Thread: Scary: Better Not Sign That Petition....!

Better Not Sign That Petition...!

Posted in: Guest Commentary
By Lee Duigon
Monday, May 10, 2010 - 2:44:47 PM ET

The Huffington Post has published the name and home address—with a map to show you how to find the house—of a friend of mine. This person is not a public figure. But HuffPo thinks its readers ought to know that this person—oh, what a terrible offense!—contributed money to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign… and didn't contribute any money at all to Democrats. Doesn't that make him a domestic terrorist or something?

Election laws require political campaigns to disclose the names of their contributors and the amount contributed. No one considers that unreasonable. But not even the most draconian disclosure law calls for the provision of directions to the contributor's home. And in case you were wondering, the contribution in this case was well under $500.

There can be only one reason for publishing directions to someone's home: so that someone else will be able to find it. I don't think the HuffPo does this to make life easier for the Fuller Brush man.

No—what we have here is an open invitation to nuts and union thugs to harass this person. The Democratic Party does not believe in the democratic process. They believe in acquiring power by any means available, fair or foul.

The Supreme Court is currently in the process of discovering a new Constitutional right—the right to publish the names and home addresses of anyone you disagree with politically, in hopes that they'll be made to pay a high price for offending you. For once Justices Scalia and Ginsberg seem to be on the same side of an issue: they think this is just another way to exercise free speech. Scalia went so far as to say, "[R]unning a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage. And the First Amendment does not protect you from criticism or even nasty phone calls when you exercise your political rights to legislate, or to take part in the legislative process."

The Supreme Court case has to do with "gay" activists wanting to publish the names and addresses of every citizen in the state of Washington who signed a petition for "Protect Marriage Washington." The idea, of course, is to scare people off signing such petitions. Once it becomes widely known that you'll receive threatening phone calls, or that your employer will be pressured to fire you if you sign a petition to reserve marriage to one man and one woman, people just might decide not to "take part in the legislative process" after all.

What would the justices say if the shoe were on the other foot? Suppose a group vehemently opposed to the aims of Big Sodomy were to publish the names and addresses, plus street maps, of "gay" activists. You'd hear the howl in China. "They're encouraging haters to vandalize our homes and cars—maybe even shoot us when we step outside for the morning paper!"

Sorry, Judge Scalia: in a civilized country, it shouldn't take the kind of courage to sign a mere petition as it took to sign the Declaration of Independence. You shouldn't have to deal with creepy late-night phone calls saying, "We know where your children go to school." To say that threats of this kind are police business is to overburden the police. And why should anyone be fired from his job because some stranger doesn't like his politics? Are we saying you can't be an insurance salesman anymore unless you support "gay marriage"?

What the HuffPo is asking for is a political system in which the prize goes to whoever is willing to fight dirtiest for it. Whoever is most successful at intimidation tactics will get to decide the major issues of the day.

You would have to go far to catch up to the American Left when it comes to sheer amoral ruthlessness. Remember what our current president's good buddy, Bill Ayers, said in front of an undercover FBI agent, as reported in the 1982 documentary, No Place to Hide. Asked what he and his cohorts would do about "re-educating" Americans who were "die-hard capitalists," Ayers estimated that some 25 million of his fellow citizens would have to be "eliminated"—killed—in re-education camps.

But, of course, before they can haul you off to camp and murder you, they'll need your home address.

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IMPORTANT MISSING PERSONS BULLETIN! Anyone having information as to the whereabouts, or even the continued existence, of THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT should contact this publication immediately. Same war, same places, same army, but no antiwar movement—what gives?

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Copyright by Lee Duigon

REFORM is the code word for re-education