Defending the First Amendment or Undermining It? Podcast of May 9, 2015 Show

I’m worried that the atmosphere created by the attack of a Mohammed-drawing contest in Garland, Texas, will add to the complacency with which we are accepting a renewal of the unconstitutional USA Patriot Act this month–14 years after 9/11.  The contest was organized by Pam Geller who claims she is taking a stand for the First Amendment. My fear is that she has undermined it instead. Of course I defend her right to free speech, but I question whether her stated purpose will really be served. Listen to the show to get all sides of the story.

Don’t these guys look more like Blackwater than “SWAT”? Are they Garland SWAT? If so, why was a Garland Traffic Cop and an unarmed Garland School District Security Guard the ones to face and take down the two jihadis wearing body armor and firing assault weapons mere hours after the FBI warned them to be on the lookout for one of these guys? (But see Texas police deny specific threat warning from FBI at cartoon contest shooting.)

Favorite quote of the show:
“All your words are like flowers that make a beautiful sausage.”

Favorite tweet of the show:

@MonicaPerezShow Monica, this may very well be one of your best show. So much to weigh and think about.

— Jeff Warshal (@JWarshal) May 9, 2015

Hour 1

Hour 2

Hour 3

Here are links to some of the references made on the show this week….

Gunman in Texas Shooting Was F.B.I. Suspect in Jihad Inquiry

Here’s the great Judge Nap on FBI terror stings…

The FBI may not be flushing out jihadis, but using vulnerable people to scare us into giving up our rights.

Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.

FBI’s star witness in World Trade Center ’93 trial was embedded FBI operative, says FBI provided the live explosives used in the terror attack that killed six.

Ike with Muslim Brotherhood’s Ramadan

Here’s where I found that picture:
What Is the Muslim Brotherhood, and Will It Take Over Egypt?

We’re not the only ones who foster radical Islam for political purposes. From the Wall Street Journal, How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas; and from the Washington Post, How Israel Helped Create Hamas.

Here‘s the awful facebook post that got an Atlanta woman arrested last week.

Here’s the real threat to our first amendment right to free speech:
Anti-Protest Law Passes Nearly Unanimously And Is Signed By The President

For more on FBI stings click here.
For more on deliberate radicalization of Islam, click here.

John Adams

Regarding the necessity to have a moral culture as a foundation for a free society, here is an oft-quoted Adams passage:

John Adams in a speech to the military in 1798 warned his fellow countrymen stating, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

But there is debate as to whether or not the Founders meant this to be a Christian nation.

This is a passage from the Treaty of Tripoli, which was signed by John Adams:

“As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] … it is declared … that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries….
“The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.”
— Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, US Consul)

Here is an explanation from the Christian side of the debate:
The Treaty of Tripoli & America’s Founders

Here is where I found the quote and other quotes that counter the Christian argument:
Positive Atheism’s Big List of John Adams Quotations

Noahide Laws

This is actually in our law books…

Whereas Congress recognizes the historical tradition of ethical values and principles which are the basis of civilized society and upon which our great Nation was founded;

Whereas these ethical values and principles have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws;

Whereas without these ethical values and principles the edifice of civilization stands in serious peril of returning to chaos;

Whereas society is profoundly concerned with the recent weakening of these principles that has resulted in crises that beleaguer and threaten the fabric of civilized society;

Whereas the justified preoccupation with these crises must not let the citizens of this Nation lose sight of their responsibility to transmit these historical ethical values from our distinguished past to the generations of the future;

Whereas the Lubavitch movement has fostered and promoted these ethical values and principles throughout the world;

H.J.RES.104 — To designate March 26, 1991, as `Education Day, U.S.A.’. (Enrolled Bill [Final as Passed Both House and Senate] – ENR)

Here are the Seven Noahide Laws:

Do not deny God.
Do not blaspheme God.
Do not murder.
Do not engage in incestuous, adulterous or homosexual relationships.
Do not steal.
Do not eat of a live animal.
Establish courts/legal system to ensure law and obedience.