The Left Goes Full Orwell...

Regulation is freedom, and freedom is authoritarianism.

"Freedom," warned the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is funded by the Trudeau government, is a word that has "become common among far-right groups."

To prove its point, the CBC quoted Elisabeth Anker, a George Washington University prof, who claimed that freedom is a "slippery concept" and that those on the right want "violent" freedoms that reject being "bound by norms of equality" or "norms to remedy inequality."

On, in other words, freedom from state coercion to create the ideal society of the state.

Anker wrote a book titled Ugly Freedoms which argues that "individual liberty has always been entangled with white supremacy, settler colonialism, climate destruction, economic exploitation, and patriarchy.” The leftist author of articles such as "You Can Love Me Too — I Am So Like The State" and “The Communist Manifesto in an Era of Late-Capital” takes her anti-freedom views to state-owned media forums such as Al Jazeera, the BBC, and Voice of America.

It’s understandable that anyone whose business is going on government media to explain why the government should take away individual rights wouldn’t be too fond of “ugly” freedom.

In George Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry of Truth is decorated with party slogans that include, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength.” The organization was based on the actual British Ministry of Information which Orwell had a great deal of experience with while working for the wartime BBC even while his wife worked for the Ministry’s censorship division.

Orwell would not have been in the least surprised by state media trotting out an academic who regularly appears on state media (including that of totalitarian nations such as Qatar) to explain that freedom is really a very naughty thing even as the state crushes a “Freedom Convoy” using emergency powers that were meant to deal with wartime emergencies, not peaceful protests.

But “Freedom is Slavery” propaganda has become extremely ubiquitous on the Left.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau argued that by using the Emergencies Act to suppress protests, he was actually doing what is "necessary to reinforce the principles, values, and institutions that keep all Canadians free." Taking away the freedom to protest against his regime was actually keeping all Canadians free. 1984’s version of the same logic was a good deal pithier.

Long before the Freedom Convoy, media in this country had begun vocally insisting that Gov. Ron DeSantis was an “authoritarian” for refusing to impose onerous regulations on Floridians.

“Ron DeSantis is creating a paradise of authoritarianism,” a Washington Post column argued.

An authoritarian paradise, like a place where tyranny is the right not to be told what to do, is a contradiction in terms, but in a backward world where freedom is a threat, elected officials who don’t force people to do things are authoritarians, while politicians who take away rights are liberators. The greatest tyranny is making your own choices and the ultimate freedom comes from...

Report: Economic Freedom in U.S. Sinks to Record Low

Economic freedom in the United States declined again in 2016, matching the lowest score it has ever received on the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.

The index ranks countries on 10 metrics that measure four pillars of economic freedom: the rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets. Each country’s economic freedom score is graded on a scale of zero to 100, with 100 indicating the most economic freedom.

While the United States moved up one rank this year from 12 to 11, its economic freedom score dropped. The United States received a score of 76.2 last year. This year it declined to 75.4—the lowest score it has received since 1998.

“The United States continues to be mired in the ranks of the ‘mostly free,’ the second-tier economic freedom category into which the U.S. dropped in 2010,” the report states. “Worse, with scores in labor freedom, business freedom, and fiscal freedom notably declining, the economic freedom of the United States plunged...

China Critic Enes Kanter Freedom Stars in Ad Set to Run During Primetime Olympics Coverage

Kanter has been outspoken critic of China's human rights abuses

Boston Celtics center and 2021 Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year Enes Kanter Freedom will star in an ad set to air during primetime broadcasts of the Beijing Olympics.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) this week launched the $1.5 million campaign, which features Freedom speaking on the virtues of free speech while wearing a "Free Tibet, Free Taiwan, Free Hong Kong, Free Uyghurs" T-shirt. In the minute-long spot, the Turkish immigrant notes that "without freedom, we cannot do anything."

"People should feel lucky and blessed to be in a country like America where there's human rights," Freedom, who had his Turkish citizenship revoked after criticizing the Turkish regime, says in the ad. "And obviously America is having her own problems—but change can only happen in America with freedom of speech."

The 2022 Beijing Olympics have brought renewed scrutiny to China's human rights issues. The United States did not send diplomatic representatives to the games in protests of China's genocide of Uyghur Muslims. U.S. leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) cautioned athletes against criticizing the CCP after China threatened to punish Olympic athletes who speak out against the regime while in Beijing.

NBC refused to air an ad created by Republican congressman Mike Waltz that also featured Freedom and was critical of sponsors for sticking with the games despite the human rights abuses.

A Muslim himself, Freedom is an outspoken critic of authoritarian regimes. He became a U.S. citizen last year after the Turkish government targeted his family for his criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The regime jailed Freedom's father and forced his family to publicly disown him. His family could be arrested if they attempt to contact their son.

Freedom has criticized the International Olympic Committee for overlooking China's "abuses."

"The IOC has ignored Beijing's abuses for years," he wrote in a November Wall Street Journal op-ed calling to move the games out of China. "All the gold medals in the world aren't worth selling your values and your principles to the Chinese Communist Party."

FIRE's ad will air on network and cable news channels during Olympic broadcasts and primetime programs, including...

GiveSendGo Defies Fascist Canadian Govt. Order to Freeze Freedom Convoy Trucker Funds

Christian-owned funding platform GiveSendGo said it would not comply with an order by a Canadian court to freeze over $8.6 million in donated funds destined for the Canadian truckers’ Freedom Convoy 2022, saying the court has no jurisdiction over the U.S-based company.



A statement from Doug Ford’s office announced the decision:

Today, the Attorney General brought an application in the Superior Court of Justice for an order pursuant to section 490.8 of the Criminal Code prohibiting any person from disposing of, or otherwise dealing with, in any manner whatsoever, any and all monetary donations made through the Freedom Convoy 2022 and Adopt-a-Trucker campaign pages on the GiveSendGo online fundraising platform. This afternoon, the order was issued. It binds any and all parties with possession or control over these donations.

Posting from its official Gab account and also on Twitter, GiveSendGo stated that the courts of Canada have no jurisdiction over the company and that the Freedom Convoy will receive its funds as normal. The company’s statement reads: “Know this! Canada has absolutely ZERO jurisdiction over how we manage our funds here at GiveSendGo. All funds for EVERY campaign on GiveSendGo flow directly to the recipients of those campaigns, not least of which is The Freedom Convoy campaign.”

This is the globalist oligarchy’s second attempt to prevent financial aid from reaching the trucker’s revolt, which continues to gain momentum. The first came on February 3, when the leftist-run platform GoFundMe froze $10 million in funds destined for the Freedom Convoy.

After initially trying to redirect the funds to “verified charities,” GoFundMe backed down in the face of public outcry and threats of investigation from Republican state attorneys general in the U.S, saying it would refund donors instead.

In the meantime, the Christian, pro-freedom website GiveSendGo offered to host the Freedom Convoy’s fundraiser. In just a week, the new fundraiser has raised over $8.6 million.

According to the fundraising page, which was set up by organizers of the Freedom Convoy, funds will be dispersed to truckers participating in the protest to aid in the cost of their journey, to cover the cost of fuel, and for...

U.S. Government Media Network Extols “Press Freedom” After Firing Journalists Over Soros Report

It’s ironic that, just weeks after firing journalists behind a broadcast critical of leftwing billionaire George Soros, the head of the U.S. government’s international media networks is proclaiming his support for “press freedom.” U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Chief John F. Lansing, an Obama appointee, issued a heartfelt statement a few days ago reaffirming his “commitment to the fundamental principles of press freedom.” In the document, titled “Fighting for press freedom, today and everyday,” Lansing assures the world that his agency “will continue to report the truth,” though it recently cost USAGM journalists their jobs. The occasion was World Press Freedom Day, celebrated on May 3, and Lansing expresses deep concern that his taxpayer-funded agency “continues to witness firsthand how a free and independent media is deteriorating worldwide.”

Posted on the agency’s website and disbursed worldwide, the document goes on to say “despite some very dark moments, we have not been silenced. We will continue to report the truth. We will continue to find new ways to get independent reporting and programming to global audiences who rely on it. And we will continue to carry through our mission to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. Today, and every day, I am proud to be part of this organization, and call these brave men and women colleagues, as we stand together for press freedom.”

Lansing conveniently omits that he recently utilized Stalinist techniques to retaliate against USAGM journalists and producers involved in the Soros piece. The Spanish-language segment aired in May 2018 on Television Martí and was available for months online until it caught the eye of a scandal-plagued senator tried for bribery and corruption. Eight reporters and editors at the publicly funded media outlet were terminated and, at the request of the disgraced senator, New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez, Lansing ordered a review of all content to address “patterns of unethical, unprofessional, biased, or sub-standard journalism.” An employee at the Miami, Florida-based Martí headquarters said in a local newspaper report “the environment that has been created by the upper hierarchy of the Agency for Global Media is repressive. People write with fear. Adjectives are no longer used.”

Television Martí—and its radio counterpart—operate under the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) and comprise one of the USAGM’s five international multimedia networks. The others are Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting. The media outlets get about $685 million a year from American taxpayers and reportedly reach 345 million people worldwide in 59 languages. The global media agency was created to counter disinformation spread by oppressive regimes abroad. The USAGM website states that its mission is “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” Television and Radio Martí were created to promote freedom and democracy by providing the people of Cuba with objective news and information programming.
The Soros broadcast focused on his efforts to cripple sovereign governments in Latin America. Judicial Watch was cited as a source because it investigated State Department funding of Soros groups in Colombia and published a report on Soros’ initiatives to advance a radical globalist agenda in Guatemala. Judicial Watch also released a special report documenting the financial and staffing nexus between Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) and the U.S. government. In that document, Judicial Watch connects the dots between U.S.-funded entities and OSF affiliates to further the Hungarian-born philanthropist’s agenda seeking to destabilize legitimate governments, erase national borders, target conservative politicians, finance civil unrest, subvert institutions of higher education, and orchestrate refugee crises for...

Silencing the ‘Sound of Freedom’

Why is the leftist media targeting a movie about child sex trafficking?

Arguably no issue is less partisan, and more likely to unite people of every political stripe, even in our current state of hyper-polarization, than child trafficking. How could opposition to the cruel kidnapping of children and their forced recruitment into the international sex trade fail to draw unified support from all corners? And yet when a movie comes along that dares to address this uncomfortable topic, this horrific evil, head-on – a movie aimed not only at raising awareness but at inspiring action – the Left curiously rallies to undermine it with partisan smears and ugly innuendo.

Angel Studios’ Sound of Freedom opened last week, a thriller based on the captivating true story of Tim Ballard, a Homeland Security Special Agent frustrated by the lack of effective rescue strategies and prosecutorial authority to help trafficked children in underdeveloped nations. Ballard decided to circumvent the law enforcement bureaucracy to find a more direct, if dangerous, way to undertake the rescue of missing children. In 2013 he founded Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to saving children from sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. The organization reportedly has undertaken more than a dozen sting operations. Actor Jim Caveziel brings his passionate intensity to the portrayal of Ballard in the film.

Caveziel, you will remember, is best-known for his astonishing turn as Jesus Christ in the Mel Gibson-directed blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, the movie that opened the eyes of many Hollywood executives who didn’t believe or care that there was a massive audience out there in flyover America hungry for entertainment fare that didn’t trash their faith. Caveziel, openly Christian and conservative in an industry dominated by secular elites, calls Sound of Freedom the most important movie he’s done since Passion.

Now the low-budget film that had been shelved for nearly five years and nearly never saw the light of day has been resurrected and achieved stunning popular success on the Rotten Tomatoes entertainment review site (with a 99% Audience Score) and at the box office.

Just how well is Sound of Freedom doing? John Nolte at Breitbart News writes that “At the close of business Sunday, after only six days in theaters, Sound of Freedom has grossed $40.2 million. Also, over the weekend, it averaged $6,388 per screen, which topped [the latest installment of the Indiana Jones franchise] Dial of Destiny’s per-screen average of $5,760”:

Dial of Destiny might have come in second place with a weekend’s gross box office haul of $26.5 million, and Sound of Freedom might have come in third place with $18.2 million, but Sound of Freedom is doing a better job of packing them in.

Also, Unlike Disney’s Dial of Destiny, which is on track to lose tens if not hundreds of millions, Sound of Freedom is already profitable. Budgeted at just $14.5 million, Sound of Freedom started making millions the moment it crossed $25 to $30 million. And it’s just getting started. With an A+ Cinemascore and the corporate media’s desperate and insulting attacks, word of mouth is all set up to...

"We Are Restricting Freedom... For The Common Good": Irish Green Party Calls For Limiting Free Speech

The Irish Green Party followed many on the left around the world, including our own Democratic Party, this week and came out for censorship and speech controls. Indeed, the party went full Orwellian as its chairwoman Pauline O’Reilly called for “restricting freedom” to protect it.

O’Reilly’s comments are part of the introduction of the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022. We previously discussed this massive assault on free speech.

The legislation that would criminalize “incitement to violence or hatred against” people with “protected characteristics,” as well as “condoning, denying or grossly trivialising genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.”

Limiting free speech has become an article of faith for many on the left. I have written about my distress (as someone who grew up in a liberal, politically active Democratic family in Chicago) in watching the abandonment of free speech values by the party. Democratic leaders now uniformly call for censorship and speech regulations. President Biden even charged that companies who refused to censor opposing views on social media were “killing people.” Others have denounced free speech as “a white man’s obsession.”

The anti-free speech movement has become openly Orwellian in claiming to protect freedom by limiting freedom. It also employs using terms like disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation to obscure their effort to silence those with opposing views. Rather than use “censorship,” they refer to “content moderation.”

That effort was on full display this week in Ireland with this anti-free speech legislation.

Speaking before the Irish Senate (Seanad) this week, O’Reilly declared “when one thinks about it, all law and all legislation is about the restriction of freedom. This is exactly what we are doing here. We are restricting freedom but we are doing it for the common good.”

It is the same message of New York democrats calling for limiting speech as a way of protecting democracy. Indeed, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has declared free speech is “tyranny.”

O’Reilly assured citizens that giving up freedom was nothing new or threatening: “Throughout our Constitution one can see that while one has rights they are restricted for the common good. Everything needs to be balanced.”

What is particularly chilling is how low the threshold is for denying free speech, according to O’Reilly. It now appears that “deep discomfort” is enough:

“If a person’s views on other people’s identities make their lives unsafe and insecure, and cause them such deep discomfort that they cannot live in peace, our job as legislators is to restrict those freedoms for...

Enes Kanter Freedom Praises The First Amendment, Calls It The ‘Greatest Amendment Of All Time’

Enes Kanter Freedom loves the First Amendment.

The Boston Celtics center recently became an American citizen, and he absolutely loves this country and his ability to speak up.

“There are 27 Amendments and the First Amendment is the greatest Amendment of all time: freedom of speech,” Freedom said during a weekend appearance on Fox News when talking about speaking out against China and wearing shoes critical of the CCP.

He also added that some players around the league have reached out to offer the support of his pro-freedom stance. You can listen to his full comments below.

As I’ve said for a long time, Freedom’s anti-CCP stance will almost certainly cost him his NBA career. I’ll be shocked if he gets a new deal after his current one expires.

The NBA is simply too entangled with the dictatorship, and we all know the CCP doesn’t tolerate criticism.

Yet, Freedom doesn’t seem interested in backing down at all. In fact, he only seems more...

Health Freedom Is The Hottest Political Issue On The Entire Globe, And Our World Will Never Be The Same After This

We are witnessing an epic global struggle for freedom, and the outcome of that struggle is going to greatly shape what our world is going to look like in the years ahead. Ultimately, one of the most fundamental rights that we have is the right to make our own health decisions. If someone else has the authority to make those decisions for you, then you aren’t really free. This pandemic has transformed the debate over health freedom into the most hotly contested political issue on the entire planet, and the intensity seems to have been turned up a few more notches in recent days. As governments around the world have begun instituting new lockdowns, new mandates and new “health passports”, we have seen huge eruptions of anger all over the world.

For example, over the weekend there was an enormous health freedom protest in London…

Thousands have gathered today Saturday, July 24, in London’s Trafalgar Square to protest against the lockdown rules and COVID-19 vaccinations. A wide range of speakers is attending the event, including well-known British conspiracy theorist, Kate Shemirani, who spoke to the crowd. Demonstrators are angry about the recent move which will see vaccine passports becoming compulsory in England to access nightclubs and other packed venues.

At the same time, there were also massive protests in the heart of Paris…

French anti-riot police fired tear gas Saturday as clashes erupted during protests in central Paris against COVID-19 restrictions and a vaccination campaign, television reported.

Police sought to push back demonstrators near the capital’s Gare Saint-Lazare railway station after protesters had knocked over a police motorbike ridden by two officers, television pictures showed.

Images showed a heavy police presence on the capital’s streets. Scuffles between police and demonstrators also broke out on the Champs-Elysees thoroughfare, where tear gas was fired and traffic was halted, the pictures showed.

On the other side of the globe, we continue to see violent protests in Sydney and other major Australian cities…

Thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney and other Australian cities on Saturday to protest lockdown restrictions amid another surge in cases, and police made several arrests after crowds broke through barriers and threw plastic bottles and plants.

The unmasked participants marched from Sydney’s Victoria Park to Town Hall in the central business district, carrying signs calling for “freedom” and “the truth.”

Millions upon millions of people are fed up and are refusing to accept any more violations of their fundamental rights.

But of course there are millions of others that are eagerly embracing the tyrannical measures that have been implemented by national governments around the globe.

In the end, the scale is going to tip one way or the other, and the outcome is going to greatly shape the direction of humanity’s future.

So let us hope that freedom wins.

Right now, the corporate media continues to work very hard to generate as much panic as possible. Earlier today, I found it quite comical when one news outlet ran a story about how authorities are now warning us that COVID can be spread by flatulence…

The official advice is to open a window to increase ventilation and slow the spread of...

How a ‘Far-Left Propaganda Machine’ Got a Respected Legal Group Expelled by Amazon

Alliance Defending Freedom has won seven cases at the U.S. Supreme Court in as many years, including one that upheld an Arizona school choice program and another that prevented the state of Missouri from discriminating against a Christian preschool.

The legal powerhouse, which fights for religious freedom, is awaiting decisions in two more landmark free speech cases it argued this term before the high court. It is counted as one of the most successful legal advocacy organizations in the country.

But even that stellar record was not enough to prevent Alliance Defending Freedom from being banned from participating in AmazonSmile, which allows Amazon.com customers to contribute “0.5% of eligible purchases” to “almost one million eligible 501(c)(3) public charitable organizations.”

ADF had been one of those charities since the 2013 launch of AmazonSmile until recently, when those who had assigned the legal organization as their charity were notified that it was no longer eligible.

The reason? Southern Poverty Law Center.

Those who had selected ADF as their charity received the following explanation of why they’d no longer be able to give to the religious freedom group through the program:

The AmazonSmile Participation Agreement states that certain categories of organizations are not eligible to participate in AmazonSmile. We rely on the Southern Poverty Law Center to determine which charities are in certain ineligible categories. You have been excluded from the AmazonSmile program because the Southern Poverty Law Center lists Alliance Defending Freedom in an ineligible category.

For those unfamiliar with SPLC, they are the hysteria-stokers responsible for producing a slanderous list of “hate groups” that lumps together actual violent extremists with respectable organizations such as Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council and with international human rights activists such as Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

So, the “ineligible category” to which Amazon’s statement refers is really nothing more than a hit list of groups and people SPLC disagrees with. Amazon’s decision to rely on the false accusations of ...

Jan. 6 Is the USA's Own Tiananmen Square

CHINA. Beijing. April to June 1989. Student protesters erect a statue called the goddess of democracy in Tiananmen Square. The statue, which resembled the Statue of Liberty, represented the students’ demands for freedom and democracy.

Two symbolic events in the struggle for human freedom over oppressive government transpired last month with barely any notice from the American media. The first was the thirty-year anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The second was the Chinese Communist Party's removal of monuments commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre that occupied sacred ground on Hong Kong university campuses, including a replica of the famed "Goddess of Democracy" statue that was erected in the square just before Chinese military forces killed, kidnapped, or crippled thousands of students and workers pleading for individual liberty.

It is a sad testament to how far the United States has fallen as a nation once synonymous with freedom that neither event caused much of a stir among the pampered princelings of D.C. I suppose it seemed disjointed to the creatures of our swamp leviathan to celebrate victory in the Cold War over an evil empire that stifled speech, micromanaged economic relations, and disappeared its political enemies into the bowels of gulag hell when it is now also perversely engaged in shutting down free speech, squeezing domestic markets into political compliance through mandates and regulations, and tossing election protesters into dungeons where complaints of physical and psychological torture are rife and constitutional due process looks beaten if not dead.

Likewise, how can the lords and ladies (and all their non-binary, "woke," communist-leaning comrades) ruling the American continent from their taxpayer-funded "safe spaces" rail against China's attempts to erase from history its bloody massacre of peaceful demonstrators nearly thirty-three years ago when D.C. is in the midst of an enormous propaganda campaign of its own to transform the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations that occurred last January 6 into an "insurrection" that somehow threatened the feds grip on total power? China, how dare you rewrite history to turn "democracy protesters" into "domestic terrorists" at the exact same time we're trying to rewrite history by turning "democracy protesters" into "domestic terrorists" ourselves? Have you no shame? It is clear that when it comes to "shame," both the Chinese and American governments have already purged that word from their respective lexicons.

So here we are in America, facing the conundrum that our political "leaders" have so much in common with the Soviet and Chinese communists of thirty years ago that they are rendered speechless and left incapable of defending the moral imperative of freedom against those who work to destroy it. You cannot celebrate "freedom" over Soviet "tyranny" when "freedom" is such a scary idea in the United States these days that it has been paved over with newfound reverence for the vagaries of "democracy," especially "democracy" that can be constructed from the printing presses of fraudulent mail-in ballots much the same way American power overseas has been constructed from the printing presses of fraudulent dollars fabricated from...

Shocker: Bloomberg's criticism of anti-trafficking movie "Sound of Freedom" written by "Minor Attracted Persons" advocate who defends pedophilia

"Sound of Freedom is a right-wing QAnon conspiracy movie" is officially the opinion of a pedophile.

Many mainstream media outlets have been piling on the movie "Sound of Freedom," which is based on a true story of human trafficking, and calling it conspiracy for alt-right boomers.


One such outlet was Bloomberg:

Anyways, here are some totally unrelated pieces this same dude has written:

Yep.

Noah Berlatsky is a pedophile apologist who thinks that MAPs (minor-attracted persons) are unfairly stigmatized because they want to rape kids and who are we to say that's wrong?

A former NBC contributor who served as a spokesperson for pro-pedophile organization Prostasia has harsh words for new anti-child trafficking film "Sound of Freedom..."

For Berlatsky, who became the spokesperson for Prostasia in 2021, "Sound of Freedom" is a "QAnon dog whistle" that does "little to help victims" who are portrayed "as innocent and sympathetic as possible."

Is it his contention that most kids who are pimped out to pedophiles aren't sympathetic? He wants us to have sympathy for the pedos while treating the kids as if they have agency.

This guy is really, really gross...

France Quietly Reintroducing the Crime of Blasphemy

Image is illustrative and does not represent any person named in the article. 

• Today, in France, using freedom of expression to criticize Islam is clearly an extremely dangerous act, even if you, like Mila, are a child.
• France is rapidly going from laïcité (secularism) to lâcheté (cowardice); from freedom of expression to unconditional surrender. France keeps trying to procrastinate while Islamism thrives on the elites' rapidly abandoning their Judeo-Christian values.
• Feminist organizations, so quick to denounce "toxic masculinity" and "patriarchal structures of domination", were also silent.
• Today, in France, the country of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which always sanctified freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion and ideologies, some within the justice system.... are quietly and de facto reintroducing the crime of blasphemy.

Today, in France, the country that always sanctified freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion and ideologies, some within the justice system are quietly and de facto reintroducing the crime of blasphemy. (Images source: iStock. Image is illustrative and does not represent any person named in the article.)

France had just come out of the fifth anniversary of the massacre at its satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo than it was plunged into a similar case. On January 18, Mila O., a 16-year-old French girl, made insulting comments about Islam during an Instagram livestream.

"During her livestream, a Muslim boy asked her out in the comments, but she turned him down because she is gay. He responded by accusing her of racism and calling her a 'dirty lesbian'. In an angry follow-up video, streamed immediately after she was insulted, Mila responded by saying that she 'hates religion'".

Mila continued, saying among other things:

"Are you familiar with freedom of expression? I didn't hesitate to say what I thought. I hate religion. The Koran is a religion of hatred; there is only hatred in it. That's what I think. I say what I think... Islam is sh*t... I'm not a racist at all. One cannot simply be racist against a religion... I say what I want, I say what I think. Your religion is sh*t. I'd stick a finger up your god's a**h*le..."

What she said might be considered a bit raw, but does she have the right to say it? After all, Jews are called the descendants of pigs and apes without the speech police having a stroke.

Following her statements, Mila was targeted on social networks, where the video was widely shared; she received numerous death threats, and her name, address and the name of her school were made public. Mila was forced to leave school for her own safety.

Now under police protection, Mila is in such danger that no French school can, for the time being, accommodate her. "I can't set foot in my high school anymore and I can't even change schools because the whole of France is out to...

SMOKING GUN MEMO LAID OUT LEFT’S ASSAULT ON CONSERVATIVES

A strategy memo compiled by George Soros-funded activist groups as President Trump was being inaugurated last year foretold and seemed to lay the groundwork for many of the political difficulties Trump now faces and the politics-related strife now roiling the nation.

The memo takes on a heightened importance as the politically-driven censorship of conservatives by the gigantic, unregulated social media corporations controlled by the Left is moving into high gearwhile the crucial midterm congressional elections of Nov. 6 approach.

The intensely anti-conservative animus in the memo may have inspired MasterCard and WorldPay’s attempt on Aug. 21 to strangle the fundraising efforts of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, publisher of FrontPage, by refusing to complete its financial transactions. On that day MasterCard informed the Freedom Center that it would no longer process its transactions because it had been labeled a “hate group” by the radical leftist groups known as the Southern Poverty Law Center and ColorOfChange.org. The Freedom Center stood falsely accused of being “hateful in nature” and “advocating for violence.”

Only a massive outcry by conservative groups and prominent conservatives like Rush Limbaugh forced MasterCard to back down days later and restore the Freedom Center’s online fundraising facilities. But other conservative websites haven’t been so lucky. Many have been shut down or seen their traffic slashed as leftists have manipulated algorithms and limited the reach of conservative content.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has since called for a coalition to be created across partisan and ideological lines to defend free speech.

The memo itself, "Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action," marked an escalation in tactics by the Left. It was first made public last year by Joe Schoffstall of the Washington Free Beacon around the time Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the nation’s 45th president. This smoking-gun planning document aimed at suppressing conservative voices on social media was ignored by the mainstream media at the time and in the more than a year-and-a-half since.

The document spelled out the Left’s plans for impeaching President Trump, filing lawsuits against the fledgling administration, and using social media to delegitimize Trump’s presidency and hurt Republicans. “Right now, our institutions are among the critical few that stand between the America we love and the abyss,” the memo stated. “We must protect and defend our democratic values. We will not back down. We will only move forward.”

WND founder Joseph Farah referred last week to the 49-page memo as a blueprint “revealing how George Soros operatives, including David Brock, were there at the genesis, the planning stages, with their hands on the ignition key, of the most concerted, well-funded, diabolical attack on free speech in the history of America.”

The document “was nothing short of a plan to turn Google, Facebook and other social media into hyper-partisan Democratic Party activists, promoters, cheerleaders, and off-the-books donors in an effort to turn the country into a...

Freedom vs. Liberty: How Subtle Differences Between These Two Big Ideas Changed Our World

“I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity. Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life.” Murray Rothbard

The terms "freedom" and "liberty" have become clichés in modern political parlance. Because these words are invoked so much by politicians and their ilk, their meanings are almost synonymous and used interchangeably. That's confusing – and can be dangerous – because their definitions are actually quite different.

"Freedom" is predominantly an internal construct. Viktor Frankl, the legendary Holocaust survivor who wrote Man's Search For Meaning, said it well: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way (in how he approaches his circumstances).”

In other words, to be free is to take ownership of what goes on between your ears, to be autonomous in thoughts first and actions second. Your freedom to act a certain way can be taken away from you – but your attitude about your circumstances cannot – making one's freedom predominantly an...

Tulsi Gabbard: ‘You See The Final Expression Of Cancel Culture In Islamist Terrorist Groups’

Former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard laid into cancel culture during a Tuesday evening appearance on “Fox News Primetime.”

Gabbard spoke with former Republican South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, once her congressional colleague, about what cancel culture really was and where it could be going.

WATCH:

Gabbard began by pointing to freedom of speech — and a free and open marketplace of ideas — as the basis of American democracy.

“Freedom for every single one of us to be able to share our ideas and debate them, to argue them, to agree or to disagree, to pick and choose in this marketplace of ideas, those that we deem to be right or wrong, to be superior or inferior, and even for those ideas that may be misleading or dangerous, that in this free marketplace, we have a right to then defeat those ideas with superior ones,” Gabbard said. “And others have the freedom to choose what they want to believe or not believe or what they want to adhere to.”

Gabbard went on to argue cancel culture was the antithesis of that freedom because it involved some people believing they had the right to shut down the ideas they felt were wrong or dangerous, leaving the ideas they had approved to be the only path that remained available.

“The main issue with this is when you look at our rights and freedoms, and our ability to debate them, and respectfully came out the other end agreeing or disagreeing as you and I have over the years, it is based on the fact that we are all children of God. And recognizing that, we then treat each other with respect and respect this freedom that we have,” Gabbard continued, pivoting then to address the direction that cancel culture was likely to lead.

“Let’s look down the path and say where does this cancel culture lead us?” she asked. “You see the final expression of cancel culture in Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaida, who basically go and behead those that who are — they deem to be infidels or heretics in order to silence them, in order to protect others from being misled by those heretical ideas.”

“This is the danger of where this path leads us unless we as individuals stand up against it,” Gabbard concluded, encouraging people to stand up to it by evaluating who they...

Irish Quandary: Who to Blame When Everyone’s Vaxxed?

No one seems curious about the prevalence of the disease in an almost fully vaccinated population.

During his Thursday town hall meeting with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, President Joe Biden blithely dismissed the most basic assertion of those who have chosen to resist a COVID-19 vaccination. “Freedom? I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID,” scoffed Biden. “No, I mean come on — freedom.”

In his literally mindless way, Biden said out loud what health officials everywhere have been implying since the vaccines became widely available. Those who are not vaccinated are killing their more responsible peers.

In the Republic of Ireland, however, health officials are running out of people to blame. This has becoming embarrassingly obvious in County Waterford. As reported in the Irish Times, the nation’s establishment newspaper, two of the three most COVID-infected electoral areas in Ireland are located in the county “with the highest rate of vaccination in the country.” In Waterford, a remarkable 99.7 percent of adults over the age of 18 is fully vaccinated.

The Waterford news caught my attention because the first American “Cashills” hail from County Waterford. My great-great-grandfather came to America in 1847, “Black 47” as they called it, the mid-point of a potato famine that saw more than one million Irish die from starvation or disease and another million flee the country. For all their travails, the Irish were a hardy, freedom-loving people then. With some notable exceptions, they are neither anymore.

I have visited Ireland often over the years, lived there on two occasions, and watched the imperial Left slowly squeeze the heart out of Irish culture. The Ireland of today is not the Ireland of the Easter Rising. It is an Ireland whose almost total submission to the COVID authorities was as predictable as its giddy acceptance in 2018 of abortion on demand.

Embarrassed by Ireland’s traditional Catholicism, the nation’s media and government elites have been busily importing the whole enchilada of woke values concocted in the U.S. and codified in the EU — unrestricted sexual freedom, radical feminism, gay rights, divorce, alternative family structure, gay marriage, thoughtless immigration, anti-Americanism, and now COVID mania.

With their near lock on what the Irish hear and read, the elites have largely shamed their fellow citizens into acceptance or silence. Unlike America, Ireland has no effective alternative media. As a result, the range of acceptable opinion on controversial issues is as narrow as a country lane. In its most orthodox moment, the Irish Catholic Church could not have been more oppressive or vengeful than the monolithic Irish cultural establishment of the early 21st century. With the arrival of COVID, that establishment showed the common people its teeth.

As late as April 2021, Irish citizens were not allowed to travel more than three miles from their homes. All schools and churches were shut down, as were all bars, restaurants, and construction sites. Even after Ireland “eased out” of these restrictions in April, travel was limited to 12 miles and people were still not allowed to have...

Slow Tyranny Is Tyranny All The Same...

Let me tell you the hard luck story

About a man named Jack McDuff

He believed in God and glory

But he just wasn't tough enough

I believe in the freedom song

Long live liberty!

I believe in the freedom song

I'll choose my own destiny

Well they took him and they beat him

Underneath the old hanging tree

Saying, "Jack, you must die"

"What will your last words be?"

Jack, he hung his head back

"Long live liberty!"

"I believe in the freedom song"

"Doesn't matter what you do to me"

With a rope around his neck they left him hanging

High on that old hanging tree

On her knees his wife was screaming

"Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy"

I believe in the freedom song

Long live liberty!

I believe in the freedom song

Doesn't matter what you do to me

Celebrating Freedom in the Shadow of Tyranny

Amidst the barbecues and fireworks - remembering with gratitude the words of the Declaration.

This year we celebrate our nation’s birth at a time when the foundational ideas that animated our break with England are under siege throughout our political, business, educational, and cultural institutions. The iconic preamble to the Declaration of Independence–– “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”––is under assault, and tyrannical ambition continues to undermine the infrastructure of our liberty.

We focus so frequently on that world-changing preamble that we forget the bulk of the Declaration is a detailed indictment of George III in terms that evoke Classical tyranny, which Aristotle defined as “arbitrary power . . . which is responsible to no one, and governs all alike, whether equals or betters, with a view to its own advantage, not to that of its subjects, and therefore against their will.” The cost of that tyranny is the weakening both of political freedom limited by the tyrant’s will; and of the independence necessary for self-government and full human dignity.

The Declaration, then, contrasts unalienable rights and political freedom with their opposite, tyranny, laying the foundations of a government that by design checks the excesses of power that destroy both independence and freedom. Rather than depend, as the Left has done since the French Revolution, on the progressive improvement of human nature, the Founders believed that people are by nature driven by “passions and interests,” as Madison called them. These forces motivating human destructive action cannot be eliminated or improved either by greater knowledge or by “technicians of the soul,” as Stalin called technocratic oligarchs. Rather, political institutions must divide and balance power so that “ambition counters ambition,” preserving the freedom of all, and forestalling tyranny whether of the minority or the majority.

A century of progressive assaults on the Founders’ architecture has weakened this defense against tyranny. Power has increasingly been expanded and concentrated in the federal government and its agencies. These bureaucracies are insulated from accountability to the people, and unconstitutionally combine the three functions of government––legislative, judicial, and executive––into one institution backed by the coercive power of...

Biden Appoints Problematic Islamist With Muslim Brotherhood Ties To Religious Freedom Commission

Under the Biden administration, Islamist affiliations are résumé builders and genocide denial is no big thing.

Serving as an imam of a mosque that was credibly accused of serving as a conduit for terror financing and as the leader of a national organization with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood should disqualify someone from serving on a commission charged with monitoring abuses of religious freedom. And downplaying the horrors of a well-documented genocide fueled by religious animosity should also be a deal breaker. But under the Biden administration, these types of Islamist affiliations are résumé builders and genocide denial is no big thing.

This was demonstrated last month when the White House appointed Mohamed Hag Magid, a prominent imam from Virginia, to serve on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) last month. Established by Congress in 1998, USCIRF is charged with monitoring violations of the right to religious freedom throughout the world and makes recommendations on how to respond to these violations to the president, the U.S. State Department, and to Congress. According to its website, the nine-member commission is “appointed by either the President or Congressional leaders of each political party, supported by a non-partisan professional staff.”

In its announcement of Magid’s appointment, the White House highlighted his status as Executive Imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center in Sterling, Virginia. In the early 2000s, the ADAMS center was named in a federal investigation as part of the SAAR network, an alleged terror finance organization funded by Saudi donors.

To further buttress Magid’s appointment, the White House invoked his tenure as president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) which was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1981. During his time as president, Magid gave an award to Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR-Michigan. Prior to receiving the ISNA reward, Walid declared, “Who are those who incurred the wrath of Allah? They are the Jews.” ISNA, by the way, was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Magid’s episode of genocide denial took place at a 2004 conference in Georgetown where he stated that reports about the mass-killings of Christians by the Islamist regime in Khartoum were “some kind of exaggeration,” and that “things escalated and people called it genocide.”

One of the groups that called what happened in Sudan “genocide” was USCIRF, the commission he now helps oversee. In 2001, USCIRF declared that religion was a major factor in Sudan’s civil war and that “the Sudanese government is committing genocidal atrocities against the civilian population in...