Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 8:07am

Corcyra Fears

Civil Unrest

 

 

The Federal Election Commission Chairman has some chilling things to say about threats to freedom of speech:

I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” warned Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman in an interview.

“The right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and internet communications,” he added.

Noting the success of sites like the Drudge Report, Goodman said that protecting conservative media, especially those on the internet, “matters to me because I see the future going to the democratization of media largely through the internet. They can compete with the big boys now, and I have seen storm clouds that the second you start to regulate them, there is at least the possibility or indeed proclivity for selective enforcement, so we need to keep the media free and the internet free.”

All media has long benefited from an exemption from FEC rules, thereby allowing outlets to pick favorites in elections and promote them without any limits or disclosure requirements like political action committees.

But Goodman cited several examples where the FEC has considered regulating conservative media, including Sean Hannity‘s radio show and Citizens United’s movie division. Those efforts to lift the media exemption died in split votes at the politically evenly divided board, often with Democrats seeking regulation.

Go here to The Washington Examiner to read the rest.  I am 57 years old.  I doubt if I will live to see such days, but I am increasingly concerned that those younger than me may live to see this country resemble Corcyra (modern Corfu) during the Peloponnesian War and party strife leading to bloody civil war:

 

The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man. A conspirator who wanted to be safe was a recreant in disguise. The lover of violence was always trusted, and his opponent suspected. He who succeeded in a plot was deemed knowing, but a still greater master in craft was he who detected one. On the other hand, he who plotted from the first to have nothing to do with plots was a breaker up of parties and a poltroon who was afraid of the enemy. In a word, he who could outstrip another in a bad action was applauded, and so was he who encouraged to evil one who had no idea of it. The tie of party was stronger than the tie of blood, because a partisan was more ready to dare without asking why. (For party associations are not based upon any established law, nor do they seek the public good; they are formed in defiance of the laws and from self-interest.) The seal of good faith was not divine law, but fellowship in crime. If an enemy when he was in the ascendant offered fair words, the opposite party received them not in a generous spirit, but by a jealous watchfulness of his actions. Revenge was dearer than self-preservation. Any agreements sworn to by either party, when they could do nothing else, were binding as long as both were powerless. But he who on a favourable opportunity first took courage, and struck at his enemy when he saw him off his guard, had greater pleasure in a perfidious than he would have had in an open act of revenge; he congratulated himself that he had taken the safer course, and also that he had overreached his enemy and gained the prize of superior ability. In general the dishonest more easily gain credit for cleverness than the simple for goodness; men take a pride in the one, but are ashamed of the other.

The cause of all these evils was the love of power, originating in avarice and ambition, and the party-spirit which is engendered by them when men are fairly embarked in a contest. For the leaders on either side used specious names, the one party professing to uphold the constitutional equality of the many, the other the wisdom of an aristocracy, while they made the public interests, to which in name they were devoted, in reality their prize. Striving in every way to overcome each other, they committed the most monstrous crimes; yet even these were surpassed by the magnitude of their revenges which they pursued to the very utmost,neither party observing any definite limits either of justice or public expediency, but both alike making the caprice of the moment their law.

The spirit described by Thucydides is alive and growing on the left in this country.  More than a few people are quite willing to respond in kind on the right.  Fools of all sorts speak glibly of violence and smashing their adversaries in the streets as if they are participants in video games with no real world consequences.  One hundred and fifty years ago we had experience of civil war and that left 600,000-750,000 dead out of a population of thirty million.  A civil war now would be infinitely worse, as it would be fought out by intermingled factions within each state, with the threat of nuclear and chemical weapons not far below the surface.  Such a conflict has been brewing most of my life.  I hope we as a nation wake up before my Corcyra fears become a waking nightmare of Corcyra reality.

 

 

 

 

 

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Philip
Philip
Thursday, May 8, AD 2014 4:09am

Your concerns are not fabrications of wild imagination. They are real as the threat is real.
May God help us.
Power is mans unquenchable appetite, and for many all means to quench power is acceptable in their heartless endeavors.
Christ conquered the world.
We know who holds the power. So we fear not and speak truth.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 8, AD 2014 5:32am

The Federal Election Committee is paid for by every citizen’s tax dollar. Censoring free speech because of content is unconstitutional.
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“The tie of party was stronger than the tie of blood”
.
Communism: According to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, communism is concerned with the party, the group, while true democracy is concerned with the individual person, the sovereign citizen, who is the person endowed with unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence by our Creator and whose freedom is inscribed in the Constitution for the United States of America by our government.
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Philip: “Power is man’s unquenchable appetite”
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Power over one’s appetite is called sovereignty or self discipline. If there is one sovereign person left in America who constitutes our nation and brings forth government of the people, we will survive.
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“One hundred and fifty years ago we had experience of civil war and that left 600,000-750,000 dead out of a population of thirty million.”
That one man might be free.
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June 4th is the twenty fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising and already according to ChinaRealTime in the Wall Street Journal the government is starting to crack down. In the uprising, the Chinese government thought that no one would notice the tanks in the square but the internet got the truth out in eight minutes. Thank God for the internet.

Both Drudge and Sean Hannity might begin their broadcast with a prayer as an exercise of freedom of religion and speech and press and peaceable assembly.
Only TRUTH has freedom of speech and press. Jesus Christ the Word of God is TRUTH. Jesus Christ is a sovereign Person. Jesus Christ is God.
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Saint Genevieve’s prayer over the city of Paris: “Please dear Lord, do not make it too hard.” Saint Clare drove the Saracens from the gate with the Blessed Sacrament. There is still time.

Paul W Primavera
Paul W Primavera
Thursday, May 8, AD 2014 6:04am

People who murder unborn babies and sanctify sexual filth will stop at nothing. Liberals will not give these things up without violence. Of course I do not want that. I pray against it, that we might somehow win peaceably at the election booth. But liberals cannot stand our point of view. And they hate God. It is that simple. 🙁

Mary De Voe
Thursday, May 8, AD 2014 11:31am

Paul: “But liberals cannot stand our point of view. And they hate God. It is that simple.”
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Their’s is an opinion. You and I have an opinion. And you and I love God. It is that simple.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, May 8, AD 2014 9:46pm

oh my
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Our part does not change. We are to remain faithful, behave as Christians. Remember Whose we are.
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2 Peter 2:12 Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge. …. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, May 8, AD 2014 9:53pm

That whole witness by Thucydides is so powerful. Thank you Donald McClarey.

Mary De Voe
Friday, May 9, AD 2014 9:56am

I, too, am very impressed with the images inscribed in Thucydides. The images brought forth are better than and impossible for a film video. A Must save.

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Saturday, May 17, AD 2014 4:13pm

[…] Ethika Politika Danish Resistance to the Nazis & Acquiescence to Islamism – A. Bostom Corcyra Fears – Don. R. McClarey JD Forced Female Genital Mutilation on Muslim Woman in U.S. – A Bostom […]

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