Dog doo ruling further twists meaning of free speech

By Karen Kataline (kaykat73@aol.com) I know it’s a stinky subject but the recent acquittal of Kathleen Ensz, of a criminal charge, for filling a political mailer with dog feces and returning it to Marilyn Musgrave’s office, got me thinking. Underneath the sheer entertainment value of reporting on the extent of political “dung-slinging” lies a profoundly serious issue. Ensz was acquitted on the grounds of free speech. But what exactly does that mean nowadays? We are living in a time when words are increasingly punished and seen as "violence" -- while actions, which used to be the only thing punishable by the courts, are now defined as speech and protected accordingly.

Is it any wonder that many of us are scratching our heads and wondering when it was that words lost their simple and direct meaning? Was it when Clinton made famous the phrase, “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is”? Or was it when Sunday morning pundits began celebrating how cleverly a politician could use words to obfuscate what he really thinks? Regardless of when it happened, I don’t think I am alone in my concern that the basic principles on which I grew up are being turned upside down.

Would the jury have voted for acquittal if say, Ensz had chosen to burn a cross on Al Sharpton’s lawn and called it free speech? I doubt it. Without clear principles that transcend personal tastes, we are up dung’s creek.

There is a well developed movement that has coined the phrase “verbal violence”. Barak Obama used the term when asked about the horrors at Virginia Tech in April. Obama went on to say that “much of the problem is rooted in our incapacity to recognize ourselves in each other.” Frankly, there is a limit to which I am willing to recognize myself in another—particularly a mass murderer. The blurring of distinctions between who is a victim and who is a perpetrator is another great contributor to this upside down thinking.

Today, the perpetrators of horrific crimes are characterized as victims and the victims of those crimes are asked to master the art of “forgiveness” in order to heal. What’s going on here? Erasing the line between what we think about doing and what we actually do is to ultimately erase personal responsibility for the choices we make. When those distinctions are lost, our safety and civility are at stake. Thought is action, action is thought. Criminals are victims, and victims are criminals.

The growing confusion about the simple and clear definition of free speech itself is also contributing to the problem The First Amendment protects you from being punished by the government for what you say. It does not protect you from being criticized by those for whom you work, clients you serve, or those who choose to watch your movies.

It occurred to me that one of the reasons so many people have trouble with this definition, is because they think of the government and all other private institutions as one in the same. We must stop moving in that direction. Protecting that distinction protects us all.

The right to be offended and the right to disapprove didn’t used to have to be explained and protected. Now, apparently it does. Making clear distinctions and respecting that words have specific meanings, is one of the ways we can turn the world right side up again.

What's meant by 'rendering to Caesar'?

I’ve been struck by two thoughts lately, one thought expands on my April 1 post concerning the political leanings of Jesus, the second asks to what extent faith and politics can or cannot accompany each other. It may not be fashionable to say, but it is certainly true; you can legislate morality. In fact I'd actually contend that every law adopted from seat-belt laws to smoking bans to insurance mandates is morality codified, heck the most morally telling law we pass is the budget – “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). When I say that we can legislate morality, and then I give the examples above, I am not talking about philosophical morality but rather, I mean that we can "impose by law our moral code on others and make them behave as we expect." It is far more difficult, maybe impossible, to use the force of law to compel the conscience of someone else to believe as we do. Society creates and encourages behavior it deems moral precisely through the force of law, but we cannot – and do not expect our laws to change the heart of another person. We can stop a man from murder, but we cannot stop a man from thinking murderous thoughts.

From birth through death we are constantly searching for who we are, and our individual identity - how we see ourselves - is closely tied to who we are in community and how we live our lives in relation to others. Our relationships with each other and with the greater community around us shape who we are and how we see ourselves. How we choose to be involved in the lives around us often defines us not only in the eyes of others, for a man is known to those around him by his actions, but also defines us to ourselves, for who but God knows our hearts and minds as well as we do. In other words, how I see myself is determined by what I do.

So what about political involvement? As an individual in relationship to Christ as well as to one’s fellow man, politics would seem a natural extension of living in a community. For Christians, there is some good in being politically involved, but that is not the good, or even the key ground to fight over in this world. What is Good is to live lives that draw others to Christ - and draw ourselves ever closer at the same time. Some good comes from politics and social action, and from pursuing and advocating for policies that strengthen the moral fabric of society - the founding ethics of biblical Christianity and Judaism.

To live Christianly, to have my actions truly reflect my heart, must lead to some difference in our world, some "rendering unto Caesar.” It's important to create laws that protect the innocent and punish the guilty, it is important to vote, and to use our God-given freedom to create a country that seeks liberty and justice, a country that loves and encourages what is right and true. But more than working to affect the country, Christians must realize that it is when Christians seek to act like Christ that they most inspire their community. It is the heart that influences one to follow laws, though laws will always be necessary.

I guess my point is that people don't find that out by simply following laws.

A Coloradan's immigration plea to Congress

By John Andrews On May 17 in Washington DC, the same afternoon Senate Republicans and the Bush administration were capitulating to Ted Kennedy and Democrats on amnesty for illegal aliens, I was urging the opposite policy as a witness before the House Immigration Subcommittee, with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) presiding and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) as the ranking minority member. This was my testimony:

Mme. Chairman and committee, Colorado is close to the front line of America’s unsecured southern border. We are a conduit for massive illegal traffic into this country. I dealt with the consequences as Senate President, 2003-2005. I bring you an appeal from our state to build the fence and secure the border first and foremost. I urge you not to reward lawbreakers with green cards and citizenship.

People in my state are self-reliant in their way of life, optimistic in their outlook, and welcoming to newcomers from anywhere in the world. We are not complainers, and we are not alarmists.

But we know a problem when we see one, and we expect a bargain to be kept. Right now millions of Coloradans see the invasion of illegal aliens as an urgent problem for our state, and we attribute that problem to the federal government’s failure to keep its bargain with Americans everywhere for secure borders and the rule of law.

Amnesty for illegal aliens was supposed to fix this problem 20 years ago. It did not. Estimates today put the illegal alien population of Colorado at somewhere between 250,000 to 750,000 people – as much as 15 percent of the entire population.

Our schools, our health care system, and our criminal justice system are groaning under this burden. Our common culture and common language are fraying. We feel that Washington has let us down. It seems Congress and the White House just don’t care.

Most of those individuals who broke the law to come here or stay here are probably good people with good motives. But we cannot be sure. Some may be enemy sleepers with deadly intent. Nor can we be sure how many of them are actually here, or what countries they came from.

I can tell you that their country of origin does not matter at all to my fellow Coloradans. What matters is their disruptive impact on our state – disrupting self-government, disrupting safe neighborhoods, disrupting affordable public services.

Feeling betrayed by federal inaction, Coloradans last year started a petition to protect affordable public services by restricting them to legal residents only, except in emergencies or by federal mandate. The petition was called Defend Colorado Now. I was one of four co-chairmen, Democrats and Republicans, Anglos and Hispanics, leading that campaign.

A study done for our group, based on documented statistics in the public record, found that illegal aliens were costing state taxpayers over $1 billion a year through the extra burden on services -- and reducing family paychecks by another $2 billion a year through lower wages. (See full study at www.defendcoloradonow.org .)

In 2005, Colorado voters had approved a ballot issue to raise taxes by about $1 billion a year – which would not have been necessary if the federal government had kept its bargain for secure borders. In 2006 Coloradans set out to do what we could about the problem ourselves. Our petition fell short, but it did push the legislature into passing some of the toughest ID requirements and workplace sanctions of any state.

The legislature also asked voters to approve a lawsuit against the US Attorney General, demanding enforcement of federal immigration laws in order to give us some budgetary relief in the areas of health care, law enforcement, criminal defense and incarceration, and education. It passed by a landslide and the Colorado lawsuit is now in federal court. We’re not holding our breath, but it shows the public impatience on this issue.

I grew up in a Colorado mountain town called Buena Vista. This week there was a national news report alleging that radical Islamists have a paramilitary training camp at Buena Vista. I wonder if some of them are illegal aliens, similar to the Fort Dix cell that was recently broken up. That’s the risk we take with an unsecured border in the middle of a global war.

As the father of a Denver police officer, I have to take such threats seriously. One of my son’s fellow officers, Donald Young, was brutally murdered by an illegal alien two years ago this month. My son has a T-shirt that says “Never Forget.” Coloradans have not forgotten, but we can’t solve this problem without your help in Congress.

The help we need is for you to build the fence and secure the border, period. No amnesty for lawbreakers. No so-called comprehensive solution for cheap votes and cheap labor. Just stop the invasion.

Thank you for the opportunity to present my state’s concerns.

'Courage gone,' saith the prophet

(By John Andrews) Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the prophetic voice who helped bring down Soviet communism, gave one of the most important warnings of our time in his address at Harvard, June 1978. It is required reading for anyone who cares about America's backbone. I was reminded of it last weekend on the radio when Dr. Jack Wheeler mentioned a lack of "civilizational confidence" among US elites, and when Nathan Chambers quoted Solzhenitsyn's "decline in courage" passage (part of the Harvard address) before a Tom Tancredo campaign speech in Aurora. With my urging that you read the address in full, here is that passage:

The decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society.

Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice.

And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries, not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.

Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?

So ends the excerpt from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Harvard address, June 1978. Click here to read the address in full.

Would Tancredo pick McCain for VP?

Memo to Tom: Be a Street Fighter At the May 3 debate, imagine if Tom Tancredo had said: "When I am the Republican nominee for President, I will certainly consider choosing Senator McCain as my Vice President. The kind of running mate I'm looking for is a war hero like John McCain, or a crime-fighter like Rudy Giuliani, or a defender of traditional values like Mitt Romney."

Our Colorado Congressman, bidding for the White House with scant chance of winning but a good chance for leverage over the immigration issue if he stays aggressive, landed a few jabs Thursday but didn't hit his opponents with the kind of body blows it's going to take. Mike Littwin, though distastefully snide as usual, had a point in his May 8 column on this.

My fantasy comeback about McCain for VP was there for the taking after the senator curtly said no to a question about his accepting Tom for VP. The trick is to use any question or topic, no matter what, for a zinger on the immigration issue and America's "mortal danger," as Tancredo's book title has it. Even the organ donor question mentioned by Littwin could be flipped to: "We won't have a country at all to debate such questions unless..."

I urged Tom before his May 5 speech in Denver to load his iPod with "Street Fighting Man" by the Rolling Stones, and make that the campaign theme song from now on. We played some of the song on radio May 6. With apologies to Mick Jagger, here are the adapted lyrics:

Ev'rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy 'Cause summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy But what can a [border hawk] do Except to [barnstorm Iowa and New Hampshire] 'Cause in sleepy [DC] town There's just no place for a street fighting man No

Hey! Think the time is right for [an immigration] revolution But where I live the game to play is compromise solution Well, then what can a poor boy do Except to [shake up every debate] 'Cause in [sanctuary Denver] town There's no place for a street fighting man No

Hey! Said my name is called disturbance I'll shout and scream, I'll [zing the Prez], I'll rail at all his [allies], Well, what can a poor boy do Except to [gamble for all the marbles] 'Cause in sleepy [amnesty] town There's no place for a street fighting man No