Big Bad Liberals "Bullying" Poor Little Wingnuts? Gimme A Break!

BWAAAAHAHA! Da bad bad libruls is bullyin' me! WAAAAHHH!

"The Constitution does not allow 13-year olds to become President and after last week we can see why." -  Garrison Keillor, 'What Mark Twain Killed, Donald Trump Has Revived', Denver Post, Feb. 12, p. 5D)

"The Trump resistance movement is stretching its wings, engaging its muscles and feeling its power. It is large and strong and tough. It has moved past debilitating grief and into righteous anger, assiduous organization and pressing activism. Welcome to the dawn of the fighting-mad majority: The ones who didn’t vote for Trump and maybe even some who now regret that they did....   This administration is already manifesting as the disaster we knew it would be; the stench of its rot surrounds us. What is there to wait and see? A rose will never bloom from a weed; you must snatch that thing up at first sight, by the root" - Charles M. Blow, NY Times today

Aa the hackneyed phrase "unhinged Left" is bandied about more and more in the fake news and Reich wing media, let us pause and bear in mind the perception of unhinged is relative. It is also reducible to facts and reality.  To an ardent Scientologist, Moonie or former follower of Jim Jones anyone pointing out their level of unreality would come across as "unhinged".   This is the way the perception works. The truly unhinged will always howl that the genuinely hinged (like Times columnist Charles M. Blow)  are unhinged, because to think otherwise would render them unhinged in their own minds.

So to ardent Trumpies and their fake news media, invested in nutso claims (like Trump lapdog Steven Miller, defending the "three to five million illegal voters"  nonsense yesterday) the rising scenes of protests around the nation would appear as the "unhinged Left"  on the rampage. But this is because, as comic John Oliver pointed out last night (see last link at bottom of this post), they are unable to see the total derangement of Trump, his blatant lies, his level of incompetence and inability to even put in a decent day's work. As referenced in a recent  report by Politico,  Trump can barely find the White House toilets without help and the only times he can remotely appear to be doing his job is when Bannon or Steven Miller gives him fake "executive orders" to sign. At least then he has a chance of appearing presidential - never mind he has no clue how to do the damned job.

So this is ultimately the reality basis, including Trump's recent ineffectual and chaotic actions, against which the Left's criticisms must be judged. As it turns out, nearly all are spot on justified, and in spades, as this sleaze bag continues to muddy the waters of polity by his ignorance and brash, bullying Hitler-ish nature which his groupies think is terrific.

How times change. Seems like barely 7 1/2 years ago fruitcake Tea baggers were coming to Obamacare rallies with funny hats and loaded guns. Hell, they even filled meeting halls with looneytunes carrying signs of Obama depicted in the ones below:

Look at these then tell me who is "unhinged".

But it appears these hard core Rightists when all is said and done, are just "whiny little bitches" - to use the words of comic Bill Maher- because now that the shoe is on the other foot and the Left has risen up against Trump, theyre all pitching hissy fits.  BWAAAAHAHAHA! Stop pickin' on Trump and let him do his job!" What job? The guy doesn't even know what the job is! He believes it's something like running his outside branding and bankruptcy businesses where he can bark orders, yells "Jump!" and everyone responds "How high?"

Seriously,  the Trump groupies are now all whining that the Left is "ganging" up on Trump and resorting to "petulant bullying"  Take the latest remarks of radio talk show shock jock Ross Kaminsky

In a recent whiny diatribe in The Denver Post,  Kaminsky fairly bawled about being "pushed" into doing things he otherwise wouldn't have. ('Democrats pushed me toward rooting for Donald Trump and Tom Brady", Denver Post, Feb. 12, p. 3D). He blabbered at the outset:

"since President Trump’s election, and particularly since his inauguration, the venom and bile directed toward him, the mindless obstruction of his nominees by Senate Democrats who do not understand their constitutional role in the process (hint: it is not co-equal with the president’s role), the endless attacks by self-righteous Hollywood leftists and late-night talk-show hosts, the overwhelming media bias against Trump has left me no choice but to support, even cheer, him almost each day since he moved into the White House."

What utter fulsome codswallop!  First, the "venom" directed toward Trump was in no way worse than Ross and his wingnuts directed to Obama 7-8 years ago.  In fact, up to now NO left protestors have shown up with loaded weapons like the Right did at meetings back then.  Second, the venom heaped on Obama, i.e. that he was a "Nazi" and "socialist" had no basis in fact given all Obama did was get the ACA passed. Up to now, none of the Reeptards has proven the ACA is any different from an original GOP plan launched in the mid-1990s (later turned into Romneycare by Mitt Romney).

Third, this dunderhead has no clue that the opposition party is supposed to vet nominees. It is not "obstruction" to block or slow down the process IF the ones nominated (like Betsy DeVos, Scott Pruitt, Jeff Sessions, etc.) have major conflict of interest 'bombs' tucked away in their past that require exposure and debate. So clearly this imbecile isn't aware of basic constitutional processes, including advise and consent, and checks and balances.

The real howler is that all this resistance left the imp "with no choice".  Left him "no choice'? What is he a vegetable? An anencephalic mutant devoid of will or intellect? In fact, this dingbat had plenty of choices, he just preferred to make lame excuses to back Trump by blaming  those bad, nasty bullies on the left, for simply expressing their first amendment rights.

He then goes on:

"I have never been a New England Patriots fan. It’s probably the smugness of their fans more than anything else, and it didn’t help that they temporarily exported Josh McDaniels to Denver. But when tens of thousands of liberals shared a sportswriter’s column arguing that “Tom Brady has some explaining to do on Donald Trump,” insisting that one guy who has known another guy for many years should “expect to get some tough questions” about their friendship, Democrats actually pushed me toward rooting for Brady and the Patriots in the Super Bowl"

Again, bare bollocks. NO true fan of a given sports team can be "pushed" to back one he hates unless he's a sorry loser to begin with or just a forlorn putz who is compelled to invoke victimhood for his choices, as Kaminsky does.  So no, Dems and liberals didn't push poor little Ross into backing Brady and the Pats, he's just making excuses for doing so because he doesn't have the spine to admit he adores the bro-love between Trump, Brady, Bellichick and Kraft - and maybe wants' to be part of it.  No harm in that, I guess, but don't blame "bullying" by the Left or Dems for driving you there.

Ross bleats on, clearly oblivious to reality:

"And how about the idiocy of liberals boycotting Ivanka, the only liberal with real influence over the president of the United States?.... Standing up for Ivanka doesn’t make me feel nearly as ill as it does to stand up for her dad or for Tom Brady. But my changing view of each is the result of the mind-broadening brought to Americans daily by the mindless vicious petulant bullying of the tolerant left.Thanks, Democrats, for making me question my beliefs. Thanks, Democrats, for nothing."

Awwww, boo hoo hoo, poor widdo Ross! Miffed at Democrats and liberals for wrecking his miserable pissant political fancies, life and choices.  One clue here, you clueless imbecile:  Boycotting the Trump brand was not "idiotic" given it got the Donald to tweet about defending her brand barely 19 days after he swore he was going to divest from all Trump business entanglements. He was not to know what those businesses were up to, or whether doing well or not. That was the deal! What it exposed in fact is that Trump's divestment malarkey is pure bullshit.  And this is just one of the reasons (apart from incompetence) he ultimately is going to be impeached within 2 years as independent columnist Kathleen Parker predicts, e.g.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/02/in_two_years_well_have_a_new_p.html


This butt brain yaps about "mindless vicious petulant bullying" but forgets or doesn't want to recall the form he and his breed let loose barely 6 years ago. (But with the proviso, that we are talking political chalk and cheese here. Obama, unlike Trump, actually worked  9-10 hours a day as President and got things done: passing the ACA, crafting a stimulus package to pull the nation back from a credit crisis and likely depression, generating jobs, and capturing Osama bin Laden. He was also sane - not getting up at 3 a.m. to tweet nonsense, or harass media, actors, world leaders or judges via twitter storms. Hence, it is evident the Trumpies are unhinged for failure to recognize that trait in their man.)

Kaminsky's detachment from reality is even more pronounced with his belief Ivanka could have any influence on her mentally unstable excuse for an old man, when no one of any rationality can make an impact.  Apart from which, Ivanka - as a de facto appointee of Trump's alleged "blind trust" - had no business getting any help (or supportive tweets)  from daddy anyway. Again, there was to be no interplay between what a family member did in biz and Trump. Ross would have done better to read Post Editor Chuck Plunkett's words on the same page:

"now we’ve got a billionaire New Yorker selling his Richie Rich daughter’s jewelry and clothing lines on the White House lawn."

Plunkett went on to write:

"Hence my trouble understanding Trump’s base. Where is the loyalty to the U.S.A. in attacking the courts as Trump did all last week, and not on grounds of legal differences, but for the temerity of those judges who are working to do the jobs past presidents assigned them to do? Where is the integrity in trashing the founders’ separation of powers to protect individual liberty?"

But Chuck Plunkett can be forgiven for expecting the Trump base to act like adults as opposed to 3- year olds in wet nappies and without a clue.   In fact, all they want is a big bad daddy figure to take care of them, as surmised in a recent piece by George Lakeoff - showing how today's conservatives are in search of a powerful daddy figure to do their bidding. (The left is more in line with the template of the "nurturing parent" mold).

This childish authoritarian yen has serious consequences and gives rise to the real bullying now being noted in the press (Denver Post, Feb. 12, p. 7A) including enraged Trumpies tweeting death threats to Judge James Robart, for issuing a restraining order that halted enforcement of Trump's ban last week. As the cited article notes:

"Robart quickly became a target on social media. Someone on Twitter called him 'DEAD MAN WALKING'"

Another wanted Robart to be taken to Guantanamo and waterboarded. This is the level of bullying acrimony we see - REAL - not imagined- as evinced by the pro-Trumpie Nazis.

Because of this bullying, again real  - not imagined like the Trump dopes confect- there is fear among the judiciary.  Quoting John Muffler, a former U.S. marshal who reaches at the National Judicial College (ibid.):

"I know there is fear among the judiciary with what's being said"

Citing professional contacts and email exchanges with judges.  This is also of historical as well as current interest and ought to command the attention of every true citizen. As Steve Pizzo has written (see link below) there also occurred a Nazification of the German judiciary. elaborated in the document:  “THEY SHOOT LAWYERS DON’T THEY?: LAW IN THE THIRD REICH AND THE GLOBAL THREAT TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE JUDICIARY” by Matthew Lippman. You can find the full paper here. 

This is sad, in fact deplorable. Because it reveals the Trumpkin deplorables don't even care about the fundamental checks and balances of our constitutional system.  We can't seem to fault the Trumpies based on their intellectual deficits - assuming they exist'- but in their upbringing, leading them to become authoritarians who need a demagogue like Trump to support their shaky identity.

In his landmark work, Cruelty and Kindness: A New Look at Aggression and Altruism, author Harvey A. Hornstein again paints the picture of these Trumpkins and their personality dysfunctions (p. 41) :

"Intolerant, prejudiced, authoritarian people are not at ease. The baggage of their youth is filled with inescapable hates and fears. Mistrusting their own impulses they are wary of others and the impulses that they might possess. Their world becomes a jungle which must be carefully scrutinized because it is filled with human beings who harbor the 'evil' that they painfully learn to deny in themselves"

This is the lot we will have to live with the next four years, or until we can throw off the yoke of Trump and his cabal, enabling the nation to return toward a path to liberty - as opposed to oppression and regression. 

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/cesar-chelala/71175/a-psychological-portrait-of-president-trump

And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/stephen-pizzo/71155/why-you-should-care-a-lot-about-trump-s-attack-on-the-judiciary

And:

http://www.salon.com/2017/02/13/watch-john-oliver-connects-the-dots-to-find-pathological-liar-donald-trumps-news-sources/

You Can't Fix Stupid: Rebutting The Climate Change Threat Belittlers

It was hard enough watching the spot on Chris Hayes' 'All In' three nights ago featuring a clip from Stuart Varney's show on FOX Business Channel. It featured a red-bearded Brit buffoon who fairly relished ridiculing Bernie Sanders' claim that climate change is the most serious threat faced by humanity. He said: "Oh, he's really brilliant that guy! El Baghdadi will be sawing  Bernie Sanders' head off and he'll be screaming: 'If only we had an emissions trading scheme"

Ha, ha and ha. Funny, but it really isn't funny. Nor will it be when this imbecile, his host Stuart Varney and Peggy Noonan (who spouted on a different show that "most people would see Sanders as slightly daffy"   have parasitic worms infesting their brains within ten years, along with amoebas bearing amoebic dysentery and also dengue fever. All this as the temperatures rise to new record levels in long lasting heat waves. Nor will they be laughing when five to six years earlier some ten million more migrants rush our borders because their own lands have become unlivable owing to global warming. What? Will Trump or whoever try to kill them all or build a wall as high as the Empire State Bldg.?  Get real!

The problem with morons like this is that they are basically unaware they are morons. They have no clue, nor do they know enough science to even be spouting off about CO2 levels, or climate change, or the Paris Climate Summit now going on.

As another example, we can take Denver Post columnist Ross Kaminsky who is the closest thing to a Neanderthal - in image- that one could imagine, e.g.

Not that I've anything against Neanderthals if they can write some sense, which Kaminsky clearly can't. A radio host on 850 KOA in Denver, Kaminsky had best keep his day job rather than churning out offal like his 'Climate Conference is Meaningless" dreck in last Sunday's paper.  He also, like the Fox buffoons, asks "How can it be that even a dozen people take Bernie Sanders Seriously?'

Well, because as Sanders noted in his on air response to the FOX Business clowns, the CIA and Pentagon are taking it seriously! See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/11/climate-deniers-still-dont-get-it-on.html

As noted therein:

In  The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the authors compiled detailed statistics showing that water shortages in the Fertile Crescent in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, killed livestock, drove up food prices, sickened children and forced 1.5 million rural residents to the outskirts of Syria's jam-packed cities - just as the country was exploding with immigrants from the Iraq War. The stage was literally set for a human tinderbox.

And further:

on April 24 this year the 'Defense, National Security And Climate Change Symposium' was held in Washington, D.C.  At the Symposium Brigadier General Stephen Cheney stepped up to the podium to discuss 'Conflict and Climate Change'. Cheney, like some other speakers- zeroed in on climate-driven migration, asserting:

"We know for a fact that climate change is already driving internal and cross border migration"

Referencing here, for example, that in Bangladesh - the 'ground zero' of global warming- rising sea levels could displace 15 million by 2050. Oxford University's Norman Myers has projected there could be as many as 200 million climate refugees by mid-century.

Do Ross or any of his FOX nitwit pals have any remote idea what a human catastrophe such mass migrations would create?

Well, the defense and security establishments do which is why they are freaking terrified about the prospect and trying to get plans in place to cope with the floods. Not just water floods!

Ross then asks the most stupid question of all:

"How can it be that people fail to see a world boiling over with Islamofascism and say to themselves: 'We really need to focus our time and resources on climate change/"

Well, because ISIS are little irritating roaches compared to the magnitude of the peril we face in planet-wide climate change!  You can easily step on roaches but not rising seas inundating your cities, see e.g.




















But that's not all! We can also expect raging fire storms from coast to coast similar to what struck Tasmania back in 2013, forcing people to flee for their lives, and escape to water areas to stay cool,  e.g.


And we already know that West Nile Fever and Dengue fever will spread to most of the nation by the first year of no seasons (ca. 2040), but other viral and parasitic infections will also abound, probably infesting most of the U.S. by 2025. (And already the "kissing bug" is devastating areas with Chagas disease. Google and learn more!)Two of these are illustrated below:












Thus, worm infestations, especially of the brain (above left) will proliferate as well as elephantiasis,  from  filariasis which will occur throughout the U.S. by 2040. Right now, there are in excess of 9 BILLION worm parasites inhabiting the vertebrates of our world, according to the author of Parasite REX. The human population alone may carry within it up to 2 billion worm parasites, including: hook worm, one of 5,000 forms of tape worm, round worm, trypanosomes, schistosomiasis-causing flukes and the protozoan that causes Toxoplasma (which over 1 billion may carry, mostly in their brains.).

With the stimulative effects of runaway cusp warming these numbers can expect to double or triple, especially amongst the human denizens of the planet. For an excellent insight into what we're in for and how bad it will be consult the paper: Global Climate and Infectious Disease:The Cholera Paradigm, in Science, Vol. 274, 20 December, 1996, p. 2025.

Imagine half a population sickened by cholera and dysentery and the other half by dengue fever, Chagas disease and parasitic worm infestations.

Now, if you still don't believe those are more serious to prevent happening than solely focusing on ISIS, well...no comment. But I believe you might be able to complete the thought!

Then we have the uber Moron Bret Stephens,


babbling away in another WSJ piece ('Liberalism's Imaginary Enemies')  in which he claims (presumably with a straight face) :

"I am not the first to have noticed the incongruity of this huge gathering of world leaders meeting to combat this notional enemy in the same place a real enemy just inflicted so much mortal damage."

Radical climate change a "notional" enemy? As in dreamt up by scientists on diets of MJ waffles and who have mere "notions"? What sort of nincompoop is this guy? As for defining a "real enemy" I defy this ignoramus to read again what is posted above - in terms of imminent climate threats if we don't get our acts together, and tell me these constitute a "notional" as opposed to REAL enemy. You would have to be either batshit crazy or with an IQ less than room temperature to do so.

Obviously, no one is disputing ISIS as a threat. But as I said in a post some two years ago, one must weight threats on a scale of consequential magnitude. It is true that the ISIS vermin may somehow in some way inflict a mini-holocaust on one of our cities if they get hold of something like sarin - say, as depicted in the current 'Homeland' TV series. That may indeed wipe out tens of thousands and that is truly horrific.

But rapid climate change is no duppy or ghost! It is also a real threat and we are talking about the death of millions not just tens of thousands. It is true this comprises a ghoulish calculus but one must make it to set the record straight on the greater threat to humanity worldwide. In this calculus we can include - by 2040:

- 5 million dead or dying from potable water shortages- resulting in amoebic dysentery, cholera etc..

- 4 million dead from famine as the last of the 'green revolution' expires and GMOs are found not to meet the needs, even as they sow cancers, Alzheimers.

- 3 million dead from MRSA, and other antibiotic -resistant bugs

- 6 million unproductive and more like walking dead because of parasitic worm infestations, especially of their brains.

Stephens, as per his wont, also writes other specious nonsense including of the "hysteria generated by an imperceptible temperature rise of 1.7 F since 1880."

Well, say one thing say the next, at least the simpleton isn't claiming a  "one hundredth of a degree" increase as he did on the Bill Maher Real Time show back in January. Some would say that's progress - even for an imp like Stephens.

But the new fact is that recent documents flatly declare that a 2˚C temperature rise is passé and that a 4˚C rise is already in the cards, moving towards a staggering 6˚C rise . That is an almost 11˚F temperature rise globally! and has always been the increment that Carl Sagan specified as the immediate trigger for the runaway greenhouse. Fortunately, this would not take hold until 2100, but it will take hold if we as a species continue to sit on our butts and do nothing.

In this regard, it is clear rational humanity's battle must be against ISIS and also allowing increased fossil fuel output to the atmosphere which would trigger the worst case scenario.

Unless we really fancy the image of parasitic worms crawling around inside our brains - wreaking havoc.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/65144/us-journalists-duck-the-big-climate-question-can-capitalism-and-mankind-both-survive

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!