Category: politics

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State-sponsored anti-discriminatory discrimination? Way to fight “discriminatory” laws by discriminating against other states, California.

Image may be subject to copyright.When California deems other states’ laws as discriminatory, what do they do? They pass discriminatory laws to fight these discriminatory laws.

“Our country has made great strides in dismantling prejudicial laws that have deprived too many of our fellow Americans of their precious rights,” trumpets California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

So in the spirit of prejudicial law dismantling, California has assembled a prejudicial law (AB 1887) that restricts state-funded travel to Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, Kansas, Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota and Texas.

“While the California DOJ works to protect the rights of all our people, discriminatory laws in any part of our country send all of us several steps back,” says Becerra. “That’s why when California said we would not tolerate discrimination against LGBTQ members of our community, we meant it.”

Zero tolerance of intolerance

It seems that California lawmaker considers any community in any state as their community and will not tolerate discrimination against any LGBTQ member in any community…because they’re part of California’s (global) LGBTQ community, you see. Wait…what?

We are the world. Or at least the nation. Or maybe just the state.

Which discriminatory laws of other states prompted heroic measures like AB 1887? Here’s one:

Mississippi’s “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act” (House Bill 1523) prohibits the state from discriminating against churches and businesses that believe marriage should be between one man and one woman and who decline to provide services to facilitate same sex marriages because doing so would violate “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.”

Here’s another:

South Dakota’s Senate Bill 149 shields faith-based and private child placement agencies from state-sponsored discriminatory measures. This means that if these agencies refuse to provide any service, including adoption or foster care services, on the basis of their religious convictions, the state will not retaliate against them.

So rather than “opening the door to discrimination” as opponents claim, the bills actually close the door on state-sponsored discrimination against the free exercise of religion—in theses cases—the violation of religious entities sincerely held beliefs.

Chucking the discriminatory First Amendment

State retaliation against religious entities, which violates the First Amendment separation of church and state, is an unconstitutional practice California champions and demands that other states employ…or…dun dun DUN! They’ll wield the incredibly intimidating travel ban.

It seems that Texas and the other pariah states are shaking in their boots. Here’s a response from the Texas Governor’s office: “California may be able to stop their state employees, but they can’t stop all the businesses that are fleeing over taxation and regulation and relocating to Texas.”

Snark attacks and giggles aside, the crux of this debate is this:

California considers faith-based entities sincerely held beliefs concerning gender, marriage and sexuality backward and discriminatory. They will not tolerate discrimination in any form, but don’t seem to realize that using state power to discriminate against entities they deem discriminatory is a form of discrimination. And so is their silly travel ban.

Or worse—they know very well that they’re doing the very thing they decry, but justify it based on their sincerely held beliefs. Beliefs that run counter to theirs “send all of us several steps back,” as California Attorney General Xavier Becerra so sanctimoniously pronounced.

According to Becerra, California will not tolerate people being “deprived” of their “precious” rights—except those people whom California seeks to deprive of their constitutional religious liberty rights.

Dear Governor Brown and California lawmakers,

If your voters allow you to abuse the power of your state to discriminate against citizens and private businesses, that’s their failure. Why would you expect other states to believe as you do and jettison the constitutional separation of church and state? Do you truly believe that your beliefs about gender, marriage and sexuality trump others’ beliefs?

A travel ban? Really? AB 1887 makes you look arrogant, small-minded and silly. Sorry, but your bill is as impotent as it is self-important.

Here’s a time-tested truth: Your sincerely held beliefs about marriage and gender are the product of a relatively recent zeitgeist and are shared by a minority. Notwithstanding, the Constitution protects your right to hold them.

Vast majorities in societies worldwide for centuries have embraced sincerely held beliefs regarding marriage and gender. Don’t they deserve the same protection?

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Cali Crazy: A Texan’s take on the Golden State—part 5—Making us better citizens: one lightbulb and gun law at a time

citizens

I’ve noticed something about California lawmakers: They don’t trust us citizens to be good people on our own. So they create laws to help us become better people … with their help.

As a doofus Texan, do I need the enlightened folks in Sacramento to help me be a better person? Nope. When it comes to lightbulbs and handguns, I need a nanny state like I need a hole in the head.

Take the legislative push to help Californians use less energy, for instance. If you add floodlights to the outside of your home, by law they must have motion sensors that kick them on when the neighbor’s cat triggers them at 3 a.m.

Why can’t you just leave them turned off when you go to bed, you ask? Because this is much too commonsensical. You see most Californians can’t be trusted to turn off their floodlights before turning in.

The folks in Sacramento know this right well, which is why they created a law to help mitigate our thoughtlessness.

However, if you buy newer, more efficient LED floodlights, you don’t need a motion sensor built in. It’s kind of a carrot, you see—do the right thing, and buy an energy efficient LED floodlight, and it doesn’t matter that you’re still likely to leave your floodlight on. This way, thoughtlessly burning it all night uses much less energy.

I have LEDs because they use a fraction of the energy fluorescents and incandescents use. It’s smart and cheaper. Do I need a law to be wise and thrifty? Do you?

Guns Guns GUNS!

The handling of the “gun issue” in California is the mother of all efforts to make us citizens better people. And here’s an irony—once a part of the Old West where saloon disputes were solved with revolvers on main street, California has become an overprotective, hyper-legislative wuss of a state.

Texas is the rootinest tootinest shootinest hombre east and north of the Rio Grande. And for some reason, I take a heap of pride in this distinction. Mostly for this reason—through all its bluster, Texas runs on common sense.

Funny thing is that for years as a Texas resident, I didn’t give a hoot about owning a gun. But after moving to California and experiencing the angst and annoyance many Northern Californians felt during the Obama years, I now exercise my Second Amendment rights with grit and gusto.

You see when a silly pseudo-Old West state like California tries to force itself on me for my own protection, I’m likely to protect myself from it. It’s called Freedom, and it’s mighty scarce ’round here.

A matter of trust

It all boils down to this: California lawmakers, many of them hailing from the Northeast either directly or one or two generations removed, don’t trust their citizens—or anyone for that matter—to do the right thing. This goes for energy use and for self and/or property protection.

In the case of firearms, these Yankee know-it-alls think California citizens don’t need those dangerous, treacherous things. Do you know how many people guns kill people in California annually? A big, fat zero. Criminals kill people…with guns.

Not sure the folks in “Sac” as they call the Cali capitol ’round here understand something elementary about guns: They need a finger to trigger them. Otherwise, they’re just pieces of steel or alloy. And limiting their magazines to 10 rounds won’t do a thing.

You see, it’s not like bad people are gonna abide by the law and make sure their magazines are legal capacity. They don’t follow the rules in getting weapons; why would they give two shakes about a 10-round magazine limit?

Logical state: Criminals will always have and use guns.
Logical measure: Allow more good guys and girls to have guns.
Logical conclusion: Good can more effectively combat evil.

Update: Well, what do you know? This happened in Texas on Wednesday, May 3, 2017—just three days before this post: 

Police: ‘Good Samaritan’ kills active shooter in Texas sports bar

Good guy with gun stops bad guy with gun and saves others.
Yeehaw!

Trusting citizens

In the rare instance a background-checked and trained conceal carry licensed citizen can use his or her weapon to protect others and him or herself, the 10-round limit gives the criminal the advantage in a firefight.

Here’s an idea: Instead of forcing citizens to carry more magazines (which negates concealment, by the way), why not let conceal carry permit holders use magazines that hold as many rounds as the handgun can manage?

Level the playing field between good guy and bad guy, right? Common sense? Nope.

California lawmakers don’t consider this commonsensical; they think it’s dangerous. Why? The answer brings us back to an earlier point: If they don’t trust us to turn off floodlights, why would they trust us with guns?

The truth is they would like to forbid gun ownership in California … period. It’s that simple. They think citizens who want to own and use guns shouldn’t.

Their legislative message is this: Don’t be a right-wing, gun-crazy nutjob. That’s what Texans are for.

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Subjective truth: It’s a lead balloon and the tie that binds progressives in religion AND politics.

truth

While watching Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s Senate hearing, it hit me like a bolt out of the blue—our BIG issue as a nation is not Russian election meddling or LGBTQ rights—it’s our embrace of subjective truth.

I watched a senator say our Constitution is a living, breathing document that should adapt to the times. As if the principles of American liberty require adjustment because things have changed so much in a mere 229 years.

Does the senator truly believe we should reinterpret meaning in a static document simply because it’s more to her liking? And more to the liking of people who pretend that the truths woven into the Constitution are somehow less true with the passage of time?

The notion that truth is subjective is an absolute non-starter—and it’s faulty thinking.

If truth doesn’t exist, then it would be true that truth doesn’t exist, and once again we arrive at truth. ~Nabeel Qureshi 

Truth is, we all operate in a world of absolute truth, and we all affirm its supremacy a thousand times a day whether we realize it or not.

During the same hearing, another senator described the type of Supreme Court justice American needs right now.

It went something like this:

America needs a Supreme Court justice who will look out for the downtrodden. One who will protect our children and keep the rich from taking advantage of the poor.

Excuse me, senator, protecting our children and the poor is your job, not a Supreme Court justice’s. You draft and vote on laws; our justices make sure those laws are Constitutional. This is how our democracy works.

truth

Progressive beliefs, regressive truth

Similarly, the progressive wing of the emerging church believes that the Bible is not Scripture, but is merely a “library of books” written by men whose prejudices and viewpoints make it unreliable as a guide for Christian living.

Question: If the Bible is a library of books, who’s the managing editor?

But rather than reject all Scripture, emerging church leaders cherry-pick Bible truths they can live with it. Like the uber-easily digestible maxim that God is love. But to them, God is only love. He doesn’t ask anything of them in terms of obedience or justice or sharing truth, no matter how unpopular.

To these spiritual progressives, we all have carte blanche to live for others without structure and without guidance other than what we feel is right. This eliminates personal responsibility and accountability.

Is not spiritual life without the truth of Scripture like self-governance without a timeless Constitution?

When either incompatible state is taken to its logical conclusion, the result is anarchy.

truth

If there is no objective truth, how can we know the Constitution OR the Bible is reliable?

In the minds of progressives—in culture, government and religion—truth is purely subjective. Except when it comes to bolstering an agenda; then helpful truths quickly become absolute.

Like these convenient truths:

All men are created equal. This truth actually means that everyone is created with equal worth to the Creator. It has been subverted to mean that everyone IS equal and thus should be given every opportunity to act upon this equality through denigrating measures such as affirmative action.

God is love. According to Scripture, love is only one of God’s attributes. The Bible also says God is holy and just and righteous and pure. These characteristics, if true, call for accountability and responsibility—just as our Constitution calls for rule of law based on self-evident truths.

When progressives disregard the Constitution’s or Scripture’s authority, there is no rule of law—civically or spiritually.

Care for the poor. This is where progressives in religion and politics coalesce and differ most strongly with evangelicals and conservatives. But it’s not a question of if we should help the poor; it’s how.

Progressives think the federal government is best suited to help the poor. Conservatives think state and local government and religious groups and churches are best suited to help the poor.

I receive care from the federal government—the Veteran’s Administration. Trust me, the federal government is a ponderous, inefficient caregiver; it’s far from ideal. Local volunteers and people on the ground are much better suited to make a real, lasting difference by helping poor people help themselves.

truth

When we leave caring for the poor to the federal government, we wash our hands of them.

The poor become enslaved to a system that crushes their spirits and keeps them dependent.

If political progressives think we should give people what they need without encouraging them to give themselves what they need, they do not understand human nature. If religious progressives think the Creator is all love and is not holy and pure and just and that the Bible is not reliable, they do not understand God’s nature or human nature.

Because our topic is subjective truth and its effect on the rule of law and the reliability of Scripture, allow me to offer these concluding arguments:

But first an observation:

I’ve never seen such a starkly obvious difference between those who rely upon Constitutional and Scriptural authority for governance and interacting with God and others and those who seek to create their own framework for the same. This self-created framework is based on feeling rather than thinking, emotion rather than cognition.

Today’s progressives in the political and religious arenas seem to have forgotten this objective truth: What feels right is not always what is or ought to be right.

Subjective truth is by its nature not true. If a tree falls in a forest, it’s irrelevant whether anyone is there to hear its crash. And no, God cannot create a rock that even he can’t move. The size and weight of the rock is irrelevant. If he can make it, he can move it.

truth

Subjective truth is the pig that doesn’t fly.

It’s a sideshow clown who distracts and pleases childish minds with colorful balloon dogs. It’s a non-entity that binds the brains of many.

And sadly, its effect is on full display in our Senate chambers as we seek to confirm a Supreme Court justice whose job is to ignore subjective non-truths in favor of the rich tapestry of truth and human dignity found in our Constitution.

My message to Congress and my fellow politically- and/or spiritually-minded Americans is this:

Let go of the lead balloon of subjective nonsense and soar on the wings of truth. It will truly set you free.