Wednesday, April 24, 2019

The latest statist wet dream


The so-called "Equality Act" appears to be nothing more or less than a slap in the face to the US constitution, and to the rights and freedoms it guarantees.  It also flies in the face of medical and scientific fact (as opposed to politically correct opinion).  I've seldom seen a more blatant assault on our civic foundation.

Let’s place ourselves, for a moment, into the mindset of a statist. If you and your cronies wanted to control everybody’s lives, how exactly would you go about getting such raw power? Obviously, you wouldn’t come right out and say you have a special project designed specifically to cement a permanent one-party state.

You wouldn’t explain, full disclosure, that the ever-growing bureaucracy you have in mind would promote a surveillance state and coercion that produces toxic levels of social distrust. You wouldn’t clarify that the point is to keep tabs on everyone in every aspect of their lives, including their education, their businesses, their medicine, their housing, their families, and their churches.

No, of course not. You would mask your self-supremacist intentions with a benign and trendy word like “equality.” You’d pretend that your project was about helping a vulnerable minority. To prevent scrutiny, you’d quickly shame anybody who had a question about it and defame them as haters. At the same time, you’d give special favors to those who can be persuaded to support your con job.

. . .

So we have the “Equality” Act, recently introduced by Democrats in Congress ... On the surface, the “Equality” Act is supposed to protect LGBT folks from discrimination by adding the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity to all federal civil rights laws, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It would make claims of discrimination related to these characteristics legally actionable in the way racism is, and applying to virtually every area of life: the workplace, education, banking, jury service, federal funding, housing, medicine and psychiatry, and all public facilities.

It is a power grab in the guise of anti-discrimination. A bait-and-switch. It’s another attempt by a ruling micro-clique to exert mega-control over everyone else’s lives, including those it purports to protect. It allows the Mass State to maximize bureaucracy and social engineering, especially by its huge regulation of speech and expression. It erodes individual rights while claiming to uphold them.

There's more at the link.  If you place any value at all in our constitutional rights and privileges, you really, really need to click over there and read the whole thing.  Also, read the Heritage Foundation's analysis:  "7 Reasons Why the Equality Act Is Anything But".

I must confess, I'm baffled that any political party in its right mind would even introduce so blatantly unconstitutional an act.  I can see any number of ways in which the Equality Act could be overturned by a federal court - much less the Supreme Court.  Indeed, it's so blatant that I can't help wondering whether it isn't a deliberately sacrificial maneuver - something to pander to the Democratic Party's extreme left-wing elements, which the leadership know will never stand judicial scrutiny.  On the other hand, that's as blatant, as dishonest and as cynical as actually bringing it up for a vote in the first place.

The "Equality Act" is a monstrosity, and a recipe for disaster.  I don't care whether you're Democrat or Republican;  this thing is inimical to our constitution and our civic society.  It must be stopped.

Peter

6 comments:

McChuck said...

Everything in the 1964 "civil rights act" is a power grab, and poison to not just the Constitution, but the very fabric of American society.

Repeal it, the 1965 immigration act, the ADA, Obamacare, and everything related.

Peter B said...

Propose something extreme but insist that it was a well intentioned attempt to solve an important problem. Agree to a compromise that gets you part way to your extreme goal. Manufacture a crisis.

Rinse, repeat.

Unfortunately, the original extreme solution turns out not to have gone far enough for the "activists" and "concerned organizations."

Rinse, repeat.

Beans said...

Since when have the Democrats been concerned about the constituionality of anything?

In the last 10 years we've seen democrats steal 150 billion to pay off terrorists for their own good, lobby foreign powers while serving as government officials, use federal agencies to destroy their opponents, push agendas that would make NAZIs blush in shame, and so forth and so on.

Constitution? It only exists, in their eyes, to be used against the subjects of the US, not for the citizens. And, yes, that is how they see us, as subjects, not citizens.

John Ray said...

To make matters worse, it will be ruled by some federal commmission, (do EPA, OSHA, EEOC comes to mind, anyone?). Like the ranchers and farmers who can't control water on their lands or the baker in Colorado, one will be charged, ruled against, fined or worse, not in a Federal Court, but by some career federal employee who took a quickie course on the "commission's administrative rules". There, in the commission, the rules of evidence will be summarily ignored, and the notion of due process don't exist. The accused will have to hire a law firm, knowing that losing is inevitable. Sure, one can eventually appeal to a real Federal Court, after having spent tons of money and time before the commission. And there, in the Federal Court, the first thing one ascertains is that the commission, whose members are experts, have a presumption of ruling correctly. And, of course, one must retain lawyers for this procedure, providing that one is not ruined and broke by that time. I know, been there and done that, as a charged individual and as a lawyer for others. God bless our administrative state, and thank you FDR.

Sam L. said...

What Beans said!

Eric said...

I think they missed a beat by not calling it the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.