Below is my column in USA Today on the latest calls for limiting free speech and imposing censorship on political speech. Last week, we discussed the refusal of students to allow former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to speak at Northwestern University and a New Yorker writer calling for the curtailment of free speech. These attacks are coming largely from the left where speech criminalization and censorship has become an article of faith for activists and some Democratic members.
Roughly 70 years ago, Justice William O. Douglas accepted a prestigious award with a speech entitled “The One Un-American Act,” about the greatest threat to a free nation. He warned that the restriction of free speech “is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” For decades since Douglas’ famous speech, the Democratic Party has been a champion of free speech in fighting that subversion. Yet recently, the Democratic Party seems to have abandoned its historic fealty to free speech. Democratic writers and leaders are publicly calling for everything from censorship to the criminalization of free speech. The latest such clarion call appeared in The Washington Post by a column from MSNBC analyst and former Obama official Richard Stengel.
Stengel’s proposal would rip up this founding principle
Stengel, the former managing editor of Time magazine, made a chilling call for Americans to give up their free speech. He began this self-destructive pitch in the most curious way: referring to the understandable confusion of Arab diplomats over our failure to arrest those who insult religion for such acts as burning the Koran. Stengel explained how he could not really explain why we tolerate such insulting forms of speech. It was a telling example. Stengel served at the State Department under the Obama Administration, which some of us criticized for a change in policy to support countries like Saudi Arabia in seeking to create a “new” standard allowing the criminalization of speech that insults religion at the United Nations. The resolution was a thinly disguised blasphemy law, something Muslim nations have been pushing for decades.
Stengel insists that the Arab diplomats raised a “fair” question, ignoring that it is a question raised by countries that routinely execute and flog those who insult religion or the government. Stengel insists “the First Amendment protects the ‘thought that we hate’ but it should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another. In an age when everyone has a megaphone, that seems like a design flaw.” That “design flaw” is free speech itself.
Stengel is not alone. Recently, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was denounced by Democratic members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., NY) for refusing to censor false or misleading political ads. Ocasio-Cortez dismissed the dangers of the censorship of political speech and demanded, “So you won’t take down lies or you will take down lies? I think that is just a pretty simple yes or no.” The push for corporate speech controls is particularly chilling because our first amendment protects against government regulation of speech. The Democrats are seeking to use corporations like Facebook to do what the government cannot do under our Constitution.
It seems Democrats have fallen out of love with free speech and lost all tolerance for opposing views. In another example, San Francisco recently declared the National Rifle Association to be a terrorist organization while banning official business with roughly half of the states for failing to “reflect our values” on abortion or LGBTQ rights. Likewise, Democratic leaders like former Vermont Governor Howard Dean have dismissed the notion that hate speech is protected under the First Amendment.Get the Opinion newsletter in your inbox.
Yet the most chilling aspect of the recent calls for speech controls is the call for the adoption of European-style hate crime laws. Free speech is in free fall in Europe where countries like France, Germany and England routinely charge people for speech deemed offensive or insulting to any group. These laws, Stengel assures readers, are intended to “curb the incitement of racial and religious hatred.”
They do so by dramatically curbing free speech. In France, 12 protesters were fined for supporting the boycott of Israel. In Denmark, a politician was convicted for burning Korans. A German politician was criminally charged for calling migrants “scum.” In England, a Baptist minister was jailed overnight for preaching against homosexuality and a man was investigated for telling a Nelson Mandela joke.
Limiting free speech won’t accomplish what you want
None of this, mind you, has put a dent in the ranks of actual fascists and haters. Neo-Nazis are holding huge rallies by adopting new symbols and coded words while Germany arrested a man on a train because he had a Hitler ring tone on his phone.
The impact of these laws was evident in a recent poll of German citizens. Only 18% of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. 59% of Germans did not even feel free expressing themselves in private among friends. And just 17% felt free to express themselves on the Internet.
That is the real success of hate speech laws. These laws are so generally worded that no one can be sure that they are not committing a crime. France bars incitement to racial discrimination, hatred, or violence on basis of race, origin, ethic group, religion or national identity. That includes such statements in private communications. In the United Kingdom, you can be arrested for language deemed “threatening, abusive, insulting” or “likely to cause[] harassment, alarm, or distress.”
These standards notably depend not on how words are intended but how they are received or perceived by third parties. These European laws allow the government to declare what speech is true and what is false. They are based on the very notion stated by Stengel, “All speech is not equal.” Thus, “where truth cannot drive out lies,” Stengel argues, we must allow the government and private companies like Facebook to teach citizens not to tell lies.
While our leaders may have lost faith in free speech, citizens would be wise to listen to the words off framers like Benjamin Franklin who warned the citizens about those who try to convince a free people to give up their freedoms: “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @JonathanTurley
https://patriotssoapbox.com/opinion/eric-cia-ramella-the-occult-aesthetics-of-terror/
Alleged “Whistleblower” Eric CIA-ramella & The Occult Aesthetics of Terror
Patriots’ Soapbox first named Eric Ciaramella as the potential leaker and treasonous spy that was embedded in the White House by former deep state lackey H.R. McMaster back on October 10, 2019. We believe him to be the alleged ‘Whistleblower,’ although continuing to refer to him in that fashion is problematic. He is not a witness first-hand to any malfeasance or corruption. He is not blowing the whistle on his horrendous employer the CIA to disclose any kind of abuse, although overthrowing countries and initiating color revolutions is something they do frequently. Evidently, that’s perfectly fine with him. He is a partisan CIA operative who met with Adam Schiff and his staff prior to filing his ‘complaint.’
He previously worked with Joe Biden and was copied in emails regarding the $1 Billion dollar loan guarantee quid pro quo as it relates to shutting down an investigation into Burisma Holdings, a Ukraine Gas company that employed Hunter Biden on its Board of Directors.
BREAKING: @MZHemingway just said Eric Ciaramella’s name on air.
For the past month the Mainstream Media has been spreading a lie that it is a Federal Crime to report on the alleged identity of the Whistleblower.
They need to stop lying and Do their Job!
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) November 10, 2019
Eric attended college at the prestigious and elite Yale University. During his time there he may have been radicalized or inspired by his muslim brotherhood professor. According to an article entitled ‘The Radicalizing of Eric Ciaramella’ by the American Spectator:
In fact, long before he was digging up dirt with the DNC’s Alexandra Chalupa about President Trump’s mythical collusion with Russia, Ciaramella was involved in leading a protest over what he believed was the poor treatment of Bassam Frangieh, a radical professor of Arabic Studies at Yale. On April 15, 2005, then first-year Yale student Ciaramella dressed in all white to lead a contingent of ten similarly dressed first-year Yale Arabic students to the offices of the Provost and the President of the university to demand that the university provide an incentive to encourage Frangieh to stay at Yale. The students were unhappy because Frangieh had decided earlier in the school year to accept a tenure-track position at the University of Delaware.
Ciaramella helped to organize a campus-wide letter-writing campaign on behalf of Frangieh which “identified flaws in the administration’s policies regarding language instructors at Yale.” According to the Yale Daily News, Bassam Frangieh was looking for an opportunity to teach more of the classes that he would like to teach, according to one of the protesters: “His specialty is Arabic language and literature, and he wanted to teach some classes on style and poetry.” A week after the protest, Yale’s administration announced that they had “upped the ante with an offer competitive enough to keep one of its star language instructors from leaving Yale. – The American Spectator
Democrats consistently fight to erode individual rights here in America. They keep pitting groups against one another – black against white, poor against rich, woman against man. Their identity politics is inherently racist and bigoted. Their tax policies have led the successful to flee CA and NY in droves.
Vote Red to avoid dystopia. Vote Red against hate.
As a supporter of our president, otherwise known as “The Great Uniter”, Karen has demonstrated her overriding concern for national unity.
Hatred is interesting. It pours out of us in various ways. Sometimes it hurts the intended targets. All the time it destroys the hateful.
Someone once said it flows out of the heart of man. The voice and the pen merely express what’s inside of us. And, he said there is only one way to be free of it. Imagine that! Some guy said he knew how to get rid of hatred from the human heart.
Very little in European society we need to emulate. They’re the globalist occupied zone with borderless “countries”, culture assassination and masochism taken to the nth degree. Nationalism in eastern Europe and Italy might save them, but its and even bet it won’t.
Infowars is always closing in on multiple important issues like the nut job judge on the Stone case appointing an Obama cabinet member among other nut job dems to the Stone jury & now the disclosure of voter fraud in the Kentucky election last week.
I haven’t seen much on what I suspect of election fraud in the Virginia elections. I haven’t been following Virginia that close but I seen reported that in around 40% of Virginia’s pop that the GOP didn’t even field any candidates. ( Fairfax & the county next to it) Is that True?
It was an anemic effort by the Repubs.
I can’t 2nd guess Trump he’s in there where every one else failed.
But I remember thinking Biz 101 was as the new boss comes in, jan., 2017, 1st/2nd day in he/she fires the hell out of people, like a 3rd, adjust, call back if need, repeat/the fire the next 3rd/ then tell the rest you’re done with the layoffs & firings.
Dr Steve Pieczenkic (sic) later came out soon after the Trump win & suggested much the same, fire over 50% of the 2 mil., Fed govt employees.
Point is that would have right out of the gate likely moved out at least a million deep state voters out of Northern Virginia.
Still though, we all need to order Trump to say Hell No to any gun laws the Dem Va govt starts pushing in Jan 2020.
Trump needs to stand tall & say 2nd Amendment Va Dems, Fed Law, go piss up a Rope!
If he doesn’t he’s shown as weak to the rest of his supporters across the US.
With typical Trumpster short sightedness – see also unmasking the WB – Oky describes ending the progressive civil servant model for government employees and going back to corrupt patronage systems made famous by Boss Tweed and other 19th century power broker politicians. If government employees are not required to meet standardized qualifications and protected by laws intended to eliminate partisanship, they will be replaced with each regime change by hangers on, relatives, and pay off beneficiaries loyal not to those standards and the government, but to whatever politician just won the last election. You won;t always like that result.
This is a lesson learned a long time ago and now under assault by the corrupt and the ignorant.
He isn’t a whistleblower. He’s a scheming leaker who is unfit for the position he holds.
Anon – Schiff unmasked the whistleblower in unredaced testimony. Then other sites reported on it. Trump, Jr mentioned the WB after other sites already did.
But it’s the Trump name you seized on, blocking out the sources who actually did unmask the WB.
It was bound to happen. Democrats and their staff knew his name. It was one of the worst kept secrets in the beltway by the time it was reported.
Does it ever bother you, your deliberately ignoring facts?
One other thing you conveniently ignore. Schiff himslelf publicly declared that he wanted the WB to testify before Congress, openly. There was no concern about releasing his name…until it came out that the activist/WB met with various Democrat presidential candidates, met with Schiff, and coordinated with him. Schiff lied about that. When that got out, all of a sudden, he did not want to give Republican members of Congress access to him.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/10/schiffs-committee-published-name-of-alleged-whistleblower-last-week/
Some jack-a$$ state rep in my home state wants to make it a crime if you call someone a bitch in public. Sometimes you feel like you’re living in the twilight zone.
Emply the word itchbays. That is piglatin. Capitalize the b in there. This computer won’t do that.
Screw Stengel and his ilk. Who asked them? No one. They do not speak for anyone but themselves. I do not think that the concept of treason is consistent with a free society, but watching decrepit public intellectuals calling for the cancellation of the basic principles of the First Amendment because it allows people to say things that cut against their view of the world makes it difficult to think of what else such advocacy could be.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/09/pers-n09.html
Freedom of speech is natural, God-given and shall not be abridged. Ergo, freedom of speech is universal and immutable. The American Founders revealed that individuals are free and government is severely limited and restricted. Non-conforming governments are aberrations. Rights and freedoms include every conceivable, natural and God-given form and iteration per the 9th Amendment. The only aspects and entities that require modification are global tyrannical and oppressive governments. Someone needs to send them the memo.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights were written to stand in perpetuity. Amendment of the Constitution is destruction of the Constitution. How much destruction will allow the perpetuation of the Constitution and America? Little or none.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“…amendments…as will not injure the constitution,…”
”And if there are amendments desired, of such a nature as will not injure the constitution, and they can be ingrafted so as to give satisfaction to the doubting part of our fellow citizens; the friends of the federal government will evince that spirit of deference and concession for which they have hitherto been distinguished.”
– James Madison, Proposed Amendments to the Constitution, June 8, 1789
Strange that if “God-given” so many lived and died without free speech for thousands of years.
God and nature provided them. Despots and tyrants expunged them (It seems you approve). The American Founders restored them – all of them – per the Constitution and Bill of Rights, with emphasis on the 9th Amendment.
When was this golden age when God provided these rights? I’m thinking he hasn’t done dick about them. We had to do it.
Anon1 is trolling
Ban hate speech
Ban offensive trolls
Hitler, Stalin, Mao and “Crazy Abe” Lincoln (i.e. suspension of Habeas Corpus, confiscation of private property, prosecution of total war, corrupting elections) et al. thought they were correct in their oppression and tyranny; as do you. The American Founders abolished the dictatorship of the monarchy. Marxist democrats have imposed the communist “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Paradoxically, wards, dependents, parasites, minorities and public workers are the nouveau riche – capable, talented, private sector wealth creators be damned!
Did you catch this professor?
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13973
Notice, Sir, that Curtis Willkie tried to prevent the local chapter of the Young America’s Foundation from hosting a speaker, after the hall had been booked. He told them a deliberate bald-faced lie in the process. This man isn’t some random apparatchik. He’s a j-school faculty member who spent two decades employed by The Boston Globe. How often did he tell deliberate bald-faced lies to his readers? How often do his students hear them?
JT: “Below is my column in USA Today”
Greg Hunter used to for Gannet News, (USA Today), but no longer & like so many others has now canceled his subsctiption, it’s no wonder why Gannet , NYT & so many other old media are collapsing & going out of business.
Anyway, Greg won’t be reading JT’s column.
Side note, JT is on target here about the collapse of free speech in the US.
https://usawatchdog.com/usa-communist-china-nazi-warren-pollock/
typo: Greg used to work for Gannet/USA Today.
He’s a crank.
“He’s a crank”
Ya I know, P Turley is a lot like yourself, cranky & an apologist for the CFR.
But the citizens see right through it & that’s why the audience of the Veiw were cheering Don Jr until the show’s host demanded they shut up & why the old dying media ignored the over 5 minute standing ovation DJ Trump received by the huge audience last night.
OT Greg is doing a great job, isn’t he.
“The further a society drifts from truth the more they will hate those who speak it”…..George Orwell. I believe this quote is more precise on this site than the free speech issues that JT writes about. The trump society on this site does not, nor will they accept truth or facts about trump. And they will lash out to those who speak the truth. Free speech is what they say it is. This site alone should be a case study on free speech.
Indeed. Beyond blind denial of facts, those who disagree with the Trump cult are called out as unwelcome participants in what they think should be a CJ, with hopes for physical violence as retribution.
. Beyond blind denial of facts
This, from the man whose response to the 32 month long failure of the McCabe – Mueller crew and their doddering figurehead was to repeat over and over ‘collusion has been proved’.
Fishy:
“The trump society on this site does not, nor will they accept truth or facts about trump. And they will lash out to those who speak the truth. Free speech is what they say it is. This site alone should be a case study on free speech.”
*********************
Au contraire, we tolerate your unlettered, overly compensated bleatings about Trump on a daily basis content to just effortlessly demolish the premises or chortle at the prejudiced conclusions. It’s the epitome of free speech by denying everything you say but supporting your right to incessant stupidity!
Let freedom ring!!
Mespo’s standard response. All unearned self congratulatory pretense, no facts. Given the number of times he gets slapped around when he attempts the latter, not surprising.
I always go with my old Russia proverb:
It’s better to be slapped in the face by the truth, then kissed by a lie.
Try to live be it.
FishWings shares a quote: “The further a society drifts from truth the more they will hate those who speak it”…..George Orwell.
So, FishWings, why do you assume that it is the sole province of the Never Trumpers, the Democrats, and their media allies to “speak the truth”? Why do you assume all that is being said about Trump is “the truth” spoken by “truth-tellers”?
Is it not possible that President Trump is the one “speaking the truth” and the more he speaks it, the more people like you hate him and want to ‘destroy’ him?
Remember when Barack Obama’s senior advisor, tweeted this in 2016 ——>
“It is not enough to simply beat Trump. He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not rise again.” — David Plouffe
Adam full of Schiff is not for free speech
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/11/schiff_goes_full_stalin.html
Schiff Goes Full Stalin
As Rep. Adam Schiff’s “sentence first, trial later” show trial of President Donald J. Trump reaches a so-called public hearing phase, we find the weaver of fables dictating what witnesses the GOP will be permitted to call based on a set of three qualifying question they must answer in advance. These questions ask, essentially, if the witnesses believe President Trump is guilty of pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Bidens in exchange for military aid. The GOP, it seems, will not be allowed to call witnesses who have testimony or evidence to the contrary, that there was no pressure and no quid pro quo. Nor will the GOP be allowed to present witnesses or evidence that confirms that the “dirt” is accurate, that the crime of threatening to withhold aid for a personal and political favor, a crime Biden has already confessed to, was committed by Biden, not Trump, on behalf of Biden’s son Hunter. Nor will the GOP be allowed to make the case that any Trump inquiry of the Ukrainians was mandated by a treaty signed by President Bill Clinton. This is, dare I use the term Democrats used during the impeachment of Bill Clinton for a real crime, a phrase used by Joe Biden himself, a political lynching. As reported by the New York Post:House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff on Thursday released a tightened set of guidelines over what potential witnesses can be called in the impeachment hearings, saying Republicans must justify their relevance according to a three-point criteria…”
What witnesses favorable to Trump’s assertion that he did not extort the Ukrainian president using military aid and a WH meeting have been denied? Banghazi does not meet that requirement, nor do any witnesses to Rep Jordan’s looking away as his players were assaulted in the shower at OSU.
So you end up with the sounds of silence as one form of speech is banned after another…Staying silent is what got Europe into trouble in the preceding two or five centuries and what got the USA into trouble since 1909.
If he couldn’t explain why America allows its citizens to insult religion, then he does not understand free speech.
One way to explain this to Arabs, is to ask them if they are permitted to insult or criticize the Jewish or Christian religions in their country. Of course, they would answer. We are free to speak our minds on all matters, and no one may kill anyone for apostasy or insult.
It’s funny how Professor Turley has become almost fanatical about the state of free speech today. Based on recent columns, one would think free speech is the most urgent issue facing western man. And coincidentally the professor’s concern intensifies as Trump’s Ukraine scandal burns like wildfire. Readers are dying to hear Turley’s opinions on the many impeachment issues. Instead we keep hearing how imperiled free speech is.
Darren
For the love of creating a hate free blog, please ban our resident Whack-a-Mole with an IQ below 50 and infinite fake profiles especially since “Peter” thinks banning free speech is not a burning issue
😂😂😂
Based on recent columns, one would think free speech is the most urgent issue facing western man.
Shill,
Is this one of our founding first principles identified by those 18th century liberals (classical) you believe is no longer relevant in the 21st century?
Make an effort to connect with the left-half of your brain for once and consider what the consequences would be if the first amendment were no longer protected. If you were to honestly consider all possible outcomes, then you will have the beginning of an understanding of the purpose of the 2nd amendment.
I see that the day’s talking points include an instruction to create a diversion and not address the substance of inconvenient posts.
John:
Without free speech, we can’t have discussions.
Not a difficult concept.
What part don’t you get?
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
“…five sources told Bloomberg that $141 million of the money was actually authorized to be released several days earlier after (State dept.) lawyers determined that the White House Office of Management and Budget and, therefore, the president, had no legal standing to block the funds. The decision was outlined in a classified memo to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to Bloomberg.
The information severely undercuts Trump’s insistence that there was no quid pro quo for military aid when he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July phone call to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Trump has pointed to the fact that he released the aid before a probe was begun. But Bloomberg now reports that Trump was no longer in control of disbursement when the money was released.
Officials have testified before House lawmakers that the aid — amounting to a total of some $400 million — was linked to Zelensky bowing to Trump’s demands. The New York Times has reported that Zelensky had already scheduled an interview on CNN in September to announce the launch of the investigation — even though he was opposed to it — in order to obtain the much needed funding. When the money was released, Zelensky quickly dropped the CNN appearance and did not begin a probe, according to the Times….”
I am against hate crime laws.
Paul,
Hate Crime Laws are Hate Speech!
The starting point in this column is that the US has rule of law and that Europe has rule of law. Then you move to point out that European law has a defect in it, which it clearly does. Unfortunately, this argument rests on the fallacy that either the US or European nations follow the rule of law. They do not. These nations engage in war crimes. They engage in suppression of their own population (see France and Spain and the US).
In the US we do have a really good guarantee of free speech and free press. Too bad that guarantee is meaningless, just as the shoddy speech laws in Europe are meaningless. If you don’t have the rule of law, all laws become weapons against the people. They do not protect anyone’s rights. Only we the people can do that. “Free” speech is granted to the favored who keep themselves in line with what the powerful demand. If you step out of line you will quickly understand that fact. The Banana Republic and the Banana Monarchy of the UK can put any law they want on the books. If it looks like it will protect the people, that law is irrelevant until we the people understand we are sovereign and our rights may not be taken by the powerful.
Many dictatorships had great laws on the books. We must pay attention to that fact because that is what is happening in the US, right now.
Professor, look at your ‘colleagues’, and ask yourself why academe is such a monoculture. Ask yourself why newsrooms were by 1980 such a monoculture. Ask yourself why someone like Anthony Kennedy simply defines conventional viewpoints on sex and family life as not being worthy of consideration and gets away with it professionally. Ask yourself why political and social dissidents lose their jobs so regularly, or are subject to lawfare campaigns. This is being done by people all around you. It’s being done by people you call friends. Robert Bork was willing to identify the dynamic of social class composition behind the pathologies of our political like. And he was hated by many for doing so, people like this guy (http://www.elon.edu/e-web/faculty/faculty-scholars/eric_fink.xhtml). Are you willing to call a spade a spade?
Turley, your theory held lots more water back before social media became a platform for Russian interference in our elections and the lunatic right wing started using it to threaten and intimidate everyone they hate – especially attacking women with violent and perverted sexual attack threats. So won’t you kindly explain to all of us how else that horrid insanity can stop without the threat of heavy penalties including jail.
Turley, your theory held lots more water back before social media became a platform for Russian interference in our elections and the lunatic right wing started using it to threaten and intimidate everyone they hate –
And you’re going to have to contend with the usual fantasy pushers too, professor.
No JT, this isn’t about the left. It is about raw power. Here is an example which explains what I am saying. “So, evidently, when so-called whistleblowing serves power it is deemed praiseworthy. But when whistleblowers challenge and discredit power then they are persecuted as criminals, even to the point of death.
Arguably, if President Donald Trump had any scruples he would drop the trumped-up espionage case against Assange. After all, it was Wikileaks’ exposures of corruption by Hillary Clinton and her Democratic Party chiefs which partly boosted Trump’s election in 2016. Assange obtained those leaks from a Democratic insider, not from Russian hackers, as is commonly asserted by deluded “Russiagaters”.
Julian Assange while he was free and now while in prison exposes the systematic criminality and immorality of Western governments and their lackey corporate media. That’s why he finds himself in the hellish dungeon conditions today in a British prison.
We can only hope that mounting public pressure can be brought to bear on Washington and London to restore Assange’s freedom and life. In the meantime, the cruel vindictiveness of both governments, their lawlessness and profound contempt for human rights, is surely an eye-opening spectacle.
From Zero Hedge, written by the Strategic Culture Foundation. I will link in below.
We already have European laws against free speech. You simply refuse to recognize how lawless our own govt. is.
No, it’s about the left. You can’t stop lying.
Yup, it is absolutely the exclusive province of the left at this point. The Democratic party has become impossible to support, and a whole lot of us have stopped. I will certainly never vote dem again, and I have plenty of times in the past. They seem to be intent on sowing discord, they are without question following a script – let’s pray it doesn’t boil down to anything more serious than threat and bluster. It isn’t too late to turn the ship around, in spite of what progressive stooges may say (incidentally, they are the only ones expressing *that* sentiment, too).