It's a Kenny Boy Paxton newsapalooza

First, the Fifth Circuit, en banc, will hear the Ten Commandments in schools lawsuits in both Texas and Louisiana in January. A three-judge panel, the norm, had already blocked Louisiana's law. For whatever reason, Kenny Boy Paxton jumped the legal gun in a sense and asked for an immediate en banc. As the story notes, this is headed to the Supremes anyway, so it's just Kenny Boy pouting over the Fifth Circuit's panel and hoping he can get the full set of judges to vote his way. In reality, that's not likely; yes, the Fifth tilts strongly conservative in general, but it also tilts strongly pro-civil liberties.

Speaking of, who called Kenny Boy "brazen"? Or at least, a lawsuit of his? None other than Secretary of State Jane Nelson, in her response to him suing the SoS office to try to force closed primaries in the state. 

Meanwhile, in a Halloween trick for him and treat for others, Kenny Boy on Oct. 31 had a New York state district judge metaphorically laugh in his face and dismiss his attempt to get a Tex-ass civil judgment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter for remotely prescribing abortion pills legally enforced. 

We have a second — and much better — lawsuit against the Ten Commandments in Texas

And this one is a much better vehicle than the first one, for this reason right here:

“As a rabbi and public school parent, I am deeply concerned that S.B. 10 will impose another faith’s scripture on students for nearly every hour of the school day,” said plaintiff Rabbi Mara Nathan (she/her). “While our Jewish faith treats the Ten Commandments as sacred, the version mandated under this law does not match the text followed by our family, and the school displays will conflict with the religious beliefs and values we seek to instill in our child.”

As I noted when the first suit was filed, it was primarily about personal aggrievement. This one expresses the universal First Amendment problem. (Surely, in either the House or the Senate, there's a Catholic wingnut or two, even if Catholic wingnut Drew Springer has retired, who could have reminded Protestant wingnuts that Catholics disagree with Calvinist and Anabaptist Protestants on what commandments are in those "Ten" Commandments. But, assuming I'm right, they're that chicken-shit to not argue over WHOSE Ten Commandments.)

If that doesn't do it, having someone from a non-Abrahamic religion will add to it:

“S.B. 10 imposes a specific, rules-based set of norms that is at odds with my Hindu faith,” said plaintiff Arvind Chandrakantan (he/him). “Displaying the Ten Commandments in my children’s classrooms sends the message that certain aspects of Hinduism — like believing in multiple paths to God (pluralism) or venerating murthis (statues) as the living, breathing, physical representations of God — are wrong. Public schools — and the state of Texas — have no place pushing their preferred religious beliefs on my children, let alone denigrating my faith, which is about as un-American and un-Texan as one can be.”

For good measure, a secularist, or at least a "none" of some sort, is part of the suit:

“We are nonreligious and don’t follow the explicitly religious commandments, such as ‘remember the Sabbath.’ Every day that the posters are up in classrooms will signal to my children that they are violating school rules,” said plaintiff Allison Fitzpatrick (she/her).

So, yes, this is "the vehicle."

That said, this secularist doesn't even fully accept the "second table" of the commandments.

Is an "open marriage" non-adulterous if everybody is in full disclosure? Wingnuts will call abortion murder — and a few are targeting pregnant women, not just doctors. Will people who oppose covetousness oppose the capitalism behind it? And, will they speak out against the ancient language that considered women property, as well as the slaves who are more than "manservants" and "maidservants"? 

The unbelievable daftness of Corey Robin (and James Surowiecki)

And, yes, I do love bad pun headlines!

For whatever reason, Corey Robin claims 303 Creative was NOT about religion. Oh, in a technical sense, he's right. The plaintiff (besides having a fake basis for the suit) cited Freeze Peach, but it was ultimately free speech in the service of religious issues. Wiki gets that right, Corey. And you apparently don't read analysis of past or present Supreme Court decisions. Shit, your own piece has Smith saying she didn't BELIEVE in gay marriage. In a quote-tweeting, Robin stands by his statement. I referenced the immediately above, plus the Hobby Lobby angle, in a reply.

Robin, in a later quote-tweet, chides me for not having read the 303 Creative ruling. Maybe I didn't read every word, but I did read Sotomayor's dissent, per my original blogging on this, where she nails it.

In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.” She was joined by the court’s two other liberals, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sotomayor said that the decision’s logic “cannot be limited to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” A website designer could refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple, a stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple, and a large retail store could limit its portrait services to “traditional” families, she wrote.

Nothing about Freeze Speech there, not as the "ultimate cause." So, here's MY quote-tweeting Robin. (I added the Sotomayor as D in a second threaded Tweet):

A. Taking SCOTUS wingnuts at face value?
B. As the TNR fake complainant background story makes clear, this was about religion. As does free speech IN THE SERVICE of religion.
C. Informal Logic 101: Proximate cause? Free speech. Ultimate cause? Religious rights.
Off to blog. https://t.co/cD8kMchx1Q

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) July 2, 2023

What else is there to say? Well, let's start with quoting the AP piece from whence Sotomayor's dissent, the link above the pull quote up top:

The decision suggests that artists, photographers, videographers and writers are among those who can refuse to offer what the court called expressive services if doing so would run contrary to their beliefs.

The TNR story speaks for itself. If you can't believe that is strong circumstantial evidence for this ultimately being seen as a religious rights case, Corey, dunno what to say, other than the above plus "Hobby Lobby" and all points in between, per ZZ Top.

Well, yes, I'll cite Amy Howe from Howe on the Court and SCOTUSBlog, writing IN HER LEDE:

The court handed a major victory to business owners who oppose same-sex marriage for religious reasons on Friday.

Ye gads, Corey.

Yes, Gorsuch talked about "speech" but again, Informal Logic 101. But wait, per SCOTUSBlog, let's go back to Sotomayor:

Sotomayor’s 38-page dissent argued that the Constitution “contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.” Colorado’s public accommodations law, she contended, only bars business owners from discriminating against members of the public based on (among other things) their sexual orientation. It does not regulate or compel speech at all. If a business owner like Smith “offers [her] goods or services to the public,” Sotomayor suggested, she “remains free under state law to decide what messages to include or not to include.” But what Smith can’t do, Sotomayor stressed, is “offer wedding websites to the public yet refuse those same websites to gay and lesbian couples.”

Again, Corey, you always take winger majority opinions at face value? In his own piece, he actually kind of disses on Sotomayor.

Robin had probably been declining a bit in my opinion for some time. I know the late Leo Lincourt loved him some Corey Robin. That said, Leo was a left-liberal, not a leftist, IMO. (Left-libs, in my US political geography, reject neoliberalism but believe the existing liberal project is certainly capable of reform, rather than needing at least partial rejection. Already in 2018, trying to reduce "socialism" to "freedom," he raised my eyebrows.

His "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas," while good, was not blindingly good; it got four stars from me (expanded version of Goodreads review). See the end for why. "The Reactive Mind" got five, but it's more a 4.5. Per this blog post, based on part on the book, with more hindsight, the idea of American political cycles is either now broken or else in the political science version of a frozen war. I still wouldn't call Trump a full fascist, but after Jan. 6, semi-fascist, or faux fascist, or fascist on the cheap? Yeah, that I would. I don't know, and don't really care a lot, if Robin's thought has emerged.

And, I forgot that a full decade ago, Robin came off as a semi-apologist for Thomas Jefferson. I also note that Robin way back then claimed I had misread him. This is "fool me once ... fool me twice" territory, Corey. I didn't misread you. Nor did I misread your stanning for Dear Leader. (Both that, and the Jefferson, were while Leo was still alive; not sure what he said about either.)

And, on the Jefferson, I referenced that to James Surowiecki when he butted in on the Twitter convo. Of course, he's a neolib at the Atlantic, so he's going to say that. He's as stupid and literalist as Robin. He's also an elitist from the neolib Eastern Establishment, modern version; you are, if you go to Choate, chud. You're also muted.

After THAT, Sunday night, I picked up another buttinski, jumping on Surowiecki's tweets after I muted him. I told Laurie McKenna, in my first comment, about Wiki, SCOTUSBlog, Sotomayor, and then to backread and not comment again until she'd done so.

Oh, elitist Surowiecki and academic Robin? If I'm not high-enough profile for you, Ronald Brownstein, referencing Sotomayor's dissent, says "religious beliefs."

WRR: Unconstitutional Sunday programming?

 A few weeks ago I blogged about WRR, Dallas' classical radio station, about to enter its centennial year.

Now, many Dallas listeners know that it's required to carry live Dallas City Council meetings as part of its ownership by the city of Dallas.

Many others know that it has Sunday religious services. 

Given its ownership by a government, I find this unconstitutional two ways.

It violates the First Amendment both by establishing a religion in general, and by establishing Christianity as the only religion on its airway.

What about it, ACLU? ACLU of Texas?

It would be an interesting suit in which to be a plaintiff. That said, as I'm not a resident of the city of Dallas, I probably would be bounced for lack of standing.

Freedom from Religion Foundation wins a lawsuit appeal that I wished both it and Abbott could have lost

On appeal, per Friendly Atheist, the Fifth Circuit upholds a federal district court's ruling in favor of the Freedom of Religion Foundation in a "secular nativity" display in Austin in the Capitol. For a variety of reasons, as I blogged at the time, I was NOT a total fan of the suit. And, indeed, I mentioned the Friendly Atheist himself, Hemant Mehta, in that piece. I says I wished both sides could lose. And I'm not a total fan of FFRF in general. These same liars (yes) once claimed Lincoln was a crypto-atheist or something.

Per the first of my blog links, I linked to an old piece which gave further background on why I thought the Austin action was a stunt. I also had a bullet point in the first piece explaining what I saw as evidence the Austin action was a stunt. The second and third of the three points in all were about Abbott, as a tu quoque. As I said, I wished both sides could have lost.

Mehta, in his link at top, links to his piece about the original district ruling. He never addresses my first bullet point, about why FFRF asked for that space in the Capitol basement rather than on the lawn with all the other Nativity displays.

Mehta can be very good at times. But, while not having both feet there, he can have one foot in the Gnu Atheist world at times. This is clearly one of those times. And, Hemant, it has been from the start. Sorry, but you're a quasi-Gnu on this issue.

And there's plenty of other FFRF nuttery to go around.

Like when it sued to try to block Obama from saying "so help me god" as his add-on to the presidential oath? The real answer is that it's unconstitutional to require that, but that it's unconstitutional to block presidents from making that as a personal utterance, too.

Let's also not forget that nutter Michael Newdow was part of that suit.

Although its rhetoric is not over the top as much as is that of American Atheists, rhetoric isn't FFRF's focus. Actions are.

As in kabuki theater-type stuff. Stunts.

In short, FFRF is kind of like the PETA of Gnu Atheists.

Let's also not forget that Godless in Dixie, via a guest commenter, and other Gnu dumb fucks have supported FFRF on this blindly from the start.

Could the government force bible-rejecting churches to close during the pandemic?

I find it "interesting" to see the number of Protestant churches, largely non-denominational, independent churches in a generally Baptist, or more broadly, Anabaptist conservative evangelical background, rebelling against the government on coronavirus issues.

I'm not talking about general minimalizing of the severity of the virus or anything like that.

Rather, I'm talking about the ministers of such churches continuing to hold services, and in many cases, without multiple smaller-size services, in direct defiance of government proclamations.

(I have further explicated what I see as the likely main motives of these ministers in this new post.)

The big civil-government question? Could the government force churches to close "for the duration" if deemed necessary.

Short answer?

Hellz yes.

And, folks, that link goes to a story in the Deseret News, officially owned by The Morons, I mean the LSD Church, I mean the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (Yes, wingnuts, I laugh at them, but it's a church denomination that tilts VERY conservative among political preference of its members; that's why I jumped on this.)

Here's the nut grafs:

Legal experts said the answer is almost certainly yes, as long as regulations are reasonable and applied equally across all religious groups and other types of organizations. 

Policies don’t violate religious freedom laws if they’re created in order to save people’s lives, said Michael Moreland, director of the Ellen H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University. 

“So long as those restrictions are neutral and applicable to everybody, religious institutions have to abide by them,” he said.

There you go. I encourage reading that whole linked story in the first paragraph of the pull quote.

But these independent Protestants, whether truly wingnut rebels, or people who started independent churches because they thought either some worshipers, or their own wallets, couldn't survive without exactly their church? Don't want to accept that.

It's halfway tempting to compare many of them to Paul's man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians:

2 Thessalonians 2:3-10 (selected) New International Version (NIV) 

3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness[a] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
...  9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

Actually, "Paul" should probably be in scare quotes; the majority of modern scholarship considers this pseudepigraphal, albeit with lack of consensus on when it actually was written.

Note that I said "halfway" tempting. I don't think this idea is all wet.

Certainly, the actual Paul, in one of his legitimate letters, would be highly concerned.

I am thinking of his famous "submit to the governing authorities in Romans 13.

13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. 

That nails it.

That said, that passage has been ignored by U.S. Protestants since 1775 or before.

Ordained Presbyterian minister John Witherspoon was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and those a minister in a state of grievous sin. Boston's Old North Church, driven by hotheads such as Sam Adams, was a ground zero of rebelliousness.

And, Romans 13 is crystal clear. No exceptions.

Paul's thought, as well as framework, are derived from the Stoic diatribe. Epictetus, for example, would have no problem agreeing with this.

Let's not forget the background of much American Protestantism.

Congregationalists were Puritans and Separatists who had rebelled against the Church of England and the ruling monarch, to lesser or greater degrees, respectively. Baptists, starting with the likes of Roger Williams, then rebelled against those Puritans and Separatists. Presbyterians had rebelled against their Stuart monarchs in Scotland when, like Mary, they remained Catholic, or when, like the Stuarts from James VI on, when he became James I in London as well, tilted Church of England and pushed for a similar Church of Scotland.

On the flip side, Methodists and Lutherans have generally accepted state authority more readily.

But Romans 13 is still clear. Period.

And, if there are ministers the likes of Jim Bakker peddling magic cures?

2 Thessalonians 2:9 I think has that covered.

==

Update, July 26: My take on Gov. Gavin Newsom's latest orders and the latest round of sinful rebellion in California.

The rise of the Nones: First Amendment implications

Per the latest Pew Research Center data on religion and American life, there will surely be some sort of "freedom of religion" clause implications within a generation, if not less.

The biggest takeaway from all this latest data? Millennials (yeah, those slackers, despite adults calling the younger generation slackers as far back as Aristotle) are a LOT less religious than their parents. A LOT less.

"Nones," the common word for those with no religious affiliation or identity, plus non-Christians, have as great an identity among Millennials as all Christian groups combined. No, really.

Now, this is a lot broader group than atheists or agnostics, despite Gnu Atheists talk of an "atheist surge," which has been going on for a decade or more now. (The talk, not any surge.) That said, self-identified atheists and agnostics have more than doubled over the 12-year range of the data, from 4 percent in 2007 to 9 percent in 2019.

It should be noted that "nones" may well have metaphysical beliefs. That's another reason for Gnus to stop poaching and crowing. Looking back 15 years or so, a woman on Match.com who originally wanted to meet me said "no" when she found out that "atheist" meant just that and NOT "spiritual but not religious" or Wiccan light or whatever. (It should also be noted, which Gnus don't, that millions of Buddhists around the world, mainly in the Theravada tradition, are both atheist and religious — and believe in metaphysical ideas, just not a personal god.)

That said, Nones are voting with their feet, not just their brains. In 2014, people who attend religious services just a few times a year first exceeded those who worship monthly or more. Among Millennials, it's just one-third who go to services once a month or more.

Among Americans overall, that growth is driven by a surge in those who NEVER attend, by self reporting. That's up to 17 percent.

Yes, one-sixth of Americans, even if they have some metaphysical beliefs (astrology, luck, Kabbalah or whatever) lurking somewhere, say they NEVER attend religious services. Related? Among those who say they attend once a month or more, the most ardent, the weekly attenders (or more) lost six percentage points, down to 31 percent. (If even that is correct; time and motion studies have shown that decades-old self-reported religious attendance surveys were consistently too high.)

Pew notes that the National Opinion Research Center, with different questions and framing, shows a similar number of Nones. It's at 22 percent for all ages vs 26 percent from Pew, even with somewhat different framing and questioning.

Will this "stick"? My answer is that it will, at least to some degree. More slowly, America is becoming less religious, like Europe after WWII. (Before then, and certainly before the Depression, Europe and America didn't track that differently.

It's probably kind of like cigarette smoking. If the Nones who truly don't go to church at all continue that through age 30, they'll likely never be there. And, with that, contra the fakery of Supreme Court backtracking in rulings like Town of Greece, at some point, the First Amendment's freedom of religion meaning true freedom from government propping up religion in any way will maybe start to be realized. Beyond totally banning pre-meetings prayers, etc., I'm talking about things like churches not getting any tax breaks beyond those extended to nonprofit entities in general and things like that.

Even in places like smaller towns in Texas, if they're anywhere closer to the East Texas metros, in 20 years, if not less, less vocal Nones will realize they're not alone. And they're going to start challenging the city council, the school board and the commissioners court about opening meetings with invocations. And, if Democratic (or Green? Socialist? even Libertarian?) presidents are listening, they'll be appointing judges who know that "freedom of religion" includes that the government can do NOTHING in terms of an establishment of religion — any religion as no specific religion is mentioned — that the First Amendment is the most federalized one in the constitution, and that the mealy-mouthed Town of Greece ruling is wrong.

Democrats who don't recognize this are going to find that "non-Republican votes" aren't necessarily "Democratic votes."

BRING.IT.ON.

==

Update, with some related stats? In 2019, 23 percent of Americans went to church every week. Sounds fairly devoted, right, every week? But 29 percent never went once. Texas, Bible Belt stereotypes aside, is no exception. This site says that it was less than 20 percent, and they're a religious website.

Beto batting 0-2 on recent constitutional issues

Just a month after proposing an almost certainly unconstitutional mandatory buyback for guns, Robert Francis O'Rourke is at it again. And on the wrong side of the constitution again. (My take on the gunz issue was NOT based on the Second Amendment; click the link to see why I stand where I do.)

Removing tax-exempt status from churches that oppose gay marriage is surely a First Amendment violation. Now, there IS a good argument to be made that the First Amendment and tax law are being interpreted incorrectly and NO CHURCH should have any tax exemption, or other tax favors beyond what other nonprofits do, but that's an entirely different issue. (It's an argument that, as a secularist, I totally support.)

Give props to Beto for supporting Colin Kaepernick's #TakeAKnee in the middle of his Senate campaign against Booger Ted Cruz. That was a great First Amendment defense. But Bob on a Knob is on the wrong side here.

I find the mix of ardent idealism and blatant pandering to be fascinating, I'll admit.

On the mandatory gun buybacks, I'll put it at 75 percent idealism 25 percent pandering.

Especially given that the churches issue was at an LGBTQ town hall, I'll generously put Beto at only 75 percent pandering, 25 percent idealism, on that one. Generously.

The split the other way around on the gunz may be a bit generous, too. Especially since Eric Levitz has now called out Bob on these two issues and more.

Update: Bob on a Knob has now moved from pandering to lying on gunz when he claims he hasn't promoted confiscation. Yes you have, dude; a MANDATORY buyback is just that.

SCOTUS further maims religious freedom

As I see it, the most horrendous ruling of the just completed Supreme Court term was not its gerrymandering ruling. FAR from it.

Rather, it was in American Legion vs American Humanist Association, where the court essentially agreed to grandmother past constitutional review any public-sector display of a religious artifact on grounds of "civil religion" while essentially refusing to take a look at why it was erected in the first place.

The case involved a cross erected on public land in Bladensburg, Maryland, as part of a World War I cemetery consecration.

Breyer and Kagan think a cross is perfectly OK on public land as long as its connected to a war. (This itself is a problem, the militarization of Merika now creeping into the world of civil liberties.) Part of it with Breyer, per this analysis, is that he was upholding his own previous ruling in Van Orton v Perry, and even if not upholding precedents in general, justices will uphold their own previous rulings through any and every convolution.

By Breyer's Van Orton logic, now doubled down
upon, 10 Commandments monuments like this
all across the country (this in front of a Santa Fe
fire station) get a constitutional pass. This one
caught my eye years ago precisely because being
in Santa Fe, it's nowhere near Red Stateland.

For the unfamiliar, Van Orton v Perry was one of the most godawful "civic religion" rulings the court has made in at least 20 years. It's the one where the court said that the state of Texas could keep the Ten Commandments on state Capitol grounds.

Any unbiased idiot could see that the Eagles chose the Ten Commandments because of all the other God vs Godless communism stuff of the Cold War, and that it was NOT promoting "religion" in the abstract, but Judeo-Christian (usual Judeo fig leaf) ideas in the concrete.

And, he says 40 years passage of time means there was no "intimidation." He ignores the idea that, rather, it meant the intimidation was strong enough nobody publicly protested. In the Bladensburg case, the Jewish War Veterans addresses exactly that issue, plus the one of standing. A representatives of the organization takes a pass on calling out Breyer and Kagan as Jewish, though.

Those two, along with Roberts and Kavanaugh, by only partially concurring with Alito's main opinion, may — or may not — try to control how broad its provenance is. Gorsuch, after all, rejected Breyer's "historical patina" ideas and said new displays should be judged just like old ones.

Per that link, I believe that the core majority did a reverse Lemon test ruling.

Michael Stokes Paulsen, also at Scotusblog, thinks or claims there was a unified core to the ruling, and an insightful one. Of course he would, being a member of the Federalist Society. (Scotusblog could identify guest posters on site rather than making me Google, when they don't explicitly state their backgrounds.)

A representative of the Baptist Joint Commission on Religious Liberty totally refudiates Paulsen while accepting the fractured decision as the least bad option.

There are five clauses to the First Amendment

And, unfortunately, all five of them face more headwinds in today's America.

Here's some of the details on the problems.

As the arrest of Julian Assange has shown:

• The media thinks there's only one clause;
• It thinks that clause is a blank check;
• It's totally indifferent about two of the other four.

The general public?

• The winger portion thinks that one clause is a blank check;
• Much of the left and right, conservative and liberal, winger and not, doesn't actually care for the central clause;

Much of the public cares even less for two other clauses.

So, first, a link to the actual amendment.

The five clauses are, to inform the unfamiliar:

• Freedom of religion;
• Freedom of speech;
• Freedom of the press;
• Freedom of assembly;
• Freedom of petition.

Per the first and second bullet lists?

The press does often think that "freedom of the press" is a blank check in many times, not so much to libel, but to print information that is secluded — whether public sector or private sector — without impunity.

Often, such information needs to be published. At other times, it does not. The process of working through this is called "editing," something Julian Assange couldn't bother himself to do.

The press is indifferent about the last two clauses, especially the freedom of assembly. When presidents used "national security" after 9/11 as an excuse to put protestors at their events in protest pens blocks away from their appearances, and allowed political parties to do the same, national and big regional press said nary a word.

Since then, while the media has called out anti-BDS bills as a violation of freedom of speech, it has ignored that they're also an infringement of freedom of assembly, since that's exactly what boycotts are about.

Ditto, since the election of Trump, when wingnut Congresscritters have blocked alligators from commenting on their social media accounts, big media has ignored this infringement on freedom of petition.

The general public?

Wingers of course continue to deny Jefferson's "wall of separation" on church and state, including the descendants of the Baptists who applauded Jefferson. They also continue to lie with claims we're a Christian nation.

The general public has, in repeated polls over decades, indicated that it's willing to have freedom of speech restricted on national security grounds, which is bad enough, but on lesser, even much lesser grounds.

In reality, the First Amendment cares not for decorum or style, nor about upholding actual or alleged traditional mores.

Also, the general public often has little more concern for freedom of assembly than the press has shown. Many have not worried about elected officials engaging in social media blocking; in fact, wingers have often applauded it.

Finally, as I noted recently, specifically about Stephen Breyer, "librul" Supreme Court justices don't care a lot about the freedom of assembly or freedom of speech portions of the amendment.

Stephen Breyer — part of Supreme Court librulz who hate the First Amendment and Fourth

I have written before about how Democrats' "Oh, the SCOTUS" cry every four years does little to nothing to entice me to jump back into voting for the centrist half of the duopoly. And, librul justices' stance on various portions of the First Amendment is a primary reason why I say this.

Democrats usually appeal to abortion as the big reason why voting for Jill Stein, or Cynthia McKinney, or David Cobb, or Ralph Nader, actually is the "greater evil" or whatever, just as Kuff did last week. I respond, as I have before, that abortion, and LGBTQ issues, are a narrow portion of the spectrum of civil liberties, and that beyond that portion of the spectrum, current librulz on the court have a less than spotless record by several degrees.

I had a big-ticket roundup on this issue just a year ago, when Tony Kennedy retired.

I then counter with noting someone like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the "notorious RBG," doesn't really like the First Amendment that much all the time, or how other Justices have been selective in their support of the Fourth Amendment and criminal rights in general, with examples in that "big ticket" link.

Well, now we have librul Stephen Breyer willing to sacrifice part of the Fourth Amendment, and tying this to that other part of my plaint? He is willing to sacrifice part of the Fourth Amendment that applies to criminals, and more specifically, to policing, so he can "back the blue."

What bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

And, it's not even the first time Breyer has voted to undercut the Fourth Amendment. He did so three years ago cuz War on Drugs, an issue where both the courts and librul preznits (remember Bill's crime bill? Hillary's "superpredators" related to that? Joe Biden halfway standing by that bill still?) have repeatedly been willing to junk protections for alleged criminals. Elena Kagan, when in the executive branch, has a history of hating the Fourth Amendment applying equally to minorities cuz War on Drugs.

Sonia Sotomayor, when still an appellate judge, didn't think minors deserved full First Amendment protections. She also wrongly thought the First Amendment meant churches were free from some labor law prescriptions.

And one or more librulz — in most cases maybe more than one — have for 25 years consistently hated third parties (like Kuff and fellow travelers like Manny).

And, all nine justices at the time — including librulz Breyer, Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, along with libertarianish Kennedy, and pseudo-originalist Scalia — hated the First Amendment's freedom of assembly clause.

The real problem is librulz fetishing the Supreme Court over two issues.

Actually, that is probably No. 2.

The real problem is Democrats thinking they "own" the actual or potential votes of anybody to the left of diehard Republicans.

Dream on.

And, the more you think that, the further from reality it becomes.

==

Update, June 17: Turns out that Breyer kind o hates democracy in general at times, voting in the minority to approve Virginia House Rethuglicans' appeal of a lower court ruling on redistricting and gerrymandering. Now, I know the case was more about the issue of standing, but still.

Update, July 1: Breyer and Kagan think a cross is perfectly OK on public land as long as its connected to a war. Part of it with Breyer, per this analysis, is that he was upholding his own previous ruling in Van Orton v Perry, and even if not upholding precedents in general, justices will uphold their own previous rulings through any and every convolution.

For the unfamiliar, Van Orton v Perry was one of the most godawful "civic religion" rulings the court has made in at least 20 years. It's the one where the court said that the state of Texas could keep the Ten Commandments on state Capitol grounds.

Any unbiased idiot could see that the Eagles chose the Ten Commandments because of all the other God vs Godless communism stuff of the Cold War, and that it was NOT promoting "religion" in the abstract, but Judeo-Christian (usual Judeo fig leaf) ideas in the concrete.

And, he says 40 years passage of time means there was no "intimidation." He ignores the idea that, rather, it meant the intimidation was strong enough nobody publicly protested.

This would be like telling post-World War I original civil rights advocates, "Well, nobody protested for 40 years ..."

Happy Fourth! Enjoy those freedoms!

Well, not totally. If you're a secularist, don't forget that NONE of the Supreme Court believes that the First Amendment's freedom of religion guarantees you freedom FROM religion. None. Sorry, but it's true.

FDR's first two of his Four Freedoms might not totally apply to you, either.

But, the last two?

Freedom from fear?

Fear takes many forms ... including medical bankruptcy fears because your precious "benefits," if you have them, don't cover enough.

Freedom from want? Contra wingers, actual want exists in America, among young and old, white and non-white alike.

Freedom of time? Not if you're working more hours than ever before, more than most OECD nations, and without guaranteed paid vacation days, enslaved by and also a bit self-enslaving to the late-stage capitalism rat race, especially in an ever-bulging metropolis that has less and less uniqueness.

Freedom of thought? Not hardly, if you succumb to social media bombardment, whether over the materialism of that late-stage capitalism, the hollow ideas and claims of most political thought and other things.

You want freedom?

Be Sartrean or better, Camuean. Albert Camus with my bits of nuance. Be a Neo-Cynic, with my update on Diogenes. In various ways, sub rosa or openly, fight the power that be. Or an updated Janis Joplin, through those philosophers, remembering that "freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose."



MAGA-heads, enjoy being suckers for capitalism. Enjoy shooting off those made in America fireworks that Trump has surely gotten you, along with the made in America "gimme" US flags.

What? They don't exist?

Maybe MAGA is just another word for nothing left to learn.

Sing it, Janis!



And remember she was spoofing the capitalism that has become more late-stage today.

Kennedy retiring, Dems whip out "Oh the SCOTUS"

They're already doing that in comments at places like Splinter. I told all the GFY-ing Hillbots that I was a gentleman and they should therefore go fire.

First, beyond the GFY, my vote for Stein was not a vote for Trump. Somebody on Twitter I had friended in the last month and didn't appear to be "one of them" made that claim. I quote Tweeted him to say no, and that if he persisted, I had no problem unfriending.

Second, "librulz," this leftist knows that the librul four on the Supreme Court aren't all they are made out to be.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg? The "Notorious RGB"? Notorious for calling Colin Kaepernick "dumb and disrespectful." And for saying the same about flag burning. Don't forget Hillary Clinton wanted to selectively criminalize flag burning even after SCOTUS said that a general ban on flag burning was unconstitutional. More on this and related issues at my blog post.

Stephen Breyer and the new alleged lion of high court liberalism, Sonia Sotomayor? Both squishes at times on the Fourth Amendment. And Elena Kagan is a half-breed of half neoliberal, half neoconservative.

So, yeah, Tony the Pony Kennedy was the swing(ing dick) justice. Others aren't necessarily always that much better. Hell, even Thurgood Marshall, who as an African-American should have known better, wasn't always pristine on the Fourth Amendment.

That's why Dems' "Oh the SCOTUS" never has, and never will, persuade me to vote Democratic for president barring major changes in the party. There are many more civil liberties and civil rights issues before the court other than reproductive choice and LGBT rights.

Riffing on Ginsburg, there's the freedom of assembly portion of the First Amendment. Riffing on myself, there's freedom of religion as freedom FROM religion on the First Amendment. And, re Michael Newdow, Breyer and Ginsberg, along with Tony the Pony, were squishes there. (The other three sitting justices, with Scalia having recused himself, were also squishes on 1A, but not on whether or not Newdow had legal standing.)

And, there's issues in the past, too. The lauded Thurgood Marshall was sometimes a Fourth Amendment squish, most notably in Terry v. Ohio. Especially as Terry involved a police search, that Marshall as an African-American would uphold its undercutting of the 4th never ceases to perplex me.

So, Hillbots, with her right-wing lite religious guru and all, as a secularist, there is NOBODY on the current court who I trust on part of the First Amendment.

Because of things like this, no, I won't join Democrats-only activist groups like PFAW, whether alone or in their alliance with the shape-shifting Indivisible cohorts, in anti-Kavanaugh lobbying.

Also for the Hillbots, Bill and Hillary encouraged Donald to run. So, STFU, along with GFY, until you own that, too. The "Oh, the SCOTUS" is ultimately on you anyway. Beyond THAT:

More srsly, as Neera Tanden is a lawyer, woman, #neoliberal par excellence & wld check a box as first Indian-American #SCOTUS justice I have no doubt she wld have been on Hillary Clinton short list. Right .@HillaryClinton? .@NeeraTanden? .@TedRall #Hillbots? #Berniecrats #Greens? https://t.co/5YPZBQp5up

— @realDonaldTrump  🌻 (@SocraticGadfly) July 1, 2018

C'mon Hillbots, you know that beyond snark, Hillary might have tried something just like this. And, after the obligatory Senate GOP bashing, including a few emails-related questions, she would have been confirmed.

A more serious issue is that we need to get beyond the idea that the best Supreme Court justices are to be found off U.S. appeals courts.

Earl Warren had no judicial experience at all. Neither did Thurgood Marshall. Nor Bill Douglas. Hugo Black was briefly a municipal judge and that was it.

Sadly, but not really surprisingly, Popehat Ken White thinks the appeals background is A Good Thing, all while pretending that libertarian-leaners on First Amendment issues (ie "money = speech" folks) don't practice results-oriented jurisprudence while others do.

Dallas Morning News needs to read the Constitution on the #FirstAmendment

The Snooze's Trailblazers Blog has a puff piece, and I mean a huge puff piece, on a seminary program.

And, the First Amendment issue?

The program is behind state prison walls, with a captive audience of inmates.

Unless all Christian denominations, let alone other world religious traditions, have the same opportunity to run a similar program — AND a secular humanist group has a similar opportunity for a humanist equivalent — this is clearly a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The piece is worse from there. It talks about a program at the Angola State Pen in Louisiana as if it were all sweetness and light.

The truth is, as Atlantic notes, that it's not even close to that.

The Atlantic wrote in response to a New York Times puff piece, and a later AP puff piece. And, it found many problems. The two most relevant to this?

1. The warden made punishments, or lack of them, conditional to adherence to Christian principles.
2. Even though he proclaimed the Bible college "open to all religions," it taught Southern Baptist Christianity.

Related, this blog post has a story that was on the Ethics and Religious Liberty Convention site within the Southern Baptist Convention, but has now been scrubbed, apparently, that a judge in 2011 ruled such a program in a Midwestern prison unconstitutional. I found the story on the NYT ... written before its Angola puff piece.

Beyond that, the bible college itself was not found to be much of a contributor to any decline in violence at Angola.

It's bad enough for a religious section of the general public to ignore the First Amendment, but for a major media company? We'll see if the author, the editor of the Trailblazers blog Twitter feed or anybody else responds, both to that issue and the fact that Angola's program isn't really doing what they think it is.

Given the fact that prisoners are prisoners, plus factual details I mentioned above, the idea that they have true free choice in any of this is laughable. And that's true even if the Supreme Court has eventually ruled some of these constitutional.

After all, legal precedent doesn't mean everything. Besides, as Plessy and Dred Scott show, not to mention Buckley and the much later Citizens United, the Supremes get plenty of stuff wrong.

This leads to a sidebar of sorts, as it's about time to kick the Snooze again.

For my Texas blogging friends, I often compare Houston to Dallas, as some of them know, and do so to show how Houston usually comes up short.

But, despite the imperfections of the Houston Chronicle, this is one place where the coastal city is still ahead of Big D.

I think that's primarily due to luck and timing. It starts with local newspaper competition.

The Dallas Times Herald folded in 1991, fueled in part by losing an antitrust suit to the Snooze (shock me) and in part by being slow in shifting to morning publication.

Then, not too long thereafter, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's then owners made the decision to stop circulating west of Abilene. The Snooze rushed in to fill the vacancy, as nothing more than a local/locally-regional medium-small seven-day daily paper existed west of Fort Worth all the way out to El Paso. When I lived in Hobbs, N.M., in the late 1990s, I could get a three-star edition of the Snooze out there.

In Houston, the Post lasted four years longer. (Both it and the Times-Herald, late in their lives, were owned by the original "Chainsaw Al" of modern newspapers, Dean Singleton.)

The year 1995 puts us closer to the rise of the Internet, for one thing. For another, the San Antonio Express-News and the Austin American-Statesman didn't decide to stop circulating west of Junction, Texas, or something. (Weirdly, it seems like a longer gap between the two papers' closures, too. That said, other than eliminating newspaper competition in Houston, I don't think the demise of the Post was mourned nearly as much as that of the Times-Herald.)

However, in recent years, as in, within the last decade, the Snooze, which once had an edge, compared to size of the home market, vs. the Chron, has seen that evaporate.

#GnuAtheist outfit FFRF may sue Greg Abbott; could both lose, please?

Let's hope so, and let's hope that Abbott loses yet another lawsuit, this time as the defendant, not the plaintiff. (In reality, one and only one could win and it was FFRF, and its win has been upheld by the Fifth Circuit, which shows just how dumb Abbott is. My new blog post still wishes both Gov. Strangeabbott AND Freedom from Religion Foundation, the PETA of Gnu Atheists, could have lost.)

This is juvenile only if you don't understand the U.S. Constitution AND
only if your personal religious beliefs are afraid of challenge.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation erected a, well, a freedom from religion secular "nativity" display at the Texas Capitol.

Gov. Strangeabbott, calling it "juvenile," ordered it pulled down.

The display was a cardboard cutout of the nation's founding fathers and the Statue of Liberty looking down at the Bill of Rights in a manger. It had been set up in the Capitol's basement, hardly a high-traffic area, and didn't generate much of a public response.  

But after finding out about it, Abbott called it a "juvenile parody" in a letter asking the State Preservation Board to remove the exhibit. 

More on the background:

The Preservation Board approved the exhibit days earlier. But after receiving the letter from Abbott, the agency reconsidered. Executive Director John Sneed snapped a picture of it and texted it to Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, who chairs the House Administration Committee. Geren said to take it down.  

"The governor wanted it down and I told John that, if I were him, I'd take it down," Geren said. "It was an inappropriate exhibit."

FFRF is "considering its legal options."

The Trib has selections from Abbott's letter, and his previous defense of an unconstitutional nativity scene.

The removal comes a week after Abbott publicly expressed his support for a Nativity scene outside the city of Orange municipal building. He argued that the city had a Constitutional right to display the religious imagery.  

In his letter Tuesday, he cited the Constitution again.  

"The Constitution does not require Texas to allow displays in its Capitol that violate general standards of decency and intentionally disrespect the beliefs and values of many of our fellow Texans," Abbott wrote.  

The display is offensive, doesn't serve a public purpose and doesn't educate anyone, he wrote.  

"Far from promoting morals and the general welfare, the exhibit deliberately mocks Christians and Christianity," said Abbott's letter, which also called it a "juvenile parody." 

That said, I'm not a blanket supporter of FFRF.

First, whether because my name is on the infamous Gnu Atheist Block Bot or whatever, I'm blocked from following them right now. I've Tweeted the account of co-president Dan Barker. We'll see if he replies, let alone takes action to have its corporate account unblock me.

Second, I did call the group Gnu Atheists, along with calling bullshit on it when it claimed that Abraham Lincoln was an atheist.

Third, while FFRF may not be as bad as American Atheists and its leader, David Silverman, I've questioned elsewhere the deliberately confrontational stance it has sometimes taken over the nativities in the public square issue.

That said, in this particular case, FFRF pulled its punches, and arguably undercut its constitutional case. It should have sought placement on the Capitol lawn next to the nativity there. That would be a stronger constitutional case rather than appearing in a space by itself. It would also be a stronger PR case, if that's what FFRF was after. Frankly, were I a federal judge, due to the misplacement, and previous interpretations of this issue all the way to SCOTUS level, I'd rule against it, should it sue.

(Update, Feb. 27, 2016: FFRF has filed suit.)

Besides, it seems kind of chickenshit to not throw sharp elbows next to the Capitol grounds nativity. It also seems chickenshit to build something that small, too. 

That's like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Seriously, that thing's smaller than Donald Trump's hair or the lifespan of his schlong comment. (It's bigger than his actual schlong, though, I'm sure.)

In other words, if you want to fight Greg Abbott on this, man up!

In light of the suit actually being filed, I stand by everything I just wrote, whether specifically in the last three paragraphs, or further up.

Fourth, once again showing its actual legal cluelessness, FFRF backed Michael Newdow in his suit over "So help me God" as part of the presidential inaugural oath. (A Gnu Atheist Internet troll popped up his head over that one, too.) Indeed, I found this stupid enough I did a second blog post about it two weeks later.

All of these are examples of intellectual dishonesty, which isn't the humanist way of doing things. But the back of hand to forehead martyrdom is the Gnu way of doing things, oftentimes.

FFRF and AA are probably swimming in the same general, smallish pool of donors. Both may have plenty of activist followers, but donors is a separate issue.

That said, the old "flies, honey and vinegar" cliché (ignoring that bullshit catches even more) comes to mind. But, FFRF and AA both seem to want to practice SJW-type back-of-hand-to-forehead "martyrdom" as much as anything. (Remember, there's just one letter's difference between SJW and JW.)

So, if Dan Barker doesn't want to unblock me, I'm OK with that, too. I'll keep calling them like I see them.

Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta tries to make the argument for FFRF. My thoughts in response?

• First, did FFRF explicitly ask for the Capitol basement while all other displays were on the lawn? If so, further shame on FFRF. And, the State Preservation Board should have rejected the application in that case. That said, if it's not already the case, the SPB should change its application form to stipulate where on Capitol grounds such displays are or are not allowed.
• Second, the nativity scene doesn't belong on the Capitol lawn without the proper secular fig leaf. Abbott's wrong, just like about the Orange display. But, two wrongs don't make a right.
• Third, shock me that Abbott is parading a fake George Washington quote. Three wrongs don't make a right, either.

That's my hot take on his take. Well, adding that an apparent worshiper of his on Facebook called this "just a blog," to which I replied, "Well, isn't that what Hemant does?"

Also to that commenter, as I said there? Three other letters are GFY.

As for your idea that Mehta was reporting or something, rather than blogging? Wrong! And, just to not "tip jar" him, with followers like you, I put the "no follow" attribute on the link to take away pageviews. (And stopped reading your comments on Facebook.)

Speaking of this, a staff wrter at Austin Chronicle, who also wrote about the kerfuffle, is such an in-the-tank Gnu that according to him, people like me aren't really atheists; we're "fence-sitting agnostics."

Richard Whitaker? And, claiming I use "Gnu Atheist" like a smear when you do exactly that with "agnostic"? And, thinking that I think atheism is something more than a philosophical stance, when it's Gnu Atheists, not me, that think that way. Our Twitter exchange gets more bizarre the longer it gets.

Gnu Atheists: Once again proving that fundamentalism comes in many flavors. This also gives me a good reason to practice my Neo-Cynicism, and, per Harvard, my sarcasm is helping my creativity.