Well, at least it’s passed it’s first reading. Basically, there are eight government-run universities in New Zealand, and students attending them must join at least one of the leftist campus clubs and pay dues to the leftist club. There is virtually no way to get your money back, and there are virtually no right wing clubs on campus to join – they all get banned, much like pro-life clubs are banned in Canadian universities.
““ACT on Campus is thrilled that ACT MP Sir Roger Douglas’ Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill has been drawn from the private member’s bill ballot in Parliament today.
“ACT on Campus calls on all MPs to support student’s right to Freedom of Association, as guaranteed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” said ACT on Campus Vice President Peter McCaffrey.
“Sir Roger’s bill, originally drafted by fellow ACT MP Heather Roy, now Associate Minister of Education, has students up and down New Zealand excited and we hope this bill makes it all the way to law.
“Student Associations are the only organisations left in New Zealand that can force membership onto someone and students have long been fighting to be given the same rights as all New Zealanders.
“The local tennis or rugby club can’t compel membership and instead relies on providing a good quality service that people want in order to attract members – student associations should be no different.
“It is time to end the unfair funding, by all students, of the political activities of radical left wing groups, and put an end to corruption and fraud at these unaccountable and unrepresentative student associations,” said ACT on Campus Vice President Peter McCaffrey.
Matt Flanagan reports that the bill has passed its first reading! I think this is a very helpful story to understand the level of psychological confidence that causes leftists to disregard fundamental human rights and force their views on those who disagree with them. Fascism is solely and completely a phenomenon of the left, and the road to fascism goes through socialism.
But the leaked DHS report is not the only problem that conservatives are facing from the fascist left. The tolerant left, champions of diversity and tolerance, doesn’t like the idea of hearing things that might hurt their feelings. Every word you say has the potential to incite violence against them!
So, they’ve proposed this new Hate Crimes bill so that they don’t have to listen to people they disagree with anymore.
Committee members allowed that, yes, the law could result in the imprisonment of religious leaders. Conceivably then, a threat might be perceived in the preaching from a Bible (the weapon), perceived as inciting “radicals” to do bodily harm to non-believers or gays or whoever. Thus the perception allegedly received by the alleged victim holds total sway over the actual occurrence, which in actuality might have been completely benign.
If the validity of the actual occurrence is not the basis for justice, then there is no justice under this proposed law; it is an invitation for persecution by allegation of personal offendedness, a legalization of internal outrage as the definition of a crime regardless of whether the outrage is legitimate.
Protection from outrage is not possible; so persecution of the hated must substitute. Justice misapplied can become persecution, and it undoubtedly will if H.R. 1913 becomes law.
We elected Obama, and now the whole country will look like the university campuses, where leftist fascism is the rule, and conservatives need bodyguards and police escorts in order to be able to speak.
BONUS:
Michele Bachmann talks with Neil Cavuto about cap and trade, and the recession: (H/T The Maritime Sentry)
Sensible science, sensible energy policy and sensible pollution reduction. Why won’t the socialists just listen to her? Just do whatever she says to do and we’ll get out of this mess that the Democrats put us into.
Looks like Obama suspended the war on terror abroad… only to start it up again… at home!
What is fascism and how is it caused?
Fascism is the political system that results when the state imposes its values on its citizens and represses individual values. The traditional view of free-market capitalist conservatives is that socialist efforts to “fix” financial inequalities by redistributing wealth in a planned economy inevitably ends in fascism. This is despite the fact that fascism is never the desired or intended result of well-meaning socialists.
This thesis is presented in a famous book called “The Road to Serfdom“, written by Nobel prize winning economist F.A. Hayek. This is the book that guided champions of free-market capitalism and individual liberty such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and today, Stephen Harper.
What the Department of Homeland Security wrote
Let’s take a look at the latest report from Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security.
Yesterday, Roger Hedgecock and the Liberty Papers posted an unclassified DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis report titled:
Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.
The “report” (PDF file here) was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.
…I spent the day chasing down DHS spokespeople…[and] the press office got back to me and verified that the document is indeed for real.
Below, Michelle has the actual quotes from the DHS report.
Here are some questions for you:
Are you for federalism? Are you for limited government? Are you for immigration law enforcement? Are you pro-life?
If you answered “yes”, then the Obama regime thinks that you are a potential terrorist:
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
Here are some more questions for you: Are you a free-market capitalist? Are you in favor of personal responsibility? Are you for legal firearm ownership?
If you answered “yes”, then the Obama regime thinks that you are a potential terrorist:
Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use. Rightwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2008 election timeframe to the present, rightwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.
And there’s more in the report:
Over the past five years, various rightwing extremists, including militias and white supremacists, have adopted the immigration issue as a call to action, rallying point, and recruiting tool. Debates over appropriate immigration levels and enforcement policy generally fall within the realm of protected political speech under the First Amendment, but in some cases, anti-immigration or strident pro-enforcement fervor has been directed against specific groups and has the potential to turn violent.
And more:
DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists—including lone wolves or small terrorist cells—to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.
And more:
DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization.
The Anchoress, unlike me, is more calm and circumspect. But, with her characteristic perceptiveness, she adds this warning:
Dissent – normal, healthy political dissent – which was “patriotic” just six months ago, and expressed without encumbrance throughout our history (until now) seems to be under attack….
As some of us have noted, everything that was projected on to the Bush administration is finding real expression in the Obama administration. I’m still waiting for the part where those who predicted that “Bush will declare martial law and never allow another election” pooh-pooh the right who say it of Obama. You know it will happen.
So, you see…we’re in a bad place, in these United States.
So let’s be clear. In my opinion, the United States is now on the road to fascism. Every single person who voted for Obama put us on that road to fascism. The United States of the Founding Fathers has been obliterated by the government-run schools, the leftist media, and our own invincible hedonism. Our liberty, and the liberty of nations struggling against socialism, (i.e. – fascism), worldwide, is now in jeopardy.
To end on a positive note, Open Market has something hopeful to say about possible remedies:
Government agencies that investigate people for their “politically incorrect” views can be held liable for violating the First Amendment, as happened in White v. Lee (2000), where a federal appeals court held that federal fair-housing officials could be sued individually for punitive damages for investigating citizens who spoke out against a group home for the disabled (in that case, mentally-ill substance-abusers).
Let’s hope that Bush appointed enough strict constructionist judges, he was pretty good at doing that.
Further study
Nice Deb is making light of the story here by comparing Democrats like Obama’s friend Bill Ayers, (a non-terrorist who just tried to blow some innocent people up), with authentic terrorists like little Republican girls who still believe in the Constitution.
Here are books on liberty that people today don’t read, but they should. They really should. Because God knows, those secularist socialists in the government, and the people who voted them in, sure haven’t. Atheistic communism lead to the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th century alone. Is that what we have to look forward to in this country? Ideas have consequences.
An abridged version of The Road to Serfdom is here.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin’s syndicated column is here.
WINTERY KNIGHT 