Hegira

AFA mail generally makes me cringe -- it's usually just this side of pure intolerance and bile. Occasionally, however, they get it right.

Dear C,

Allstate has fired a manager because he expressed his Christian beliefs concerning homosexuality.  Matt Barber was a manager in Allstate's Corporate Security Division.  On his own time, and without identifying himself as an employee of Allstate, he wrote a column posted on several websites which was critical of same-sex marriage.

An outside homosexual group complained to Allstate about the column.  Because of their support for the homosexual agenda, Barber was immediately fired and ushered off company property.

The message is clear: To work for Allstate one must not publicly express their Christian belief in the Bible's teaching on homosexuality.  Barber was fired because he did.  Homosexuals can criticize and condemn the Bible's teaching and they are welcomed, but Christians must remain silent. 

After following the link to the article, I find I have to agree: Allstate appears to be in the wrong on this one.

I'm setting aside the allegation of retaliation at the heart of the firing, although I think that's probably more accurate than that Allstate's out to persecute every Christian in their ranks who dares to speak up, because whether it's accurate or not, that's not the reason they gave.  The trouble is that the reason they gave should not ever be viewed as a valid reason, and then it couldn't be used as a screen for other things.

Expressing your opinion on your own time, using your own resources, shouldn't be grounds for termination. I don't care if you're employing members of the Ku Klux Klan, if they're breaking no laws in or out of work, and behaving appropriately at work, you don't have cause for termination. Reverse the situation and make it someone writing about pro-GLBT issues and being fired by their company for it, and there'd be outrage, and rightly so. We can't promote respect for personal rights by violating the personal rights of others. When we advocate tolerance, we then agree to act out of that same tolerance ourselves.

And that's exactly what my email is going to say.

In my inbox today, there's AFA spam regarding Senator Durbin. I'm going to quote that email in its entirety, but before I do, I want to pull the quote they're referencing so that everyone knows what we're talking about.

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here—I almost hesitate to put them in the RECORD, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18–24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others— that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator’s time has expired.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. It is not too late. I hope we will learn from history. I hope we will change course. The President could declare the United States will apply the Geneva Conventions to the war on terrorism. He could declare, as he should, that the United States will not, under any circumstances, subject any detainee to torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The administration could give all detainees a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention before a neutral decisionmaker. Such a change of course would dramatically improve our image and it would make us safer. I hope this administration will choose that course. If they do not, Congress must step in.

Again, just for the purposes of clarification: most of the prisoners at Guantanamo have no direct and provable links to terrorist acts against the United States. When there is evidence against them, charges are brought, and they are prosecuted. (We'll skip, for the sake of brevity, the manner in which said prosecution is carried out.) They are detainees, and most are not charged with specific crimes, merely being held under suspicion. We'll also skip over the part where the United States rounds you up under suspicion, denies you access to legal counsel, and lets you rot in some prison leased from Cuba for years.

That said, this is the AFA's take on the matter.

Dear C,

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, compared American troops at Guantanamo Naval Base to Hitler, the Soviet gulags and Cambodian mass murderer Pol Pot.

Hitler murdered two million Christians and six million Jews.  Nearly two million prisoners died in the Soviet gulags.  And Pol Pot slaughtered as many as ten million in Cambodia.

Durbin compared the American troops to Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot because of alleged mistreatment of prisoners held at Guantanamo.  What earned these American troops the disparaging remarks by Senator Durbin?  He said that some prisoners’ air conditioners were turned down too low, some had their air conditioners turned off making the room hot, and loud rap music was played in a room where there were prisoners.

That a U.S. Senator would compare American military men and women to Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pott is beyond belief.  Does he not remember 9/11?

When asked to apologize, he refused.  He said it is the military that should apologize for how they were treating the prisoners of war.

TAKE ACTION

Send Senator Durbin an email reminding him that our soldiers are there to serve their country by guarding the prisoners of war, and that they do a pretty good job.

Click Here To Send Your Letter Now!

Sincerely,

Don

Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family Association

P.S. Show your support of our troops by forwarding this to your friends and family.

... it's hard to know where to begin.

Actually, scratch that. It isn't hard at all. "Does he not remember 9/11?" That turns my stomach.

Beyond that, though, the issue is, do we treat these people in our control with any degree of humanity at all. Not one of those people has a direct link to 9/11, despite the AFA's unsubtle attempt at confusing the issue, or they would have been paraded up and down. They are there under suspicion. Suspicion is not proof, and they are innocent until proven guilty. Since not one of them has yet been proven guilty, we then must conclude that, until proven otherwise, Guantanamo is full of innocent people.

Who have been chained in the fetal position, left in their own excrement for hours, been subjected to a steady stream of loud noise for days, and been subjected to extremes of heat and cold. By the admission of one of our own men. This is not unfounded rumour started by some outside operative. He was reading an account of what an FBI agent experienced. And, yes, it does mirror tactics used by Stalin, whose men used the "sweatbox" technique of subjecting prisoners to extreme heat. It does sound just like the concentration camp tactic of subjecting prisoners to bitter cold for hours -- and it was the Gestapo who used sleep deprivation. I cannot imagine trying to sleep or even think through blasting rap music while I am chained on a floor. Perhaps Mr. Wildmon should try the experience himself, and see if he fares better.

In the meantime, nothing in the Senator's comparison fails to translate directly. This is not an apples to oranges situation. Tell me again, then, what in this I am supposed to "support". What in the act of using these methods is there to be proud of? And why, for the love of God, am I supposed to censure someone who did nothing more than tell the truth, make an accurate observation, and refuse to apologise for doing so? 

Hey Kristof,

Why should the U.S. 'care' for the rest of the world? The U.S. should take care of its own.

People have been in Africa for thousands of years -- & look at their progress during those years. Tribal still!

It's way past time for Liberal twits to stop pushing the U.S. into nonsense or try to make every wrong in the world our responsibility.

The last line makes the letter.

The Bill of Rights
(The first Ten Amendments to the Constitution.)( Read more... )

I consider Amendment Ten to be the one most often encroached upon, and also the one where encroachments are least often noticed or challenged. It is very easy to say, "well, we're not changing the Constitution," but to then quietly slip past some bit of legislation that grants a bit more power here, a little more there, until you have whittled away at all the rights granted here. Every encroachment, if it is not to bring a huge outcry from the population, has to involve Amendment Ten. "We're not taking this power or right from you. We're just providing this department with the power it needs to..." And it sounds good.

Except. Power is not infinite. Every bit given somewhere means that much taken from somewhere else. In this case, every bit given to the government over and above those granted in the Constitution is taken out of the hands of the population. That's not always a bad thing, not always wrong. But it needs to be an informed decision on the part of the population. It cannot be something that the administration got away with because the people did not know the power was supposed to be theirs.

I guess what I'm saying is know your rights. Make sure the people around you do, too. If you never pass on another bit of knowledge, never discuss anything else politically, these documents should be passed on and discussed. It's not subversive, it's necessary.

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/4428107.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/22/politics/22JOBL.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/04/politics/04LEAV.html

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/12/international/12COUR.html

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

Not quite, but getting there...
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/04/politics/04BONU.html

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
or, in this case, the executive branch itself independent of and superior to the judiciary...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A50845-2002Aug6¬Found=true
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/15/politics/15PATR.html

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,262065,00.html
http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=aiobheil&itemid=124257

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
In their own words:
"On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed the "Homeland Security Act of 2002" into law. The Act restructures and strengthens the executive branch of the Federal Government..."
"The creation of the Department of Homeland Security is the most significant transformation of the U.S. government in over a half-century."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
In this case, he is transporting our own armies beyond our borders to complete such works of death, desolation, and tyranny. As for perfidy:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12377231&method=full&siteid=50143
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020927-500715.htm

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
Or, in this case, to require fellow citizens to bear witness against each other, or to suffer at the hands of fellow citizens who bore witness against them... Operation TIPS. 'nuff said.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Mass arrests of Muslims in LA

US immigration officials in Southern California have detained hundreds of Iranians and other Muslim men who turned up to register under residence laws brought in as part of the anti-terror drive. Reports say between 500 and 700 men were arrested in and around Los Angeles after they complied with an order to register by 16 December.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is refusing to say how many people were arrested but said detainees were being held for suspected visa violations and other offences. The arrests sparked angry protests in Los Angeles by thousands of Iranian-Americans waving banners which read "What's next? Concentration camps?" and "Free our fathers, brothers, husbands and sons". Official radio in Iran also reported the arrests and the protests, which it said were mounted by families of the detainees who converged on Los Angeles.

Under the new US immigration rules, all male immigrants aged 16 and over from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria had to register with authorities by Monday unless they had been naturalised as citizens. Southern California has a huge Iranian community. Immigrants from other mainly Muslim states have been set later deadlines for registration. Community groups said men had been arrested in Los Angeles and nearby Orange County as well as San Diego.

California is home to about 600,000 Iranians who have been living in exile since the 1979 Islamic revolution. One of the Iranian-American demonstrators in Los Angeles, Ali Bozorgmehr, told the French news agency AFP that his community was being targeted unjustly. "All Iranians that live in America are hard-working people... They love this country and all... are against terrorism," he said.

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the arrests were reminiscent of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. "I think it is shocking what is happening," she said. "We are getting a lot of telephone calls from people. We are hearing that people went down wanting to co-operate and then they were detained." Islamic community leaders said many detainees had been living, working and paying taxes in the US for up to a decade and had families there. "Terrorists most likely wouldn't come to the INS to register," said Sabiha Khan of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations. She said the detainees were "being treated as criminals, and that really goes against American ideals of fairness, and justice and democracy".

Story taken verbatim from here.

You heard me. Forget replaying and rehashing footage that we've almost become accustomed to, in the hopes that you can rip the scabs off and make the tears flow because it's an Anniversary. 8 AM to 10 AM, Sep 11th of every year, give us two hours of complete silence -- no speeches, no parades, no nothing -- and let us have empty skies. Ground the flights out of respect instead of fear, and I can't speak for everyone, but I know that I will have more respect for you, because just once money didn't come first. Because you didn't attempt to crowd in commercials amidst conspicuous displays, because you didn't mouth words of sympathy while counting up the profits. You didn't pay lip service to remembering, ban foreign flights out of "concern for security" while allowing American flights to fly -- why?

Give us all the things we need most -- space, and time, to heal, to clear our heads.

Clear the skies.