I know, I know, everybody’s talking about Presidential pardons this week, but I’ve never been one to follow the obvious path. Besides, that subject has been done to death, resurrected, done to death again, resurrected again, and done to death a third time.
Instead, I have a riddle for you. What do Donald Trump, Daniel Penny, and Jack Phillips have in common? Aside from being relatively sure they all wear pants, breathe oxygen, and occasionally enjoy a little thing the kids like to call eating, they’re all the victims of lawfare. And, not coincidentally, Leftists also hate them for daring to defy their will.
And when you can’t beat ’em, you sue them…or something like that.
lawfare
What the Left thinks it means – a made-up term used to demean efforts to hold people accountable
What it really means – abusing the legal process to get what the Left wants, one way or another
As I said recently, the Left understands the power of money, even they don’t understand basic economics. And with that knowledge of power, they know how to use it to get what they want. Usually, this is done at the legislative level, but there are times when it moves into the halls of justice.
And not even the Super Friends can get them out.
Meanwhile, back at the main point, lawfare is how the Left uses the power of money to get what they want. With the help of trial lawyers (who tend to be Leftists either out of education or shame at getting paid tons of money to be shitty people), lawfare leverages the power of money and the legal system to dole out punishment.
This is done in one of two ways. First, there’s the gradual erosion of a target’s finances until he/she (because there’s still only two genders) is so poor by the end of the process any monetary judgments in his/her (still only two genders) favor get swallowed up by the fees incurred to fight the fight in the first place. That’s even worse than getting a moral victory.
The other way lawfare works is suing people into capitulation. In this way, the law becomes the punishment for not being a Leftist. Some victims would rather knuckle under when faced with the prospect of a lengthy legal process, so the Left gets what they want. That’s how the ACLU got any showing of Christian faith out of the public school system. I haven’t heard them trying to get Islam out of public schools yet, but I’m sure they’ll get around to it…maybe…you know, after the new year…in the 38th Century.
While we wait, we can take a look at the aforementioned lawfare victims to see the effects it has on them.
Jack Phillips: He is the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, which became Ground Zero for a legal battle over gay rights. When a same-sex couple came in and asked him to bake a cake for them. When Phillips refused, the couple filed a complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission arguing the refusal violated public accommodations laws. After a lengthy process, the US Supreme Court gave Phillips the victory, but that didn’t stop Leftists from continuing to file lawsuits against him and his bakery. And that has cost him time, money, employees, and reputation. All because a gay couple tried to force him to bake a cake against his religious beliefs.
Donald Trump: Where do I begin with this one? When he wasn’t being President of the United States, he has had to deal with lawsuit after lawsuit, court case after court case. It’s not like he doesn’t have the money to fight back, but having to deal with the sheer volume of lawsuits, based on bullshit or not, is an emotional drain as well as a financial one. This one hits a little deeper than the Phillips situation because even if he gets the bulk of the suits tossed out because of the aforementioned bullshit, there will still be people who will point out he was still convicted. Can’t win for losing.
Daniel Penny: Although he’s the newest member of the lawfare club, he’s no stranger to the depths Leftists will go to punish a person. Penny was riding the subway in New York City when Jordan Neely started harassing fellow riders and threatened to kill people. Penny took Neely down and allegedly killed him with a chokehold. Even with the sheer number of witnesses, video footage, and expert testimony supporting his case, he’s still having to go through the legal process because the Left needs it to be another George Floyd situation. After all, why let a good made-up scandal go to waste?
In each case, the Left is using the law to extract a pound (or should I say ton) of flesh from their victims. But it has a ripple effect. Not only does it drain the spirit and bank accounts of those who get targeted, but it sends a message to others not to cross the Left or else you’ll get what the targets get. Most of the time, this works because, well, Leftists love to use the government to get you to comply. There’s a reason why the saying “You can’t fight City Hall” is still around today: because fighting City Hall is like taking on Mike Tyson in his prime, not when fighting a social media star.
And since not everyone can afford a lengthy court battle, most of the time we will have to give in, no matter how righteous the cause may be. The downside to that is it enables Leftists to keep using lawfare to get what they want. However, there are some things you can do en masse.
First, check to see if you elect judges. If so, they can be voted out, especially if they keep enabling lawfare instead of doing their jobs. Failing that, there’s always elections. As we’ve recently seen, it’s possible to change the direction of an area or even a country if enough people get out and vote out the bad actors. (If only we could do the same with Hollywood…)
But there is something else you can do: use your voice outside the ballot box. Whenever you see someone getting the shaft (because that cat Shaft is a bad mutha…), read up on the case and talk about it. Sunlight may be the best disinfectant, but social media makes that sunlight a fuckton more powerful.
Of course, there’s my favorite: pointing and laughing. Leftists hate to be mocked even a little bit. (See Bluesky for evidence.) When you see a Leftist engaging in lawfare, mock them mercilessly. Sure, you might get pulled into a lawsuit yourself because, well, Leftists are litigious babies, but you will have the First Amendment on your side. Or should have it on your side unless Leftists go judge shopping to find one who thinks the First Amendment is a suggestion. But, seeing a Leftist’s head explode as you turn their sacred cows into hamburger will warm even the chilliest of hearts.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to deal with 493 lawsuits filed by Leftists who are offended by me constantly pointing out there are two genders. See you when I get out of court!
Tag: aclu
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
If there’s a figure in the Trump Administration that is a lightning rod of criticism (outside of the President himself), it’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Some of the criticism (she doesn’t have an education background) is legitimate, while some of it (she wants to take away victims’ rights on college campuses) is as valid as a Nigerian prince’s email. It’s not secret Secretary DeVos has been pushing for changes to Title IX that would give accused sexual assault attackers the opportunity to defend themselves against allegations.
Enter our good friends, the American Civil Liberties Union. For decades, they have championed rules of evidence and due process. What did they do? They…sided with victims’ rights group and filed a lawsuit against Secretary DeVos to try to prevent the proposed Title IX changes. Yes, you read that right. The ACLU came down against due process on college campuses.
If you’re still scratching your head over this, keep reading. I have a lot to unpack here.
ACLU
What the Left thinks it means – an organization whose sole purpose is to defend civil liberties against those who would seek to undermine them
What it really means – an organization whose commitment to civil liberties is spotty at best these days
Before we get into the specifics of the lawsuit against Secretary DeVos, it’s important to understand the ACLU isn’t what it used to be. Throughout much of its history in the 20th Century, it defended everyone from conscientious objectors to neo-Nazis. Their commitment to civil liberties was unquestioned, and justifiably so.
Even so, there were parts that would cause fans of civil liberties to take pause. Their commitment to the Second Amendment is weaker than Richard Simmons’ handshake. Their interpretation of the freedom of religion section of the First Amendment pretty much ignores the whole “Congress shall make no law” verbiage and comes down that any entity even remotely funded by Congress can’t express any religious sentiments (well, except for Islam because…reasons).
If these were the only issues, the ACLU could skate past any criticism. Yeaaaah, about that. There are a lot of issues beyond that. In recent years, the ACLU has decided to give up its commitment to civil liberties for everyone to whatever civil liberties the Left wants to promote this week. In other words, the ACLU has gone from the American Civil Liberties Union to Always Cucking to Leftist Underlings.
Which brings us to the situation with Title IX. Previous Administrations attempted to walk a tightrope between protecting equal treatment of male and female students and maintaining a common sense approach to enforcing that equal treatment. Then, President Barack Obama came along and decided due process on colleges campuses was best handled by letting people not in the legal profession hold kangaroo courts where the accused is presumed guilty even if proven innocent. But remember, President Obama is a Constitutional scholar and the smartest man to ever be President (without knowing what was going on without watching the news), so the Left thought it was okay. Besides, men are icky, amirite? How dare Betsy DeVos try to prevent colleges and universities from trampling on Constitutional rights in the act of sweeping bad press under the rug?
Although I have some misgivings about Secretary DeVos, she’s in the right here, and for the ACLU to ignore their previous stances in defense of due process shows how far left they’ve gone. Yes, there are scumbags like Brock Turner on college campuses, but there are also scumbags like “Mattress Girl” who invented sexual assault charges out of whole cloth and were rewarded for it by the same Leftists who tell us repeatedly victims tell the truth. The fact there is such a dichotomy in dealing with something as serious as sexual assault under the auspices of Title IX with the backing of a civil liberties group should have more people outraged than there are.
I’m sure no one from the ACLU will be reading this, but it has to be said: you have utterly lost your ever-loving minds (and I say this as someone who remembers when a couple of your members went to bat for NAMBLA). Civil liberties aren’t subject to ideological litmus tests; either you’re all in or all out. What’s truly scary is what impact this lawsuit will have on justice as a whole. Sure, your position is that relaxing the protections you say are in Title IX will undercut sexual assault victims and make them feel as though they won’t be believed, but there is another party in this equation that will definitely get the shaft if you get what you want. The falsely accused get railroaded under the current system precisely because their civil liberties are ignored. They don’t get to face their accusers, offer an alternate opinion of what happened, or even have an attorney to cross-examine the accusers (if they’re even allowed to represent the accused in the first place). At the risk of invoking the wrath of “whataboutism” from the Left, I would say you would be far less forgiving if this happened in a courtroom in, say, Alabama.
And that’s the problem.
When you base your commitment to civil liberties on what will get you more Leftist street cred, you erroneously conclude only the Left cares about civil liberties. News Flash for you, kids. They don’t care about civil liberties until they can find a way to get support and money for supporting it, and it seems you’re okay with it.
For the purposes of this point, I did a quick search to see how the ACLU responded to Senator Kamala Harris’ practices of mass incarceration of blacks while she was Attorney General of California. How many hits did I get? If you guessed 0, you’d be right! But I did find a lot of press releases praising her work in the Senate defending “protesters of color” from surveillance efforts. Just a bit of a disconnect there, kids.
The ACLU should no longer be considered the benchmark for the protection of civil liberties because they’ve long since given up any pretense of living up to the principles their name suggests they have. And with their recent lawsuit against Betsy DeVos, they’ve brought their own backhoe so they can bury the last remnants of their credibility.