Trump's War
Page 17
Of course, I am speaking hypothetically. Please do not test the theory based on what I said. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt. I think everyone reading this book knows they wouldn’t be met with an invitation to sit down and talk under the circumstances I described above.
But that is what free speech really means, the freedom to express an unpopular opinion without fear of violent retribution, either from the government, from civilian gangs, or from individuals.
Let’s not forget the opinion I described isn’t even unpopular. It might be at a Black Lives Matter rally, but Trump’s election was very much an affirmation that most people in America know the overwhelming majority of cops aren’t racists. That’s just another left-wing fiction the media shamelessly promotes, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Just before the new year, we heard directly from the chief financial architect of Black Lives Matter and a host of other anti-American organizations I named in my last book, Scorched Earth. I am talking, of course, about George Soros, whom I consider one of the most evil men on the planet.
Soros penned an essay18 in which he briefly summarized what we can expect to be the left’s talking points and agenda for the foreseeable future during Trump’s administration. In it he trots out the usual progressive tropes about inequality and the greed of the wealthy undermining the liberal utopias America and Europe supposedly were before Brexit and Trump’s election.
It’s always hard to tell if you’re dealing with evil or stupidity when listening to the lunatic ravings of liberals. But not with Soros. We know he’s not stupid. That only leaves one explanation for the lies he told in his essay, which of course had all of the liberal media tripping over each other to acknowledge its supposed brilliance and insight.
Like the Devil himself in the movie The Exorcist, Soros mixes lies with the truth to deceive the envious, the lazy, and the incompetent into believing the only problem with Western civilization is a “lack of redistributive policies.” He correctly observes the crash of 2008 resulted in Europe being “transformed into a relationship between creditors and debtors, where the debtors had difficulties in meeting their obligations and the creditors set the conditions the debtors had to obey.” But like every socialist who ever lived, he places the blame on the creditors and portrays the debtors who borrowed money to live beyond their means as the victims!
Ironically, Soros says his family didn’t flee Hungary until 1947, when the country was under communist control. His Jewish family had survived the Nazi occupation thanks to his father’s wits, but they didn’t leave until the communists took over. Why didn’t they stay? Certainly, there wasn’t a “lack of redistributive policies” under the communists. They redistribute at 100 percent. When you read the ravings of liberals carefully, their logic inevitably falls apart.
This is the man who gave $33 million to Black Lives Matter19 and who funds MoveOn.org and the rest of his so-called Open Society Foundations. They should be called the anti-American Foundations, because every one of them seeks to break up the foundation of American culture. More than fifty groups directly funded by Soros organized the “spontaneous” Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration.20 Another hundred are hard at work every day, agitating for left-wing causes.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called his fictional character Dr. Moriarty, of the Sherlock Holmes stories, “the Napoleon of Crime.” Well, George Soros is the Napoleon of American socialism. The sheer number of subversive organizations that have received funding from this man is staggering. I am listing them here so you understand just what we’re up against. They include:21
Advancement Project
Air America Radio
All of Us or None
Alliance for Justice
America Coming Together
America Votes
America’s Voice
American Bar Association Commission on Immigration Policy
American Bridge 21st Century
American Civil Liberties Union
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
American Family Voices
American Federation of Teachers
American Friends Service Committee
American Immigration Council
American Immigration Law Foundation
American Independent News Network
American Institute for Social Justice
American Library Association
The American Prospect Inc.
Amnesty International
Applied Research Center
Arab American Institute Foundation
Aspen Institute
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Black Alliance for Just Immigration
Blueprint North Carolina
Brennan Center for Justice
Brookings Institution
Campaign for America’s Future
Campaign for Better Health Care
Campaign for Youth Justice
Campus Progress
Casa de Maryland
Catalist
Catholics for Choice
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good
Center for American Progress
Center for Community Change
Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Responsible Lending
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS)
Change America Now
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Coalition for an International Criminal Court
Common Cause
Constitution Project
Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund
Democracy Alliance
Democracy 21
Democracy Now!
Democratic Justice Fund
Democratic Party
Demos
Drum Major Institute
Earthjustice
Economic Policy Institute
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
EMILY’s List
Energy Action Coalition
Equal Justice USA
Fair Immigration Reform Movement
Faithful America
Feminist Majority
Four Freedoms Fund
Free Exchange on Campus
Free Press
Funding Exchange
Gamaliel Foundation
Gisha: Center for the Legal Protection of Freedom of Movement
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Global Exchange
Grantmakers Without Borders
Green For All
Health Care for America Now
Human Rights Campaign
Human Rights First
Human Rights Watch
I’lam
Immigrant Defense Project
Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project
Immigration Advocates Network
Immigration Policy Center
Independent Media Center
Independent Media Institute
Institute for America’s Future
Institute for New Economic Thinking
Institute for Policy Studies
Institute for Public Accuracy
Institute for Women’s Policy Research
International Crisis Group
J Street
Jewish Funds for Justice
Joint Victory Campaign 2004
Justice at Stake
LatinoJustice PRLDF
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
League of United Latin American Citizens
League of Women Voters Education Fund
League of Young Voters
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Machsom Watch
MADRE
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition
Media Fund
Media Matters for America
Mercy Corps
Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, PC
Midwest Academy
Migration Policy Institute
Military Families Speak Out
Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment
MoveOn.org
Ms. Foundation for Women
NARAL Pro-Choice America
NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund
The Nation Institute
National Abortion Federation
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
National Committee for Voting Integrity
National Council for Research on Women
National Council of La Raza
National Council of Women’s Organizations
National Immigration Forum
National Immigration Law Center
National Lawyers Guild
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Priorities Project
National Public Radio
National Security Archive Fund
National Women’s Law Center
Natural Resources Defense Council
New America Foundation
New Israel Fund
NewsCorpWatch
Pacifica Foundation
Peace and Security Funders Group
Peace Development Fund
People for the American Way
People Improving Communities Through Organizing
Physicians for Human Rights
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Planned Parenthood
Ploughshares Fund
Prepare New York
Presidential Climate Action Project
Prison Moratorium Project
Progressive Change Campaign Committee
Progressive States Network
Project Vote
Pro Publica
Proteus Fund
Public Citizen Foundation
Public Justice Center
Rebuild and Renew America Now (a.k.a. Unity ’09)
Res Publica
Secretary of State Project
Sentencing Project
Social Justice Leadership
Shadow Democratic Party
Sojourners
Southern Poverty Law Center
State Voices
Talking Transition
Think Progress
Thunder Road Group
Tides Foundation and Tides Center
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
Universal Healthcare Action Network
Urban Institute
USAction Education Fund
Voto Latino
We Are America Alliance
Working Families Party
World Organization Against Torture
YWCA World Office
As I said, I’ve never called for government action against anyone spending their own money as they wish, even to promote socialist nonsense, as long as reason is left free to combat it.
But when violent revolutionaries seek to tear down the pillars of civil society and assault anyone who dissents from their nihilistic view, then there is a role for the government to step in and defend life, liberty, and property against those who wish to destroy them.
Law and order are the first foundations of civilization. Without them, it doesn’t matter how technologically advanced or wealthy a society is. Trump promised on the campaign trail and during his acceptance speech at the RNC that he would restore law and order in America society. That doesn’t just mean supporting the police instead of tacitly condoning violence against them, as the Community Organizer in Chief did for eight years in Washington. It also means making our streets and highways safe from the domestic terrorism masquerading as “peaceful protest” we’ve endured during most of those years. Which means Trump must investigate and prosecute groups and individuals who violate federal law by crossing state lines to incite unrest.
THE BATTLE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
There were many who were surprised that Donald Trump enjoyed such overwhelming support from white evangelicals.22 After all, Trump isn’t exactly the poster child for a devout Christian lifestyle. But I wasn’t surprised. Trump pledged23 to protect religious freedom, which had been under unprecedented assault during the previous eight years. Evangelicals may not have believed Trump was a model Christian, but they believed he’d keep that promise.
The very first freedom protected in the First Amendment is not free speech. It is religious freedom. For the founding fathers, this was the most important freedom. They believed the fate of one’s soul was so important that only the individual could decide matters of conscience.
Have you ever noticed that the Constitution requires all representatives, executive and judicial officers, and even representatives in state legislatures to be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution? The reason there is an alternative to taking an oath is that some religions forbid taking oaths and the founders would not require anyone—not even the president—to violate the dictates of his conscience on religious matters.
The founders believed in the right of conscience so strongly that they excused those whose religious beliefs forbade it even from fighting in defensive wars. But for the past century, this first of all rights has been under constant attack by the progressive movement, never more so than under the man we had in the White House for the past eight years.
Before Obama, most of the attacks on religious freedom were based on completely misreading the first ten words of the First Amendment and completely ignoring the next six. The first ten words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” simply meant Congress couldn’t create a national religion, like the Church of England. It had nothing to do with a “separation of church and state.”
We know this for two reasons. First, the words “separation of church and state” appear nowhere in any of our founding documents. Second, some states had their own state religions at the time the Constitution was ratified. That was the whole reason they wanted Congress prohibited from creating a state religion—because it would invalidate their own!
So, the entire progressive movement to ban any reference to religion in public places is based on a misunderstanding at best, a bald-faced lie at worst. The words “or prohibit the free exercise thereof” means people are not supposed to be prohibited from freely expressing their religion. It doesn’t say, “except in public places.” People prayed in public schools for hundreds of years in America until the progressives laid siege to the First Amendment.
They all but erased God from any publicly owned property during the twentieth century. But the freedom to follow one’s conscience according to one’s religious beliefs remained sacrosanct on private property. That all changed when O took the oath of office.
Over the past several years, we’ve seen the right of conscience under constant assault by progressives, using the gay rights agenda as their bludgeon. The first nationally recognized case was the Christian bakers who politely refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay wedding, based on their deeply held religious beliefs that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. The gay couple reported the bakery to the State of Oregon Labor Board, whose commissioner awarded the gay couple $135,000 and slapped a gag order on the defendants, in addition to the monetary judgment.24
You have to hand it to the liberals. When they violate the Constitution, they really go all the way. Not only were the bakers’ First Amendment rights to freedom of religion an
d speech violated, but they were judged by a member of the executive branch, which violates Oregon’s constitution,25 in which all judicial power is vested in a court system, consisting of a Supreme Court, circuit courts, county courts, justices of the peace, and municipal courts.
In concert with his left-wing street brigades, Emperor Barry Hussein launched an assault on Christian employers via that monstrosity known as Obamacare. After promising the American people that Obamacare would not be used for funding abortions, he sent his lawyers to the Supreme Court26 to try to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to do just that in providing their employees coverage for abortion-inducing contraceptives.
The eight-person Court elected not to make a decision on the case. In what many characterized as a win for the Little Sisters, the Court “vacated” the lower court rulings27 that had held the Little Sisters liable to provide the coverage, and asked them to reconsider. I didn’t consider it a true win for religious liberty because the lower courts could use some other voodoo reasoning to make the same decision all over again, sending it back to the Supreme Court, this time possibly for a liberal justice to apply the coup de grâce.
It was just one more aspect of our culture, one more foundation of Western civilization, that Hillary Clinton was poised to destroy if she were allowed to ascend to the White House last November. When you think about it, what she might have done to religious liberty through executive orders or the next Supreme Court nomination is as bad as the war with Russia she may have dragged us into.
All of that changed with the election of Donald Trump. Not only will Trump and the Republicans repeal Obamacare, but Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) will reintroduce the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), which prohibits the federal government from “discriminating against people or organizations due to their opposition to same-sex marriage.”28 That’s going to derail the progressive plan to blackmail churches, Christian schools, and other religious organizations into violating the tenets of their religions or lose their tax-exempt status.
The bill didn’t go anywhere when it was first introduced in 2015 because even those Republicans who aren’t RINOs knew Obama would veto it, as Hillary would have if she had won. But Trump will almost certainly sign the bill, which is an important step in the fight to win back the religious freedom lost during previous administrations.
By far the most important blow Trump can strike for religious freedom will be his appointments to the Supreme Court. It is here that liberal twentieth-century judges gutted the First Amendment with their bizarre “freedom from religion” doctrine.