St. Louis County police say six people were arrested. Two of those were arrested on suspicion of assault, one of resisting arrest and three on suspicion of committing peace disturbances. Carnahan was gone when the ruckus started.
Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.
“It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he said.
I was at the town hall meeting as well and witnessed the events leading up to the attack of Kenneth. Kenneth was approached by an SEIU representative as Kenneth was handing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags to other conservatives. The SEIU representative demanded to know why a black man was handing out these flags. The SEIU member used a racial slur against Kenneth, then punched him in the face. Kenneth fell to the ground. Another SEIU member yelled racial epithets at Kenneth as he kicked him in the head and back. Kenneth was also brutally attacked by one other male SEIU member and an unidentified woman. The three men were clearly SEIU members, as they were wearing T-shirts with the SEIU logo.Kenneth was beaten badly. One assailant fled on foot; three others were arrested. Kenneth was admitted to St. John’s Mercy Medical Center emergency room, where he was treated for his numerous injuries. Kenneth was merely expressing his freedom of speech by handing out the flags. In fact, he merely asked people as they exited the town hall meeting whether they would like a flag. He in no way provoked any argument or altercation, as evidenced by the fact that three assailants were arrested.
Where are the Democrat race-hustlers to yell “Racism”? Oh, probably sitting next to the feminists when do nothing about Muslim honor killings.
Here is another video of a Democrat politician screaming at a constituent who dared to ask him a question about Obama’s health care plan at a town hall meeting.
Nabeel Qureshi is a convert from Islam to Christianity. He holds an MA in Christian Apologetics from Biola University, and he is currently finishing his MD at Eastern Virginia Medical School. Nabeel debates Muslims and writes for the blog http://www.answeringmuslims.com/.
Now consider a different story from ArabFest about a different group of Christians distributing pamphlets.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds denied Anaheim, Calif.-based Arabic Christian Perspective’s request for a temporary restraining order.
The group describes itself in its court filing as “a national ministry established for the purpose of proclaiming the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ to Muslims … (that) travels around the country attending and distributing Christian literature at Muslim festivals and mosques.”
There is a law banning the distribution of pamphlets, so these Christians were not being discriminated against. But lawyer Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy says that the law is unconstutional, in his opinion.
To start with the obvious, even though Obama denies that he will manage the companies, we have all learned by now that he has no problem doing the very thing he is denying. (In ordinary life this political artfulness is called lying). He fired one CEO, forced Chrysler to accept Fiat (WSJ.com 6/5/09), told GM that it cannot move its headquarters out of Detroit (WSJ.com 6/3/09), and may have ordered that whoever buys GM’s European auto maker Opel must agree not to export cars to the U.S.. (WSJ.com 6/1/09) These decisions were made in secret with no Congressional oversight, by a man with no training or experience of any kind in business, never mind the auto business. The companies will be run by politicians, who will make decisions for the benefit of political agendas rather than on sound business principles. The result will be that the auto companies and the union will not make the deep changes required to make the companies profitable, so we can anticipate many more cash infusions.
Gary Jason writes about how Obama is intervening in the free market to screw creditors and take care of his union supporters with taxpayer bailouts.
I will argue that the unprecedented action by the current administration in manipulating the bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM, and in effect nationalizing the companies, is egregiously unethical by every one of these major ethical perspectives. For this reason, I believe that this action makes it morally imperative for Americans to boycott these socialized companies.
… the Obama administration spent tens of billions in taxpayers’ dollars to take control of the companies and force the outcome it wanted. Obama, who received millions in contributions from the United Auto Workers union, has forced a settlement that will give UAW far more equity in the companies when they come out of bankruptcy than it was due compared to the secured debt holders.[i] Obama’s agents used threats and intimidation (calling holdout bondholders speculators and hedge funds at one point) to get the creditors to accept being shafted. (WSJ.com 5/11/09)The result is that the vast majority of the two companies will be almost clearly owned by the federal government and the UAW, and the UAW arguably controls the federal government.
The result is drenched in irony. The UAW was a major reason why the companies hit the wall, and now the UAW will be rewarded with major control and ownership. It is as if a rape victim were forced to marry her rapist. The result makes the crony capitalism we saw in Russia look clean by comparison; it, at least, was a kind of capitalism.
And what are the long-term consequences?
…To start with the obvious, even though Obama denies that he will manage the companies, we have all learned by now that he has no problem doing the very thing he is denying. (In ordinary life this political artfulness is called lying). He fired one CEO, forced Chrysler to accept Fiat (WSJ.com 6/5/09), told GM that it cannot move its headquarters out of Detroit (WSJ.com 6/3/09), and may have ordered that whoever buys GM’s European auto maker Opel must agree not to export cars to the U.S.. (WSJ.com 6/1/09) These decisions were made in secret with no Congressional oversight, by a man with no training or experience of any kind in business, never mind the auto business.
The companies will be run by politicians, who will make decisions for the benefit of political agendas rather than on sound business principles. The result will be that the auto companies and the union will not make the deep changes required to make the companies profitable, so we can anticipate many more cash infusions.
Worse yet, we can foresee that now that the UAW and feds have control of Chrysler and GM, they won’t stop there. Their natural instinct will be to achieve monopolistic control. The UAW has helped drive Chrysler and GM to the wall and is now co-owner with the government of most of the equity. They will likely next target Ford, to get equity ownership of it. Then look for the UAW and the administration it controls to attempt to force the employees of foreign auto makers in this country to join the UAW, or use environmental and other regulatory laws to put those companies out of business.
Obama and the Democrats are willing to use threats and intimidation to ram through their socialist policies. Here is a long list of unconstitutional interventions. (H/T 4Simpsons) He does not care about laws and rights – he wants power over your liberty. He wants to control your life.
The Road to Serfdom
For those of you who did not know before, the greatest economics book of the 20th century was Nobel-prize winning economic F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom“, which is analyzes the history of socialism and fascism in Nazi Germany and Russia. This book is #1 on Human Events’ Top 10 books every Republican should read.
Human Events writes:
Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) was an Austrian economist awarded the Nobel Prize in 1974. He defended capitalism and individual liberty against collectivism. In “The Road to Serfdom,” he describes how government planning of the economy leads to tyranny. President Reagan cited Hayek as one of his favorite economists. “To decentralize power is to reduce the absolute amount of power, and the competitive system is the only system designed to minimize the power exercised by man over man,” wrote Hayek. “Who can seriously doubt that the power which a millionaire, who may be my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest bureaucrat possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends how I am allowed to live and work?”
When Michele Bachmann stands up on the floor of the House and advocates against government intervention in the free market, she is literally standing between the American people and mass-murdering, rights-trampling, faith-destroying communism.
And by the way, Obama means to do the exact same thing with the health care and energy sectors.
WINTERY KNIGHT 