Join the Conversation – Free Speech for all, not just the Few

When I was 12, my older sister and I were constantly quarreling. She was five-and-a-half years older than me and was already earning money working at a local newspaper. That year, she won the Dairy Princess contest so I was jealous of her popular status and her closet full of clothes.

Once designated as my sister’s “tag-along,” she had now surpassed me leaving me in the dust. Now she was never around when I needed her.

After she left in the mornings, I’d search through her closet and find something to wear to school. Since I returned in the afternoons before she did, I could put the clothes back. I got away with this for weeks. Bless my mum’s heart, she never squealed on me knowing I’d get caught sooner or later.

The discovery came a few weeks later after I’d soiled one of my sister’s sweaters. First I stood accused, and then admitted my guilt. After that, we barely spoke to each other. She refused to listen to my reasons and excuses. I remained accused and unforgiven.

It wasn’t until after she married that we became close again. She had finally moved on and I had grown up. The teenage bickering and sibling rivalry was behind us. I discovered that conversation doesn’t work unless both parties contribute.

I told my husband about this on one of our daily walks. He likes to talk and threads his words together with ands and buts which makes it difficult to jump in. I reminded him that conversation is a two-way street. When he is the only talker my mind drifts because I feel I’m being lectured to. He’s a slow learner, but finally he’s getting the hang of it.

When the Broadway play “Hamilton” was attended by Vice Pres. Elect Pence and his daughter, they received a “piece of Aaron Burr’s mind.” He addressed Pence with the cast’s doubts that he or Pres. Elect Trump could serve all the people. The diatribe lasted several minutes followed by clapping and cheers from the New York Liberal audience. Burr said he simply wanted their feelings to be “part of the conversation,” yet Pence had no chance to respond.

That, my friends, is the Progressive definition of free speech: a one-sided argument where only one party gets to have their voice heard.

A college student clarified this for me when she told a reporter, “I hate free speech. People shouldn’t be able to oppose or offend someone else.”

Of course she proceeded to tell the columnist that they were protesting a conservative that was coming on campus to speak to the students.” In other words, a conservative was not allowed free speech on their campus because they only wanted to hear one political point of view – theirs!

We usually choose friends that are similar to us and have many of the same opinions. If you were to shut your friend up when their ideas and preferences differed from yours, you would have no friends.

If Liberals truly wanted to be a part of the national conversation, they would be willing to listen to the other side; but they’re not. Instead, they are whining and throwing a tantrum because they’re side lost.

They are upset because their candidate won the popular vote, but you see that doesn’t matter. The Constitution created the Electoral College so that everyone, even the smallest communities could be heard and their votes counted. If the popular votes won, then the same state or states and party would win every year.

Some also want to amend the Constitution and change some of its rights and privileges so that it favors only a few. They want to take away the 2^nd amendment (right to bear arms) so the people would be defenseless if a tyrant or dictator took control and chose to take away the people’s rights and freedoms.

The Constitution is an inspired document that never gets old. Its wisdom preserves liberty and justice for all. Don’t think for a moment that the people of this great land want to change the very thing which has protected them for hundreds of years.

As you partake of your Thanksgiving meal, offer up a prayer of thanks that you are still able to call upon your God and feel safe in your community. If Liberals had their way, we’d be inundated by the people who are flooding our land with illegal aliens and radical minorities intent on taking away what we have and replacing it with their own idioms and values.

When Liberals stop killing cops, stop detesting the Military and label rioting and destruction as a protest perhaps I’ll believe that they really want a national conversation. But if they refuse to listen or to allow another point of view to be heard, I’ll still insist that Liberals are sore losers.

When Lines Blur between Reality and Fiction

“With these Hands — Wonder” http://carol-allen-anfinsen.pixels.com 

Most People seek the truth. They want to believe in what is real; what is factual. But the media has long given up on gathering facts and are now focused on distortion and white lies. They’ve become promoters of their own personal ideology and political bias, and are focused on manipulating truth. Many participants take words out of context and turn conviction into lies. They prevent their audiences from getting an objective viewpoint or in hearing both sides.

Now unabashedly the FBI and the Justice Department have begun to skirt the law. Even the Supreme Court is ignoring their allegiance to the Constitution and the people dishonoring their positions and personal honor in order to promote an agenda that is underhandedly dark and holds serious repercussions for the future of this nation.

Remember when a handshake was not only respected in a contract or agreement, but engraved in stone because people considered their word sacrosanct and lawful? Now we can no longer trust our leaders who we thought were held to a higher standard. As a matter of fact, most of us don’t trust anyone. We’re afraid of a sales call, of identity theft, of scammers that assault us day and night.

(Front yard blooms)

Those elected to power are mainly concerned with their own careers. In their personal view and thinking “the ends justify the means.” Their allegiance to the electorate whom they serve no longer matters. How did we sink so low? What has caused this fall of national character into the murky abyss of slime where right and wrong have been muddied in a grab for power?

Prior to her husband’s election as President of the United State, Michelle Obama said “I’m ashamed of my Country.”  After almost eight years of Obama leadership, I can say in return “I’m not only ashamed of my country, I fear for its future.”

We have become a Godless people more concerned with our personal pleasures than in our own honesty and integrity. The decline in American values is evident. We have turned honorable men and women into puppets of the state. Our greed for power has tainted our judgment. Our leaders have become dictators, and our loyal servants have become dishonest politicians grubbing for position and control.

The heart of America is rotting from the core. There are a few glimmers of hope. When a crisis emerges, we still stand together. When people die, we are there to give compassion and support. But even in the midst of this, we are divided. We ignore crime and the law in favor of prejudice and popular opinion. Many segments of the population have become a mob mentality. It doesn’t matter what the laws say, they break it. If they don’t like the outcome, they stand against the enforcers who have pledged to keep us safe. In turn, lawbreakers are shielded by their leaders and mob violence is often encouraged and allowed.

(These young armadillos visited us early one morning.)

Both political correctness and designated “hate speech” are becoming a law unto themselves setting a dangerous precedent in overruling existing Constitutional law. As a result, people are becoming afraid of spontaneous speech or of expressing an opinion. Free speech is being set on its ear by self-appointed enforcers who label someone’s opinion as prejudiced or hateful. Recently some university students uttered “I hate the first amendment. We don’t want these people (those with opposing views) on our campus.”

These students are too young to remember Hitler and his brutal regime when hate speech was lauded and opposing opinions were stifled. Our Founding Fathers must be quaking in their boots in fear that all they worked so hard to achieve is being destroyed.

We have one of the most important elections in our time coming up in November. Will we disregard what history can teach us? Will we put our personal stamp, our thumb print, in support of lawlessness, dishonesty and Godlessness? Or will we uphold the principles that made America great for all people and not just the few in power?

This division we now feel in our country did not come from the ground up, but from the top down. Good leaders inspire the best in their followers. They lead by example and truth. The chaos in our country and the world has been allowed to happen. The Middle East has been blown apart by incompetence and falsehoods.

Socialism and totalitarianism are not the answer. You just have to examine their roots and results to understand their automatic downfall. Freedom isn’t lawlessness or pitting one group of people against another. Class warfare is a communist tactic. Morally it is bribery with the intent of getting what you want.

Freedom isn’t free just because you want it to be so. Freedom is the result of sacrifice, honor, and hard work. If you’re not up to it, someone else may be and the result is your neck under the boot of oppression. Please friends, vote judiciously and prayerfully.

“The Perfect Ending”  http://carol-allen-anfinsen.pixels.com