The Devaluation of Free Speech in the Land of the Free
Whether we realize it or not, we are being forced to rethink our origins and reorder our priorities — mostly by holding our tongue.
Whether we realize it or not, we are being forced to rethink our origins and reorder our priorities — mostly by holding our tongue.
Donald Trump’s xenophobic views are neither new nor particularly shocking in Europe, where fears of jihadism and the challenges of illegal immigration are blowing winds into the sails of a rising far right.
On the campaign trail, Newt Gingrich has given his fellow Republican presidential candidates a wide berth, often going out of his way to praise them. Instead of attacking his rivals, Gingrich has focused his fire on President Obama.
Many reviews already have appeared of \”The Undefeated,\” the soon-to-be-released documentary about Sarah Palin’s tenure in Alaska.Yet none of them — even in The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post or The Washington Post — mentions that nearly all of the film’s many pro-Palin media talking heads are Jews.
Conservative pro-Israel groups launched TV ads and robo-calls attacking President Obama\’s call for negotiations based on 1967 lines. The Emergency Committee for Israel on Wednesday posted on its website a TV ad that reportedly will appear on cable news networks in the Washington and New York markets.
The fast-emerging religious left contrasts sharply on many issues — from homosexual marriage to socialized medicine — with its longer-established competitor, the religious right. Yet these two Bible-citing political movements equally have woken up to the realization that there is something intrinsically American about using the Bible as a guide to practical politics. That\’s good news and a blow to secularist orthodoxy.
As the furor over the election dies down, with unseemly whining from sore losers and unseemly gloating from sore winners, certain stereotypes of Bush voters continue to command currency among disgruntled liberals. One of them is that Bush supporters, and conservatives in general, are dumb, ignorant and out of touch with reality.
The intersection of religion and politics became a talk show hit after Nov. 2, when the religious right played a huge, and perhaps pivotal, role in the re-election of President Bush.
Jews are not of one mind about the new focus on faith in politics, but many in the large non-Orthodox majority remain uncomfortable with that trend and are downright scared of new threats to the church-state wall posed by the religious conservatives.