Freedom
The following is a portion of a speech by Michael Goodwin ‘…delivered on April 20, 2017, in Atlanta, Georgia, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar.’
Michael Goodwin
‘I’ve been a journalist for a long time. Long enough to know that it wasn’t always like this. There was a time not so long ago when journalists were trusted and admired. We were generally seen as trying to report the news in a fair and straightforward manner. Today, all that has changed. For that, we can blame the 2016 election or, more accurately, how some news organizations chose to cover it. Among the many firsts, last year’s election gave us the gobsmacking revelation that most of the mainstream media puts both thumbs on the scale—that most of what you read, watch, and listen to is distorted by intentional bias and hostility. I have never seen anything like it. Not even close.
It’s not exactly breaking news that most journalists lean left. I used to do that myself. I grew up at The New York Times, so I’m familiar with the species. For most of the media, bias grew out of the social revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. Fueled by the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, the media jumped on the anti-authority bandwagon writ large. The deal was sealed with Watergate, when journalism was viewed as more trusted than government—and far more exciting and glamorous. Think Robert Redford in All the President’s Men. Ever since, young people became journalists because they wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein, find a Deep Throat, and bring down a president. Of course, most of them only wanted to bring down a Republican president. That’s because liberalism is baked into the journalism cake.
During the years I spent teaching at the Columbia University School of Journalism, I often found myself telling my students that the job of the reporter was “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I’m not even sure where I first heard that line, but it still captures the way most journalists think about what they do. Translate the first part of that compassionate-sounding idea into the daily decisions about what makes news, and it is easy to fall into the habit of thinking that every person afflicted by something is entitled to help. Or, as liberals like to say, “Government is what we do together.” From there, it’s a short drive to the conclusion that every problem has a government solution.
The rest of that journalistic ethos—“afflict the comfortable”—leads to the knee-jerk support of endless taxation. Somebody has to pay for that government intervention the media loves to demand. In the same vein, and for the same reason, the average reporter will support every conceivable regulation as a way to equalize conditions for the poor. He will also give sympathetic coverage to groups like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.
A New Dimension
I knew all of this about the media mindset going into the 2016 presidential campaign. But I was still shocked at what happened. This was not naïve liberalism run amok. This was a whole new approach to politics. No one in modern times had seen anything like it. As with grief, there were several stages. In the beginning, Donald Trump’s candidacy was treated as an outlandish publicity stunt, as though he wasn’t a serious candidate and should be treated as a circus act. But television executives quickly made a surprising discovery: the more they put Trump on the air, the higher their ratings climbed. Ratings are money. So news shows started devoting hours and hours simply to pointing the cameras at Trump and letting them run.’ https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/2016-election-demise-journalistic-standards/?appeal_code=MK617EM2&utm_source=housefile&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2016_election_demise_journalistic_standards&utm_campaign=imprimis&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8xC9qvSWV5-xz889Lo2pUynHpbDIeJNdI0N-j9LKB2mTI5Caki20vGUTsvAzQhXcBZKR0gt3XOpDvyC_vrvbTlKbiHlw&_hsmi=53242815
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/couple-finds-their-own-stolen-suv-holds-thieves-gunpoint
Believe it or not ‘In a case of classic American vigilante justice, a couple found the people 
who stole their SUV and held them at gunpoint until the police arrived.
HOWEVER, ‘Q13Fox notes that while the couple is not facing charges for pulling out their gun, Snell said the man can be charged with assault.
The couple called 911 before apprehending the passengers.’ http://www.mrctv.org/blog/couple-finds-their-own-stolen-suv-holds-thieves-gunpoint
Unbelievable, but is it?
There is always a price to be paid for standing for truth!
‘No government entity has the authority to license, commission, accredit, and certify any Christian ministry–unless said groups go hat in hand asking for state or federal funds. A license is permission to do what would be illegal without it. No preacher should ever permit the government to license his work. Even in other professions, a license does not guarantee quality but does provide control and income for the government. In some states, a license is required to use your truck to haul dirt, rocks, etc.; to shampoo hair in a beauty shop; to own a gun; to teach school, and on and on and on.
It is obvious that a medical doctor’s license does not protect patients from sexual abuse or unnecessary medical procedures; nor protect students from incompetent or predatory teachers; nor guarantee a reasonable-looking haircut from barbers; nor assure a fair, reasonable defense by attorneys; nor, but then you get the idea.
In the mid-400s, Theodosius II, Eastern Roman Emperor from 408 to 450, made it a punitive offense for a man to teach the public without a state license; and soon such licenses were given only to “Christians.” Now that the Church was in control, they decided to keep the unbelievers out of teaching by requiring permission from the church-controlled government.
As early as 1534, the English clergy were forbidden to preach without a government license and John Bunyan got caught up in government machinery that tried to control preachers and teachers.
John Bunyan has been one of my major heroes all my adult life. But, I recently discovered that 
John, after spending more than 12 years in jail for preaching the Gospel, finally accepted a license to preach! While that was wrong in my opinion, it does not diminish Bunyan’s courageous stand against King Charles II and the king’s demand that John and other dissidents (those who disagree) not preach the Gospel. Preaching the Gospel was very costly to all except the Church of England preachers and even they did not have total freedom of conscience since they had to obey the King and Parliament regarding religious matters.
In the seventeenth century, all religious groups hated the Roman Catholics who like all dissidents met in homes. Everyone in England and Europe remembered the Inquisition where “the papists” mangled, mauled, and murdered hundreds of thousands of “heretics.” All the dissidents and the Church of England preachers agreed–“No popery, no popery!” Of course, everyone should have had freedom of conscience–Catholics, Anglicans, Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, and even the religious weirdos. Moreover, all the groups were against the Baptists because of their insistence on baptism by emersion of only those who had trusted Christ as Savior. No babies under any circumstance.
King Charles I had feuded, fussed, and fought with Parliament and ended up being beheaded in 1649 followed by Oliver Cromwell becoming Lord Protector until his death in 1658. Although a strict Puritan, Cromwell provided religious freedom for everyone. Into this religious mix, mess, and maelstrom walked two men who would make their mark on English history–a preacher and a king.
When Charles II restored the monarchy in 1660, he reneged on his promise of religious freedom he had made in his Declaration of Breda a few weeks earlier (a mistake I hope Trump does not make). The people had experienced about twenty years of freedom of worship but now nonconformist (Baptist, Presbyterian, Independent, etc.) services were banned, and ministers were rounded up and arrested. The major hero in this religious mix was a born-again tinker, a Baptist preacher named John Bunyan. The resultant clash was titanic.
Soon after his conversion, Bunyan began preaching in 1655 and was arrested in 1660 while preaching in an unapproved religious meeting (conventicle). He served a prison stretch until 1672 when he was released with other dissidents. He was jailed again for a few months in 1675.
The Act of Uniformity 1662 required every preacher to adhere to and accept the doctrine of the Church of England or leave the country. That included all preachers of the Church of England (many of them Puritans) and all the various independent groups. Everyone had to attend the Church of England regularly with fines, banishment, and then hanging for a third offense. (That would sure help one decide whether or not to sleep in on Sunday morning!) The act required all clergymen to use the Book of Common Prayer; consequently, about 2,000 Puritan clergymen were forced to resign. Some of them recanted while others became dissident preachers, others got other employment.
As to unbiblical ceremonies in the Church of England, Puritans (and all dissidents) objected to kneeling during the Lord’s Supper, the observation of holy days, the use of the surplice (outer garment worn by priests), and the signing of the cross in baptism.
The noose got tighter when the Conventicle Act 1664 became law forbidding more than five people, not members of the same family, to meet for worship. This was followed the next year by the Five Mile Act that forbade any preacher from coming within five miles of any incorporated town or their former place of abode. The noose was now tight and the preachers were standing on a very fragile, shaky platform.
The Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other dissidents from the Church of England continued to meet surreptitiously in homes, barns, and abandoned buildings while the Quakers very bravely continued to meet openly. This was a time of persecution without parallel as Protestants (Anglicans) persecuted Protestants (Puritans and dissidents).
However, Charles and the Anglicans did not have it easy in hounding, hunting, and harassing the dissidents. In 1668, the Bawdy House Riots proved that sane citizens recognized the insanity of persecution of decent people. London crowds attacked brothels as they protested against a government which had tolerated prostitution while persecuting devout, principled preachers!
Present day parallels are numerous as the state asserts its authority to control religious colleges, license Christian counsellors, certify Christian teachers, regulate school curriculum, prohibit anti-homosexual regulations, restrict military chaplains, etc.
The modern state is as arrogant, asinine, and aggressive as King Charles II was and it’s time for principled Christians to resist to the point of jail.’ http://donboys.cstnews.com/government-cannot-license-a-ministry-john-bunyan-was-wrong
- ‘In 1990, the “Gayssot law” was passed, stipulating that “any discrimination based
on ethnicity, nation, race or religion is prohibited”. Since then, it has been used to criminalize any criticism of Arab and African delinquency, any question on immigration from the Muslim world, any negative analysis of Islam. Many writers have been fined and most “politically incorrect” books on those topics have disappeared from bookshops. - The French government asked the media to obey the “Gayssot law.” It also asked that history textbooks be rewritten to include chapters on the crimes committed by the West against Muslims, and on the “essential contribution” of Islam to humanity. All history textbooks are “Islamically correct.”
- In hospitals, Muslims are increasingly asking to be treated only by Muslim doctors, and refusing to let their wives be treated by male doctors.’ https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10007/france-death-spiral
The following article will (I trust) make you think. Dr. Don Boys writes ‘The allegation is made that present day America has benefited greatly from the slavery of 150 years ago, and consequently it is only reasonable that we should pay the descendants of those who “built this nation.” Hold it. If that is true, then how can
one say that only white Americans have benefited? Haven’t blacks also benefited? After all, American Blacks, as a group, have more money than many of the nations of the world! According to David Horowitz, their income is up to fifty times more than that of Blacks “living in any of the African nations from which they were kidnapped.” So if present-day Whites have benefited from slavery, so have present-day Blacks.
American Blacks had and have incredible opportunities to be successful in our nation for which I am grateful; they have opportunities they would not have had in Africa. It is also a fact that the poorest Black in the roughest U.S. ghetto is many times better off than those Blacks living in totalitarian “nations” in Africa. In fact, if I were a Black, I would thank God that my ancestors were brought here so I would have the privilege to live in such a free country where I had the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Christ instead of living in constant fear of pagan gods, pandemic diseases, predator animals, tribal wars, starvation, cannibals, etc. While the slave trade was horrific and all connected to it were incredible criminals, there are some positive residual effects for which I would be thankful if I were black.
My boyhood hero Booker T. Washington wrote in Up From Slavery, “Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe.”
While we must never slip into the darkness of defending slavery, we must also not veer into the academic crime of inventing history or not revealing the totality of an issue for fear of being thought infamous, incompetent, or ignorant.
It is a fact that the Romans conquered Great Britain (then a gaggle of uncivilized tribes) at an enormous price in savagery; but the basic infrastructure, the foundation for law, and technology that they left behind had much to do with Britain becoming a world-girdling empire upon which it was said, “The sun never sets.”
Julius Caesar invaded Great Britain in 55 and 54 B.C. and installed a local boy as king who was responsible to Rome. Rome permitted the locals to take care of Rome’s business. The empire was ruled from the towns where councils formed of local citizens were responsible for tax-collection and keeping order in the surrounding countryside. It was a masterful plan that worked well for everyone. A great nation was in the making.
While the victims of Roman invasion could not have seen anything positive in the Roman invasion of Great Britain, the present generation would be dishonest or uninformed if the many positive residual benefits were not recognized. The crude villages became replicas of Roman towns with market squares, temples, bathhouses, shopping malls, and hotels. Caesar was very wise to not position foreign overlords to administrate the towns and collect taxes but permitted the locals to rule for them. Everyone was happy as Britain rather quickly morphed into a miniaturized Rome. But Rome was crumbling and under constant attack from pagan tribes and the emperor left Roman soldiers stationed in Britain to fend for themselves. By mid-fifth century, the Roman influence had almost disappeared as the soldiers (not getting paid from Rome) became farmers, laborers, outlaws, and vagabonds in far-away England.
Rome left its mark on Great Britain using their troops (occupied in fighting only 10% of the time) to build water systems, sewage, and sanitation systems, beacons, canals, ports, aqueducts, walls, bridges and roads which are legendary–some even being used today! Even with that, the major contribution of Rome on England was the extent which Roman law played in the development of common law of England and consequently in the United States.
For an Englishman to say that he owes nothing or very little to the Roman invaders (or that they owe him) is foolish and not factual. And for modern Blacks not to recognize that there were major residual effects from slavery is not factual but foolishness and false and has the earmarks of fanaticism.
While no sane person defends slavery, all honest people recognize that modern Blacks are far better off than their ancestors who sat around camp fires with a lifetime threat from cannibals, hunger, pagan religion, and often rival chieftains and slavers.
Yes, Muhammad Ali was right to be delighted his granddaddy “didn’t miss that boat.” Being a rich World Champion boxer was better than sitting around a jungle campfire swatting mosquitos and cuddling with a cobra in a thatched hut.’ http://donboys.cstnews.com/positive-residual-benefits-from-slavery
Much like the Gestapo’s power to render anyone an enemy of the state, the FBI has the
power to label anyone a domestic terrorist.
As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force has begun using the terms “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably. Moreover, the government continues to add to its growing list of characteristics that can be used to identify an individual (especially anyone who disagrees with the government) as a potential domestic terrorist. For instance, you might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you:
- express libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
- exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership)
- read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books
- show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
- fear an economic collapse
- buy gold and barter items
- subscribe to religious views concerning the book of Revelation
- voice fears about Big Brother or big government
- expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties
- believe in a New World Order conspiracy’ https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_fbi_the_silent_terror_of_the_fourth_reich
“On January 21, some women’s rights groups organized ‘Women’s Marches’ in many cities across the Unites States and around the world. The rallies largely targeted recently-inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump.
There were many speakers and participants. One, the actress Ashley Judd, read a poem in Washington D.C. that asked why ‘tampons are taxed when Viagra and Rogaine are not’.
As Ms. Judd talked about her devastating tragedy, thousands of Yazidi children and women 
were being forced into sexual slavery in Iraq and Syria at the hands of Islamic State (ISIS), and available for purchase at sex-slave markets.”
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9824/yazidi-sex-slave-women-march
It seems if you are a white conservative male, you are to keep silent unless asked to speak. Well, “A free speech revolution is just over the horizon. Several recent events are demonstrating that Australians are sick and tired of a political class that gets to decide the limits of public debate and restrict the free flow of ideas. Such a system is anti-democratic, and it is being rejected.
Three key events are shaping the debate on freedom of speech, and in particular, the infamous section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. This insidious provision infantilises Australians by presuming we are all so mentally feeble that the law ought to be used to protect us against being offended or insulted.
Section 18C makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate a person on the basis of race, colour or national or ethnic origin. This law has been the subject of sustained criticism for its clear restriction on freedom of speech.
The first of the three events that are leading to a growing understanding of the dangers of section 18C has its origins back on May 27, 2013. Alex Wood, then a 20-year-old engineering student at the Queensland University of Technology, was looking for a computer on campus on which to do some study. He found a computer lab and sat down to complete his homework at one of the free terminals.
A short time later, Alex was approached by a university administrator named Cindy Prior, who asked Alex whether he was indigenous. He replied that he wasn’t, and the administrator told him that the computer lab was reserved for indigenous students at the university and asked him to leave. Alex obliged, and went looking for another computer lab in which to complete his work. Once he had found another computer, he logged on to Facebook, and posted about his experience at the indigenous computer lab.
His post on the ‘QUT Stalkerspace’ page read: ‘Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation.’
Several other students replied to Alex’s post. Prior, upon becoming aware of the post, had the comments scanned and sent them to an equity officer at QUT and asked that action be taken against the students. The officer contacted Alex and asked him to delete the post, to which Alex agreed. When he went back to the page, it had already been removed.
This sequence of events has snowballed into what has become a three-year legal saga. Prior first made a formal complaint to the university, but was not satisfied with the result of that process after a year of negotiating with QUT.
She then made a complaint under section 18C to the Australian Human Rights Commission. The AHRC investigated the matter without notifying the students that a complaint had been made against them. And finally, after the AHRC could not resolve the dispute, Prior lodged an application to the Federal Court of Australia. The case is ongoing and a decision is expected soon on whether it will proceed to trial.
This is not the sign of a healthy, thriving democracy. Students at university should be free to write on Facebook pages without racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and risking official sanction. This is not acceptable in a liberal democracy based on the rule of law.
But the troubling conduct of the AHRC extends beyond conducting secret trials of university students for making remarks online. Just last week, race commissioner Tim Soutphommasane pleaded with the public to make 18C complaints to the AHRC about a cartoon in this newspaper.
The cartoon, by Bill Leak, depicted an indigenous man who appeared not to know the identity of his own son. There’s no doubt the cartoon was provocative – that’s the role of a
cartoonist. They poke and prod accepted wisdom and social conventions in ways that people can find uncomfortable.
But a government bureaucrat using his position to make public pronouncements about what is acceptable to print in newspapers is intensely, classically undemocratic. And Australians are sick of it. One of those Australians is NSW Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm, who has shown his 
disdain for 18C by lodging a complaint under the provision he wants to repeal.
Leyonhjelm ignored Soutphommasane’s instructions and instead complained about an article by Fairfax’s Mark Kenny, in which Kenny described Leyonhjelm as an ‘angry white male’.
Leyonhjelm has been open about the fact that he is not offended by the description but that others may be. While there is obviously an element of mockery behind the complaint, the case will be a fascinating glimpse into the thinking of the AHRC, and whether there exist double standards depending on the ethnic group to which potentially 18C-breaching conduct is directed.
The tide is going out on 18C. ‘Offend’ and ‘insult’ must go. Watch this space.” http://ipa.org.au/news/3548/time-to-act:-curbs-on-free-speech-must-go
This cartoon infuriated the PC Police and they sought to punish its creator. Well, Brendon O’Neill puts his slant on the whole thing and it is worth a read. Only a small portion is given here to hopefully intice you to click the link and then enjoy (depending on where you stand on the PC Police).
“What could a trendy, tattooed, godless leftie in the hippest bit of Melbourne possibly have in common with an Isis-admiring Muslim who thinks it wouldn’t be all that bad if Melbourne went up in flames? Humourlessness. An urge to burn anything irreverent that irritates him.”
“With its urge to save women from saucy mags, Muslims from images of Muhammad, and indigenous people from confronting cartoons, the well-educated, white PC elite rehashes Victorian attitudes to blacks and ladies and posits itself as mender of their shaken self-esteem. You wanna see racism? Don’t look at a Leak cartoon — look at the paternalism of those who want to scrub out Leak cartoons.” http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/leakphobia/
The PC Police only desire to limit those who disagree with them. Others please write, draw cartoons and say whatever comes to your demented mind.
