Plus, following China's lead.   Fighting For Faith, Family & Freedom Tuesday, November 29, 2022 To: Friends & Supporters From: Gary Bauer Giving Tuesday Black Friday has come and gone. Cyber Monday is over. Today is Giving Tuesday! All over America today, millions of people will give to their favorite non-profit groups. Click here now to show your support for American Values. Here’s another reason to stand with American Values now: All donations received today through the end of the year will be DOUBLED! Your $10 gift will become $20. $25 will become $50. $100 will become $200. $1,000 will become $2,000. So, please help us make the most of this generous opportunity! Why Musk Matters I don’t agree with Elon Musk on every issue. I don’t think he is right in every position he takes. But he is right about one big thing. And powerful forces all over the country are wrong about that one big thing. That one big thing is the freedom of speech. And if you’re going to be right about just one thing in America, the freedom of speech is it. Free speech is a founding principle of the country. Allowing people to say what they believe, even if it is stupid, factually incorrect or irritating to the majority is a fundamental American value and human right that we believe is a necessary xxxxxx against tyranny. Elon Musk is being attacked and mocked every day for one reason: He wants Twitter to be a forum for free speech. Musk tweeted yesterday, “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.” He is absolutely right. And look at who is taking the other side in this debate. Rather ironically some of the most important media outlets are opposing free speech. Powerful corporations and iconic brand names have stopped advertising on Twitter because they either oppose free speech or they fear it. And intolerant leftists are cheering. Think about that. Biden Opposes Free Speech Too Yesterday, speaking from the White House podium, Press Secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said, “We’re certainly keeping an eye on” Elon Musk and Twitter. Her comment came in response to a reporter’s question about Twitter becoming a “vector for misinformation” and who at the White House was keeping track of it. Jean-Pierre added that hate speech and misinformation will not be tolerated. We all should understand by now that those two ideas – “hate speech” and “misinformation” – are the most powerful weapons that the enemies of free speech are utilizing to restrict and take away our free speech rights. The left routinely smears Christians who love Jesus and America as “Christian nationalists.” That is not considered hate speech. No one will get taken down on social media for using that phrase to demonize Christians. But saying that marriage is the union of a man and a woman is “hate speech.” I could give you a thousand similar examples. Misinformation is any information contrary to the government’s endorsed position. Remember, the FBI said that Hunter Biden’s laptop was misinformation and Big Media and Big Tech oligarchs quashed the story. They shutdown not just random individuals posting about it but also legitimate media outlets. So much for a “free press.” In previous generations, Americans often comforted themselves by saying, “That could never happen here.” Well, it is happening here. Men cannot get pregnant. That’s the truth. But today’s left insists that is both “hate speech” and “misinformation,” even though no one has ever met a pregnant man because there aren’t any. Here’s the bottom line: The intolerant, totalitarian left will dictate what is truth and force you to lie – if we allow it. We must fight back! Following China’s Lead Communist China is ahead of us in many things like science and technology, and we must catch up. They are also ahead of us in stamping out basic liberties like free speech and privacy. The Chinese communist government has perhaps as many as 500 million surveillance cameras operating 24/7, spying on its citizens. We must resist the Biden Administration’s efforts to catch up. You may have noticed courageous Chinese dissenters this week holding blank sheets of white paper. Those blank pages symbolize all that they are not allowed to say or write because they lost their free speech rights a long time ago. The White House yesterday, under growing public pressure, issued a late, weak and cowardly statement saying it supported the Chinese people’s right to peacefully protest. There are many reasons why the statement was late, weak and cowardly. One likely reason is that the Biden family is compromised by the Chinese Communist Party. In addition to that, some American leftists would have liked to impose lockdowns as vicious as the ones imposed by communist China. Fauci’s lockdowns were bad enough, but he couldn’t go as far as the Chinese communist regime did. At least not yet. Communist China has increased government oppression with high tech developed by Chinese companies, and even some America companies, to turn the country into a slave state. Some reports suggest that the Chinese government likely captured the cell phone data of individuals in the areas where protests erupted. Those individuals are now getting calls from state security officers demanding they report to local police stations to account for their activities. By the way, this is similar to what the Biden Administration did. In the days following January 6th, the FBI collected cell phone data within a certain radius of the Capitol Building. The FBI even swept up phone data on members of Congress and their staff looking to connect Republican congressmen to those who breached the Capitol. Joe Biden just returned from a big meeting with Chairman Xi. He had a lengthy discussion about climate change. I wonder how often Chinese tyrants and wanna-be American tyrants compare notes on how to suppress liberty? If it hasn’t happened yet, it will soon if we stay on our current trajectory. Defending The Second Amendment Was Musk speaking up for another constitutional right yesterday when he tweeted a photo of his bedside table? There were a couple of empty Coke cans and a couple of guns. The inside lid of a box containing an antique pistol featured the famous picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware. Could the Chinese communist regime get away with what it is doing now if the Chinese people had a right to own firearms? I think we all know the answer to that question. By the way, the FBI ran a near record number of background checks on Black Friday because more than 192,000 people in America were buying guns that day. A Bad Deal Yesterday evening, the Senate once again voted to advance the misnamed “Respect for Marriage Act” with the support of 12 Republican senators. The vote came in response to a deal with Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer, who agreed to allow votes on three amendments to strengthen religious liberty protections. Reasonable people can disagree, but this appears to be an ill-advised agreement and one made out of weakness. There is no guarantee that any of the religious liberty amendments will pass. But just three of these 12 Republican senators could have stopped the entire bill from passing! The possible upside is that several senators who will be up for reelection in 2024, like Montana’s Jon Tester and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, are going to have to vote yes or no on real religious liberty protections. We will see what happens. But this legislation is a perfect example of progressive priorities. We are barreling toward a possible government shutdown in two weeks. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is begging lawmakers to pass annual funding bills for the military. They haven’t done so yet. Joe Biden is now asking Congress to prevent a strike by railroad workers that could cripple the economy right before Christmas. The point is that there are serious issues Congress should be addressing right now, but Senate liberals are obsessing over men “marrying” other men and putting religious liberty at risk in the process. Why any Senate Republican would provide a single vote to advance the left’s radical agenda right now is beyond me! MAKE YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION NOW SHARE VIA SOCIAL MEDIA Share This Email Share This Email Share This Email As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, donations to American Values are tax deductible for federal income tax purposes. 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