The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1480126
C-4 Wednesday, September 28, 2022 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Religious freedom means nothing In August of 1790, President George Washington visited Rhode Is- land, which a few months earlier had ratified the U.S. Constitution. Among those who welcomed the new presi- dent was the Hebrew Congregation of Rhode Island, founded in 1763. Now known as the Touro Syna- gogue, it is the oldest standing syna- gogue in the nation. The synagogue's representative wrote to the presi- dent, expressing gratitude that Jews in Rhode Island, in the newly formed United States of America, lived, in contrast to their co-religionists in oth - er parts of the world, with "invaluable rights as free citizens." Washington wrote to the congrega- tion, "May the Children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while ever y one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid." A little more than a year later, the guarantee of religious freedom would be formally enshrined in the Constitution with the ratification of the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment saying, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establish- ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Now, in a sad stroke of irony, the religious freedom of obser vant Jews is being threatened not by "other inhabitants" but by their own co-re- ligionists. Yeshiva University, the nation's only orthodox Jewish university, has been sued by Yeshiva University gay students for refusing to sanction an LGBTQ club. A New York State court ruled in favor of the students, and now Yeshiva University has been dealt another setback by the Supreme Court. The Supremes, to whom Yeshiva University appealed, refused to block the state court de- cision requiring that the university allow the LGBTQ club to operate. The position of Yeshiva University is clear. The Torah — the five books of Moses — explicitly prohibits ho- mosexual behavior. To officially ac- cept the LGBTQ club as part of the university would be to negate and un- dermine the ver y mission and identi- ty of the university. Religious freedom is an integral part of American identity. Historically, religious persecution came from those of other religions. But today we have a new phenom- enon. The threat to religion is not coming from those who worship other gods. The threat is coming from those who worship no god and refuse to accept Christians and Jews to practice their religion as taught in their scripture. An inter view with one of the gay students makes clear what is hap- pening. She challenges that Judaism actually prohibits homosexuality. But the prohibition in the Torah is abso- lutely clear and explicit. To accept her and her argument is to ask that Yeshiva University negate its ver y existence. How did Yeshiva University get to this situation? As I googled for back- ground information on this stor y, it became clear that the issue with gays on the campus at Yeshiva University has been going on for years. The LGBTQ club that now seeks official sanction has been operating infor- mally. Can it be that Yeshiva Univer- sity has been not clear and aggres- sive enough on where they stand on this issue, and this lack of clarity has led to this destructive situation? I think it is time for religious orga- nizations to stop being intimidated by threats from those whose real agenda is to destroy what they stand for. Certainly, America must stand strong as a free society. Anyone should be able to live as they choose. But Americans of faith should be proud and clear about the precepts of their religion and aggressively push back against those who use the headline of tolerance as a pretext to undermine and destroy the precepts of scripture. Let's wake up that religious free- dom means nothing if religion means nothing. We are already see- ing our nation implode as our sacred principles so essential to life go out the window. Those who still live by Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break By John Stossel Heritage Viewpoint By Erin Dinwell Homeland's cybersecurity exposed for Ministry of Truth dirty work President Joe Biden recently an- nounced, with great fanfare, his Cancer Moonshot initiative. Biden used soaring and promising rhetoric about, at last, finding a cure for one of the world's leading killers. Speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Librar y and Museum in Boston on Sept. 12, the presi- dent declared: "Beating cancer is something we can do together, and that's why I'm here today." For per- haps the first time in his presidency, Biden seemed to cross the aisle and reach out for Republican support by saying: "Cancer doesn't discriminate red and blue; it doesn't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat." Biden is right that the race for the cure is and should always be bi- partisan. After all, who doesn't want to defeat cancer? Well, actually, the president and ever y Democrat in Congress seem not to have this as a top priority -- or even a priority at all. Just a few days after giving this speech, the president held a big cel- ebration at the White House with the signing of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. This bill, among oth- er things, imposes price controls on American drugmakers. Ever y Dem- ocrat in Congress voted against the race for the cure, and the president had a wide grin on his face. Musician James Taylor strummed the guitar at the White House as Biden signed the bill into law. So, one day the pres- ident says he wants to pour more money into cancer research, and the next day he takes $300 billion from the companies that are supposed to develop these new cures. The law Biden just signed is a de facto tax of $300 billion on the profits of the companies that are on the front lines of tr ying to win the race for the cure. In other words, Congress trans- ferred almost one-third of a trillion dollars from drug companies, one of America's most productive and life- saving industries, and gave that mon- ey to the wind and solar and electric car industries. The green energy firms are one of America's least productive indus- tries. Solar and wind sur vive in most markets only because of tens of bil- lions of dollars of taxpayer handouts. Does this sound like a good trade to you? We all want lower drug prices. The good news is that in recent years, drug prices have final- ly started to come in below the rate of over- all inflation. And there are sensible ways that drug prices could be brought down quick- ly -- for example, by allowing more drugs and treatments to be sold over the counter at drug stores rather than requiring pre- scriptions and phar- macists approving the transactions at premium costs. We also could speed up the drug approval process so that new drugs with billions of dollars invested in research and development can reach patients sooner. This would save lives and help the industr y get a return on investments. But price controls always lead to shortages of products and discourage innovation and investment in an industr y. American investors pump tens of billions of dollars into drug R&D and biotechnology research. Why? Be- cause they want to make a return on the investment. If you lower the re- Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Biden is losing the Race for the Cure The Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infra- structure Security Agency is sup- posed to be a government entity that "works with partners to defend against today's threats and collabo- rates to build a more secure and re- silient infrastructure for the future." Lately, however, it has instead been in the business of censoring information on private social media platforms, at universities, and more. This is strikingly similar to other dis- information efforts at the DHS, the White House, and other parts of the Biden administration that have come to light recently. The "I" in Cybersecurity and Infra- structure Security Agency stands for "infrastructure," not "information." The agency is not supposed to flag and take down what it deems "mis- information." It's supposed to spend its time and resources securing in- frastructure in the 16 critical infra- structure sectors. If this dereliction of duty in order to play politics and control discourse sounds familiar, it may be because of all the attention this past year sur- rounding the Department of Home- land Security's since-disbanded Dis- information Governance Board. As many have noted, we surely have not seen the last of anti-"disin- formation" efforts by federal agen- cies, and specifically, the Depart- ment of Homeland Security. But perhaps even more importantly, the board was not the first instance of these "Ministr y of Truth" efforts. The Department of Homeland Security has been redefining, ma- nipulating, and controlling "misinfor- mation," "disinformation," "threats to democracy," and so on for many years. So, how did this happen at the Cy- bersecurity and Infrastructure Secu- rity Agency, specifically? Since the addition of elections to the list of critical infrastructure, which occurred at ver y end of the Obama-Biden administration, the Foundation for Freedom Online in a fascinating series of articles and vid- eos has been exposing exactly how it happened: At one level, it hap- pened through sheer definitional sleight of hand: In 2017, "cyber- security" was redefined, effectively, to mean "cy- ber defense of democra- cy"; in 2018, "disinfor- mation" was defined, effectively, as a "threat to democracy"; and so, by 2019, DHS could cite "cybersecurity" as en- compassing "cyber defense against digital disinformation," requiring var ying techniques of digital censor- ship to stop the digital disinforma- tion… . The short answer is that in late 2019, the DHS pulled off what we may call its "foreign-to-domestic 'dis- information' switcheroo." Disinformation campaigns within the Department of Homeland Securi- ty have been hiding for years behind other names, outsourcing of watch- dog-type social media missions to contractors and associated organi- zations, and a lack of an official, sin- gular entity charged with super vis- ing the all-encompassing efforts to strike down information or opinions that challenge the status quo. Rather, the department has acted as a "coordinator" of sorts. Histor- ically, government agencies have mostly managed to do this success- fully and remain uncriticized as oth- ers do their dirty work. Until this year when the Depart- ment of Homeland Security made the mistake of standing up the of- ficial Disinformation Governance Board, its politicized efforts went largely unchecked. And under this administration, its efforts have increased exponentially. Now that many of us have learned the breadth and depth of our govern- ment's efforts to censor free speech and suppress truth, let's not let up on our demands for freedom of speech and accountability. There are critical functions the Cybersecurity and In- frastructure Security Agency is supposed to play. It bears much responsibility for pro- tecting our nation's vul- nerabilities in critical infrastructure sectors against devastating possibilities, such as electromagnetic pulse attacks. We face dangerous cyber and ransomware attacks from the likes of Russia, China, and Iran. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has more than enough serious du- ties so as not to be wasting time on make-believe work to drive a narra- tive and punish political opponents. The agency is abandoning tack- ling those ver y real threats in order to pursue political power. The American people, through our elected representatives, have ev- er y right to defund—and demand an end to—government overreach. The Department of Homeland Se- curity and its component agencies continue to turn their resources to- ward straw man "domestic threats." Congress should defund those polit- ical efforts until the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency returns to—and proves—its commit- ment to ser ve the American people as intended. The Department of Homeland Se- curity was created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Af- ter marking the 21st anniversar y of those attacks on Sunday, the Biden administration must stop using the DHS to advance its leftist agenda through controlled content while our nuclear, cyber, water, energy, and other sectors become more vulnera- ble to hacking and attacks. Instead, it must restore the department's original purpose—safeguarding the homeland. No apologies Performers censor themselves — fearing they might offend. Those who offend Hollywood lose work. Some lose friends. Adam Carolla doesn't care. That's why he's the subject of my video this week. Carolla is one the most suc- cessful performers in America. His books are bestsellers. His comedy shows sell out. He hosts one of America's most-listened-to-pod- casts. Recently, Carolla dismissed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's intellect, cracking that "If AOC was fat and in her 60s, would anyone listen to an- other thing she ever said?" That enraged leftists. "Predator y!" said Majority Re- port's Emma Vigeland. "Projects his sexism onto others," said Young Turks host Cenk Uygur. But what Carolla said is simply true. Nobody pays much attention to House freshmen. Ocasio-Cortez is a political celebrity simply because she's pretty, and also, she speaks without constantly saying "uh." "If she was in her 60s and husky," adds Carolla, "nobody would listen to a word she ever said!" He won't apologize for saying that. Or anything else. "No Apologies" is on the cover of his new book, "Ever ything Reminds Me of Something." "They want you to apologize be- cause they want dominion over you. And once you apologize, they just keep coming back." I get upset when people criticize me. Carolla says, "I just happen to be wired not to care, as long as I'm right." He says he was right for criticiz- ing the government's COVID pro- nouncements. "They didn't give the ages of the people who died at the ver y beginning," Carolla tells me. "I immediately got suspicious because it was a bunch of 90-year-olds." For saying that, Carolla was mocked and condemned by his ce- lebrity friends. Radio show host Howard Stern said Carolla was "making fun of peo- ple for taking COVID seriously." "Adam doesn't believe in shampoo or soap," added Jimmy Kimmel. "It's disturbing." Carolla is a "right-wing troll," said actor David Alan Grier. Carolla laughs at those attacks. He's unusual in Hollywood be- cause he's still friends with leftists who disagree with him. He does stand-up comedy with Sar- ah Silverman. He joins Bill Maher's podcast. Such political mixing is rare today. Usually, the left and right just don't talk to each other. Carolla says that's not surprising. "If you're a Steelers fan in a bar, you want to sit next to a guy who's a Steelers fan." But "occasionally ... you have to in- vite somebody over from the Patriots bar and have a robust debate." All my career, I had robust debates. I learned from those arguments. To- day Stossel TV still hosts debates, but that's rare in today's political me- dia. Most just mock the other side or spend all their time with people who agree with their own positions. On college campuses, it's worse. The left simply silences the other side. I first encountered it years ago, covering a rape accusation at Brown University for "20/20." A student had sex with a woman who was drunk; weeks later, she accused him of rape. The school newspaper put the boy's photo on its front page but kept his accuser anonymous. University offi - cials suspended the boy. I asked Brown students holding up signs that said, "Break the si- lence, stop sexual assault" to explain Brown's new definition of rape. The group screamed at me, chanting "Rape is not TV hype!" so loudly that I couldn't inter view anyone else. They don't want the other side to be heard. "They would let the other side speak if they thought they could beat them in a debate," says Carolla. "They don't." Carolla is eager to debate, partly because he's confident about his ideas. "I think if you're intellectually honest or I gave you two beers, you would agree with me." Agreeing isn't the point. If his ideas are bad, they'll go away. But it's important that people be free to speak. "I don't really have a choice as to what I say," says Carolla. "It has to be the truth all the time. I'm a come- See RELIGION on page 5 See APOLOGIES on page 5 See CURE on page 5