Shakemyhead

Trump’s Focus on Religious Freedom at the UN Should Lead the Way

The United Nations will host its annual gathering in New York this week. But amid all the hubbub, President Donald Trump is setting aside time to speak on a pressing issue: religious freedom and persecution around the world.

The president will keynote an event Monday called the Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom. This is exactly the right issue to focus on at the U.N.

Today, more than 80% of the world’s population lives under serious restrictions of religious freedom, according to the Pew Research Center. In places like Iran, Burma, and the Chinese province of Xinjiang, religious minorities like Christians, Rohingya Muslims, and Uighur Muslims face threats to their very existence.

Attacks on religious believers fuel social instability, violent conflict, and the deterioration of other human rights.

By calling upon all nations to protect religious freedom, the president will be giving a voice to those who too often lack one. He will also be celebrating a principle that is foundational to peace and security.

His call for religious freedom is particularly needed in light of this year’s attacks on synagogues, mosques, and churches, which have claimed the lives of innocent Jews, Muslims, and Christians. From Pittsburgh and San Diego to Sri Lanka and New Zealand, religious freedom is under threat.

In 1948, the nations of the world pledged in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to protect every human being’s freedom to adopt or change religious belief, and to live out those beliefs in the public square in addition to private life.

The U.N. has sadly strayed from this heritage and, with a new initiative, has become a threat to religious freedom.

Earlier this year, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres launched a Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech as part of an effort to counter attacks on religious minorities. While well-intended, this effort is the wrong approach and would likely backfire.

The problem with hate speech laws is that the powerful use them to redefine disagreement itself as a form of discrimination. If you hold a certain opinion that powerful elites disagree with, your speech may soon be called “hateful” and “discriminatory.”

By nature, free people disagree with one another in an infinite number of ways. If we are to remain free, we must be able to disagree without fear of punishment. Hate speech laws would quash dissent in violation of liberal norms.

The U.N. should take particular issue with hate speech laws, given its task of supporting the liberal order. Hate speech laws empower governments to censor their citizens when they express their values and beliefs, including religious beliefs. The U.N. ought to openly reject hate speech laws.

In the realm of religion, the stakes are especially high. Abrahamic religions and other faiths offer truth-seekers different and mutually exclusive belief systems regarding the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the nature of good and evil.

Freedom allows the seeker to compare these claims, choose among them, and then order his or her life around them. And such beliefs are found everywhere, in every culture. Protecting their freedom to choose and practice a religion is central to their flourishing.

Unfortunately, the concept of hate speech is all too often wielded to silence comparisons between ideas that are essential to truth-seekers.

For example, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has actively advanced blasphemy laws at the U.N. under the misleading moniker “defamation of religions.” In Pakistan, the government has used blasphemy laws to punish the weak, religious minorities, and women.

One Catholic mother of five, Asia Bibi, spent years on death row simply because a co-worker with a personal grievance accused her of insulting the prophet Muhammed. Her acquittal sparked nationwide rioting.

Rather than pacifying the hostility, blasphemy laws fomented social intolerance and violence by legitimizing the idea that offensive words cause injury and should be punished—the same notion that defines hate speech.

Although the specifics of the U.N. secretary general’s plan have yet to be fully articulated, the U.N.’s own track record presents a cause for concern.

One impetus for the campaign is the rise of anti-Semitism—a valid concern on its face. Yet resolutions at the U.N. routinely delegitimize, demonize, and apply double standards to the Jewish state of Israel. Political leaders—including some in the U.S.—have recently unleashed old anti-Semitic tropes.

Combating anti-Semitism does not require giving political leaders the power to shut down speech. Government leaders should address the anti-Semitism within their own ranks, and the United Nations should take a hard look at its own anti-Semitic resolutions.

In another disturbing trend at the U.N., a designated official called the independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity called for religious and political leaders to be held accountable for speech that the U.N. deems “homophobic or transphobic.”

European governments have already punished pastors and imams for stating that marriage is between a man and a woman. The U.N. should not exacerbate this illiberal trend by treating reasonable disagreements about sexuality and marriage as discrimination.

In 1992, the U.S. Senate ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a U.N. treaty that binds signatory nations to protect a list of political rights. When ratifying it, the Senate made a reservation to Article 20, which prohibits advocacy of “national, racial, or religious hatred.”

The senators who made that reservation certainly did not condone hatred. But they were discerning. They saw that such a rule could be misused and wielded to restrict freedom. After all, as a nation founded by religious dissenters, Americans know how easily terms like hate can be used by the powerful to limit the speech of the powerless.

As the U.N. meets again, the U.S. should lead the world on a different path. Instead of promoting the misguided idea of hate speech, countries should focus on empowering the oppressed by protecting religious liberty and free speech for all, and by calling upon politicians and U.N. bureaucrats to examine their own biases.

A plaque at the Statue of Liberty is inscribed: “Liberty is the air America breathes…”

Liberty is essential for people around the world to seek knowledge about the truth, and to speak up against those who oppress them based on their beliefs.

Even the most well-intended plans to combat anti-religious attacks through restrictions on speech will be counterproductive. Extinguishing liberty won’t simply suppress vile ideas—it will also snuff out those who speak from their conscience.

The question I keep hearing from friends and family who follow current events is, “How did things get like this?”

Puzzlement is understandable.

Said about President Trump by the left:

There are vicious attacks on his policies and his requests of legislation for asylum and immigration laws, which are remarkably similar to liberal Democrat Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

He is charged with being the most divisive President in history, while his actions and policies reflect traditional American values more than any President in memory apart from Ronald Reagan. The division is being caused by the often repeated lies and out of context statements being made by his accusers. The media and Democrats speak in lockstep, using the exact same phrases attributed to Nazi Joseph Goebbels, “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” Leftists use fascist tactics, not President Trump.

President Trump has been charged with the usual litany of sins chanted by the left. They are all based on race, class, gender and now sexual orientation. Those who know him best and have worked for him, refute these charges. It seems that those on the left, who live life with unreasoned hate, ignore evidence.

America’s Mandatory Re-Education and Indoctrination Centers
Communist countries have a history of killing, imprisoning or re-educating people who act against or don’t conform to their left-wing ideology. Conformity is expected, news is regulated and suppressed, and the media and educational systems are required to follow and promote the party line.

Democratic Western nations are moving toward the adoption of these policies. The United Kingdom now incarcerates people who violate their requirements for politically correct speech; for example, you may be imprisoned for referring to a man, who identifies as a woman, as a man.

Some American liberals claim this could not occur here. Moderate and conservative Americans generally believe that our principles will prevail. They are wrong. Not enough attention is given to what is happening at colleges and the rest of our education establishments.

Most of our colleges are run and controlled by left-wing radical “educators.” Many professors will acknowledge they are socialist, communist or otherwise left-wing. Any conservative teacher who speaks up, risks losing employment. Only ideologies of the left are tolerated.

Students are told what they must believe. Dissenters are ridiculed and bullied by their professors and fellow students. Their grades suffer, or they face expulsion.

California requires mandatory college classes. At first this was for the basics or reading, writing, mathematics and government. These were covered in the first two years of college. Then they added indoctrination classes. More recently, recognizing the need, more indoctrination classes were made mandatory in the second half of college. Of course, radicals will promote their philosophy whatever the class may be.

To complete college, one must take such indoctrination classes as American Racism, Disparity of Income and various others that are anti-capitalist, anti-American or promote the conversion of our country into some form of Socialist utopia. Many parents would be offended if they knew of all these classes, so restrictions were placed on the dissemination of college class catalogues and the classes being taken by one’s own kids.

Anyone wanting a career dependent on a college education has no choice but to submit to the process. It should be no surprise that the young and impressionable get radicalized.

To make matters worse, tuitions are enormous, student loans are readily available and many classes are useless. This makes the college graduate both dependent and resentful when they are burdened with paying off these debts. While the colleges promote student loan waivers or publicly paid college for all, they ignore the major factors in education costs. University of California professors get full time pay for 3-6 hours of teaching per week. Many professors supplement their income by requiring the purchase of an unnecessary text that they wrote.

You may think your pre-college kids are safe — teachers in grade school work much harder and you know what classes the kids are taking. Remember, teachers are educated at indoctrination centers.

Driving a wedge between students and parents, California has instituted and modified sex-education classes that require or encourage secrecy and non-disclosure to parents. These programs appear to advocate sex regardless of a person’s gender, and offer contraceptives and abortions without parental disclosure.

Rationally, one might thing that graduates ultimately would recognize that the propaganda classes should be replaced with practical courses such as managing personal finances, understanding investments or even home making. If the indoctrinators are successful, instead they will be advocating that everyone must conform to what they perceive as proper thought.

President Trump’s economic and foreign policies are demonstrably working. Income and employment for all races and classes are up, inflation is under control and 401ks are at record highs.

North Korea is in check, we are negotiating with China and the rest of the world for more fair-trade agreements, our relationship with Israel is the best in history and Iran will comply or collapse. Regardless, for some unknown reason all the Democrat Presidential candidates want to reverse the policies that are currently serving all American people so well.

Resigning Labor Secretary Alex Acosta has been viciously attacked by Democrats because they say that some 10 years ago, as a prosecutor in Florida, he had not adequately charged the vile sexual criminal Jeffrey Epstein. The Democrats were somehow trying to make this reflect on President Trump who had thrown Epstein out of his club, Mar-a-Lago, years ago. Unaccused was President Clinton, who was often a guest on Epstein’s private plane (Lolita Express) that was used to transport underage girls to his private island for sex. Over the years, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer and the Clintons all gladly accepted donations from the registered sexual predator. Crickets from the media.

These are but a few examples that reflect how America, our core values and rational thought are under assault by the most intolerant religion, the progressive left. It now dominates public education, corrupts the minds of our children and is in the process of re-writing our history in its own image. We are engaged in a great civil war. The battle is liberty and free market capitalism vs. the tyranny of socialism and fascism by the leftist progressives.

To begin engaging in this battle against the fascist/socialist left we must start with two things.

First – become armed with our foundational roots by educating ourselves on traditional American and Judeo/Christian core values. You may begin that process by watching the short videos at Prager University and taking the free online courses available at Hillsdale College.

Second – we must take back our educational system and put the brakes on the advancement of the left. We must support home schooling. We must transform our school choices to one where Americanism, traditional civics, western civilization and traditional values can be taught; rather than only the social agenda and revisionist history that are being taught now in our progressive dominated schools. Free market solutions can be found at www.SchoolChoice2020.org.

The revolution begins with you.

@Shakemyhead

Jon Miller #wingnut conservativereview.com

AvatarCat09 #wingnut #fundie deviantart.com

Kajm #wingnut deviantart.com

AvatarCat09 #wingnut #fundie deviantart.com

AF Branco #wingnut comicallyincorrect.com

AvatarCat09 #wingnut #racist deviantart.com

AvatarCat09 #wingnut #fundie deviantart.com

AvatarCat09 #wingnut #fundie deviantart.com

Emilie Kao & Joel Griffith #wingnut #fundie dailysignal.com

Kajm #wingnut deviantart.com

JD Rucker #wingnut noqreport.com

Kajm #wingnut deviantart.com

OF Wolves and Men #wingnut wolvesandmen.wordpress.com

Staff Writer, #wingnut gilmer.fetchyournews.com

Stephen Smith #wingnut santaclaritafree.com