Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
WHEREIN ANN UNLOADS ON FEMINISTS
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WHEREIN ANN UNLOADS ON FEMINISTS
POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT - AUGUST 19, AD 2011 8:27 PM MST
Well, this hasn’t been a long time coming or anything. But, for everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven, quoth the Byrds, after Pete Seeger, after Qoheleth after God the Holy Spirit.
You know, I’ve had just about enough of these damn feminists. Last week there was a minor brou-ha-ha when Michele Bachmann was asked in a debate whether or not she, as president, would be submissive to her husband. This was a clear and obvious attack on Ephesians 5 wherein St. Paul once again reveals human marriage to be patterned directly off of the larger reality of the marriage of Christ, the Bridegroom, to the Church, His Bride. While it was a man who posed the question, the dripping scorn was a direct byproduct of a century of feminist indoctrination and undermining of our culture, and of morality itself.
The first thing we all need to do is examine and identify who feminists are, because this is what everyone dances around and no one wants to talk about – even though we all know the truth. But, if the truth is never, ever spoken or proclaimed, it is made inert. The Word of Truth MUST BE SPOKEN in order to be efficacious in the world. So, here goes:
-Feminists are angry, bitter, jealous, narcissistic, prideful, self-absorbed women who hate men and deeply resent their own femininity.
-Many feminists are lesbians, and thus, by definition, are suffering from massive and acute psycho-sexual disorder rooted in self-loathing.
-In addition to being lesbians, many feminists are also de facto transvestites.
-Feminists hate both authentic masculinity and authentic femininity, and desire to establish themselves as a third gender which dominates and is superior to the other two.
And so, we have three basic groups of people inside the feminist milieu. We have the “third-gendered” quasi-females themselves, who are the core and driving force of the movement. We have women who have been indoctrinated and manipulated by the third-gendered types, and we have the men who have allowed themselves to be castrated by the third-gendered “wymyn” and the normal women and other gelded men who have fallen under their influence. In terms of numbers, which of these three groups is the largest? Without question, it is the men. The vast, vast majority of men in this culture have been psychologically gelded. They are powerless and impotent, unable to assert themselves or initiate any sort of meaningful action. They do not act – they watch. They do not speak – they pander. They do not defend – they capitulate. They do not assert – they grovel. They do not lead – they cower. And they do these things because they have been conditioned for their entire lives to believe that passive, cowering, groveling surrender is the standard of masculine morality. They have been taught that their masculinity is a disease that must be purged, or at least hidden and suppressed. They have been taught that masculinity itself is a sin. They have been taught this by the feminists, led by angry, bitter, jealous, physically grotesque (by their own choice) lesbians who have anointed themselves the pinnacle of humanity.
I’m sick of these nasty old hags, and I am sick of them daring to speak for me, or claiming to represent me. I am not a lesbian. I don’t hate men. I love them. A lot. (Calm yourselves, people. I am speaking corporately.) I appreciate masculine beauty – without having any desire whatsoever to be physically masculine myself. Why the hell do you think that I decided to wear pink peep-toe heels in that picture of me with my*pink* AR-15? Because I clearly see the intrinsic disorder and tension of a woman being forced to manifest masculine strength, and insist upon keeping myself tethered to the reality of my femaleness. In short, I know this is all messed up, but I’m not surrendering to the disorder. Yeah, I can throw down and kick @$$ if FORCED TO DO SO, but you lesbian feminist ogresses will take my femininity over my COLD DEAD BODY. In the words of Eowyn just before she slaughtered the Witch-king of Angmar on the Pelennor Fields,
“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him.”
I appreciate masculine leadership qualities, intellect and social customs – on the extremely rare occasions that I see them anymore. Men should rise when a woman enters a room or joins a group. Men should remove their hats when greeting a woman. Men should open and hold doors for women. A man should never, ever watch a woman carrying something heavy by herself. OFFER to help. If your offer is declined, you are released, but you are obliged to offer because you are at least twice as strong as we are – and those of us who are psychologically normal have NO DESIRE to be as physically strong as you are because that would require physical grotesquery. We the normal don’t want to be grotesque – we want to be modestly beautiful, and we want to be beautiful FOR YOU, you morons.
And no, six dollar high-and-tight haircuts, fades, buzzcuts or officer’s cuts are NOT beautiful on females. They are creepy and tranny and wrong. And that goes double for nuns. You want a low-maintenance hair management system, Sister? It’s called a WIMPLE AND VEIL. It’s the perpetual bridal garment of those women espoused to Christ. Put it on so you stop scaring and confusing young children with your transvestitism, and generally weirding the rest of us out. We don’t think you’re cool and modern – we just think you’re creepy and pitiable. And get off the altar. The priesthood is the exclusive domain of men. Only a man can call down and hold Our Lord in his hands as He becomes totally vulnerable to humanity. Get in the nave, where you belong, on your knees in adoration and thanksgiving, and quit RUINING EVERYTHING for everyone else. YOU aren’t the center of the universe. Jesus is the center of the universe, so back off, sit down and shut up.
And now to the issue of submission, or subjugation. Should wives be subject to their husbands, as St. Paul exhorts? You’re damn right they should. All day, every day. The fact that this question even has to be asked is, by itself, evidence of how far gone our culture is. I truly believe that most people in Western Civilization go through their entire lives without ever actually experiencing love. They experience lust, and they experience various forms of attachment, but most people never actually love. To love IS TO SUBMIT. To love is to make oneself SUBJECT TO ANOTHER. To love is to freely choose to put another human being above yourself, to literally live for another person. This dynamic of total self-gift obviously flows in BOTH DIRECTIONS and is equally expected of men vis-à-vis their wives. The reason St. Paul went out of his way to specifically admonish wives to remember to submit to their husbands is because women have the greater tendency to slip into nagging shrewishness and take for granted the fruits of their husbands’ labors because those labors are usually done away from the home, and are thus invisible to the wife. A man married to a woman on a reality show about shrewish, materialistic wives (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) just committed suicide because he was run into massive debt by his wife’s ostentatious and utterly avaricious lifestyle demands, and was also having his character assassinated on national television BY HIS WIFE. This woman didn’t love her husband or submit herself to him, she rode him never sparing the whip until she literally killed him. This is the opposite of love. This is evil. It isn’t a “victory” for womankind. It is a scathing indictment of our demonically perverted feminist culture.
I just finished a book of private revelation from the mid-18th century titled The Life of Saint Joseph as Manifested by Our Lord, Jesus Christ to Maria Cecilia Baij, O.S.B. Poor St. Joseph tends to be somewhat overlooked, but this fine book details his exemplary life. It is also completely romantic in the most perfect and pure sense of the word. St. Joseph loved the Virgin Mary. He really, really loved her. And she loved him. They were mutually submissive in perfect love to one another, but Mary, as the wife, was the more submissive, and St. Joseph, as the husband, fulfilled his role as the guardian, provider and caretaker of both Mary and Jesus. For example, when Joseph and Mary were deciding together their movements during Mary’s pregnancy, Mary would always know exactly what God’s perfect will for her and Joseph was because she was receiving interior locutions from Jesus Himself who was in her womb. Joseph would always first ask Mary what she perceived God’s will for them to be, but Mary would ALWAYS turn it around and defer to Joseph, asking him what he had perceived in his prayer, and then joyfully confirming his words. Even though Mary knew exactly what God’s will was, she always submitted to Joseph in this way, thus bolstering, supporting and underpinning her husband’s masculinity and proper role as head of their household and decision-maker. See how that works? It's called love.
Jesus did the same thing in relation to His parents. From the moment of His conception, He was in possession of full reason, though voluntarily limited by the physical development and state of His body. Jesus knew He was God, and Mary and Joseph both knew that Jesus was God, but He still submitted Himself to them as their Child because He loved them. Jesus subjugated Himself fully to all of humanity on the Cross, because He loves us perfectly. Perfect love is submission to the beloved. People used to understand this. People used to actually love. That is, until the feminists arrived on the scene and demanded everyone be as loveless, bitter and miserable as they were.
Look, you godforsaken bats. You have now destroyed the lives of fully three generations of people in Western Civilization. You have all but destroyed the institution of marriage and the family. You have murdered upwards of one billion babies in the name of your satanic cult, and you have almost – but not quite – destroyed the Church. And you know what? When you look in the mirror, it isn’t a damn bit better, is it? Not only are you not any happier, you’re actually even more miserable, aren’t you? It’s never going to get any better for you, because you will ALWAYS be a woman, because that is what you are. You will never, ever be a man, and you will never, ever be able to do the things that are exclusive to men. All you can do is present a perverted, grotesque, piss-poor counterfeit.
I like being a female. I thank God that he made me a girl. I like that I don’t have hair growing out of my face (much). I like that the circumference of my wrist is 5 5/8ths inches and that the most that I have ever been able to bench press in my life is 135 pounds. I like wearing skirts and dresses and feminine shoes and hats and makeup. Furthermore, I wish that I had someone to submit myself to, to ask and consult and rely upon for provision and decision-making. I realize that the fact that I do NOT have a husband is not an asset to me, but rather a profound poverty and deficiency. I can accept this state in life. What I cannot accept is some 65 year old self-absorbed androgyne in a bad polyester pantsuit and hideous sandals who fancies herself my psychological better wringing every last shred of feminine consolation out of my life, and destroying my culture, my country and the Church. I resent having to act like a man because you have castrated all of the men, who now keep their shriveled balls in a jar atop their television sets. We have had enough of you and of your cultural poison. Repent and retire, or may you rot in the deep cinders for what you have done. Either way, your "phase" is officially over.
WHEREIN ANN UNLOADS ON FEMINISTS
POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT - AUGUST 19, AD 2011 8:27 PM MST
Well, this hasn’t been a long time coming or anything. But, for everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven, quoth the Byrds, after Pete Seeger, after Qoheleth after God the Holy Spirit.
You know, I’ve had just about enough of these damn feminists. Last week there was a minor brou-ha-ha when Michele Bachmann was asked in a debate whether or not she, as president, would be submissive to her husband. This was a clear and obvious attack on Ephesians 5 wherein St. Paul once again reveals human marriage to be patterned directly off of the larger reality of the marriage of Christ, the Bridegroom, to the Church, His Bride. While it was a man who posed the question, the dripping scorn was a direct byproduct of a century of feminist indoctrination and undermining of our culture, and of morality itself.
The first thing we all need to do is examine and identify who feminists are, because this is what everyone dances around and no one wants to talk about – even though we all know the truth. But, if the truth is never, ever spoken or proclaimed, it is made inert. The Word of Truth MUST BE SPOKEN in order to be efficacious in the world. So, here goes:
-Feminists are angry, bitter, jealous, narcissistic, prideful, self-absorbed women who hate men and deeply resent their own femininity.
-Many feminists are lesbians, and thus, by definition, are suffering from massive and acute psycho-sexual disorder rooted in self-loathing.
-In addition to being lesbians, many feminists are also de facto transvestites.
-Feminists hate both authentic masculinity and authentic femininity, and desire to establish themselves as a third gender which dominates and is superior to the other two.
And so, we have three basic groups of people inside the feminist milieu. We have the “third-gendered” quasi-females themselves, who are the core and driving force of the movement. We have women who have been indoctrinated and manipulated by the third-gendered types, and we have the men who have allowed themselves to be castrated by the third-gendered “wymyn” and the normal women and other gelded men who have fallen under their influence. In terms of numbers, which of these three groups is the largest? Without question, it is the men. The vast, vast majority of men in this culture have been psychologically gelded. They are powerless and impotent, unable to assert themselves or initiate any sort of meaningful action. They do not act – they watch. They do not speak – they pander. They do not defend – they capitulate. They do not assert – they grovel. They do not lead – they cower. And they do these things because they have been conditioned for their entire lives to believe that passive, cowering, groveling surrender is the standard of masculine morality. They have been taught that their masculinity is a disease that must be purged, or at least hidden and suppressed. They have been taught that masculinity itself is a sin. They have been taught this by the feminists, led by angry, bitter, jealous, physically grotesque (by their own choice) lesbians who have anointed themselves the pinnacle of humanity.
I’m sick of these nasty old hags, and I am sick of them daring to speak for me, or claiming to represent me. I am not a lesbian. I don’t hate men. I love them. A lot. (Calm yourselves, people. I am speaking corporately.) I appreciate masculine beauty – without having any desire whatsoever to be physically masculine myself. Why the hell do you think that I decided to wear pink peep-toe heels in that picture of me with my*pink* AR-15? Because I clearly see the intrinsic disorder and tension of a woman being forced to manifest masculine strength, and insist upon keeping myself tethered to the reality of my femaleness. In short, I know this is all messed up, but I’m not surrendering to the disorder. Yeah, I can throw down and kick @$$ if FORCED TO DO SO, but you lesbian feminist ogresses will take my femininity over my COLD DEAD BODY. In the words of Eowyn just before she slaughtered the Witch-king of Angmar on the Pelennor Fields,
“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him.”
I appreciate masculine leadership qualities, intellect and social customs – on the extremely rare occasions that I see them anymore. Men should rise when a woman enters a room or joins a group. Men should remove their hats when greeting a woman. Men should open and hold doors for women. A man should never, ever watch a woman carrying something heavy by herself. OFFER to help. If your offer is declined, you are released, but you are obliged to offer because you are at least twice as strong as we are – and those of us who are psychologically normal have NO DESIRE to be as physically strong as you are because that would require physical grotesquery. We the normal don’t want to be grotesque – we want to be modestly beautiful, and we want to be beautiful FOR YOU, you morons.
And no, six dollar high-and-tight haircuts, fades, buzzcuts or officer’s cuts are NOT beautiful on females. They are creepy and tranny and wrong. And that goes double for nuns. You want a low-maintenance hair management system, Sister? It’s called a WIMPLE AND VEIL. It’s the perpetual bridal garment of those women espoused to Christ. Put it on so you stop scaring and confusing young children with your transvestitism, and generally weirding the rest of us out. We don’t think you’re cool and modern – we just think you’re creepy and pitiable. And get off the altar. The priesthood is the exclusive domain of men. Only a man can call down and hold Our Lord in his hands as He becomes totally vulnerable to humanity. Get in the nave, where you belong, on your knees in adoration and thanksgiving, and quit RUINING EVERYTHING for everyone else. YOU aren’t the center of the universe. Jesus is the center of the universe, so back off, sit down and shut up.
And now to the issue of submission, or subjugation. Should wives be subject to their husbands, as St. Paul exhorts? You’re damn right they should. All day, every day. The fact that this question even has to be asked is, by itself, evidence of how far gone our culture is. I truly believe that most people in Western Civilization go through their entire lives without ever actually experiencing love. They experience lust, and they experience various forms of attachment, but most people never actually love. To love IS TO SUBMIT. To love is to make oneself SUBJECT TO ANOTHER. To love is to freely choose to put another human being above yourself, to literally live for another person. This dynamic of total self-gift obviously flows in BOTH DIRECTIONS and is equally expected of men vis-à-vis their wives. The reason St. Paul went out of his way to specifically admonish wives to remember to submit to their husbands is because women have the greater tendency to slip into nagging shrewishness and take for granted the fruits of their husbands’ labors because those labors are usually done away from the home, and are thus invisible to the wife. A man married to a woman on a reality show about shrewish, materialistic wives (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) just committed suicide because he was run into massive debt by his wife’s ostentatious and utterly avaricious lifestyle demands, and was also having his character assassinated on national television BY HIS WIFE. This woman didn’t love her husband or submit herself to him, she rode him never sparing the whip until she literally killed him. This is the opposite of love. This is evil. It isn’t a “victory” for womankind. It is a scathing indictment of our demonically perverted feminist culture.
I just finished a book of private revelation from the mid-18th century titled The Life of Saint Joseph as Manifested by Our Lord, Jesus Christ to Maria Cecilia Baij, O.S.B. Poor St. Joseph tends to be somewhat overlooked, but this fine book details his exemplary life. It is also completely romantic in the most perfect and pure sense of the word. St. Joseph loved the Virgin Mary. He really, really loved her. And she loved him. They were mutually submissive in perfect love to one another, but Mary, as the wife, was the more submissive, and St. Joseph, as the husband, fulfilled his role as the guardian, provider and caretaker of both Mary and Jesus. For example, when Joseph and Mary were deciding together their movements during Mary’s pregnancy, Mary would always know exactly what God’s perfect will for her and Joseph was because she was receiving interior locutions from Jesus Himself who was in her womb. Joseph would always first ask Mary what she perceived God’s will for them to be, but Mary would ALWAYS turn it around and defer to Joseph, asking him what he had perceived in his prayer, and then joyfully confirming his words. Even though Mary knew exactly what God’s will was, she always submitted to Joseph in this way, thus bolstering, supporting and underpinning her husband’s masculinity and proper role as head of their household and decision-maker. See how that works? It's called love.
Jesus did the same thing in relation to His parents. From the moment of His conception, He was in possession of full reason, though voluntarily limited by the physical development and state of His body. Jesus knew He was God, and Mary and Joseph both knew that Jesus was God, but He still submitted Himself to them as their Child because He loved them. Jesus subjugated Himself fully to all of humanity on the Cross, because He loves us perfectly. Perfect love is submission to the beloved. People used to understand this. People used to actually love. That is, until the feminists arrived on the scene and demanded everyone be as loveless, bitter and miserable as they were.
Look, you godforsaken bats. You have now destroyed the lives of fully three generations of people in Western Civilization. You have all but destroyed the institution of marriage and the family. You have murdered upwards of one billion babies in the name of your satanic cult, and you have almost – but not quite – destroyed the Church. And you know what? When you look in the mirror, it isn’t a damn bit better, is it? Not only are you not any happier, you’re actually even more miserable, aren’t you? It’s never going to get any better for you, because you will ALWAYS be a woman, because that is what you are. You will never, ever be a man, and you will never, ever be able to do the things that are exclusive to men. All you can do is present a perverted, grotesque, piss-poor counterfeit.
I like being a female. I thank God that he made me a girl. I like that I don’t have hair growing out of my face (much). I like that the circumference of my wrist is 5 5/8ths inches and that the most that I have ever been able to bench press in my life is 135 pounds. I like wearing skirts and dresses and feminine shoes and hats and makeup. Furthermore, I wish that I had someone to submit myself to, to ask and consult and rely upon for provision and decision-making. I realize that the fact that I do NOT have a husband is not an asset to me, but rather a profound poverty and deficiency. I can accept this state in life. What I cannot accept is some 65 year old self-absorbed androgyne in a bad polyester pantsuit and hideous sandals who fancies herself my psychological better wringing every last shred of feminine consolation out of my life, and destroying my culture, my country and the Church. I resent having to act like a man because you have castrated all of the men, who now keep their shriveled balls in a jar atop their television sets. We have had enough of you and of your cultural poison. Repent and retire, or may you rot in the deep cinders for what you have done. Either way, your "phase" is officially over.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
SF transit blocks cellphones to disrupt protest
So the San Freako Radical Libs are all upset--they yell that this is a violation of Free Speech.
Typical Lib operation--proceeding with their heads up their ass.
First, anyone can buy a cell phone jammer on the internet, from $20 to over $2,000.
Secondly, since the late 1990's, anytime a president comes to town, a standard security tactic is to block cell phone traffic within a mile of the president's route of travel, or location of event.
=================================================================
An illegal, Orwellian violation of free-speech rights? Or just a smart tactic to protect train passengers from rowdy would-be demonstrators during a busy evening commute?
The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cellphone service for a few hours at several stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to near the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police.
Two days later, the move had civil rights and legal experts questioning the agency's move, and drew backlash from one transit board member who was taken aback by the decision.
"I'm just shocked that they didn't think about the implications of this. We really don't have the right to be this type of censor," said Lynette Sweet, who serves on BART's board of directors. "In my opinion, we've let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that's not fair."
Similar questions of censorship have arisen in recent days as Britain's government put the idea of curbing social media services on the table in response to several nights of widespread looting and violence in London and other English cities. Police claim that young criminals used Twitter and Blackberry instant messages to coordinate looting sprees in riots.
Prime Minister David Cameron said that the government, spy agencies and the communications industry are looking at whether there should be limits on the use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook or services like BlackBerry Messenger to spread disorder. The suggestions have met with outrage -- with some critics comparing Cameron to the despots ousted during the Arab Spring.
In the San Francisco instance, Sweet said BART board members were told by the agency of its decision during the closed portion of its meeting Thursday afternoon, less than three hours before the protest was scheduled to start.
"It was almost like an afterthought," Sweet told The Associated Press. "This is a land of free speech and for us to think we can do that shows we've grown well beyond the business of what we're supposed to be doing and that's providing transportation. Not censorship."
But there are nuances to consider, including under what conditions, if any, an agency like BART can act to deny the public access to a form of communication -- and essentially decide that a perceived threat to public safety trumps free speech.
These situations are largely new ones, of course. A couple of decades ago, during the fax-machine and pay-phone era, the notion of people organizing mass gatherings in real time on wireless devices would have been fantasy.
BART Deputy Police Chief Benson Fairow said the issue boiled down to the public's well-being.
"It wasn't a decision made lightly. This wasn't about free speech. It was about safety," Fairow told KTVU-TV on Friday.
BART spokesman Jim Allison maintained that the cellphone disruptions were legal as the agency owns the property and infrastructure. He added while they didn't need the permission of cellphone carriers to temporarily cut service, they notified them as a courtesy.
The decision was made after agency officials saw details about the protest on an organizer's website. He said the agency had extra staff and officers aboard trains during that time for anybody who wanted to report an emergency, as well as courtesy phones on station platforms.
"I think the entire argument is that some people think it created an unsafe situation is faulty logic," Allison said. "BART had operated for 35 years without cellphone service and no one ever suggested back then that a lack of it made it difficult to report emergencies and we had the same infrastructure in place."
But as in London, BART's tactic drew immediate comparisons to authoritarianism, including acts by the former president of Egypt to squelch protests demanding an end to his rule. Authorities there cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days earlier this year. He left office shortly thereafter.
"BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on its website. Echoing that comparison, vigorous weekend discussion on Twitter was labeled with the hashtag "muBARTek."
Aaron Caplan, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in free-speech issues, was equally critical, saying BART clearly violated the rights of demonstrators and other passengers.
"We can arrest and prosecute people for the crimes they commit," he said. "You are not allowed to shut down people's cellphones and prevent them from speaking because you think they might commit a crime in the future."
Michael Risher, the American Civil Liberty Union's Northern California staff attorney, echoed the sentiment in a blog: "The government shouldn't be in the business of cutting off the free flow of information. Shutting down access to mobile phones is the wrong response to political protests, whether it's halfway around the world or right here in San Francisco."
On Saturday at the station where cell phone service was disrupted, passenger Phil Eager, 44, shared the opinion that BART's approach seemed extreme.
"It struck me as pretty strange and kind of extreme," said Eager, a San Francisco attorney. "It's not a First Amendment debate, but rather a civil liberties issue."
Eager said many of his friends riding BART on Thursday were upset with the agency's actions, some even calling it a "police state."
Mark Malmberg, 58, of Orinda, Calif., believes that BART could've used a different approach instead of shutting down cellphone usage.
"Even though it sounds like they wanted to avoid a mob gathering, you can't stop people from expressing themselves," Malmberg said. "I hope those who protest can do so in a civil manner."
The ACLU already has a scheduled meeting with BART's police chief on Monday about other issues and Thursday's incident will added be to the agenda, spokeswoman Rebecca Farmer said.
But others said that while the phone shutdown was worth examining, it may not have impinged on First Amendment rights. Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center, a nonprofit educational organization, said freedom of expression can be limited in very narrow circumstances if there is an immediate threat to public safety.
"An agency like BART has to be held to a very high standard," he said. "First of all, it has to be an immediate threat, not just the mere supposition that there might be one. And I think the response has to be what a court would consider reasonable, so it has to be the minimum amount of restraint on free expression."
He said if BART's actions are challenged, a court may look more favorably on what it did if expression was limited on a narrow basis for a specific area and time frame, instead of "just indiscriminately closing down cellphone service throughout the system or for a broad area."
University of Michigan law professor Len Niehoff, who specializes in First Amendment and media law issues, found the BART actions troublesome for a few reasons.
He said the First Amendment generally doesn't allow the government to restrict free speech because somebody might do something illegal or to prohibit conversations based on their subject matter. He said the BART actions have been portrayed as an effort to prevent a protest that would have violated the law, but there was no guarantee that would have happened.
"What it really did is it prevented people from talking, discussing ... and mobilizing in any form, peaceful or unpeaceful, lawful or unlawful," he said. "That is, constitutionally, very problematic."
The government does have the right to break up a demonstration if it forms in an area where protests are prohibited and poses a risk to public safety, Niehoff said. But it should not prohibit free speech to prevent the possibility of a protest happening.
"The idea that we're going to keep people from talking about what they might or might not do, based on the idea that they might all agree to violate the law, is positively Orwellian," he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/13/san-francisco-transit-blocks-cellphones-to-hinder-protest/#ixzz1V2VfCPQZ
Typical Lib operation--proceeding with their heads up their ass.
First, anyone can buy a cell phone jammer on the internet, from $20 to over $2,000.
Secondly, since the late 1990's, anytime a president comes to town, a standard security tactic is to block cell phone traffic within a mile of the president's route of travel, or location of event.
=================================================================
An illegal, Orwellian violation of free-speech rights? Or just a smart tactic to protect train passengers from rowdy would-be demonstrators during a busy evening commute?
The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cellphone service for a few hours at several stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to near the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police.
Two days later, the move had civil rights and legal experts questioning the agency's move, and drew backlash from one transit board member who was taken aback by the decision.
"I'm just shocked that they didn't think about the implications of this. We really don't have the right to be this type of censor," said Lynette Sweet, who serves on BART's board of directors. "In my opinion, we've let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that's not fair."
Similar questions of censorship have arisen in recent days as Britain's government put the idea of curbing social media services on the table in response to several nights of widespread looting and violence in London and other English cities. Police claim that young criminals used Twitter and Blackberry instant messages to coordinate looting sprees in riots.
Prime Minister David Cameron said that the government, spy agencies and the communications industry are looking at whether there should be limits on the use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook or services like BlackBerry Messenger to spread disorder. The suggestions have met with outrage -- with some critics comparing Cameron to the despots ousted during the Arab Spring.
In the San Francisco instance, Sweet said BART board members were told by the agency of its decision during the closed portion of its meeting Thursday afternoon, less than three hours before the protest was scheduled to start.
"It was almost like an afterthought," Sweet told The Associated Press. "This is a land of free speech and for us to think we can do that shows we've grown well beyond the business of what we're supposed to be doing and that's providing transportation. Not censorship."
But there are nuances to consider, including under what conditions, if any, an agency like BART can act to deny the public access to a form of communication -- and essentially decide that a perceived threat to public safety trumps free speech.
These situations are largely new ones, of course. A couple of decades ago, during the fax-machine and pay-phone era, the notion of people organizing mass gatherings in real time on wireless devices would have been fantasy.
BART Deputy Police Chief Benson Fairow said the issue boiled down to the public's well-being.
"It wasn't a decision made lightly. This wasn't about free speech. It was about safety," Fairow told KTVU-TV on Friday.
BART spokesman Jim Allison maintained that the cellphone disruptions were legal as the agency owns the property and infrastructure. He added while they didn't need the permission of cellphone carriers to temporarily cut service, they notified them as a courtesy.
The decision was made after agency officials saw details about the protest on an organizer's website. He said the agency had extra staff and officers aboard trains during that time for anybody who wanted to report an emergency, as well as courtesy phones on station platforms.
"I think the entire argument is that some people think it created an unsafe situation is faulty logic," Allison said. "BART had operated for 35 years without cellphone service and no one ever suggested back then that a lack of it made it difficult to report emergencies and we had the same infrastructure in place."
But as in London, BART's tactic drew immediate comparisons to authoritarianism, including acts by the former president of Egypt to squelch protests demanding an end to his rule. Authorities there cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days earlier this year. He left office shortly thereafter.
"BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on its website. Echoing that comparison, vigorous weekend discussion on Twitter was labeled with the hashtag "muBARTek."
Aaron Caplan, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in free-speech issues, was equally critical, saying BART clearly violated the rights of demonstrators and other passengers.
"We can arrest and prosecute people for the crimes they commit," he said. "You are not allowed to shut down people's cellphones and prevent them from speaking because you think they might commit a crime in the future."
Michael Risher, the American Civil Liberty Union's Northern California staff attorney, echoed the sentiment in a blog: "The government shouldn't be in the business of cutting off the free flow of information. Shutting down access to mobile phones is the wrong response to political protests, whether it's halfway around the world or right here in San Francisco."
On Saturday at the station where cell phone service was disrupted, passenger Phil Eager, 44, shared the opinion that BART's approach seemed extreme.
"It struck me as pretty strange and kind of extreme," said Eager, a San Francisco attorney. "It's not a First Amendment debate, but rather a civil liberties issue."
Eager said many of his friends riding BART on Thursday were upset with the agency's actions, some even calling it a "police state."
Mark Malmberg, 58, of Orinda, Calif., believes that BART could've used a different approach instead of shutting down cellphone usage.
"Even though it sounds like they wanted to avoid a mob gathering, you can't stop people from expressing themselves," Malmberg said. "I hope those who protest can do so in a civil manner."
The ACLU already has a scheduled meeting with BART's police chief on Monday about other issues and Thursday's incident will added be to the agenda, spokeswoman Rebecca Farmer said.
But others said that while the phone shutdown was worth examining, it may not have impinged on First Amendment rights. Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center, a nonprofit educational organization, said freedom of expression can be limited in very narrow circumstances if there is an immediate threat to public safety.
"An agency like BART has to be held to a very high standard," he said. "First of all, it has to be an immediate threat, not just the mere supposition that there might be one. And I think the response has to be what a court would consider reasonable, so it has to be the minimum amount of restraint on free expression."
He said if BART's actions are challenged, a court may look more favorably on what it did if expression was limited on a narrow basis for a specific area and time frame, instead of "just indiscriminately closing down cellphone service throughout the system or for a broad area."
University of Michigan law professor Len Niehoff, who specializes in First Amendment and media law issues, found the BART actions troublesome for a few reasons.
He said the First Amendment generally doesn't allow the government to restrict free speech because somebody might do something illegal or to prohibit conversations based on their subject matter. He said the BART actions have been portrayed as an effort to prevent a protest that would have violated the law, but there was no guarantee that would have happened.
"What it really did is it prevented people from talking, discussing ... and mobilizing in any form, peaceful or unpeaceful, lawful or unlawful," he said. "That is, constitutionally, very problematic."
The government does have the right to break up a demonstration if it forms in an area where protests are prohibited and poses a risk to public safety, Niehoff said. But it should not prohibit free speech to prevent the possibility of a protest happening.
"The idea that we're going to keep people from talking about what they might or might not do, based on the idea that they might all agree to violate the law, is positively Orwellian," he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/13/san-francisco-transit-blocks-cellphones-to-hinder-protest/#ixzz1V2VfCPQZ
Thursday, August 11, 2011
London Riots: 'The Police Did Nothing'
The article below talks about London, England.
BUT, ladies and gentlemen, look for the same thing to happen here.
Police administrators are appointed by politicians, and the Administrators are themselves politicians. The follow Politicians Rule #1: Never piss off any person or group who can affect your career.
Police Administrators are big on IMAGE. They want to project an image that every officer is a kind-hearted public servant. Having to subdue some miscreant who has ascended the permissiveness ladder negates that image.
Should the miscreant get his/her ass kicked as the outcome of the struggle, there are always cries by his/her friends and family of "Police brutality" and "excessive force". Look for your Police Administrator TO INITIALLY SIDE WITH THE MISCREANT.
You-the police officer--will be reviewed by your city, state, and Federal prosecutors to determine if you did use "Excessive force".
Next up, some parasitic lawyer will file a suit against you for using "Excessive force". This can go on from a year to 5 years. In that time, you can not sell anything you own, because it might become part of the settlement or award to the miscreant.
So, you can see--There is no motivation for police officers to protect anyone outside of themselves. Why risk getting disabled and/or killed for ungrateful superiors and public?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904006104576500421787042468.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Cameras will eventually help the authorities round up some of the perpetrators, but they failed to prevent the lawlessness in the first place..
By ANNE JOLIS
London
Kamran Raif sits in front of the smashed windows of his brother's store in north London. It's Tuesday night, your correspondent needs soda, and this is the only 24-hour grocery within a mile.
A can of Red Bull at his side and fists jammed into his parka, 29-year-old Mr. Raif watches and waits. Like most of London after the previous three nights of mayhem, our stretch of Islington is tense but still.
The night before, at approximately 9:30 p.m., between 30 and 40 teenagers broke into the shop and left with all its liquor, cigarettes and cash. Mr. Raif, his brother and a handful of customers were inside at the time.
"I saw them coming and started to lock the doors, but they kicked through the glass and forced the doors open. All the customers ran to the back and my brother called the police," he recalls.
The storefront comes with a metal shutter, but the lock had been broken since Mr. Raif's brother bought the business four years ago. They never felt the need to fix it until this week.
Once inside, the looters snatched six-packs of Supermalt from the shelves nearest the entrance and hurled them at the cigarette and alcohol cases behind the register. To Mr. Raif they appeared to be 16 or younger and sober. He doesn't know if they were kids from the neighborhood, but despite their hoods and balaclavas he could tell "from their hands" that his looters were mostly white.
"They were very shameful. It was a horrible experience," he says.
The police never did appear, although they followed up nine hours later with a phone call. "Everything we pay here—taxes, rates, rents—it's all so expensive. And we can't even get the police when there are people robbing our shop." Mr. Raif pauses as a string of patrol cars and a fire truck speed down the street, heading north to a rougher neighborhood. "They were busy. I know."
By mid-morning Tuesday he and his brother had cleaned up, restocked and reopened.
"We got the metal shutter fixed too," he says, raising one eyebrow and glancing up. Neither of us mentions the Molotov cocktails and sledgehammers that have made fast work of similar barricades since Saturday. In Brixton, in Hackney, in Croydon many of the Raifs' peers have been ruined and won't be reopening.
"I've been here 12 years," says the Pakistan native. "I've never seen anything like it."
So what's the problem? Welfare cuts, racist police, the "rich"?
"Please," he laughs. "We're all poor.
"Look, my point of view is this: It started in Tottenham, on Saturday, when a man got shot by the police. People protested, and then some people went and burned down a police car. And the police did nothing. They burned down more police cars, they burned down a bus, they burned down a building—and the police did nothing. They needed to respond. Instead the police retreated in Tottenham. So this, whatever you call it, it started as something against the police. The police did not show the strength to push back, and it spread. And that is why I'm out here now like a security guard."
As we speak, "it" is spreading to Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Wolverhampton. Elsewhere in London, locals have formed vigilante groups and are patrolling their own streets.
Home Secretary Theresa May earlier on Tuesday had defended the government's use-of-force policies, declaring that "the way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities."
Consent, and the most surveillance cameras per capita in the free world. It's been a terrible week for Westminster's brand of compassionate panopticism. This is what happens when consent breaks down. Cameras will eventually help the authorities round up some of the perpetrators, but they failed to prevent the lawlessness in the first place.
As for the Raif brothers, they have no army—only a shop to run. "Things are already hard. If we close down, where's the money going to come from? We stay open. We see now it's at our own risk. But this is our business."
Miss Jolis is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.
BUT, ladies and gentlemen, look for the same thing to happen here.
Police administrators are appointed by politicians, and the Administrators are themselves politicians. The follow Politicians Rule #1: Never piss off any person or group who can affect your career.
Police Administrators are big on IMAGE. They want to project an image that every officer is a kind-hearted public servant. Having to subdue some miscreant who has ascended the permissiveness ladder negates that image.
Should the miscreant get his/her ass kicked as the outcome of the struggle, there are always cries by his/her friends and family of "Police brutality" and "excessive force". Look for your Police Administrator TO INITIALLY SIDE WITH THE MISCREANT.
You-the police officer--will be reviewed by your city, state, and Federal prosecutors to determine if you did use "Excessive force".
Next up, some parasitic lawyer will file a suit against you for using "Excessive force". This can go on from a year to 5 years. In that time, you can not sell anything you own, because it might become part of the settlement or award to the miscreant.
So, you can see--There is no motivation for police officers to protect anyone outside of themselves. Why risk getting disabled and/or killed for ungrateful superiors and public?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904006104576500421787042468.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Cameras will eventually help the authorities round up some of the perpetrators, but they failed to prevent the lawlessness in the first place..
By ANNE JOLIS
London
Kamran Raif sits in front of the smashed windows of his brother's store in north London. It's Tuesday night, your correspondent needs soda, and this is the only 24-hour grocery within a mile.
A can of Red Bull at his side and fists jammed into his parka, 29-year-old Mr. Raif watches and waits. Like most of London after the previous three nights of mayhem, our stretch of Islington is tense but still.
The night before, at approximately 9:30 p.m., between 30 and 40 teenagers broke into the shop and left with all its liquor, cigarettes and cash. Mr. Raif, his brother and a handful of customers were inside at the time.
"I saw them coming and started to lock the doors, but they kicked through the glass and forced the doors open. All the customers ran to the back and my brother called the police," he recalls.
The storefront comes with a metal shutter, but the lock had been broken since Mr. Raif's brother bought the business four years ago. They never felt the need to fix it until this week.
Once inside, the looters snatched six-packs of Supermalt from the shelves nearest the entrance and hurled them at the cigarette and alcohol cases behind the register. To Mr. Raif they appeared to be 16 or younger and sober. He doesn't know if they were kids from the neighborhood, but despite their hoods and balaclavas he could tell "from their hands" that his looters were mostly white.
"They were very shameful. It was a horrible experience," he says.
The police never did appear, although they followed up nine hours later with a phone call. "Everything we pay here—taxes, rates, rents—it's all so expensive. And we can't even get the police when there are people robbing our shop." Mr. Raif pauses as a string of patrol cars and a fire truck speed down the street, heading north to a rougher neighborhood. "They were busy. I know."
By mid-morning Tuesday he and his brother had cleaned up, restocked and reopened.
"We got the metal shutter fixed too," he says, raising one eyebrow and glancing up. Neither of us mentions the Molotov cocktails and sledgehammers that have made fast work of similar barricades since Saturday. In Brixton, in Hackney, in Croydon many of the Raifs' peers have been ruined and won't be reopening.
"I've been here 12 years," says the Pakistan native. "I've never seen anything like it."
So what's the problem? Welfare cuts, racist police, the "rich"?
"Please," he laughs. "We're all poor.
"Look, my point of view is this: It started in Tottenham, on Saturday, when a man got shot by the police. People protested, and then some people went and burned down a police car. And the police did nothing. They burned down more police cars, they burned down a bus, they burned down a building—and the police did nothing. They needed to respond. Instead the police retreated in Tottenham. So this, whatever you call it, it started as something against the police. The police did not show the strength to push back, and it spread. And that is why I'm out here now like a security guard."
As we speak, "it" is spreading to Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Wolverhampton. Elsewhere in London, locals have formed vigilante groups and are patrolling their own streets.
Home Secretary Theresa May earlier on Tuesday had defended the government's use-of-force policies, declaring that "the way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities."
Consent, and the most surveillance cameras per capita in the free world. It's been a terrible week for Westminster's brand of compassionate panopticism. This is what happens when consent breaks down. Cameras will eventually help the authorities round up some of the perpetrators, but they failed to prevent the lawlessness in the first place.
As for the Raif brothers, they have no army—only a shop to run. "Things are already hard. If we close down, where's the money going to come from? We stay open. We see now it's at our own risk. But this is our business."
Miss Jolis is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
RICK SANTELLI BLASTS CNBC GUEST FOR CALLING TEA PARTIERS ‘FREAKED OUT WHITE MEN WHO ARE UNEMPLOYED’
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/rick-santelli-blasts-cnbc-guest-for-calling-tea-partiers-freaked-out-white-men-who-are-unemployed/
Banking analyst Meredith Whitney was made to eat her words on CNBC Wednesday after she called Tea Party members “freaked out white men who are unemployed.” Rick Santelli, who appeared on the program shortly after Whitney’s rant, ended up launching into the CNBC contributor for her comments. And it got pretty heated.
Santelli stated that the last person who said anything close to what Whitney did was “King George” when he was referring to the “colonists.” Santelli inferred that Whitney would have thought our Founding Father’s were “angry” as well when he said, “I don’t need to rant… You know, those were our Founding Fathers.”
Santelli was responding to the following statement made by Whitney:
I would suggest that the debate is really around unemployment, and I think that, you know, call the Tea Party whatever you will, the fringe element is, you know, I characterize freaked out white men who are unemployed and have been unemployed for three years and they’re scared to death. And three to four million of them are just about to roll off of unemployment benefits in the next three months. So, this is only going to get worse. For this reason, you have to deal with structural issues. So, if you are a Machiavellian Democrat, you want to deal with this issue and defuse the Tea Party as fast as you possibly can, because this poses the biggest threat to their reelection I think in ’12.
NewsBuster’s Noel Sheppard adds:
For those unfamiliar with Santelli’s muni reference, Whitney has recently come under fire for having predicted eight months ago there would be widespread defaults by municipal bond issuers around the country this year.
As Bloomberg reported in July, during the first six months of 2011, muni defaults are down 60 percent compared to the same period last year.
Obviously aware of this, Santelli chose to pull that scab off in order to get back at the banking analyst.
Perhaps now CNBC guests would be well advised to steer clear of making negative remarks about the Tea Party — at least in Santelli’s presence.
Watch for yourself here:
Banking analyst Meredith Whitney was made to eat her words on CNBC Wednesday after she called Tea Party members “freaked out white men who are unemployed.” Rick Santelli, who appeared on the program shortly after Whitney’s rant, ended up launching into the CNBC contributor for her comments. And it got pretty heated.
Santelli stated that the last person who said anything close to what Whitney did was “King George” when he was referring to the “colonists.” Santelli inferred that Whitney would have thought our Founding Father’s were “angry” as well when he said, “I don’t need to rant… You know, those were our Founding Fathers.”
Santelli was responding to the following statement made by Whitney:
I would suggest that the debate is really around unemployment, and I think that, you know, call the Tea Party whatever you will, the fringe element is, you know, I characterize freaked out white men who are unemployed and have been unemployed for three years and they’re scared to death. And three to four million of them are just about to roll off of unemployment benefits in the next three months. So, this is only going to get worse. For this reason, you have to deal with structural issues. So, if you are a Machiavellian Democrat, you want to deal with this issue and defuse the Tea Party as fast as you possibly can, because this poses the biggest threat to their reelection I think in ’12.
NewsBuster’s Noel Sheppard adds:
For those unfamiliar with Santelli’s muni reference, Whitney has recently come under fire for having predicted eight months ago there would be widespread defaults by municipal bond issuers around the country this year.
As Bloomberg reported in July, during the first six months of 2011, muni defaults are down 60 percent compared to the same period last year.
Obviously aware of this, Santelli chose to pull that scab off in order to get back at the banking analyst.
Perhaps now CNBC guests would be well advised to steer clear of making negative remarks about the Tea Party — at least in Santelli’s presence.
Watch for yourself here:
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
NEBRASKA ATTORNEY GENERAL COMPARES WELFARE RECIPIENTS TO…RAVENOUS RACCOONS
n a recent speech, Nebraska Attorney General and 2012 GOP Senatorial candidate John Bruning drew an interesting analogy. With great fanfare, he compared welfare recipients to…ravenous raccoons.
In a video that was shot by a liberal group called the American Bridge 21st Century, the politician can be seen making the curious connection. In the clip, Bruning tells the audience a story about a local construction project that was stopped in its tracks so that it wouldn’t harm endangered species. TPM has more:
…Bruning makes the comparison as part of an elaborate metaphor originally focused on environmental regulations. He describes a requirement that workers at a construction project gather up endangered beetles by luring them into a bucket with a dead rat in order to release them elsewhere. But the plan is thwarted when hungry raccoons then eat them straight out of the rat-infested bucket. Which, according to Bruning, is a perfect image to illustrate how welfare recipients receive their benefits.
Watch Bruning’s comments, below:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/nebraska-attorney-general-compares-welfare-recipients-to-ravenous-raccoons/
The Huffington Post provides a transcript:
“So the biologist has to go out there, and he sets these traps. They put a rat carcass in the bottom, and the beetles crawl up and they fall into the bottom of it. And they put all these buckets up and down the side of the road and they capture all the Burying Beetles. The biologist goes out in the morning, grabs the beetles, and they take them two miles down and they gently let the beetles out. So that the beetles will survive.
The raccoons figure out the beetles are in the bucket. And it’s like grapes in a jar. The raccoons, they’re not stupid, they’re going to do the easy way if we make it easy for them — just like welfare recipients all across America. If we don’t send them to work, they’re going to take the easy way out.”
Sunday, August 7, 2011
San Diego police officer shot in City Heights: one suspect remains at large
http://www.760kfmb.com/story/15222889/san-diego-police-officer-shot-in-city-heights-one-suspect-remains-at-large?redirected=true
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