Twitchy

Someone Asked: ‘Name A War That Wasn’t Based On Religion’

Published by Papa Giorgio

TWITCHY stats the party off thus:

  • Sometimes, someone says something on X that’s just begging to get ratioed and go viral. Such is the case with one user who — rather smugly — asked users to ‘name a war that wasn’t based on religion.’

Here is the original challenge:

Lol.

I responded in TWITCHY’s comments thus:

A recent comprehensive compilation of the history of human warfare, Encyclopedia of Wars by Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod documents 1763 wars, of which 123 have been classified to involve a religious conflict. So, what atheists have considered to be ‘most’ really amounts to less than 7% of all wars. It is interesting to note that 66 of these wars (more than 50%) involved Islam, which did not even exist as a religion for the first 3,000 years of recorded human warfare.

Even the Seven Years’ War, widely recognized to be “religious” in motivation, noting that the warring factions were not necessarily split along confessional lines as much as along secular interests. And the Thirty Years’ War cannot be viewed as “religious” in that you should find certain aspects if this were the case. For instance, professor Cavanaugh offers the following short critique after a long list of historical instances [included below] building-up-to and during the Thirty Years’ War.

(RPT)

 

More TWIXES:






 

Big Win for the 1st / Big Loss for David French

Published by Papa Giorgio

5th circuit – Biden White House, FBI likely violated the first amendment

TWITCHY!

While the Second Amendment is being violated in Arizona, we are getting news tonight that the First Amendment is being honored in the Fifth Circuit court of appeals.

Previously, we told you about Missouri v. Biden. As we said on July 4 of this year when the district court issued an injunction:

This is huge deal. This is potentially a landmark case on how the First Amendment applies in the age of social media[.]

We also covered that case here, here and here.

Generally speaking, it is widely believed that social media is free to censor people as they see fit. We believe there might be some legal arguments that can be made against that, but that is a common belief. ‘They’re just private companies making their own decisions’ is the argument offered by people defending this censorship. For instance, here’s uber-weenie David French making that argument:

We have suspected for years that this was French just running interference, and that, in fact, he likes Internet censorship. Recently, he confirmed our suspicions: 

Antisemitism speech is free speech, however vile it can be. So French is upset that Twitter/X is allowing for free speech. We would rather have people feel free to say vile things then have someone decide what kind of speech is allowed.

But the other retort to the French view is presented in Missouri v. Biden, because the argument in that case is that the social media companies were not simply acting on their own. Private action can become government action, under the right circumstances—the most obvious being when the government coerces the private action. The lower court found that various social media companies—like Twitter/X, Meta/Facebook and Google/YouTube were—were not censoring based on their own desires, but because of illegal government pressure. As a result, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction, prohibiting a broad range of communication by the government, and it applied nationwide. If you have been on social media since then, this order protected your right to free speech.

The Biden administration appealed and tonight they largely lost. The Fifth Circuit largely upheld that order, explaining that this was the standard for when private action became state action.

The government cannot abridge free speech. U.S. Const. amend. I. A private party, on the other hand, bears no such burden—it is ‘not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment.’ Manhattan Cmty. Access Corp. v. Halleck, 139 S. Ct. 1921, 1930 (2019). That changes, though, when a private party is coerced or significantly encouraged by the government to such a degree that its ‘choice’—which if made by the government would be unconstitutional, Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 465 (1973)—’must in law be deemed to be that of the State.’ Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1004 (1982); Barnes v. Lehman, 861 F.2d 1383, 1385–36 (5th Cir. 1988). This is known as the close nexus test.

They also found that the Plaintiffs, including many doctors, state officials and even the Gateway Pundit had met the requirement that there be a sufficient threat of irreparable harm:

We agree that the Plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to suffer an irreparable injury. Deprivation of First Amendment rights, even for a short period, is sufficient to establish irreparable injury. 

So, they largely upheld the lower court’s order. They did tighten up the list of officials being enjoined and they clarified the language so it clearly prevented both coercion and ‘significant encouragement’ as the law prohibits. This means that the Biden administration can ask nicely for censorship but can’t engage in the kind of pressure campaigns it has in the past…..

 

Media Black Out Of Kavanaugh Attempted Assassination (Bill Maher)

Published by Papa Giorgio

BILL MAHER UPDATE!

Bill Maher Rips NY Times for Burying Justice Kavanaugh Assassination Attempt

(TWITCHY)

Zero mentions from ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. We’d put on our shocked faces here but at this point, we don’t have the energy to pretend for these hypocrites.

Imagine if the roles in this scenario were reversed?

[….]

TO WIT…..

An Historian Flubs on recent and Civil Rights Era History

Published by Papa Giorgio

My attention was first brought to this via TWITCHY, where they document other errors on top of this one. But I wanted to expand the area a bit the quote was in to show just how racially biased this author is. As a favored lefty professor of mine says… “to be on the side of the angels.”

LEGAL INSSURECTION’S post is an interesting read as well, where he notes:

  • Cooney’s book is virulently anti-white in passages. If I were a parent with a child at UCLA or one who was considering that school as an option, would I really want said child to go to a school where racist screeds are an acceptable form of scholarship?

Here is the fuller quote for those that want the before-and-after sentences:

There can be no better image of the shifting sands beneath our feet than a Black Lives Matter demonstration in St. Louis, Missouri. It passed the marble-clad home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, two wealthy White lawyers each aiming their precious firearms directly at the crowd: an AR-Is rifle in the arms of Mark, in a pink polo shirt, and a tiny silver handgun held by Patricia, in a striped Hamburglar top. The couple had the weapons cocked and ready to shoot because they believed that the BLM marchers would break into their home, take their things, and do them grave harm. This visualized death threat directed at the protestors was their right, they believed, their privilege to show to society.

Or consider I7-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who used his semi-automatic weapon to kill two Black men in Kenosha, Wisconsin, while waging a glorious race war on behalf of his inherited White power. That’s not to mention the White people who rallied behind him to post his bail. Fear has gripped the patriarchy, and the threat of righteous violence—or the lethal use of it—is the patriarchy’s response.

Kara Cooney, The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Books, 2021), 341.

Here is the other glaring rewriting of history by a historian:

Here is that section — and BTW, no source (FOX NEWS, Kara McKinney, etc), had the page numbers to this section:

If we are to change the patriarchy from within, we’ll have to use dif­ferent tactics from the ones we’ve tried before. Consider the example of the Black Lives Matter movement, whose radical inclusion of all manner of people is the jujitsu move against a more powerful opposition. We all remember that the fight against separate-but-equal segregation — at lunch counters, elementary schools, universities, and public spaces — [<p. 349 | >p. 350] made Rosa Parks a hero when she took a seat in the White section of a public bus and started the Montgomery bus boycott. But the people who led the charge in the I96os were male civil rights activists — Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and John Lewis. In the 1960s, patriarchy combated patriarchy.

Kara Cooney, The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Books, 2021), 349-350.

TWITCHY continues with its refutation:

She could have, you know, just checked Wikipedia before writing the book:

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks rejected bus driver James F. Blake‘s order to vacate a row of four seats in the “colored” section in favor of a white passenger, once the “white” section was filled.

Kara McKinney’s point about National Geographic having better editor’s should not be lost on the reader. Here is NAT GEOS PAGE on this historical event:

  • Nonetheless, at one point on the route, a white man had no seat because all the seats in the designated “white” section were taken. So the driver told the riders in the four seats of the first row of the “colored” section to stand, in effect adding another row to the “white” section. The three others obeyed. Parks did not.

…AND…

CHARLIE KIRK reiterates the windfall surely to come to Kyle:

….During an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Rittenhouse said his legal team is in the process of going after individuals who slandered and defamed him in the media.

When Carlson asked Kyle if he planned to hold “liars to account” who defamed him, Rittenhouse responded, “I have really good lawyers who are taking care of that right now.”

“So, I’m hoping one day there will be some, there’ll be accountability for their actions that they did,” Rittenhouse said.

During an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Rittenhouse said his legal team is in the process of going after individuals who slandered and defamed him in the media.

When Carlson asked Kyle if he planned to hold “liars to account” who defamed him, Rittenhouse responded, “I have really good lawyers who are taking care of that right now.”

“So, I’m hoping one day there will be some, there’ll be accountability for their actions that they did,” Rittenhouse said…..

At least she got the “Semi-Automatic” part of the AR-15 correct. Lol.

Larry Elder rips media for playing the race card in Rittenhouse trial

 

The Kiss of Tolerance = “Tolerance” Camps for Dissenters

Published by Papa Giorgio

Gay Patriot has a great short commentary that led to me inserting the above video:

A player for the Miami Dolphins has been fined, suspended, and sentenced to Tolerance Camp for sending an unsupportive tweet upon the occasion of Michael Sam’s drafting and the PDA that followed.

[….]

Also, NBC’s Matt Lauer drives home the point that it doesn’t matter what a player does on the field, but who he goes to bed with at night that the MFM care about by calling for more gay Affirmative Action in the NFL. (Once again citing the tiresome “Right side of history” cliche leftists use because, apparently, being a leftist gives you the power of precognition to know how History is going to work out.)

“The big picture here in terms of the NFL, is this a sea change or is this a one-off? Is this the league moving to the right side of history? Which by the way, they really can’t do unless more players come forward.”

Powerline as well wades into the thick of the topic with this great commentary on the whole matter:

I wrote here about the selection by the St. Louis Rams of Michael Sam, an openly gay football player. The selection brought widespread praise including, predictably enough, from President Obama.

But at least one football player, Don Jones of the Miami Dolphins, reacted negatively — probably not to the selection itself, but rather to the exuberant kisses on the lips that Sam exchanged with his boyfriend while the cameras were rolling.

Jones tweeted “OMG” and “horrible.” For this expression of opinion, Jones has been duly punished. The Dolphins have denounced and fined him, and have barred him from team activities until he attends and completes “educational training.” Jones has issued an abject apology.

The Dolphins, of course, are still trying to overcome the adverse publicity generated by the Richie Incognito-Jonathan Martin “bullying” affair. But I suspect they would have come down hard on Jones regardless. The NFL — a thoroughly authoritarian operation that hardly allows players to celebrate touchdowns — is determined to crush any public expression of disapproval relating to Sam by anyone associated with the league.

Doing so will help the NFL’s image with the PC crowd and the gay community. Whether it will help Sam is another matter.

Jones probably isn’t the only NFL player who considered Sam’s very public wet kiss “horrible.” And more than a few players probably will resent seeing a fellow player silenced and shamed for expressing a sentiment they share or at least understand. That resentment might well manifest itself in resentment of Sam beyond the probably slight amount he would have experienced due to his sexual orientation.

Not much is sacred in a sports locker room or on the field. Attempts by the NFL to make Michael Sam a sacred cow may prove counterproductive.

Sam himself says he wants to be treated like a football player, not a gay football player. Football players are teased constantly for whatever it is they plausibly can be teased about. No speech code protects them. This is especially true of rookies.

[….]

Hot Air wonders what will happen if the Rams cut Michael Sam, not an uncommon fate for a player selected so late in the draft. The question answers itself: the Rams will be lambasted as “homophobic” and the NFL will suffer a black eye.

[….]

…Sterling engaged in a personal conversation that he did not intend to be made public. Were his comments offensive? Sure. Mostly, they were weird. But Sterling never meant to shove them into anyone’s face. Contrast this with the Sam kiss: why were television cameras present to record it in the first place? Did ESPN televise the reactions of any other 7th round draft choices? I don’t think so. The cameras were waiting for Sam to get the call only because he is gay, and the television networks want to promote the cause of homosexual equivalence. Is it unreasonable to infer that the kiss was televised precisely so that some individuals like Jones would take offense, and then be made into a lesson for the rest of us?

…read it all…

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