“Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!” Trump wrote.  Sasse responds, ““Are you tonight recanting of the oath you took on Jan. 20 to preserve, protect, and defend the 1st Amendment?”

Now let’s see.  Trump’s suggestion was based on using the government’s regulatory approval process to shut people up.  There’s nothing constitutional about that licensing process.  [“NO law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” the Constitution says.]  So Sasse’s response is criticizing Trump for using a non-constitutional means to shut up the media?  I doubt that’s what he meant!

The criticism is that Trump should protect the constitution by defending – but not using -the unconstitutional regulatory licensing currently in place.  If licensing is right and constitutional, then why isn’t it’s use by Trump also right and constitutional?

In essence, Sasse is saying, preserve free speech by allowing the infringement of free speech to remain in effect.

Trump’s tweet leads down a dangerous path.  But Sasse’s response proves the adage that a weak defense is to play into the enemy’s hands.  Few people are better at that than the so-called Republican conservatives!  (Note that the true answer to Sasse’s question is, “No, I recanted my oath when I did not immediately eliminate the FCC on my first day in office.”)

It is time to renounce ALL forms of government control over free speech and a free press!

 

Time after time, we are faced with clear evidence of how economic regulations hurt people, benefiting some at the expense of others.  Mostly, people shrug and turn away, or turn back to their sports channel.

The latest episode that brought the issue into sharp relief was the Jones Act as it relates to Puerto Rico.  The Jones Act (the Merchant Marine Act of 1920) requires all goods shipped between American ports to be on ships built, owned and operated in the United States.  The idea, obviously, is to grant a quasi-monopoly status to American shipping, allowing them to raise rates (and pay) by limiting competition.  Those hurt include those shipping items and those buying shipped goods.

It is customary, in times of great distress, for the government to suspend the law for a while.  However, after Puerto Rico was hit by the latest hurricane, the government refused to waive it.  Howls of protest went up – and rightly so.  It is unconscionable to add injury to the devastation that had already happened.  Senator McCain complained that the Jones Act was doubling the cost of recovery.  After a short while, President Trump did allow the law to be waived, but only for a short while.

But why is it any more ethical to take money from consumers in Puerto Rico and give it to the American maritime forces during good weather than it is immediately after a storm?  Both cases are acts of theft, pure and simple, regardless of what term the government uses.

The same thing happens when an area is made a tax-privileged zone. It is a clear admission by the government that their taxes are a harmful, destructive force against business and workers.  Taxes are lowered or eliminated for a while until a business can get established, then they are raised.  It reminds one of a vampire guzzling less blood from its victim for a while, allowing the victim to regain some strength, then resuming its efforts to suck the life blood from the victim.  But again, few care, as long as the “bread and circus” continues.

The Bible and ethics demand that neither the rich nor the poor be granted special privileges, a “favorite status.”  It’s time the law caught up with a correct interpretation of ethics.

I read an interesting discussion yesterday concerning the episode in Portland where two women are being raked over the coals because they wanted to sell Mexican food – but they weren’t’ Mexican.

It’s a sad story, not just for the women who are being oppressed by the useful idiots of the Left and deprived of their livelihood.  But it’s sad because it shows just how far our country has departed from even the concept of freedom.  The groups that once proudly declared themselves the defenders of cultural freedom, have again shown us that freedom, to them, means lockstep with their ideas.

The discussion mentioned above was in a publication by Doug Casey.  He said, “This is a cultural thing. There are no political solutions to cultural problems.”

That’s not quite true.  While there may be no political resolutions to cultural problems, history is replete with political solutions to cultural problems.  That solution is called tyranny.  It is practiced by the politicians of both the “Left” and “Right.”

Political solutions, by definition, involve the use of force to impose one solution on everyone.  Sometimes the solution imposes a belief/practice on everyone; other times, the solution does not allow a politically-unwanted belief/practice to happen.

There’s no doubt the “gloves have come off” the clenched fist of the present-day Left in America.  If America is to have a future different than the rest of the world’s dismal course, we have got to pray and work for the rebirth of the Freedom Philosophy in our day.

Note:  While I wrote this prior to the shooting incident at the GOP baseball practice today, I decided to post it anyway, because it is very apropos.  That “political solution” is a euphemism for a solution using force to solve a problem does not make the force any less real or true.  That the economic/class conflict (another euphemism) rhetoric covers over the violence upon which it is based also does not make the violence any less real or true.  Sometimes, it breaks out in a physical way such that it is impossible to ignore.  Today’s episode in DC appears to be such an example.  Ideas do have (existential) consequences.