Catholics Unite!
Stacey Campfield should claim religious discrimination after he was thrown out of a Knoxville restaurant
because of his political and religious views:
Of course, since this writer believes that a business owner ought to
have the right to do business or not do business in the way they might
choose, we uphold Ms. Boggs' right to throw Campfield out of her
establishment, thereby also losing the business of the compatriots who
were with him. We are compelled to ask, however, what the reaction from
our friends on the Left would be were the tables turned. What if
Campfield were a prominent homosexual rights activist? Perhaps he might
an open advocate for so-called "gay marriage," while, in our reverse
scenario, Ms. Boggs were a Christian business owner who did not wish to
be seen associating with someone engaging in activity she viewed as
openly sinful and promoting political and social ideas related to the
open sin that were repulsive and contrary to everything she stood for.
As a result of this then, she asked Campfield to leave? The so-called
"gay community" would be in outrage, they would be filing complaints to
the State and federal government, shouting discrimination, and using the
made-up word "homophobe" on Ms. Boggs.
The reality is that the Left are the purveyors of the dictatorship of
relativism. You must believe as they do and embrace the moral relativism
which they have spent the past half-century or more watering down our
society with, or otherwise you are unworthy to be treated as a citizen.
Dignity then, to the Left, applies only to those who embrace the twisted
moral and social universe which the Left has created.
Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Duh, Local politics, Miscellany, Political correctness, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
Drugs On the Dole?
If you're on the dole and you aren't on drugs,
why wouldn't you want to be tested?:
Senator Campfield's proposal, unlike the controversial Florida law
under federal injunction, would only test for illegal and/or illicit
substances, not for prescription drugs of any kind. Because of this,
Campfield's legislation should be relatively low-cost and well worth it
in order to keep the State of Tennessee from funding someone's illegal
choices as much as it is possible to do so. Since these are
taxpayer-funded benefits, there should be no debate about the need to
keep tax money from moving into the world of illegal drugs and-for more
importantly-the current criminal underworld which deals in them which
such tax money would be (and in some cases-however small the number-certainly is) helping to fund.
Labels: Conservatism, Local politics, Miscellany, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
National Day of Thanksgiving
From George Washington's
Thanksgiving Proclamation:
“Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us."
Labels: Faith, Miscellany
A Litany of Thanks
We shoould take the time to be
thankful for our many blessings:
We should all be thankful to live in a nation where we are free to pass along our thanks to God, and to acknowledge His Holy Name in a manner fitting to Him, and in a fashion such that we are as yet unmolested for doing so.
Labels: Faith, Miscellany, Political correctness
Occupy the Ash Heap?
Is Occupy Nashville
slowly dying?:
Belief that the constitutional rights of the people who are sitting in on Legislative Plaza are sacrosanct, and agreement with the ideas that many of the protesters are promoting are two different things, however, and this writer has been clear that his sympathies lie with the Constitution, not with this political movement. One of the problems with the so-called Occupy Movement is that-especially in Nashville-even its supporters do not know what its clear goals are, and no one from Occupy Nashville has laid out a clear program for the Tennessee General Assembly in the next session that focuses on their agenda. This may be because they have no real agenda and no leader-Occupy Nashville has given us some idea of what they are against, but they cannot tell us what they are in favor of it change the things that they believe are dysfunctional. Even people who are otherwise inclined to support the Occupiers admit this is a problem.
Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Duh, Elections, Local politics, Miscellany, Tennessee politics
Occupy the Courtroom
A New York State Supreme Court Judge yesterday proved me wrong, but there may have been
reasons other than the obvious:
Secondly-and far more importantly-as several people have pointed out to me in the last 24 hours, Zuccotti Park is actually private property. It is owned by a private company, Brookfield Properties, which has an agreement with the city that allows the land to be used as a park. Since Brookfield owns the turf, you can be certain that they weren't pleased that their lovely green space was being turned into a festering, desease-ridden, crime infested public health hazard. We may never know whether it happened or not, but it might be a fair bet that the Brookfield folks went to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and told him to clean up the mess or the long-standing agreement to allow Zuccoti to be used as a park by the city would be brought to an end based on the city failing to keep the place in good order.
Labels: Duh, Federal politics, Local politics, Miscellany, Political correctness
Bloomberg Takes A Page from Nashville
Apparently New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg forgot that trying to remove Occupy protestors
has backfired elsewhere:
Apparently
Mayor Bloomberg didn't get the word that this was tried in Tennessee,
where the protests weren't particularly popular, and it had the effect
of making people side with the protesters who would not otherwise be so
inclined to do so.
Labels: Duh, Federal politics, Local politics, Miscellany, Tennessee politics
We Remember Them
There is a reason that in some parts of the world, they call it "
Remembrance Day.":
Such would become the pattern in the 20th Century. Winston Churchill
privately rejoiced over Pearl Harbor, because he knew that it meant that
Americans would bring our fighting men and women to the rescue of the
free nations of Europe and Asia, who were on the verge of needing to
arrange some kind of truce with the Nazis and with Japan by mid-1941 in
order to avoid being completely overrun by them.
In Korea, Americans intervened to keep all of that then-isolated
Asian country from falling under a Communist regime that many people
there did not want. That regime still exists in one-half of Kora, as the
" starving baffling hermit kingdom" of the world. The other half
remains free, prosperous, and an emerging economic powerhouse thanks in
no small part to the American soldiers and Marines standing guard at the
38th Parallel.
Labels: Faith, Miscellany, War In Afghanistan, War in Iraq
Did Someone Figure Out That Arresting Reporters Leads to Bad Press?
Maybe someone over in Nashville finally came to their senses about what to do with the Occupy crowd, as no arrests were apparently made Saturday night,
but they sure were on Friday:
Protesting, in however misguided a fashion, is what these people were on
the Plaza doing, for the most part. The new so-called rule which says
that no one can be on the Legislative Plaza from 10pm to 6am may now apply to all of us, but it is not aimed
at those of us who don't agree with these protestors, but at the
protestors who are there, and it was not in place before Thursday
night/Friday morning. All that Governor Haslam and Safety Commissioner
Bill Gibbons have managed to do through these actions is to garner
support for the protestors and increase sympathy for them from people
who otherwise do not embrace their various (usually) Leftist causes. The
quasi-police state activity of the Tennessee Highway Patrol included
the arrest of a Nashville Scene reporter Friday Night/Saturday morning who was doing his job.
The Nashville Scene may be a Leftist rag, but if the Highway Patrol can arrest a reporter from the Scene,
they can arrest anyone trying to cover the event. When the Highway
Patrol starts threatening to arrest other members of the press for being
doing their jobs, our freedoms are no longer safe and we live at the
mercy of the Charlotte Avenue Gestapo, regardless of the party in power
in the Capitol.
Labels: Local politics, Miscellany, Political correctness, Tennessee politics
A Death Blow to States' Rights?
The group "National Popular Vote" wants to undermine States' rights and federalism in our country:The electoral college is not designed to reflect the national popular vote, but the will of the people within each respective State. The institution is to be found in the federal Constitution, and it does predate the period in which a popular vote was held for the presidency. Since the 1820's, the votes in the electoral college have largely reflected the composition of the popular vote within a particular State, and most States now have laws requiring that their electors cast their votes for the plurality popular winner within their State, or in Nebraska and Maine, within each congressional district, and in most cases when voters cast a vote for President, they are voting for that candidate's slate of electoral college electors.
The electoral college is one of our country's last real vestiges of active and functioning constitutional federalism, the kind of federalism that respects States' rights and local control over national power and Washington influence. Because of this, no respectable conservative who truly believes in federalism would likely consider its effective abolition.
Labels: Conservatism, Elections, Federal politics, Local politics, Miscellany, News Media, Political correctness, Presidential Election, Tennessee politics
Brought To You By...
If you enjoy reading my columns every day, thank the men and women who make them possible:This column is brought to you by the men and women, past and present, of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, National Guard, Reserves, and Merchant Marine. If you enjoy reading it regularly, thank a few of them for it. If you are a veteran, thank you for your service to all of us.
Labels: Conservatism, Foreign policy, Miscellany, War In Afghanistan, War in Iraq
Adjournment
The fist session of the 107th Tennessee General Assembly is in the books:The 107th General Assembly ended its first session on Saturday as both the Tennessee House and the Senate had a marathon weekend in which the House Calendar and Rules Committee was still meeting well after midnight Friday to set the schedule for Saturday, and some legislative staffers were sending messages on Twitter that they were still up at 2AM Central Time after a long evening of helping to prepare legislation for the House floor the next day. Republican leadership in both Houses were eager to show that the new governing party could achieve its agenda and adjourn for the year much sooner than previous leadership had done. While Democrats chided Republicans for spending too much time on what they deemed controversial bills, the Republican leadership led by Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey (R-Blountville) and House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) were quick to counter that the GOP did largely what was promised to voters if they agreed to give the Republicans the legislative reins after the 2010 General Election.
Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Local politics, Miscellany, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
Will We Be Ignored?
The President is rightly in Ababama survey storm damage today-I just hope the feds don't ignore us like they often do:How bad was the storm damage in East Tennessee? It has been bad enough that Governor Bill Haslam canceled a scheduled event in West Tennessee to visit storm-ravaged places in this part of the State. An apparent tornado ripped the roof off of the gym at Cocke County High School, and essentially destroyed the Adult High School. People still seem to be in shock that the storms were so severe, since the mountains very often break up the worst storm systems that might blow through the area. This writer detailed some of the damage to his own home yesterday, but in fairness there are many people, especially in neighboring Cocke County, who have had to deal with much worse.
Labels: Conservatism, Federal politics, Local politics, Miscellany, Tennessee politics
The State of Emergency
Our minds last night were on the subject of making it through in one piece:Perhaps the most jarring experience of the night was the fact that the storms weren't constant, at least the worst of them weren't. They signaled their inauguration by a constant barrage of lightning above the house the likes of which I have never before witnesses. When one round of wind, hail, and thunder would pass, another would come along less than an hour later. Three different times during the night, Jefferson County or parts of it were under a tornado warning.
Labels: Local politics, Miscellany
Lamar! In Hamblen With Loud and Proud GOP
Hamblen County
shows new Republican power:
Tennessee State Republican Chairman Chris Devaney was also in attendance, along with Congressman Phil Roe, and former Congressman David Davis, who Roe defeated in the 2008 Republican Primary. In his remarks, Devaney said that there were some good results of President Obama's policies, and we could see some of those results that night in the persons of State Representatives Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby) and Don Miller (R-Morristown) along new Republican Hamblen County Mayor Bill Brittain.
If someone wanted to see a microcosm of how much the Republican Party has grown in influence in Tennessee over the last year, it was on display in Morristown Friday night.
Labels: Conservatism, Elections, Local politics, Miscellany, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
Bills Bills Bills...
Well, at least it was around
200 fewer than last year:
Last Monday I wrote in this space about the relatively few bills that had been filed in the Tennessee General Assembly up to that point-a mere 700-which was a fraction of the number of bills traditionally filed prior to the close of the bill filing period, which ended Thursday, February 17th. However, in the days since that column was written last week the total number of bills filed mushroomed somewhat dramatically at the last minute, and went from 700 last Monday to over 2,000 by the Thursday deadline. It is not known yet how the sudden jump in the amount of legislation to consider will impact the length of this year's legislative session.
Labels: Conservatism, Democrats, Elections, Local politics, Miscellany, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
Rights and Responsibilities
Even the right to bear arms
has responsibilities with it:
However, running around Radnor Lake with a miniature AK-47 in plain sight just to be showing off does not advance the cause, or best demonstrate the reasons that many Tennesseans believe that self-protection ought not be limited to those with permits. What it does do is simply frighten people and draw undue attention to the weapon carrier. How does that really advance the cause of gun rights? What it really causes is the unknowing to say "who is that crazy fellow running around with that really odd looking machine gun pistol strapped to his hip."
Labels: Conservatism, Local politics, Miscellany, News Media, Tennessee politics
Christmas Eve, 1860
Those of you who are complaining about Christmas this year feeling a little glum might feel more blessed when you consider the mood of trepidation that gripped East Tennesseans 150 years ago on Christmas Eve of 1860:
A lot of folks didn't know the big fancy Christmases that we do today, but one has to imagine that people tried to be in holiday mood as much as they could, for the tension in the country and in the community was rising, and neighbors could surely feel it in the air. Outside the major cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga, much of East Tennessee was still isolated from the rest of the State and the country. Those who paid enough attention to what was happening were as worried about whether there would be peace on their front porch tomorrow as they were about the "peace on Earth" so many speak of during Christmastime. In our own day and time we read and hear of civil wars and social and ethnic tensions in far away lands. Perhaps we might learn about the slow-simmering cauldron that would eventually become the Balkan Wars of the 1990's. On Christmas Eve of 1860, the cauldron was bubbling in East Tennessee-not in a land far away.
Labels: Conservatism, Elections, Federal politics, Miscellany, Political correctness, Tennessee politics
Haslam Picks Henry
Bill Haslam has appointed a life-long disability advocate to lead the Department of Intellectual Disabilities:
Henry spent much of his career in the General Assembly advocating for the rights and the dignity of people with developmental disabilities, and he himself has a child who has a developmental disability. It is worth noting that Henry took up the mantle of disability advocacy at a time (1980, upon his election to the State House) when so many people were still blissfully unaware of the nature of many intellectual and other disabilities and were still hesitant to see people with disabilities participating in the larger society.
Labels: Elections, Miscellany, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
