into 1933.

The DNC's 2016 plank on religious freedom is eerily similar to Point 24 of the NSDAP's Programme.

This is the Democratic Party's statement on religious freedom:

"We support a progressive vision of religious freedom that respects pluralism and rejects the misuse of religion to discriminate.”

"Progressive vision of religious freedom" doesn't mean "advanced", it means "our." Likewise, "misuse of religion to discriminate" is simply the annihilation of freedom since anything they disagree with is automatically a "misuse."

The Nazis had this as their infamous 24th point:

"24. We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the moral feelings of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession."

Feder, Gottfried. The Program of the Party of Hitler: The National Socialist German Workers' Party and Its General Conceptions (Kindle Locations 596-600). Ostara Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Like "progressive vision," the phrase "positive Christianity" did not mean the "good part of Christianity," it meant "our thing." Likewise, the Nazis annihilated freedom of religion under the heading of the requirement that religion "not militate against the moral feelings of the German race."

Leftists are letting their inner fascist flags fly freely these days.

Suppression of free speech.

Suppression of badthought homosexuals.

And now fantasizing about military coups if Trump is elected.

The moment when the slippery slope hits bottom.

This is the kind of anti-American riots that you expect in Gaza or Tehran, but have it happen in San Jose tells you how insane our culture is and how feckless our leadership has been.

"The reporters present on the streets of San Jose could scarcely believe what they were witnessing on Thursday night. Burning American flags while honoring the Mexican national banner, a horde of agitators descended on a Trump event and targeted average Trump supporters with violence. The images out of the scene are traumatic. One woman was pelted with eggs and bottles. Another man was viciously attacked and left the scene battered and bloodied. Police stood by while Trump supporters were chased down by a bloodthirsty crowd. Punches were thrown by these activists and absorbed by Trump supporters, who declined to respond in kind.

There are no two sides to this story. Donald Trump did not whip up a crowd and demand they retaliate physically against dissenters, as he had during the primary. There were no images of Trump-backing Americans throwing haymakers at protesters, as there were in Chicago. This was a vicious mob. To the extent that their allegiance is to the Democratic Party, Democratic lawmakers – including Hillary Clinton – bear the burden of forcing them out into the cold. “Violence against supporters of any candidate has no place in this election,” Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta wrote. That is a laudable sentiment, but it is not near enough. These people must be politically homeless, and they must know it.

These fits of violence did not arise in a vacuum. These are the rewards of a political culture that has been nursed into existence by a liberal left that glorifies fanaticism. The liberal political culture on American college campuses sees no virtue in forbearance or tolerance toward dissenting views – real dissent, not the shy diffidence of a powerless minority. American college campuses are today plagued by a cast of insecure locusts who are simultaneously fragile as porcelain and uncompromisingly confrontational. This same cast of characters writes “a love letter to ourselves” and creates ideologically homogenous “safe spaces” where intellectual stimulation is thought tantamount to trauma.

This is a group that invents dangerously despotic concepts like “the right to be believed” for the alleged victims of violent crimes like rape while concurrently conveying upon speech they don’t like the power of physical violence. This attenuation of the severity of true violence has consequences. One of them is that it is now easier for these individuals to appeal to brutality as just another instrument in the political activist’s toolbox. Conservatives have long protested that the left’s desire to call speech violence and violence speech will have terrible consequences. They are upon us.

The best part of the Obama years has been all the racial healing...

...and thought control.

//The Motley, a student run café on Scripps’ campus, has already held events exclusively for people of color, a form of segregation the guide justifies by asserting that some spaces are “harmful” for people of color, and that creating segregated safe spaces is simply “the least we can do” for non-white students.

“Anger is a legitimate response to oppression,” the authors state in their letter to white people, “as is sadness, fear, frustration, exhaustion, and a general distaste or hatred of white people.”

Sections of the Survival Guide addressing “Mindful Language” and “Inclusive Language” tell students to watch what they say inside the classroom, identifying “capitalism and consumerism” as concepts which “can lead to [the] dangerous promotion of certain ideals and widespread circulation of stigmatizing information.”//