George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation: hate speech
By Harmony Grant
Last Thanksgiving, a tenured math professor at an Arizona community college sent out an email that could cost him his job. No, it didn’t contain the n-word. It didn’t criticize homosexual practices or point out that Democrats in Congress are trying to turn America into a police state. It was simply George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789,” with a link to its location on Pat Buchanan’s website, forwarded to fellow teachers in honor of Thanksgiving. Within weeks, the professor’s free-thinking and patriotic colleagues complained of harassment.
Come again? The instructors of America’s future leaders can’t handle the historic words of our greatest founding father or a link to a public leader’s thoughts on immigration!?Washington’s “offensive” address describes the “duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” This political giant prayed publicly “that we may then unite in most humble offering our prayers and supplications to the Great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually…” and so on, in words that are no longer allowed at a high school graduation, on a navy shipdeck or, clearly, between full-grown faculty members at a community college!
For the crime of emailing Washington’s speech with a link to Buchanan’s site, Prof. Walter Kehowski was placed on forced administrative leave March 9; the school chancellor recommends the governing board fire him. The college accuses Kehowski of violating their non-discrimination policy which promises “an environment for each Maricopa job applicant and employee that is free from sexual harassment, as well as harassment and intimidation on account of an individual’s race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disabled, or veteran status.”
Hey, that sounds a lot like the federal “anti-hate” bill!
As we’ve warned for months, the federal hate crime bill is another big step toward a nationwide speech ban on “hurtful words” against protected groups. It’s spearheaded and supported by the same people who support the speech codes that shackle free thought at universities across our nation and the workplace non-discrimination laws that do the same at American jobsites.
The appalling speech code at Texas A&M, America’s sixth largest state university, is another example of these manacles on the mind. A&M “literally prohibits hurting someone’s feelings.” It forbids students from violating each other’s rights to “respect for personal feelings” and “freedom from indignity of any type.” This vague, broad rule could be used to punish all kinds of unspecified behaviors including protected speech.
Criminal law should (and does) outlaw violent actions against the life and property of others. But nowhere does the Constitution guarantee unhurt feelings! My feelings are my own problem. Hate crime laws, however, invade the shadowy private space of feeling, bias, and belief. In 2004, Pennsylvania’s hate crime statute was used to arrest and indict 11 Christians for the potentially hurt feelings of homosexuals at a gay pride parade. The Christians’ only crime was to witness and sing hymns peacefully. They faced up to 47 years in prison.
These are Bad Laws, Period.
Many Christians and conservatives understand hate laws’ threat to the First Amendment; we’ve written extensively about this reality. But there are also non-speech-related reasons to protest hate crime laws. They are an enormous threat to one of the essential girders of a free society: clear, coherent and fair criminal law.
Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute testified April 17 against hate crime legislation to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. He argued that not only should the federal hate law be voted down but that all hate crime legislation should be repealed. He argued persuasively that a federal hate crime law is unnecessary for the prosecution of already criminal acts of violence; violates states’ rights in law enforcement; will not deter real criminals any more effectively than current laws; relies on vague, over-broad, and subjective definitions; will heighten rather than reduce intergroup conflict; and will lead to prosecution of thoughts and beliefs rather than criminal acts.
http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/morereasons.html
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=569
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=533
Feel the hate:
Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789
by President George Washington
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many single favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the Service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks, for His kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the single and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of His providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, of the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have to acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humble offering our prayers and supplications to the Great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all people, by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone know to be best.