Why The Anti-Mask Brigade Has NO Genuine Concept Of Freedom

The lowdown on why so many medical professionals and advisers have resigned or been driven from office was exposed on the front page of The Denver Post (Aug. 11):

"Vilified, threatened with violence, suffering from burnout, dozens of state and local public health leaders around the U.S. have resigned or been fired amid the coronavirus outbreak."

So, just as we need these epidemiological specialists and public health officials the most, they are being forced out of their positions in droves. Why?  What gives?  Well, we have a significant low I.Q. segment that is not only gullible to propaganda and tripe (like the "plandemic' idiocy of crackpot quack Judy Mikovits),  but also energized to attack public health officials trying to do their job, using their  pseudo "liberty" as an excuse.

Among the deranged examples are the  "Freedom Angels" that stalk and harass health officials online (e.g. on Facebook) as well as other misfits, worms and vermin firmly convinced a real virus (denoted SARS- Cov-2)  is a hoax created by Dems to take down Dotard.  Even 165,000 deaths can't convince these fools it's not a hoax and you even have some of the numbskulls driving to hospitals, looking in reception areas and asking in loud voices: "Where are all the Covid patients?"  As I said, low I.Q.

And what are all these crazies most exercised about? Well, being mandated to wear masks, and practicing social distancing - the only ways to avoid another lockdown, or nationwide quarantine.   The only practical means to avoid hundreds of thousands more infections and hospital ICUs being flooded with desperately ill Covid patients.

It is sad, as one continues to behold the parade of maskless morons fighting with Walmart 'health sentries about having to wear masks and bellowing about their "rights".  Truly they have zero conception of true freedom, and the critical role of responsibility.  What they are operating on instead is a caricature  spawned by Trump and his enabling goons.  

This was brought home to me even more on reading Kwame Appiah's essay ('Rejecting Masks Puts Freedom In Danger') in the WSJ Review (AUg. 8-9, p. C1):

"In the grand American tradition, freedom is about being unfettered, undominated, i.e. 'You're not the boss of me!'  In truth, what political theorist Benjamin Constant called 'the liberty of the moderns' is also a very ancient idea. When people in classical times wrote about freedom they were usually distinguishing the condition from involuntary servitude. .. To be free, as a matter of definition, was not to be enslaved."

But wearing a mask to prevent spread of  a pernicious virus is certainly not being enslaved. No medical specialist or health officer, after all, is chaining anyone up, then forcing them into forced labor.  So how did the original clear definition get mutated into now believing that any mandated regulation, say for seat belts, or not smoking in planes, or wearing masks - is an imposition or limitation on one's freedom?

Technically,  the Bill of Rights in the Constitution first set out rights available to citizens.  What is truly mind boggling in the current climate of invoking rights is that barely 1 in 10  citizens can name even 5 of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights.  Hence, their incessant blabbering about their rights being violated isn't even credible when they can't even name them!  Indeed, many of these nitwits actually believe the states also have rights, which is twaddle as Prof. Gary Wills ('A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’) has admirably explained, noting only human persons- citizens can possess rights, while states "retain powers and prerogatives."  Hence, "states' rights" is a fiction, an ignorant creation of modern federalists or denizens of the Federalist Society.  As Wills goes on to explain:

“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”

But I warrant that not one in a thousand of the maskless twits even knows that.  Then there is the difference between "positive rights" and "negative rights".  Again, I doubt even 1 in 1,000 of the anti-mask brigade know the difference.

The conviction that there are only “negative” rights and there can be no “positive” ones is a long standing trope of the Right.   A negative right implies that there are ‘x’ things the government can’t do to you, e.g.  take away your guns or your property without good legal basis ("eminent domain"). . By contrast, positive rights assert there are actual positive rights to which you are entitled under the Bill of Rights, say health care and privacy. Most of those on the Right, who have only passing acquaintance with the Federalist papers, assert positive rights don’t exist, but they are wrong. They merely show they fail to grasp the concept of an "unenumerated right".

Clearly,  refusing a law or mandate from a state or local government entity to wear a mask (or wear a seatbelt, or wear a helmet on a motor bike) is seen as a negative right.   "YOU of the commonweal have NO right to tell me what to wear! I will wear what I damned well please!"  And yet they happily (ok, maybe not) choke down another negative right they believe they have by not smoking in planes or in medical offices.  So they essentially pick and choose the extent of their exercise of negative rights. 

This is why I suspect in the case of the mask wearing (or refusing it) they are falling into a political trap originally set by - who else ? - Donald Trump.  Who, on numerous occasions, has refused to don a mask himself and sent relentless signals it was "weak" or "unmanly". Well, of course his zombies would follow.  Not only that, but the zombies would start  spreading tropes and trash on their own to justify their reckless behavior, e.g.  one anti-mask nut protester in FLA (WSJ, ibid.):

"Everyone is responsible for their own health care decisions.  We want our choices respected as well.."

Which, of course, is nonsense given  YOUR stupid choice here (not to wear a mask) can affect my health, especially as a septuagenarian. Thus, to go out and about talking loud,  coughing, laughing, spitting or whatever is a sure way to spread the disease and especially to older, vulnerable people. (And don't bloody well tell us to 'Stay inside then!'  given our remaining years have already been severely circumscribed because of the limitations in movement and travel, outings etc. imposed by Covid 19.)  Thus, the "choice" not to wear a mask is tantamount to spreading the disease, and as Appiah admits (ibid.): "Those who recklessly spread disease have long posed a challenge to liberal democracies."   And as he goes on to write: "Pandemics don't just imperil our health they imperil our freedom".  Because if not contained on account of terrible choices, they will force the hands of governments to enforce mass quarantines,  lockdowns.    

In many ways, as Janice has put it, refusing to wear a mask-   especially in closed public spaces -  is like a gas station customer refusing to stop smoking while he fills his gas tank and others are there for service too.  At first I thought that might be too extreme an analogy but on further rumination I believe it fits.  So the Florida mask protester's demand to 'have our choices respected" is really a demand to respect their spreading of death.

Jefferson wrote in his 'Notes on Virginia', that to the extent the people's minds are improved they will hold check on the worst excesses of government.  But the less discussed converse side of that is people's minds need to be improved enough to distinguish between claiming a right without any responsibility, and claiming a right which demands responsibility.   There is no doubt Jefferson would eschew the bogus right not to wear a mask during a pandemic as the former.

See Also:

Retail workers are being pulled into the latest culture war: Getting customers to wear masks

And:

Face masks with valves or vents do not prevent spread of coronavirus, CDC says

And:

Republicans

Reactionaries in Ragged Retreat: A Wingnut Brew of Bottom-dwellers

by Robert Becker | August 13, 2020 - 6:45am | permalink

Libertarian Columnist Jon Caldara Needs An Education On Human Rights

The impetuous libertarian gun fanatic and rabble rouser Jon Caldara is at it again in his latest Denver Post op-ed ('Jared Polis and the New Human Rights', Perspective, Oct. 7). Caldara writes:

"Jared Polis insists: 'Health care is a human right'.   Either my understanding of human rights is completely wrong or Polis's understanding of the English language is. I thought human rights were guarantees through natural law that you can do some things even if the society around you wants to stop you. Those activities and beliefs behind them, can't be ripped from you even if you're in the political minority. The government can't take away your speech, and expression, yur ability to assemble, own firearms. Government can't take property without due process, inflict cruel punishment."

Here Caldara demonstrates the typical truncated libertarian view that only negative rights count. In other words,  there are only “negative” rights inherent in the Bill of Rights, and there can be no “positive” ones.   A negative right implies that there are ‘x’ things the government can’t do to you, e.g.  take away your guns or your property without good legal basis ("eminent domain"). . By contrast, positive rights assert there are actual positive rights to which you are entitled under the Bill of Rights, say health care and privacy. Most of those on the Right (as well as libertarians like Caldara) , who have only passing acquaintance with the Federalist papers, assert positive rights don’t exist, but they are wrong. They merely show they fail to grasp the concept of an "unenumerated right", i.e. under the ninth amendment of the Bill of Rights..

The latter has been well explicated, for example, by Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999).   As Prof. Wills has pointed out, the unenumerated rights are all those rights not already specifically declared or described in the existing Bill of Rights.  The Founders thereby realized and understood there could exist rights in the future they hadn’t conceived of at the time of the Constitutional Convention, and so allowed those (then) undefined rights to become realized later. In other words, the rights allotted citizens are not limited to the rights actually and specifically delineated, i.e. in the Bill of Rights.

This opens up the basis for positive rights, not merely negative ones. Hence, Jared Polis - unlike our friend Jon Caldara- simply grasped the concept of the unenumerated right and how it paved the way for rights such a health care and privacy.

And why not? (Apart from the fact the U.S. is a signatory to a 1994 UN Declaration that health care is indeed a right.)  Think about it carefully, from the perspective of Caldara that health care must not be a right, never and no how.   So let us say I have no access to competent health care and in Caldara's view, no right to it.

I then contract Avian flu, Ebola or some other highly virulent disease, but for which I can get no care. (No money to pay for it) I am turned down at place after place and end up circulating amidst large crowds merely spreading the particular  contagion to others. HOW is this helpful to the community I live in, how is it beneficial to our national security? It isn't! 

This is where Caldara's ill-informed logic breaks down, i.e. "The new progressive bill of rights means the people around you owe you stuff".

No, that is Trump think.  What it means is that by conferring positive rights like health care the whole community benefits because that one loose end which could unleash an epidemic is sealed. Closed, not left open.  Rather then thinking in a limited fashion about "grabbing others' stuff" one is led instead to concur that all partake of the protections afforded by the tax commons. That goes for national defense - but also for health care.

It also includes an inherent right to privacy - another positive right. For example, if the presumption is no right to privacy then the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights is meaningless. To restate that Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

But note, “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

Again, this is not exceptional so Caldara's limited view of rights  as only negative breaks down. Caldara is correct that a right (positive or negative) retains that property irrespective of the population affected, as when he writes:

"In a society of only three people it would still be a violation of human rights for two of them to force the third into a religion, or take his arms".

 

True, but this is not the same as a government of three agreeing to a contract that health care for all members is a right - a shared responsibility - to protect each from a terrible disease that may befall one and spread to the others.  In other words, the extension of the positive right is a matter of mutual self-interest.   This is why Caldara's logic also breaks down when he writes:

"If it is a right to demands goods or services at someone else's expense then one person out of our fictional society of three could demand health care...and the other two must provide him that human right."

Well, they could also refuse - and die themselves- say if he contracts cholera.  Caldara's claim is that "it's not a freedom" i.e.  for the recipient of the care (say oral rehydration with salts in the case of cholera) but rather a "liability for the other two to provide".   My argument is that it is not a liability but a very wise form of self protection to take proactive care of the 3rd member of the fictional society.  Hence, it is beneficial to this mini society to deem health care a right, just as it would be for any larger society.

The whole problem, as I see it, is a failure of vision (and political moxie and will) to see positive rights as beneficial to whole communities or nations, not as liabilities to be avoided.   Caldara is right about one thing, all human rights are unconditional - and that includes health care and privacy.

David Harsanyi Has A Proposal To "Weed Out Ignorant Voters" - But Would It Be Constitutional?

In his article in yesterday's Denver Post ('Weed Out The Ignorant Voters', p. 15A), David Harsanyi makes an impassioned plea to "weed out" ignorant and irresponsible voters. I will let Harsanyi make his case in his own words then look at his solution:

"Never have so many people with so little knowledge made so many consequential decisions for the rest of us.

A person need only survey the inanity of the ongoing presidential race to comprehend that the most pressing problem facing the nation isn't Big Business, Big Labor, Big Media or even Big Money in politics.

It's you, the American voter. And by weeding out millions of irresponsible voters who can't be bothered to learn the rudimentary workings of the Constitution or their preferred candidate's proposals or even their history, we may be able to mitigate the recklessness of the electorate."

Harsanyi goes on to rule out such nonsense as "checking the box for the candidate whose campaign ads you like best", or the one you'd most like to have a brewskie with. Those don't count because they are the emotional province of the political moron. No, what is needed is a solid knowledge test to see if people casting ballots are truly qualified to do so. (Bearing in mind the enormous consequences of elections, and how they can impact millions of people's lives.)

As a first approach in determining whether a person meets minimal qualifications for participating in a democracy, Harsanyi recommends the prospective voter pass a basic civics test  - the same one administered to prospective citizens. This, by the way, is not the same as the old "poll tax" type test  given in the Jim Crow South to blacks. The latter were always given at the whim of the precinct captains and could be as long or as short as they wanted, and as complex and quixotic as they needed - to exclude African Americans,

NO, Harsanyi's version would for basic civics that any citizen worth his salt ought to know. It would be the same 10 or so questions each year though obviously the content would change for the questions because we can't have answers being memorized - as that destroys the whole purpose.

Example questions offered by Harsanyi:

1) If both the President and Vice President can no longer serve who becomes President?

This one is so critical it ought to be a disqualifier if anybody gets it wrong (The answer, of course, is the Speaker of the House).  Given the U.S. electoral system has a rigid line of succession there ought to be no argument that some questions are just too important to be missed.  Call them 'bomb out' questions - you "bomb out" and you can not vote in that general election. (You can in the next cycle  if you get the bomb out question correct and at least  7/10 overall, which seems to be the  Harsanyi  standard.)

2) There were 13 original colonies, name three.

Again, this is important but I wouldn't rank it at the criticality of (1).   (Though being unable to name at least one comes close to meeting the 'bomb out' standard for abject historical ignorance. But who knows, the bozos who believe Larry Schweikart is the last word on historical veracity might come close!)

3) What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?

Again, easy peasy, and to me - anyone who can't recall or name "freedom of speech" doesn't merit having any!

4) What is freedom of religion?

This one also ought to be straightforward but given today's 'Know nothing', FAUX News and sloppy media culture I wouldn't be surprised if many got it wrong.

Other questions for the Voter Qualifying test I'd consider along with Harsanyi's :

-  Name three amendments from the Bill of Rights.

-  Is there such a thing as "state's rights? Explain

- What is meant by an unenumerated right?

-  Name your state's governor and two Senators, and the party of each.

 None of these ought to give anyone shock or hysteria.

Personally, if a citizen can't even name 3 out of 10 of the amendments of the bill of rights, s/he doesn't deserve to be called a citizen,  far less be allowed to cast ballots. (This issue also came up after 9/11 when Bush and Company were jettisoning civil liberties left, right and center (under the 'Patriot Act') and polls showed most Americans who clamored most  ardently for these "security" precautions couldn't even name 6 of the amendments of the bill of rights.)

State's rights also ought to be a disqualifier if anyone gets it wrong especially in state elections. Any imbecile ought to know only flesh and blood HUMANS have rights, such as embodied in the Bill. Of Rights. States, by contrast, have prerogatives which are made and enforced by contract.

An "unenumerated right" may well be the most important of all because it includes all rights not specifically listed in the Constitution. Yet many Americans even today,-  thanks to propaganda, PR and BS -  think it means state's rights.  (Confusing it with the tenth amendment of the Bill of Rights, i.e. "powers not delegated to the federal government are delegated to the states or to the people".  Meaning of course, the powers are in the form of prerogatives for the states, and rights for the people.)

Lastly, if you can't even name your state's two Senators and governor you have more business playing tiddly winks than voting.

At the end of his proposed questions, Harsanyi writes:

"I have tempered confidence that at least a majority of the voting public could pass such a test - though I couldn't say the same for a majority of the presidential candidates. Certainly this should be a breeze for citizens who are so intensely involved in the process they feel compelled to plaster bumper stickers on their cars and attend rallies of their favorite candidates."

I totally concur.

In the next breath Harsanyi wonders if he's being "too optimistic", citing the case several years back when Newsweek asked a thousand voters to take the official citizenship test. In that scenario, "nearly 30 percent of voters couldn't name the Vice -President. More than 60 percent did not know the length of U.S. Senators' terms in office, and 43 percent couldn't state that the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights."

To say this result is appalling is an understatement.

Harsanyi then cites an Annenberg Public Policy Center finding that only 36 percent of Americans could name all three branches of the U.S. government. Are you kidding me?

Harsanyi's, final point is one I totally support but likely we will never see it manifest, because in this country ignorance is considered bliss and the laws too often protect the ignorant:

"It literally takes seconds to learn about the fundamentals of our republic and the positions of candidates.  If you forsake the power of information you have no standing to tell the rest of us how to live our lives. Don't vote!"

I also agree when he avers:

"I refuse to believe that working class or underprivileged citizens are any less capable of understanding the meaning of the Constitution or the contours of governance than the supercilious 1 -percenters."

Speaking of the Constitution,  what does it have to say about the right to vote and whether having prospective voters prove they're qualified is disallowed?  Amendment XV, which was ratified by the states in 1870 in Section 1, declares: ."The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Note carefully the wording in the last sentence. It does not say anything about use of a basic civics test to determine qualification.

Never mind. The absolute right to vote will mistakenly be seen as god-given to every 'Murican - no matter how ignorant, brainwashed or unquaified the voter may be.

To the detriment of the rest of us, as Harsanyi puts it so well.

Brussels Attacks Fear? You're Still More Likely To Be Killed By An NRA -Backing Terrorist With An AR-15

Bwaaaaa! Daddy Reepo pwotekt me fwum dem bad guys! Bwaaaahahah

"Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for the purpose of a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Here we go again, another brutal ISIS attack, this time in Brussels - horrific scenes unfolding after one scumball detonated a suitcase bomb at the airport, and another POS blew himself up with his suitcase at a subway station. And what is the response from too many in the "land of the free and the home of the brave"? Well, to summarize a headline from salon.com: "panic, hysteria and Trumpism". 

How manifested? To take an example we beheld Ted Cruz in the hours after the attacks knee-jerk spouting that we "need to empower law enforcement to patrol in Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized". To which NYPD chief Bill Bratton on CBS this a.m. fairly spat: "He doesn't know what the hell he is talking about! I have 1,000 Muslim officers on my force and all are dedicated. The last thing we want is alienating law abiding Muslims because once they do become radicalized it's much harder to de-radicalize them."  But Cruz' stupid take was echoed by Trump and the Trumpkin brigade.

Seriously, it is depressing to witness these types of fearful reaction - especially by someone who lived through the Cuban Missile crisis when the entire world was threatened with vaporization and we had only the good sense and judgment of JFK to rely on. Thankfully, he rejected the Joint Chiefs'  demand to bomb and invade Cuba which would certainly have caused Castro to unleash at least 93 Russian made IRBMs on the eastern U.S., followed by a massive U.S. counter strike then a Soviet counter counter strike. Total nuclear exchange within 8 hours? About 690 megatons with 400 million dead and the rest of the world wishing they were. 

THAT was something real to be terrified about because it affected directly the existence of every man, woman and child on Earth. All stood to lose their lives either in the initial exchanges or from radiation sickness later. Today, in the wake of an isolated Brussels terror attack? Not so much. It barely makes the higher alert register - or should. Hence, I was glad to see Obama attending a baseball game in Cuba yesterday instead of rushing home in a panic, reinforcing the panicked portrayals and endless loops of Brussels' bedlam by the sensation-sotted U.S. media.

Well, there are some media exceptions. A Dec. 5, 2015 NY Times editorial in the wake of the San Bernardino killings noted, for example:

"The death toll from jihadist terrorism on American soil since the Sept. 11 attacks -- 45 people -- is about the same as the 48 killed in terrorist attacks motivated by white supremacist and other right-wing extremist ideologies.... And both tolls are tiny compared with the tally of conventional murders, more than 200,000 over the same period.”

Now, any dumbo even with zero math background can surely see that 200,000 >> 45! I mean, how hard can this be? And that greater number was accomplished by high powered weapons and handguns, almost all purchased legally with the benediction of the NRA.  In other words, we're killing each other at a rate more than 4,400 times that which the terrorists are!

So why isn't this being processed? There are two possible reasons: 1) Americans are prevented from knowing the facts, the stats and hence don't process the ridiculous difference in threat, and 2) their reptilian brains over react to isolated terror events - magnifying them as proximate threats when they are distant ones. In such cases, the TV scenes have taken control of their amygdalas and viewers are then ruled by atavistic emotions more than reason.

 The unholy truth is that most shootings are  NOT ideological or random but rather domestic (in people's homes) - either suicides or one spouse (usually male) killing the other after a fiery argument.   Assaying all mass shootings between 2009 and 2015, the Huffington Post found that 70 percent occurred in the home. Of these, 57 percent involved a family member or current or former intimate partner. 81 percent of the victims were women and children. These killings were not done by 'crazies' but usually normal people who simply lost it in the midst of a heated argument and reached for the weapon nearest and dearest - a gun.

See e.g.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/65051/what-rough-beast-slaughter-is-the-standard-in-the-us

These killings were not done by 'crazies'  or Islamic terrorists but usually normal people who simply lost it in the midst of a heated argument and reached for the weapon nearest and dearest - a gun.
In this light, and as the NY Daily News back in December featured on its headline, it is the NRA's Wayne LaPierre who qualifies as the real terrorist because it is HE who has made available the millions of lethal weapons to kill so many Americans (many more than ISIS could) by refusing to implement sane gun laws.

The purpose of all this? To show the relative risk of an American being killed in a terrorist attack here in the States is vanishingly small. Small enough not to lose sleep over, cancel plans for an outing - say to a cinema or ball game, and certainly so small that one would not wish to suspend civil liberties for any demographic in our population. Because to do so would be to play directly into the hands of the ISIS vermin and their zombie lackeys.

Be alert and aware, of course, but in an intelligent as opposed to paranoid and hysterical sense. Note things unusual and report them, but don't go off the rails seeking to expunge the basic principles embodied in the Bill of Rights, especially the fourth amendment. If we give in to fear we cease to be who we are and mutate instead into a fear-governed caricature unworthy of liberty.

As for the Brussels' news, tune in to get the occasional update but don't stay glued to the tube and this kind of news on an endless loop. It just feeds fear, and more panic and hysteria.

And besides, you risk becoming a Trumpkin.

Educating TIME's Joe Klein On The Nature Of Rights & Privileges

As we move further into the Neoliberal world order, a number of efforts are being made by their elites to gut citizen thought via propaganda and language manipulation. In the past I had already cited the efforts to eviscerate all notions or memes associated with political conspiracy, i.e. by substituting the word 'scandal' for what had formerly been described as conspiracies. For example, the Watergate conspiracy is now the "Watergate scandal" and the Iran-Contra Conspiracy (as defined by then Counsel Lawrence Walsh in his Iran - Contra Report), is now the "Iran-Contra Scandal". (This was recently referenced in a segment on MSNBC by Andrea Mitchell noting how Nancy Reagan had sought to protect Reagan from the blowback from the "Iran-Contra Scandal". ) Thus as more and more hear this misuse they come gradually to accept it.

As the Elites attempt to gut all notions of political conspiracy by such language re-crafting, they are also painfully aware it cannot work completely until all of us with historical facts and memories pass away. Then, all that will be left is a mainly ahistorical, younger population that was never aware of the original terms - and probably doesn't care. In this way the future can be altered to the Elites' advantage based on reframing the events of the past.

Another domain ripe for manipulation, or what I call "mind fucking",  has to do with the nature of rights and privileges. In this case, because so few Americans understand or have been educated on the nuances of rights, and relation to privileges, they are susceptible to having their brains subtly or not so subtly exploited.

I bring this up to reference a recent column (March 14, p. 31)  by TIME's resident Neolib, Joe Klein, who wrote this in reference to Bernie Sanders's proposals:

"There is also the problem of 'rights' that Sanders claims for the people: health care is a right, not a privilege, free college education is a right - but these rights are granted without any reciprocal responsibilities. Surely, if we're going to give middle-class kids a four year college education they owe something in return- some form of service perhaps."

Clearly, like most Neoliberals, Klein regards health care and free public education as privileges not rights. But he is sadly mistaken.  Take health care. It is not a luxury item. . Rather, people are likely to need it most when their health is gravely compromised-say in a serious accident or a heart attack-  exactly the time it's most likely to be punitively expensive, or they're likely to be denied necessary care outright.

The fact that access to health care can determine life or death clearly means it falls within the purview of an unqualified RIGHT, not a privilege. On the other hand, driving a car is a privilege even if one needs a car to get to work. Hence, the recent TIME magazine cover to the effect that robot autos will soon take over and "all you have to do is give up your right to drive" is misplaced, You have no innate human right to drive. It's a myth. Nor do you have any innate rights to fast food, to ATMs, to home ownership or your own yacht.

Let's go back to health care and try to educate Klein and his Neolib cohort. In the first instance, health care can be regarded as a definite positive right under the “unenumerated rights of citizens" declared under the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. These are referred to as those rights 'not denied or disparaged' by the formally enumerated rights.

Alas, the whole concept of rights that can exist without being actually mentioned is something beyond the Neolibs' ken, or conception! Evidently, then, they never read the Constitution as carefully as they believed! In fact, as Prof. Garry Wills has pointed out  (A Necessary Evil-A History Of American Distrust Of Government, Simon & Schuster, 1999), the unenumerated rights are all those rights not already specifically declared or described in the existing document. The Founders thereby realized and understood there could exist rights in the future they hadn’t conceived of at the time of the Constitutional Convention. They thereby allowed those (then) undefined rights to become realized later under the provision of the Ninth Amendment. In other words, the rights allotted citizens are not limited to the rights actually and specifically delineated, i.e. in the Bill of Rights.

Apart from health care being a right under the 9th amendment, it is also a right by declaration of the U.S. government explicitly when it signed a (1994) UN Declaration mandating that health care is a universal right. (It can't be, clearly, if it is unaffordable or if accessing it in a desperate situation leads to bankruptcy).

Another example of  an unenumerated right is the right to privacy. This is covered under the 4th amendment, but because it's not spelled out in black and white most who read that amendment don't process it. The Fourth Amendment reads:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

So follow me now on this: Being “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

Let's now return to free public education. It can be argued this also is a universal right and which is why we have free public schooling in the U.S. The value placed on the education of citizens is implicit, else it would not exist. Extrapolating this, one can argue that granting free higher education is also a right, i.e. for those citizens who can maximize its use and contribute to the nation as a result. Klein mentions "giving something in return" but to me that is only attendant on whether the student is funded for higher elite education and in specific areas - like medicine.  In a public university it should not require anything more than the student performing to a sufficiently high academic standard. (As I pointed out three posts ago).

The "return on investment" will thereby come naturally when the graduate subsequently brings his learned skills to bear in the society, whether via the teaching profession, law, science, medicine, or in business. Hence, we acknowledge by contributing monies to the funding of qualified students' higher public education we as a nation are the ultimate winners- not losers.

Klein also carps about the "right of unwed mothers to food stamps". Again, implying that this is some kind of a privilege granted. But if we as a nation truly value life, new life in the womb  - and wish to make abortion less common - then it is incumbent on us to provide those food stamps to the unwed mother and her unborn. Not to do so is to act bestially and in an uncivilized manner, and to thereby vindicate all those who insist the anti-abortion Right only cares about protecting life in a restricted way.

Klein further asks if such mothers "don't owe us some standard of civic responsibility too"?  Yes, they do - that is to exercise intelligence and use family planning before engaging in sexual relations. Thereby, not placing an undue burden on the state.

Klein's questions and positions also elicit how the Neoliberal state and agenda has gutted job potential in the nation and created a vast unemployed (and underemployed) underclass. Given his position to do with the unwed mothers receiving food stamps with no strings, I am sure he would also demand "service" from those on welfare. (I.e. based on Clinton's wrong headed 'welfare to work') The first line victims of Neoliberal trade policies, including NAFTA. The answer is 'No'.

Charles Reich ('Opposing the System', pp. 125-26) correctly observes:

"The claim that government is free to reduce or cut off welfare and other forms of support for people in economic need is totally mistaken. Welfare is not a gift, nor is it, despite frequent assertions, a transfer from those who earn a living to those who are not.  Welfare is rather an obligation from society – and from those who are working- to those who have been deprived of work and the opportunity to earn a living. If we want to speak of transfers, it would be more accurate to say that those with a secure place in the economic system are enjoying a transfer of wealth from those who have been excluded from the economic system. Welfare then is partial compensation for a deprivation of livelihood that allows others to work"

In other words welfare,  seen in the proper context,  transcends even being a "right" to being an OBLIGATION from a basically rich society.  The latter, embracing  a perverted economic system, owes  a basic economic viability to those who have been deprived of work and are excluded.

Maybe a hard nut to swallow but there it is!

Trump Muslim Ban Shows (Again) Why He's Unfit to Lead

"Mr. Trump claims to be serious. Seriously tough and seriously clever, 'the best in the world at finance'. But Mr. Trump is not at all serious. He is a clown and an increasingly sinister one. His shtick is to describe a make believe, fallen America, beaten by everyone, emasculated, and immiserated by having the worst government in the world. Then he proposes outlandish ideas to make America great again. 

Mr. Trump's biggest fans are middle-aged or older, white, rather poorly educated and disposed to be awed by a shouty billionaire.". - The Economist, Dec. 5-11, p. 27)


Let us accept as a proposition that any presidential candidate who doesn't know or who actually rejects the Constitution is unfit to lead this nation. After all, our country is built on that document which is not "just a piece of paper" as Gee Dumbya Bush once referred to it. Thus, the rational citizen - of which I still believe there are many - must see Donald Trump as unfit to lead this country after his "Muslim ban" outburst yesterday, i.e.

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of all Muslims entering the United States...We have no choice"

Note that Trump's proposal targets Muslim Americans, i.e. who leave the country say on holiday then return, not just immigrants.

This insane, out of touch with reality blather brought instant condemnation not only from Democrats but from the whole Republican establishment, including Dick Cheney.

When you have Cheney weighing in against your proposals you KNOW you're a grade A dingbat and a-hole and really not presidential caliber. Cheney said:

"the whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims and just ban a whole religion goes against everything we stand for and believe in"

The Donna spewed his offal in South Carolina, before a crowd that actually reminded me (as they chanted "Trump!, Trump!, Trump!")  of the Hitlerites in  Leni's Reifenstahl's film 'Triumph of the Will' bellowing "Sieg Heil!" as the Fuhrer unleashed a torrent of insane bollocks  -  just like Trump. See e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvVEr7xtqf0

Not coincidentally the South Carolina GOP Chairman, Matt Moore, may have likewise recalled or referenced those images from the past as he said:

"Donald Trump's bad idea and rhetoric send a shiver down my spine"

Well. as they should any citizen aware of history and George Santayana's famous words: 'Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.'

And for reference, let's indicate the parts of the Constitution - namely in the Bill of Rights  - that Trump's vicious and anti-American proposal has inveighed against:

First Amendment:

"Make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.."

Fourteenth Amendment:

"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. "

Trump's proposal would trample these rights as well as due process as provided for in the 5th amendment.

Worst of all, which had to be on Cheney's mind, and was certainly on war correspondent Richard Engel's (last night on MSNBC),  is the clear security issue involved. While Trump bellows loudly how he will protect the people, his proposal would in fact make us much more likely to suffer attacks. The reason, as Engel noted when he said:

"The reason there are five thousand people in western Europe that have joined ISIS and left Europe is because they feel ghetto-ized. They feel they are not part of the community. The reason we only have two hundred and fifty people who have gone to join ISIS is by and large they feel they are getting a fair shake and they have a shot at the American dream.

If you change that equation you will change the numbers"

Also, by belligerently keeping people of a particular religion out you will ensure those who remain become much more secretive, less willing to divulge critical information to authorities - and hence eliminate a whole swatch of human intelligence ("humint") This puts the nation at far greater risk without knowing what's going on.

As I believe I made clear in an earlier post, while it's true the Qu'uran contains outlandish statements from the Prophet in terms of  "jihad" and  "infidels" it is also true that most Muslims today don't literally accept those statements any more than  Christians literally accept the extreme sanctions such as stoning homosexuals or adulterers to death as seen in Deuteronomy or Kings. For instance, 2 Kings 2, 23:24 allows children to be slain by wild animals ("she bears")  if they insult their elders or any authority  (in this case a prophet).  Similarly, by Deut. 22:22 both John Edwards and his former girlfriend (Riele Hunter) would have been stoned to death.

The point is that enlightened followers of a religion do not mindlessly follow its every admonition, phrase injunction or prescription. Even most Catholics I know no longer follow the idiotic anti-birth control dogma. (Which to be fair, is nowhere in the Bible anyway.) I've also met Catholics that no longer believe in papal infallibility but they still remain nominal Catholics. Why can't the same be true for Muslims? Just because their book says "slay the infidels" doesn't mean they need act like zombies or robots and obey it any more than Xtians need follow an injunction from Leviticus to slay homosexuals. We have to give religious people a modicum of credit for common sense and temperance.

Thus,  it is baseless to inveigh against and vilify an entire religion based on what a minor subset of radical fundamentalists (who adhere to every word) do.

Trump, in order to try and justify his nonsense, cited a "poll of Muslims" that purportedly reveals "ominous levels of support for Islamic Supremacists' Doctrine of Shariah". But it is well to point out the source of this poll: none other than the right wing Islamophobe Frank Gaffney, Jr. The Southern Poverty Law Center - which always keeps one eye on the hate mongers, describes Gaffney as "one of the most notorious Islamophobes".

The take of The Economist (Nov. 30- Dec. 4, p. 24) is that this bout of protracted nativism (recall Trump earlier called for a "registry" of Muslims) follows earlier episodes of religious intolerance. It cites, for example, how at the turn of the 20th century Catholics were almost universally reviled as "papists" who gave allegiance to a foreign power (the Vatican) and conducted their services in a strange foreign language (Latin).

That Catholic rejection eventually settled down as Catholics became ever more integrated into their communities. Also, it eventually dawned on American Protestants that Catholics were Christians too.

Whether the current mindless intolerance of Muslims can be resolved in the same way is an open question. As long as terror attacks are mounted by Muslim extremists it will be difficult to get the demographic that supports Trump (mainly non-college educated whites)  to trust that faith or its followers.  That means their being led even more down the path of paranoia and hate by Trump.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/65166/once-disdained-hitler-references-are-now-deserved-and-we-can-thank-the-right

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/michael-winship/65120/trump-s-bigotry-revives-fears-of-it-can-t-happen-here

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-boehlert/65103/trump-the-press-and-how-to-treat-a-liar

Terrified Americans Prepared To Sacrifice Liberties Again After Paris

Bwaaaaa! Daddy Reepo pwotekt me fwum dem bad guys! Bwaaaahahah!

"Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for the purpose of a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open." - Thomas Jefferson, in 'Notes on Virginia'.

As many Americans take to the skies and roads over the long holiday weekend, you can be sure that despite the assurances of President Obama, millions will still be seized by pathological terror fears.

Just reading the accounts in The Wall Street Journal three days ago, of all the citizens prepared to sacrifice their hard won liberties to "feel safe" was enough to turn a civil libertarian's stomach. Person after person averred of the need to feel safe and how the Paris attacks had again turned them toward their own mortality.  One middle-aged Pennsylvania woman said she'd accept a new surveillance state, anything to "catch the terrorists".

And, of course, it doesn't take too much for crass politicos to exploit those fears (now voiced by 64 % of the country who believe a terror attack is "imminent"  for the U.S.)  and convert them into demagoguery and fear mongering - while vowing  a lot more surveillance - as Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie have done. The last guy saying at a Council on Foreign Relations  confab that "Paris changes everything". Uh, no it doesn't.

Add to that hysterical articles like 'Time to Remove the Surveillance Blinders', WSJ, Nov. 24, p. A13) by Michael B. Mukasey and Jamil N. Jaffer, yelping to "restore the metadata programs" and you can understand why so many of our countrymen are in panic mode.

But as yesterday's Denver Post editorial ('Don't Retreat on NSA Surveillance') points out:

"The security hawks are misguided. The Paris attacks are not a cogent argument for their views. "

It goes on to cite knuckledragger Tom Cotton, hell bent on introducing legislation to delay implementation of the USA Freedom Act which passed in June and is set to be fully implemented in December.   (Incidentally, Cotton's cotton-pickin' energy in this, as well as that of other GOOPrs is nothing short of amazing given Republican leaders have recently declared the lower chamber will be closed for a total of 150 weekdays starting next year. That's upward of 30 weeks paid vacation for each!)

But the Post to its credit has noted that while the modest rollback of NSA bulk collection of records threatens national security, the facts do not bear this out. (But what value are facts anymore anyway, when a blowhard nincompoop like Trump can say anything he wants - like he heard and saw people in Jersey City clapping approval after the WTV towers went down - and not one report can support it)

As the Post observes:

"The federal government's own Privacy and Civil Liberties Board was unable in 2014 to identify "a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records collection program made a concrete difference to the outcome of a terrorist investigation."

Adding:

"Moreover, we are aware of no such instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack."

The Post also pointed out that the Justice Department's own inspector general came to a similar conclusion namely that "even federal anti-terrorism officials in favor of the 'metadata' program could not identify any major case developments as a result of it."

Those are significant findings showing the programs, methods were essentially useless despite all the huff and puff now erupting among politicians eager to gain leverage in the polls by playing on Americans' fears. Or least a certain subset I call "the good Germans".

Go back to the end of World War II and the American occupation of Germany in the years after 1945. We assailed the “weak” German people and mocked them for not standing up to the growing metastasis of Hitler’s Reich which they obviously saw but did nothing about. Hell, too many sided with Hitler, praised him and embraced his ideology while turning a blind eye to the wrongs. The last straw was the Enabling Act (1933) which essentially obliterated the last vestiges of the Weimar Republic. Our military also dragged out these “good Germans” and trotted them into the remnant concentration camps to see first hand what their Fuhrer and his minions did. They were marched in and forced to look at the naked, gassed bodies stacked like cordwood until they puked.
Americans have got to realize that if they're so petrified by the Paris attacks that they are led to vote for any of these tinhorn,  wannabe dictators, our nation will be in deep shit - from which it may never be extricated even after the current threat passes.  Worse, many citizens may be mutated into the same "good Germans" who would deny atrocities committed (e.g. by the security state) to protect them from the bad guys.

Am I a civil liberties “extremist”? Damned right if that means a citizen who understands that the Constitution is not just “a piece of paper” (as Bush once called it) and that the rights inherent in the Bill of Rights are real, apply to individuals, and not mere “compromise abstractions” but rather hold the key to American identity – what truly sets us apart. And once those rights are gone, believe me they won’t be coming back! Once they are gone we will cease to be the nation my ancestor,  Conrad Brumbaugh,  envisaged and fought for in the Revolutionary War  - as one of the Pennsylvania Regiment.

What would Conrad think now nearly 240 years after the War of Independence? He’d likely barf nonstop at the spectacle of what too many of the current crop of Americans have devolved to: arrant, whiny, weak, sissy consumers,  who’d rather give in to their fears and vote for an obvious tyrant than stand tall and face their fears.

Which means not letting the ISIA terrorists win, i.e. getting us to do their dirty work for them by rescinding our had won liberties via the imposition of dubious, hollow laws.

Balkanizing Business Via "Religious Freedom" - The Best Way To Destroy the Nation's Economy

Denver 850 KOA talk show host Ross Kaminsky is like too many millions of other lamebrains who just don't grasp the reasons why it would be sheer madness to balkanize American business and allow every religious business owner to run amuck - deciding which customers they will serve or not. Writing in the Sunday, April 5th Denver Post ('Do Liberals Really Care About Rights?') this asshole shows he really has no clue what rights mean or how they exist in the context of the Constitution, and especially in the private enterprise domain..

Kaminsky spends most of the first part of his op-column bellyaching how "the American left, their media allies and the gay rights movement" don't care about genuine rights because they haven't stood up for those of the wedding baker and photographers or pizza makers, who don't wish to serve gays".   But as usual, he has it all ass -backwards.

First, he mixes up free exercise of religion and freedom of association, with freedom to  trade and engage in commerce. No one told or educated this dummy that the two spheres cannot be connected in one to one correspondence, as I noted before. That is, if indeed one has received a license for public commercial trade all "freedom of association" goes out the window.  By the commerce laws of our land, including the commerce clause of our Constitution, the buyer is free to associate his business with any establishment BUT the establishment - as a cornerstone of business - cannot exclude buyers unless they display unbecoming conduct.  As I observed in my prior post on the Indiana RFRA:

The restaurateur or trader is afforded certain privileges (via licensing) to trade or provide services (such as food) in the public domain. Hence, his so called "freedom" is limited to do whatever he wants- and hence that can't include refusal of service unless there are extenuating circumstances, i.e. the customers enter drunk and disorderly. The trader doesn't have the latitude to refuse service on the basis of  skin color, the other person's own beliefs, sexual orientation, pro-choice stance or nationality.

This is also why American businesses like Apple, Starbucks have come out against this nonsense as well as the Indiana Chamber of Commerce in that state. Because they know the chaos that'd be wrought otherwise.  As salon.com author Jeffrey Tayler put it recently:

"Given that RFRAs don’t specify to which religion they pertain, if they do legalize discrimination, they will do so ecumenically, offering adherents of all denominations a chance to bully both rationalists and believers of other cults. "

Which is why the door would open to balkanized chaos. Pharmacies could refuse serving people they regarded as 'sinners'  - say denying birth control pills to young, single women or couples that they knew were living together but unmarried. Owners of home improvement stores could decide that they want no Jews around because after all, they "killed our Savior".   Orthodox Jews could even decide they no longer wish to serve the "unorthodox" and Catholics might decide they no longer wish to serve Protestants.  Private hospitals -operating as businesses - might decide that they will serve the needs of no declared atheists, or  known pro-choice folks or gays on their premises either. Restaurants would feel free to bar anyone who might wish to celebrate a known pagan festival at their venues.

What's wrong with this picture? If you can't see it, there's no point me trying to clarify it for you. And if you can't understand that the model of "everyone going to his own people to conduct business"  is a non-starter you have no business reading this blog. You need to stick to comic strips!   As Tayler humorously put it:

"Presumably followers of the Torah, say, could deny service to those who have performed any of thirty-nine types of activity forbidden on the Sabbath.  If so, beware — these include some pretty improbable things, like putting out fires, writing one’s name and erasing it, flaying a goat and separating threads.......Muslims, in turn, could deny service to Jews and Christians for having rejected the Prophet Muhammad"

Reductio ad absurdum, anyone? But you get the point - I hope. We'd have so much contretemps in trade and business practices that no uniform business basis or national -scale free enterprise would be feasible. It would be "I serve who I wish, when I wish and how". It is precisely for this reason Kaminsky ends up in a rabbit hole of unreason with no resolution because there can't be any. 

But this is why a free market implies total freedom on the part of choice for the buyer - not the seller! The seller is confined and limited not only by regulations (e.g. meat sellers can't vend month old rats with rabies and pass it off as veal) but by limits on his notions of free association. The latter may be fine for his garden parties but not with whom he does business, he must be open to ALL.

Second, Kaminsky makes the error of most right wingers by harping on "negative rights", e.g.

"Ours is uniquely a system of negative rights aimed at ensuring that Americans aren't subject to the whims of others"

Well, I guess unless  the whims emanate from a cartoon, tyrant deity in a magic book.  But the point is that a negative right implies that there are ‘x’ things the government can’t do to you, say take away your guns or deny you property ownership, disposal. By contrast, positive rights assert there are actual positive rights to which you are entitled, say under the Bill of Rights.

  Anyway, not content with his initial ignorant display he writes:

"Our constitution reiterates rights but does not grant them, rather it limits the power of government to infringe on them."

I will argue, however, that not only does a right to privacy certainly exist, but it underpins most other rights that inhere in the amendments to the Bill of Rights

For example, if the presumption to no right to privacy is valid, then the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights is meaningless. To restate that Amendment:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

But note, “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person possesses.

As to the limits on positive rights, Kaminsky clearly doesn't know where to look.  He, like other Reich nuts, needs to read Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999).  The chapter ‘Constitutional Myths’(p. 108). Wills notes that citizens alone possess rights, which neither the states nor the federal government share. Both the latter retain powers and prerogatives, but not rights. Hence, the subtext is that rights can only accrue to human individuals. And these are POSITIVE rights.

Hence, the term "state's rights" is bogus, in error. States have prerogatives, not rights, because states exist as governmental entities not a persons-individuals.

Wills goes on: 

"The Ninth Amendment states that the people retain unenumerated rights”

 "The people:" here refers to flesh and blood citizens, not to a bunch of contractual abstractions (states), or to corporations. .As Wills emphasizes and underscores (ibid.):


“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”

Do we truly want to invoke specious arguments on "religious freedom" or "free association" to fracture and balkanize our economy to the extent Jews only frequent Jewish stores, Catholics go to Catholic stores, Muslims go to their own stores, and atheists to atheist stores?  I would hope to hell not because, frankly - given the fragile condition our economy remains in - we can't afford that level of stupidity and short-sightedness to appease some magic man in the skies only given credence in magic books.

As Tayler aptly puts it:
.
"Such are the farcical dilemmas and rank absurdities with which religion threatens to swamp us if it infests our judicial system and trumps secular law, as any RFRA legalizing faith-based discrimination would do.  The ghastly morass to which RFRAs will one day probably lead speaks to nothing but the ahistorical ignorance of their drafters.  The Founding Fathers never meant for religion to play a role in our affairs of state.  If the First Amendment isn’t proof enough of this, doubters might check out other things they wrote."

Bingo!