90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

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...

You Need Bread To Have Breadlines Bernie.

Bernie Sanders Announces National Effort To Reduce Obesity. It Works.

The Cure to America's Obesity Problem: Unionized Government Farms.

Don’t Forget: New Hampshire Winner And Dem Frontrunner Bernie Sanders Has A Lot Of Crazy Plans

Here are just 19 of the insane policy proposals and radical ideas Bernie Sanders would champion as president.

With a win in New Hampshire, a maybe-win in Iowa last week, and a month-long surge into second place nationally, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is now in strong position to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. It’s been a long road for the curmudgeonly man from Vermont, who spent years toiling on the fringes of official Washington. Of all things, the event that ultimately launched him into the Democratic Party’s mainstream turned out to be a binary 2016 primary contest with Hillary Clinton, a match-up in which the contrast ultimately benefited him more than her.

So, here we are, in February 2020, and a self-identified democratic socialist appears poised to be the candidate of the Democratic Party. That could easily change, and the party establishment will work hard to ensure it does, but let us not take for granted how stunning it is that a man as radically leftist as Sanders is the likely nominee as primary season heats up.

As Sanders and his supporters boast, he is not a normal Democrat candidate. He is the most radical member of the Senate. His platform would make him the furthest left major party nominee in the modern era.

Sanders is a European-style ideologue who seeks to radically transform the government and the economy, dismantling the system of free enterprise, and he’s not bashful about that. To be sure, his success has pushed other candidates left on issues such as health care and higher education, but Sanders still stands as the most radical candidate, which makes him the most appealing to many of his supporters.

As Sanders surges in the nominating contest, the sheer extremism of his platform should not be normalized simply because he’s earning a decent slice of the Democratic primary vote. It’s in that spirit we present this list, which conveys the radicalism on which Sanders has built his career and staked his campaign.

1. $34 Trillion Socialized Health Insurance Overhaul

Sanders would ban private insurance and implement single-payer government health care. Under his Medicare for All proposal, “federal spending on health care would still increase by 10 percent of G.D.P., or more than triple what the government spends on the military,” according to The New York Times.

2. Mass Bailout of Student Loan Debt

The senator would bail out student loan debt for “45 million Americans,” totaling “about 1.6 trillion,” according to his campaign website.

3. Making Higher Education ‘Tuition Free’

As with many of his policy proposals, Sanders’ oversimplified justification for providing free college is: Countries in Europe offer it for free, why can’t the United States? Unlike in Europe, however, tuition is precisely what made the United States the top country in which to study, and the reason students from all over the world flock to the United States for education.

Additionally, the costs of state-run universities in Europe have not ballooned to pay for the ever-expanded services American universities now must offer to remain competitive (luxurious gyms with lazy rivers, behemoth athletic departments, and gourmet dining halls). In 2016, Sanders’ opponent Hillary Clinton knocked his free tuition plan because it relied on state governors, including Republican governors who often cut spending, to put in state money.

4. Implementing ‘National Rent Control’

Sanders’ campaign has pledged to spend $2.5 trillion to build 10 million government housing units. He also wants the federal government to further invade every state’s housing laws and local economy by enforcing a national “rent control standard.” He proposes using the federal government to wage war against gentrification and zoning laws.

5. Instituting a Moratorium on Deportations

Sanders’ immigration plan includes ending deportations of illegal immigrants and offering citizenship to the 11 million illegal immigrants already living in the United States.

6. Effectively Abolishing ICE and CBP

Sanders wants to eliminate the federal agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection, that protect our country’s sovereign borders and protect U.S. citizens from illegal immigrants who commit acts of violence and organized crime all over the United States.

7. Enacting a Green New Deal

Sanders is a supporter of Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., Green New Deal, which calls for the banning of fossil fuel energy production, such as oil and gas, which is the lifeblood of American industry. The initial version of the Green New Deal also called for banning cars, meat, and air travel, while also promising to provide all Americans education, healthy food, housing, and government-guaranteed jobs. Sanders has admitted his climate plan would be an “expensive” $16.3 trillion.

8. Approaching Abortion as Population Control

President Donald Trump did not have a serious primary challenger for 2020, but Republican voters came out in droves to support him in the Republican New Hampshire primary.

With 86 percent reporting, Trump earned 117,462 votes in the New Hampshire Republican primary, more than twice the 49,080 primary voters who voted for former President Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary in 2012.

“Enthusiasm for Donald Trump is through the roof!” wrote Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale on Twitter.

“President Trump has surpassed the New Hampshire Primary vote total of every incumbent President running for re-election over the last four decades,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday night as the New Hampshire Primary results came in.

Here is the record for previous presidents:

President Donald Trump in 2020: 110,717
President Barack Obama in 2012: 49,080
President George W. Bush in 2004: 52,962
President Bill Clinton in 1996: 76,797

Trump appeared pleased with the numbers.

“Wouldn’t a big story be that I got more New Hampshire Primary Votes than any incumbent president, in either party, in the history of that Great State?” Trump wrote on...