Tag Archives: Free Speech

News

Obama administration threatens health insurance company for dissent

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This AP story explains how a private company sent out a mailing explaining the effects of Obamacare on seniors.

Excerpt:

“While these programs need to be made more efficient, if the proposed funding cut levels become law, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable,” it said.

It urged seniors to sign up with Humana for regular updates on the health care legislation, and encouraged them to contact their lawmakers in Washington.

But Obama doesn’t like it when people question his socialist plans.

In a warning letter to Humana, HHS said the government is concerned that the mailer “is misleading and confusing” partly because the company’s lobbying campaign could be mistaken for an official communication about Medicare benefits.

HHS ordered the company to immediately halt any such mailings, and remove any related materials from its Web site. In the letter, the government also said it may take other action against Humana.

A later post by Ace of Spades updates the story. (H/T ECM)

Let me explain how socialism works. Socialists tell you that you are not responsible for your life outcomes. They say that other people are to blame for your troubles. They get elected by sowing division, hate and envy among the people. Then they try to take control of the economy to reward the people who elected them, using the money from people who did not elect them.

But when you start to rob one group of people to pay off the groups who elected you, the victims of the theft start to debate with you. Maybe they stop producing as much as before, so that less is stolen from them by the government. And that’s when socialists like Obama start to crack down on dissenters – first with intimidation, then with coercion, and eventually with violence. That’s just historical fact.

Most countries realize their mistake before it’s too late. But if a country has placed an ignorant, arrogant, unqualified buffoon in charge, it may be a long time before that happens. That is the way the world actually works, and has worked, for anyone with eyes to see. And that is why even socialist countries like Sweden eventually have to pull back from the brink by cutting taxes, in order to get people working and having children again.

I recommend the book “The Road to Serfdom” by F.A. Hayek, and you can read a summary here. It’s the number one most recommended book on Human Events’ list of top books every conservative should read. Fascism is the natural endpoint of socialism, if it is not checked at the ballot box.

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Another nurse faces termination for being a Christian in public

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Story from the Telegraph. (H/T Pursuing Holiness via ECM and Andrew)

Excerpt:

Shirley Chaplin, a committed Christian, has been told by her employers that she must hide or remove the cross or remain out of the hospital wards.

Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital told her that she cannot wear the one-inch tall silver cross openly around her neck, because it breaches their uniform policy and poses a risk to patients.

While the Trust has banned the crucifix in its wards, it makes concessions for other faiths, including allowing Muslim nurses to wear headscarves on duty.

She has been warned by her employers that she will be suspended if she does not comply with their request. There are fears that this would lead to her dismissal.

Mrs Chaplin, 54, says she has been shocked and distressed by the threat, which means she must choose between her faith and her job.

The London Times article that Laura linked to has a re-cap of the previous discrimination.

Excerpt:

Chaplin is being advised by Paul Diamond, a human rights barrister specialising in the law of religious liberty. He also advised Caroline Petrie, a nurse who was suspended in February this year at a hospital in Weston-Super-Mare for offering to pray for a patient. She was later reinstated.

In 2007, Nadia Eweida, a British Airways worker, appealed unsuccessfully to a tribunal against the airline’s decision to ban her from wearing her cross pendant in public.

Here is my previous post on the UK stewardess who was fired for refusing to dress as a Muslim as well as the Christian couple that was arrested for debating their faith with a Muslim. Here in the United States, the fascists at the ACLU had two Christians arrested for praying in a church.

Analysis

In my opinion, a non-Christian who interferes with a Christian’s ability to act out their fatih in public has done something diabolical. Worse than murder, in my opinion. It is hard enough to be a Christian without being intimidated and coerced by people who are willing to use the coercive power of the state to suppress the religious freedom of Christians.

What a non-Christian is doing is to force their non-Christian religion onto the Christian. The non-Christian basically wants to avoid feeling bad for not being a Christian, so they suppress the Christian’s religious faith, which requires public witnessing, in order to avoid feeling badly about not being a Christian themselves. They are elevating their own feelings above the Christian’s inalienable rights to religious liberty, free speech and free expression of religion.

But it is actually much, much worse than that. The result of suppressing a Christian’s public expression of their faith is that some other people who might have seen that public witness of authentic Christianity and spoken to that witness lose their opportunity to talk to the Christian. Not only that, but the Christian is also negatively impacted. You can’t take away someone’s human rights based on hurt feelings!

A lot of feminized multi-cultural postmodern relativist universalist “Christians” think that suppressing public Christianity is actually good. They have redefined Biblical Christianity so that the new goal is for everyone to have happy feelings now and to go to Heaven regardless of their beliefs. They think that divisions and exclusive claims to salvation make people feel badly. What are hurt feelings compared to Heaven and Hell?

So this is a serious, serious crime against Christ, one that I highly recommend my non-Christians readers avoid.

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How feminism destroyed free speech and free inquiry on university campuses

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Story from David Thompson. (H/T ECM)

The post on David Thompson’s blog contains some foul language.

Let me first give you the facts from the FIRE article David is writing about.

Professor Thomas Thibeault made the mistake of pointing out – at a sexual harassment training seminar – that the school’s sexual harassment policy contained no protection for the falsely accused. Two days later, in a Kafkaesque irony, Thibeault was fired by the college president for sexual harassment without notice, without knowing his accuser or the charges against him, and without a hearing. […]

Thibeault’s ordeal started shortly after August 5, 2009 when, during a faculty training session regarding the college’s sexual harassment policy, he presented a scenario regarding a different professor and asked, “What provision is there in the sexual harassment policy to protect the accused against complaints which are malicious or, in this case, ridiculous?” Vice President for Legal Affairs Mary Smith, who was conducting the session, replied that there was no such provision to protect the accused, so Thibeault responded that “the policy itself is flawed.”

And then some of Thibeault’s testimony:

[…]Mary Smith was explaining the sexual harassment policy and was emphasising that faculty had to report suspicions of sexual harassment by any faculty member to the college administration. She was stating that the feelings of the offended were proof of the offensive nature of the behaviour.

[…]There is no provision in the policy. I must emphasise that if the person feels offended then the incident must be reported to the college authorities. Even if you hear such a statement about a faculty member, you are to report it. If you don’t, you yourself are party to the harassment and harassment is dismissible.

[…]Two days later, Thibeault was summoned to [college] President John Bryant Black’s office. According to Thibeault’s written account of the meeting – which was sent to Black and which Black has not disputed – Thibeault met with Black and Smith. Black told Thibeault that he “was a divisive force in the college at a time when the college needed unity” and that Thibeault must resign by 11:30 a.m. or be fired and have his “long history of sexual harassment… made public.” This unsubstantiated allegation took Thibeault by surprise. Black added that Thibeault would be escorted off campus by Police Chief Drew Durden and that Black had notified the local police that he was prepared to have Thibeault arrested for trespassing if he returned to campus. At no point was Thibeault presented with the charges against him or given any chance to present a defence.

ECM send me this article from Canadian writer David Warren on political correctness and fascism.

Excerpt:

The purpose of political correction is to delegitimate opposition; to make the most basic facts of life undiscussable, and thereby eliminate debate. It is a device for seizing power.

In my view, the ideological Left advances ruthlessly, by turning the meanings of words upside down, by stating bald lies that we must not dare to challenge, by introducing “reforms” in the dark of the night, often through courts to subvert Parliament.

My concern is that these feminist suppressions of speech using false accusations will spread, until every interplay between men and women becomes a kind of Duke University lacrosse scandal where facts don’t matter so long as the media can bash the right people for being sexist, racist homophobes.

UPDATE: I just noticed a nice post from Suzanne (Big Blue Wave), who dissents from feminism.