There is an interesting case out of Perkins, Oklahoma where Federal Reserve officials reportedly ordered a small bank (The Payne County Bank) to remove religious Christmas displays. I fail to see the authority of Federal Reserve officials to limit the free speech to a bank, particularly religious-based speech. If the bank wants to marginalize non-Christian customers through sectarian displays, I think it has a constitutionally protected right to do so. What it cannot do is actually discriminate in the establishment or handling of accounts.
Federal Reserve examiners reported came for one of their visits (every four years) and saw a posted daily Bible verse, hanging crosses, and buttons saying “Merry Christmas, God With Us.” There was also a Bible verse on the Internet. All were ordered removed by the federal examiners.
The action is based on the Federal Reserve’s “Non-Discouragement” rule contained in Title 12 (Section 202.4). The same section as an anti-discrimination policy:
§ 202.4 General rules.
(a) Discrimination. A creditor shall not discriminate against an applicant on a prohibited basis regarding any aspect of a credit transaction.
(b) Discouragement. A creditor shall not make any oral or written statement, in advertising or otherwise, to applicants or prospective applicants that would discourage on a prohibited basis a reasonable person from making or pursuing an application.
Regulation B further states:
Regulation B
Sec. 202.1 Authority, scope and purpose.
(b) Purpose. The purpose of this regulation is to promote the availability of credit to all creditworthy applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age (provided the applicant has the capacity to contract); to the fact that all or part of the applicant’s income derives from a public assistance program; or to the fact that the applicant has in good faith exercised any right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act. The regulation prohibits creditor practices that discriminate on the basis of any of these factors. The regulation also requires creditors to notify applicants of action taken on their applications; to report credit history in the names of both spouses on an account; to retain records of credit applications; to collect information about the applicant’s race and other personal characteristics in applications for certain dwelling-related loans; and to provide applicants with copies of appraisal reports used in connection with credit transactions.
The discouragement provision is hopelessly vague and ambiguous. Most anything could discourage some people. I would be discouraged to see a bank displaying White Sox testimonials rather than loyalty to the Cubs. Moreover, there is no apparent requirement of intent. I have not read any report that the bank preferred only Christian customers, alone actively sought to exclude non-Christians. Discriminating on the basis of religion is a “prohibited basis,” but displaying religious text or symbols is not prohibited for a private company. Section (a) is perfectly understandable and should suffice in this regard. Any active effort to deny service to non-Christian would be a form of prohibited discrimination.
I don’t like sectarian messages in banks. (I prefer a demonstration of economic knowledge rather than blind faith from my bankers). However, I find it deeply troubling to see federal examiners branching out into speech regulation. I would think that they have enough to do with banks failing across the country in this economy.
In an update, the Feds have backed down on the postings after a call from the president of Payne County Bank, Lynn Kinder. I remain, however, a bit concerned about the claimed authority here. Clearly, this regulation has not been challenged and I wonder how many of banks have simply complied with such speech limitations. There remains a troubling regulation on the books and regulators who believe that they have the right to demand the removal of such displays.
On its website, today’s biblical quotation is
Luke 2:1, 4-5
“[The Birth of Jesus] In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.”
A survey of the entire Federal Reserve actions under the non-discouragement policy might also merit a decree or two.
Jonathan Turley
Nope.
Just being accurate about people who display a lack of social conscience.
The old trick of the NKVD, call the person a mental case. Typical of communist/fascist/socialist government. It was also used in the novel 1984 by a collectivist government.
No doubt as to why you are using it. It is the last gasp of a person who is full of crap.
Marxist/fascist apologist.
Again, not a Marxist. One cannot be for restricted/limited by law free markets and be a Marxist. By being a democratic socialist, that’s exactly what I’m for: a blended economy.
But by all means, lie some more.
Joey G. wrote the above.
Marxist apologist.
“This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material? And what its causal nature [or form]? And what is it doing in the world? And how long does it subsist?” – The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius – VIII, 11.
“[D]efined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) as ‘…a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.’ People with antisocial personality disorder may disregard social norms and laws, repeatedly lie, place others at risk for their own benefit, and demonstrate a profound lack of remorse. It is sometimes referred to as sociopathic personality disorder, or sociopathy.”
People are the patterns they make. There is no fault in accuracy. Accuracy is the brother of truth.
“If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.” – The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius – VI, 21.
You are what you is, fascist apologist.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h9jNLF2jmU&fs=1&hl=en_US]
Why Are We Socialists?
We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state.
Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and regaining German freedom. Socialism, therefore, is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone, for freeing the German people from slavery is the goal of contemporary policy. Socialism gains its true form only through a total fighting brotherhood with the forward-striving energies of a newly awakened nationalism. Without nationalism it is nothing, a phantom, a mere theory, a castle in the sky, a book. With it it is everything, the future, freedom, the fatherland!
The sin of liberal thinking was to overlook socialism’s nation-building strengths, thereby allowing its energies to go in anti-national directions. The sin of Marxism was to degrade socialism into a question of wages and the stomach, putting it in conflict with the state and its national existence. An understanding of both these facts leads us to a new sense of socialism, which sees its nature as nationalistic, state-building, liberating and constructive.
The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its place will come the class of productive workers, the working class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part of the national organism. The battle began in the economic realm; it will finish in the political. It is not merely a matter of wages, not only a matter of the number of hours worked in a day — though we may never forget that these are an essential, perhaps even the most significant part of the socialist platform — but it is much more a matter of incorporating a powerful and responsible class in the state, perhaps even to make it the dominant force in the future politics of the fatherland. The bourgeoisie does not want to recognize the strength of the working class. Marxism has forced it into a straitjacket that will ruin it. While the working class gradually disintegrates in the Marxist front, bleeding itself dry, the bourgeoisie and Marxism have agreed on the general lines of capitalism, and see their task now to protect and defend it in various ways, often concealed.
We are socialists because we see the social question as a matter of necessity and justice for the very existence of a state for our people, not a question of cheap pity or insulting sentimentality. The worker has a claim to a living standard that corresponds to what he produces. We have no intention of begging for that right. Incorporating him in the state organism is not only a critical matter for him, but for the whole nation. The question is larger than the eight-hour day. It is a matter of forming a new state consciousness that includes every productive citizen. Since the political powers of the day are neither willing nor able to create such a situation, socialism must be fought for. It is a fighting slogan both inwardly and outwardly. It is aimed domestically at the bourgeois parties and Marxism at the same time, because both are sworn enemies of the coming workers’ state. It is directed abroad at all powers that threaten our national existence and thereby the possibility of the coming socialist national state.
Explanation: “The thinking worker comes to Hitler,” the caption says. A communist and a socialist are accusing each other of betraying the working class.
Socialism is possible only in a state that is united domestically and free internationally. The bourgeoisie and Marxism are responsible for failing to reach both goals, domestic unity and international freedom. No matter how national and social these two forces present themselves, they are the sworn enemies of a socialist national state.
We must therefore break both groups politically. The lines of German socialism are sharp, and our path is clear.
We are against the political bourgeoisie, and for genuine nationalism!
We are against Marxism, but for true socialism!
We are for the first German national state of a socialist nature!
We are for the National Socialist German Workers Party!
“The Nazis defended their policies, and the country did not rebel; it accepted the Nazi argument. Selfish individuals may be unhappy, the Nazis said, but what we have established in Germany is the ideal system, socialism. In its Nazi usage this term is not restricted to a theory of economics; it is to be understood in a fundamental sense. “Socialism” for the Nazis denotes the principle of collectivism as such and its corollary, statism—in every field of human action, including but not limited to economics.
“To be a socialist,” says Goebbels, “is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.”
By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals.”
And what’s your source of this nonsense?
Which is also refuted in substance on the Ron Paul thread.
Hmmm?
That clown Von Mises?
And socialism works just fine in practice. Most of our European allies (soon to be former allies) are democratic socialists.
But please, copy and paste more drivel that shows exactly how lacking in social conscience you are.
There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism—by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.
“Foreign Policy Drains U.S. of Main Weapon,”
Los Angeles Times, Sept. 9, 1962, G2
So much for your “democratic” socialism, you are a communist apologist.
Price Check on aisle 9, get back to work, break is over.
“The fallacies and contradictions in the economic theories of socialism were exposed and refuted time and time again, in the Nineteenth Century as well as today. This did not and does not stop anyone: it is not an issue of economics, but of morality. The intellectuals and the so-called idealists were determined to make socialism work. How? By that magic means of all irrationalists: somehow.”
“When one observes the nightmare of the desperate efforts made by hundreds of thousands of people struggling to escape from the socialized countries of Europe, to escape over barbed-wire fences, under machine-gun fire—one can no longer believe that socialism, in any of its forms, is motivated by benevolence and by the desire to achieve men’s welfare.
No man of authentic benevolence could evade or ignore so great a horror on so vast a scale.
Socialism is not a movement of the people. It is a movement of the intellectuals, originated, led and controlled by the intellectuals, carried by them out of their stuffy ivory towers into those bloody fields of practice where they unite with their allies and executors: the thugs.”
“There is no difference between the principles, policies and practical results of socialism—and those of any historical or prehistorical tyranny. Socialism is merely democratic absolute monarchy—that is, a system of absolutism without a fixed head, open to seizure of power by all corners, by any ruthless climber, opportunist, adventurer, demagogue or thug.”
Lie to us some more to rationalize your personal greed.
Tell us again how the rule of law isn’t necessary.
About how business is naturally equitable and looking out for customer’s best interests.
And then tell us about how many people you help.
What’s the matter? Can’t dance fast enough?
Your lack of a social conscience (or any discernible conscience whatsoever) is not a virtue in favor of freedom. It’s a vice in favor of economic and social slavery.
And then tell us about how many people you help.
But please, tell us about how the wants of the few outweigh the needs of the many. Would you like some cake with that, Marie?
And keep misusing terms.
Socialism in a broad spectrum of economic principles that remove from free market abuses those market segments critical to national security. It is not a “subset” of communism. As to equating communism and fascism? How retarded are you? By its very nature fascism – rule by corporations – is as antithetical to communism as the left is antithetical to oligarchy.
You can keep making false equivalences and misusing terms all you like. A lie is still a lie.
See the Ron Paul thread. It’s all the refutation of your corporatist nonsense required.
The only one dancing here is you.
democratic socialism is a subset of communism/socialism/fascism.
You just want to use other peoples money for your programs and take their money by force. I want to let people keep their money and give what they can to the charities they wish to give to.
Democratic socialism is just another name for mob rule. Good luck with that communist apologist.
But please, do tell us some more about how free markets will cure all the world’s ills.
you still havent refuted the statements above.
Funny stuff.
dance little green monkey.