EDWARD CLINE:”Transformation” via “Rehabilitation”
http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2014/02/transformation-via-rehabilitation.html
Americans, says the deconstructionist Left, need to be rehabilitated. They need to get their minds right. If they won’t do it themselves, voluntarily, then legislation, courts, lawsuits, civil rights laws, “social pressure,” public demonization, social harassment, marginalization, and even physical or death threats, must do it for them.
The “rehabilitation” won’t be as physically agonizing as that which Winston Smith underwent in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, but the consequences would be the same: a mind tortured out of its sovereignty, and, in effect, deconstructed to conform and defer to the power of the State.
Americans need to be deconstructed and put back together again, just as American history has been deconstructed in government-approved textbooks, and the concept of marriage, and freedom of association, and business ownership, and gender itself, are being deconstructed, reconstructed, and revised to reflect the new political and social realities. Some Americans, once deconstructed, like Humpty Dumpty, won’t be able to be put back together again, and that’s too bad. They, the advance guard of deconstruction and mandatory rehabilitation, won’t miss them. They, the waves of the future, just wish that constitutional reprobates and political recidivists would do them the courtesy and drop dead and save them the trouble of taking real action against them.
Hard but promising, conciliatory cases have a choice between classroom reeducation in a local community college, or rehabilitation in a Nevada desert camp or an Alaskan labor center.
All they’re asking is that Americans be just like them: deconstructed. Cases in point:
You have no right to refuse to deal with anyone, says the government, regardless of your convictions, religious or not, and especially not if the people you refuse to deal with are gay. In “Judge Rules Colorado Bakery Discriminated Against Gay Couple,” Ashby Jones wrote in the Wall Street Journal on December 6th, 2013:
Two gay men in Colorado won discrimination claims against a bakery that refused to sell them a wedding cake, beating back the business owner’s argument that he had the constitutional right to decline service to a gay couple for religious reasons.
In a ruling issued Friday, an administrative law judge in Denver, Robert Spencer, ruled that by rebuffing the couple’s attempt to buy a cake, Masterpiece Cakeshop violated a state law bagging discrimination in a public place on grounds of sexual orientation.
The baker, Jack Phillips, had argued that applying the antidiscrimination law in this context violated his First Amendment free-speech and freedom-of-religion rights….
But Judge Spencer shot down the constitutional arguments, noting that the Supreme Court has “repeatedly found” that those engaged in commercial activity are subject to state discrimination laws, regardless of their religious beliefs.
The chief problem here is not Jack Phillips or even the gay couple, but antidiscrimination law, federal, state and local. Discrimination law nullifies the freedom of association. If you don’t choose to associate, or deal with, or do business with someone, whatever your reason, that is your business, and not the government’s. But a welfare state cum totalitarian state can only use force to overrule your mind, your values, and your convictions. Free society? Not any more. The deconstructionists like it that way. They want what they want, and will have their way with you.
Or, take the case of the bakery in Oregon, as reported by Fox News on January 21st, “Oregon ruling really takes the cake – Christian bakery guilty of violating civil rights of lesbian couple“:
The owners of a Christian bakery who refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple are facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines after they were found guilty of violating the couple’s civil rights.
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said they found “substantial evidence” that Sweet Cakes by Melissa discriminated against the lesbian couple and violated the Oregon Equality Act of 2007, a law that protects the rights of the LGBT community.
Last year, the bakery’s owners refused to make a wedding cake for Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman, of Portland, citing their Christian beliefs. The couple then filed a complaint with the state.
We have raised a generation or two of whim-worshipping wussies who turn to the government when their “feelings” are hurt. Obviously, Cryer and Bowman could go elsewhere for their wedding cake (and probably by this time have), but chose instead to advance the deconstructionist LGBT cause in the country by putting the screws to a small business. The object: to punish the “offender” and hold the owners up as an example what will happen to anyone else who chooses to adhere to their convictions. They wish the “offenders” to act against their convictions (however irrational or rational they may be), and just obey. Cryer and Bowman (why not “Bowperson,” that would be in conformance with the anti-man premises of the couple) have displayed their totalitarian minds.
The backlash against Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the bakery, was severe. Gay rights groups launched protests and pickets outside the family’s store. They threatened wedding vendors who did business with the bakery. And, Klein told me, the family’s children were targets of death threats. The family eventually had to close their retail shop and now operate the bakery out of their home.
Under state law, the complaint against the bakery now moves into a period of reconciliation. If they can’t reach an agreement, formal civil charges could be filed and the Kleins could face hundreds of thousands of dollar in fines.
Last August, Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian told The Oregonian, their desire is to rehabilitate businesses like the one owned by the Christian couple.
“Everybody is entitled to their own beliefs, but that doesn’t mean that folks have the right to discriminate,” he told the newspaper. “The goal is never to shut down a business. The goal is to rehabilitate.” [Italics mine]
In short: You may hold any convictions you wish, but dare not act on them lest you run afoul of the law and incur the wrath of those you have offended. Hold any ideas you wish, but hold a contradiction in your mind, as well, and attempt to live with it. If it causes you distress, too bad. Gay “rights” trump the integrity and honor of your mind. Gays, lesbians, welfare mothers, and what-have-you have a “right” to your product, whether or not you want to sell it to them.
The Kleins warned that what happened to them could happen to other Christian business owners. And it already has.
In December a Colorado baker was ordered by a judge to either serve gay weddings or face fines. Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, was told to “cease and desist from discriminating” against gay couples. Phillips is a Christian.
New Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in August that two Christian photographers who declined to photograph a same-sex union violated the state’s Human Rights Act. One justice said photographers Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin were “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”
And the Washington attorney general filed a lawsuit against a florist who refused to provide flowers for a same-sex couple’s wedding. Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers & Gifts filed a countersuit, telling the Christian Broadcasting Network she “had to take a stand” in defense of her faith in Christ. Perkins told me that in many cases gay couples are targeting businesses owned by Christians.
The issue has little to do with Christian beliefs, or any system of beliefs. It has to do with forcing a mind to act against one’s best interests and values. When I do book signings, I could just as well tell a gay couple to get away from my table because I don’t like gays, or because I don’t like a person’s clothing, or because the person has body odor, or I’m repelled by the person’s pierced nose and lower lip, or because the person is black, yellow, brown or green, and refuse to talk with the person or sell him one of my books. Whatever reason I chose to cite, is my call, not the government’s or a gay couple’s or a Muslim’s. The rationality or irrationality of my reasons is not the government’s to judge, assess, or forbid. I alone should be able to incur the rewards or losses stemming from my choices.
Either I own my own mind, or I don’t. Either I establish the rules of my life in the way of freedom of association, or I’m just a steward of property – my mind, my life – claimed by the government or by any random individual that approaches my table.
In a CBS affiliate’s story of December 6th, “Judge Orders Colorado Cake Maker to Serve Gay Couples,” quoted one of the gays who were turned away by Masterpiece Cakeshop:
Mullins said he and Craig are “ecstatic.” “To a certain extent, though, I don’t think that this is necessarily a surprise,” he said. “We thought it was pretty clear cut that he had discriminated against us.”Mullins said he hopes the “decision will help ensure that no one else will experience this kind of discrimination again in Colorado.”
Let that be a lesson to you, all you un-deconstructed genders. The deconstructionists, in and out of government, must always resort to force to compel a mind to do their bidding. And they don’t care. Their non-hurt feelings are all that matter.
Arizona Governor Janet Brewer is undecided whether or not to veto a bill, passed by the legislature that would permit businesses to “discriminate” against gays. The law is an ill-considered, concrete-bound backlash against the whole leftist national campaign to legitimize gay unions and to force businesses to cater to them regardless of anyone’s objection to homosexuality. Such laws do not address the fundamental right of freedom of association and freedom of trade, focusing as they do on mere religious grounds. An example of this is apparent in an NBC News story of February 24th, “Big Business to Arizona: Gay Discrimination Bill Bad for Economy“:
Apple, American Airlines and Marriott delivered a message to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday: State legislation allowing companies to discriminate against gays on religious grounds would be bad for business.
The conservative Republican governor is facing growing pressure over the bill, which the statehouse passed last Thursday. Opponents have called it “state-sanctioned discrimination” and an embarrassment.”
Apple and a slew of big-name firms issued letters and made phone calls to Brewer on Monday telling her the state would take a financial hit if the law passed, according to CNBC. Apple is just about to open large new glass manufacturing plant in Mesa, Arizona. Marriott, meanwhile, noted that their bottom-line could suffer as a result of the bill.
This measure “would have profound negative impacts on the hospitality industry on the Arizona and on the state’s overall economic climate for years to come,” the hotel chain said in a statement. American Airlines noted how deeply Arizona suffered during the recession and said: “Our economy thrives best when the doors of commerce are open to all. This bill sends the wrong message.”
This is a most curious objection to the discrimination law. Call it a preemptive LGBT impact statement, based on hand-wringing economics. When was the last time Apple, American Airlines, or Marriott asked customers about their “sexual orientation”? Do they compile statistics on the number of gay and non-gay customers? Would federal law even allow them to ask such questions? Has any one of these companies discriminated against anyone on religious grounds, or broadcast their own religious convictions and turned down business because of them? I doubt it.
However, again, the law and the objections are not based on any fundamental concepts concerning freedom of association, of the freedom to deal with, trade with, be friends with, or even enemies with. The question is: What business is it of government to pass any legislation governing free association? The answer is: None.
Governor Brewer, according to a CNN story of February 21st, “Arizona passes controversial anti-gay bill,” almost gets it right:
“I think anybody that owns a business can choose who they work with or who they don’t work with,” Brewer told CNN in Washington on Friday. “But I don’t know that it needs to be statutory. In my life and in my businesses, if I don’t want to do business or if I don’t want to deal with a particular company or person or whatever, I’m not interested. That’s America. That’s freedom.”
That was the freedom that was, and the America that was.
The ancestor of the new “civil rights” is the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
In 1964 Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241). The provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The word “sex” was added at the last moment….
The final bill also allowed sex to be a consideration when sex is a bona fide occupational qualification for the job. Title VII of the act created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to implement the law.
Subsequent legislation expanded the role of the EEOC. Today, according to the U. S. Government Manual of 1998-99, the EEOC enforces laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or age in hiring, promoting, firing, setting wages, testing, training, apprenticeship, and all other terms and conditions of employment. Race, color, sex, creed, and age are now protected classes. The proposal to add each group to protected-class status unleashed furious debate. But no words stimulate the passion of the debate more than “affirmative action.”
Before anyone exclaims, “Horrors! Cline is against the Civil Rights Act!” readers should examine the law themselves and judge whether or not it conforms to today’s newly-created “civil rights” in freedom of association in business in the way of trading with customers or prospective customers, and not just in employment. Yes, I have always questioned the soundness of the Civil Rights Act, because it paved the way for today’s lunatic injustices and the violation of individual rights. It merely codified those violations.
And allowed the new “protected class” to assert its power over everyone else, and to proceed with its deconstructionist agenda to rehabilitate the whole country – with force. It fits right in with Barack Obama’s plan to “transform” the country.
“In five days we are going to fundamentally transform America.”
….into tribes of protected classes, who cannot be refused anything.
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