POLITICS BY PAIGE

After reading an article on religious freedom in Newsweek by Steven Waldman, I wanted to respond.

Although Mr. Waldman’s article is long and well-written and he has clearly completed extensive research, he seems to be putting all religions in one big category. Not all religions can be lumped together. For example, this would mean overlooking the dangers inherent in Islamic Sharia Law. 

Further, the U. S. Constitution does not promise religious freedom. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . “ The Founding Fathers didn’t want a state religion like the Church of England. The Constitution does not promise religious freedom.

There is good reason for not allowing complete religious freedom in America. U. S. laws outlaw some religious practices. When Utah became a state in 1886, the Church of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) halted the practice of polygamy, thereby conforming to state and federal law. And when the Supreme Court passed Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion became legal over the strong objection of the Catholic Church.

I have little problem with Sharia Law being in a country where there is no United States Constitution. But Sharia Law intends to govern all aspects of public and private life and leaves no room for other governance. Sharia Law and the United States Constitution cannot coexist.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica, under the Penal Law section, some tenets of Sharia Law are discussed. Although Western civilization has had some influence on the Islamic world, these tenets have remained essentially unchanged since Mohammed’s death in 632 A. D.

An eye-for-an-eye is the punishment for murder under Sharia Law. The victim’s family decides how to carry out appropriate retaliation. This is in stark contrast to the provisions of the United States Constitution which provide for trial by jury within the court system and hold that a person is innocent until proven guilty.  

The punishment for theft under Sharia Law is to cut off the thief’s hand.

Under Sharia Law, a married woman accused of extramarital sexual affairs is stoned to death.

Finally, apostasy proves the point that Islam does not allow for religious freedom. “Apostasy” is the renunciation of one’s religion. The punishment of apostasy is death.

There is no religious freedom under Islam.

Is there a solution? Is it possible for Muslims to convert to the America way of life?  I do not have the answer to this important question.

References:

Billion Bibles. Retrieved at http://www.billionbibles.org/sharia/america-sharia-law.html about Sharia Law in America and http://www.bilionbibles.org/sharia/isamization-of-america.html retrieved on May 19, 2017.

El Shamsy, Ahmed and Noel James Coulson. Shari ah, Islamic Law. Updated April 5, 2019. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shariah on May 19, 2019.

Waldman, Steven. Newsweek Magazine. Religious Freedom is America’s Greatest Export – and It’s Under Attack. May 19, 2019. Retrieved on https://www.newsweek.com/2019/05/17/religious-freedom-americas-greatest-export-under-attack-1418121.html on May 18, 2019.

First understand how invasive the “Language of the Left” is. The Liberals want us to use their words when talking about important issues. We must be careful. We have to communicate with Liberals, but we must make sure the terms are clear. Liberals use words with agenda. We Conservatives are Innocents and often go along with Liberals to appease them. This is a mistake. Words and concepts are important.

For example, you must understand the political spectrum goes hard left and hard right and has a moderate middle. Liberals want to place Conservatives on the far right. Conservatives are moderate and should be placed, by definition, at the middle of the political spectrum. That’s because the Constitution was written to protect the rights of all citizens.

The spectrum is used to represent political philosophies. In the “center” are moderates like the Founding Fathers who envisioned the U. S. Constitution. To the far left and far right are found various tyrants and dictators. Identifying and placing tyrants and dictators on the political scale takes careful consideration. I will discuss the various flavors of bad guys in another chapter.

Put a Republican or Democrat on the political scale. I believe three Republican presidents can be classified as true Conservatives. I think of Ronald Reagan as pretty much anchored to the middle, as a Conservative. He believed in going by the U. S. Constitution. I believe Abraham Lincoln was a true Conservative.

It looks like Donald Trump will adhere to the tenets of the Constitution during his two terms in office (as yet to be seen.)

All Democrats in power have demonstrated poor understanding of the U. S. Constitution or a disrespectful disregard for it. I would rank all Democrat leaders left of center on the political spectrum, some by a long way. (What country do they think their in?)

I would even rank most Republicans slightly left of center. Most Republicans are not true Conservatives. Far too many Republicans try to appease the left or exhibit some other form of disloyalty to the concepts the Founding Fathers held dear.

A centered Republican would not lean to the left even a little, because to do so diminishes the power of each American citizen. No self-respecting Conservative would stray from the center — from the buoys of small government, the Bill Rights, and separation of powers.

Therefore, only a small percentage of the members of the Republican Party are true Conservatives.

Please notice I have spoken of Democrats and Republicans in power. The average citizen is, for the most part, unaware of what is going in the upper echelons of government. Ordinary people are trusting and not involved in how the government works. I believe democrats would not vote for a democrat if they really knew what was going on. We would all be conservatives!

To summarize, all Democrats in power are Liberals and must be placed to the left on the political spectrum. (I can’t think of any Democrat who is not left of center, since Joe Lieberman.) Most Republicans are left of center, but still right of the Democrats. Conservatives are the true moderates, by definition, adhering to the U. S. Constitution, which promises Liberty and protects our rights.

California Burning! Repent!

OK, I admit it. I’ve been procrastinating writing this piece. Now I’m, ironically, getting around to it on Thanksgiving Day. I have a lot to be grateful for – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. President Trump. This great country. The U. S. Constitution. But not liberals and their crazy policies. No, those can take away the pursuit of happiness, liberty and, yes, even, life.

Many, many people have died in recent California wildfires.

Yesterday lifesaving rain came to California after many days of drought. Due to ardent firefighting and the merciful rains, the fires in California are nearly contained. There were recently three major ones – the Camp Fire in Northern California and the Woolsey Fire and Hill Fire in the southern part of the state. Even though the fires are largely contained, the search for victims continues. Worry about mud slides and drinking water contamination are on our minds.

The fires began two weeks ago, about November 8, 2018. Acres and acres have burned and many people have lost their lives. For example, according to the official California State web site, the Camp Fire is 90% contained and has burned 153,336 acres. Over 80 people have been identified who died in the Camp Fire. With nearly 1000 listed as missing, the search continues for any remains that may be found in the ashes. The town of Paradise in Butte County in northern California was largely destroyed.

Uncharacteristic of me, I found myself binge-watching news about the fires. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and, although we are some 180 miles southwest of Butte County, we suffered unhealthy air for 13 days. My throat was always dry and the sky was gray. We topped the world’s list of unhealthy air quality worldwide, even finding ourselves ranking above Beijing, China in poor air quality.

Of course, I watched the news when President Trump visited California. He met with outgoing governor Jerry Brown and newly-elected Gavin Newsom.  Jerry Brown and the president shook hands. They were civil to each other. Governor Brown even seemed grateful for President Trump’s promise that the federal government would do all they could to help.

But, after a few days of this binge-watching, I began to wonder something. Was Jerry Brown even sorry about the fires? Admittedly, I wasn’t with him the entire time. There may have been something he said that I missed. But he didn’t seem to be sorry.

President Trump is no scientist. He was poor at explaining that he saw the need for better forest management. He compared California to Finland, which may not be the best comparison. He suggested we needed to rake the forest floors, which would be an impossible task, basically. Thinking about raking California’s forest floors is funny. So, of course, Donald Trump was ridiculed and teased for his comments. But the idea of forest management is sound. California used to manage its forest, cutting swaths of fire roads through forests and taking other precautionary measures.

I consider myself an environmentalist. But there are crazy environmentalists. They have California by the throat. California has been under the leadership of leftwing politicians, progressives and irrational environmentalists for years now and it’s definitely having its toll on our state. The sensible well-run state of Ronald Reagan is no more.

I blame the crazy leftists. But what did cause the fires? I am a teacher, so I decided to write down all the causes that people mentioned during my binge-watching days. I decided it would be educational to have the students reason through the accusations to determine what they thought. The blame went to forest mismanagement, Pacific Gas and Electric, careless people, winds, arsonists, global warming, air temperature, drought, environmentalists and beetles. The federal government was blamed because part of California’s forests are on federal land. California leaders were blamed for policies that lead to mis-management.  Lots of finger-pointing was going on.

I even laughed at myself when I realized I could blame God for punishing California. I haven’t actually read about that blame theory, but I can’t be the only one thinking this story has Biblical scale.

I grew up in the same city as Jerry Brown. I was born in Sacramento. One day, years ago, when I was on a tour of the Governor’s Mansion with my students, I saw some antique toys Jerry and Maureen had played with when they lived there when their father, Pat Brown, was governor. Their toys were my toys. My mother had the same ones saved in her basement. Yes, Jerry and I had a lot in common. I even used to be a liberal. But, at some point in my life, I started to see through the progressive haze to the truth, and I converted to being a staunch and centered constitutional conservative. Whew! I found my way to conservative principles. I made it. But some of my fellow Californians have not. My husband never did. My children haven’t yet and, because I still live in California, I find I am more and more surrounded by the clueless. They have either been lied to or they lie to themselves. I have to just go along to get along. That’s actually why I have a blog. I have to have an outlet somewhere, or I’ll burst!

So, thanks for listening!

Jerry Brown never grew up. He just grew old. He still clings to the fantasies and myths of the liberal left.

So, I started to wonder what was really going on inside Jerry Brown’s mind. We’d had to put up with two terms of Pat brown (which weren’t good) and then two terms from the son Jerry and then, even though a law had been passed that a person could serve no more than two terms, Jerry Brown served another two! He announced that the law didn’t apply to him and I remember thinking that day that he was crowning himself. So, no, I haven’t been happy he was the governor. And it’s gone on and on and on. It’s finally at an end, but Gavin Newson is horrible, so (probably) here we go again.

Back to Jerry. What really makes him tick? I know he wants his highspeed rail even though it’s unaffordable and ridiculous. He probably thinks it’s some kind of legacy. I know he believes in global warming because he’s said so. So, let’s take a look at now. What is he saying now, in real fire time?

He seems smug as if to say, “I told you so.” Deadline Hollywood reported that Brown said we need to adjust to things the way they are and that we will be experiencing a “new abnormal.” Has he decided to settle for this extreme situation where towns burn and lives and homes are lost? What!? And he wants us to settle for that, too?

I found an article that talks about something Brown said last year. “Last year, as California residents were burned out of their towns, homes, neighborhoods . . . hospitals and businesses, Gov. Jerry Brown was jetting around the world spouting climate change propaganda . . . “(Grimes, paragraph 2). He then referred to massive wildfires as the new normal. Does Jerry Brown have the mindset of a pyromaniac? Is he predicting that California will burn and finding satisfaction in knowing he was right?

Most shocking to me was Jerry Brown said that in five years we’ll all believe in global warming.

Suddenly, I connected some dots in my own mind and my own life. Years and years ago my mother took me to see the movie Ben Hur. It was an amazing movie. I enjoyed it immensely. But when Mom picked me up outside the theater, she said something jarring. She said, “Now do you believe in God?”

Well, I did believe in God but not because of some Hollywood movie. What strange things had gone on in my mother’s mind to make her make such a statement? I knew she wasn’t smart. She could manage her life all right but, when it came to anything abstract, she was done. She had no idea what higher mathematics was all about or chemistry or anything that would take deep thinking or abstract reasoning.

I, on the other hand, am good at thinking about difficult things. I have degrees in mathematics and science. Math and science make sense to me.

Growing up with my mother, I knew she was kind of stupid. I had learned to accept it. I did my own thing.

But now Jerry Brown is asking us to believe in global warming. So, was Jerry Brown this same kind of stupid?

I think so.

I’ve taken the time over the last couple weeks to really focus on what comes out of our governor’s mouth.

It isn’t pretty.

And it’s pretty stupid.

So, seems Jerry Brown is ok with the concept of letting things burn.  And, oh no, now we have Gavin Newsom. He may want to continue Brown’s leftwing lunacy. 

Should I consider moving away from my home state? I never thought I wanted to before.

Wake up Californians. Even if you’re an immigrant, if you are voting, for Heaven’s sake educate yourselves and vote conservative.  Even if you’re not voting, educate yourselves. Time is running out!

Save California from further destruction!

———————

References:

1. Grimes, Katy. CA Gov. Jerry Brown Vetoed 2016 Wildfire Management Bill While CA Burning

Bio and Archives — November 17, 2018 |American Politics, News, Opinion | https://canadafreepress.com/article/ca-gov.-jerry-brown-vetoed-2016-wildfire-management-bill-while-ca-burned retrieved on November 22, 2018.

2. Investors. California Gov. Jerry Brown Issues Another Bogus Global Warming Prediction

https://deadline.com/2018/11/california-governor-jerry-brown-donald-trump-woolsey-fire-camp-fire-hill-fire-southern-california-1202499873/ retrieved on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 22, 2018.

3. Ramos, Dino-Ray. Deadline Hollywood.

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/california-wildfires-jerry-brown-climate-change/ retrieved on November 22, 2018.

Brainwashed

It’s taken me days to figure out how to even begin this article. To those of us who are not brainwashed, we see the truth and can’t figure out why you don’t. To those of you who are brainwashed, to point it out to you will only make you angry. You will deny it. You will lash out at us, at least in words. If we suggest your (brainwashed) belief system is wrong, threatens to throw you back into stage two of the brainwashing process where you experience extreme psychological discomfort. You do not want to go there. You would rather hold to a set of lies than risk going back to that dark mental place.

There’s a Forensic Files episode where a young woman is alone in the mountains with a dangerous killer. He has just shot her husband and her beloved dog. During the days and nights they are together, the killer tells the young woman over and over again that he shot the husband by accident. The young woman comes to believe all she is told.

This Forensic Files episode caused me to look up brainwashing. To brainwash someone, complete isolation is required. In the young woman’s case, she was alone in the woods. The agent (the one doing the brainwashing) has control over the subject’s environment, controlling food, sleep and other basic needs. Brainwashing is more successful if the subject is afraid and doesn’t feel safe.

In the 1950’s, Robert Jay Lifton outlined a way to understand the process of brainwashing. First, the subject’s core belief system is broken down. The subject is made to doubt what is held dear and to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt. Next the possibility of salvation is offered. The overwhelming guilt is channeled and used. Lastly, a new belief system offers rebirth and the world is seen in a whole new way.

I was originally going to vote for Ted Cruz for President in 2016, but when he suspended his campaign, I was forced to take another look at Donald Trump. I read his speeches, listened carefully to what he said, and studied his actions before I made up my mind. I realized he had a flaw, if you can call it that. I was so used to Barack Obama’s lies that the fact that Donald Trump told the truth really stood out to me. In fact, he didn’t seem to be able to lie. He blurted out the truth, whether we wanted him to or not.

So, here’s the simple test. A brainwashed liberal thinks Donald Trump lies. This has come to my attention on several occasions. No matter what the subject of conversation, if the word “lie” comes up, a brainwashed liberal will say “Trump lies.” I have been shocked to hear someone say that. Even if the conversation has zero to do with politics or Trump, out comes the comment: “Trump lies.” Perhaps you have noticed this yourself or, now that I’ve written it, you will notice it.

The next thing is that I ask, “What has Donald Trump said that is a lie?”

The brainwashed liberal cannot think of a single thing.

This is evidence of brainwashing.

The person is not thinking.

The thought has been planted there.

Scary.

Also scary is that there is no interest on the part of the brainwashed person to take another good, hard, honest look at the truth.

References:

Layton, Julia. How Brainwashing Works. Retrieved from https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/brainwashing3.htm on November 8, 2018

Due Process

            The United States Constitution is our friend. It guarantees American citizens important rights. For example, we are promised that, if accused of a crime, we will be presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty. We will be afforded “due process.”

The Fifth Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution provides,  “No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Fourteenth Amendment carries this message to all fifty states.

However, it seems fake news coming from the mainstream media is determined to short circuit due process and jump from accused to “guilty.”

First, I noticed it most clearly after the Brett Kavanaugh nomination. When Dr. Ford accused Mr. Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, the news took the accusation and used it as both proof of guilt and punishment. Without any form of due process, Mr. Kavanaugh was treated as guilty only because he was accused. Further, the accusation was used as a bludgeoning tool to hit Mr. Kavanaugh over and over again.

There is no evidence any accusations against Mr. Kavanaugh were true. He has had an exemplary career in the legal system and as federal judge.

I believe the accusations and the repetition by the mainstream media were politically motivated. I believe the left just didn’t want a conservative judge appointed to the Supreme Court. (I only hope Mr. Kavanaugh is as conservative as he should be to hold true to the Constitution. If you are reading this, Mr. Kavanaugh, don’t let the b ——- get you down. Hold true to what’s right.)

Next, I saw a headline in a San Francisco newspaper blasting Catholic priests with accusations. I believe those priests are American citizens and must be afforded due process. They are not guilty unless guilt is proven in a court of law.

“The announcement followed shocking report last month from a Pennsylvania grand jury that found the Catholic Church there guilty of covering up abuse by more than 300 priests over 70 years”(McBride, paragraph 2). I’m not Catholic but I am offended by this article. My understanding is that a grand jury does not try and convict. Note the paper said the church was guilty, not the individuals. In my opinion, the story in the Chronicle is irresponsible and inflammatory. Imagine you are an innocent priest and your name is released. Lives will be ruined. This is a violation of due process and it’s unamerican. It’s something that would come from a third world country with an unenlightened government and uneducated populace.

I’m a teacher. We are studying the Constitution as part of our government class. I bought a copy of the newspaper and showed it to my class. I gave the two examples of the media’s use of accusations and indictments — treatment of Brett Kavanaugh and the Catholic priests. One of the students announced she didn’t like Brett Kavanaugh anyway. I stated she was entitled to her opinion, that I just wanted students to realize American citizens have the right to due process. No one is assumed to be guilty just because he or she is accused. The girl did not seem to understand the point.

I was disheartened. I hope the others in the class understood the point. Unless we know what is guaranteed in the United States Constitution and demand our leaders adhere to that, how can America continue to exist as a free nation?

If we don’t understand and value our own rights and freedoms, evil political leaders may take those rights and freedoms away.

Finally, I told my class that due process applies to all Americans, even ones we don’t like.

• – – – – – – –

References:

McBride, Ashley and Erin Allday. San Francisco Chronicle. September 14, 2018. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/San-Jose-s-Catholic-diocese-will-release-names-13230817.php, , retrieved October 20, 2018.