1930’s Brownshirt Tactics Coming Back into Vogue

I don’t think you’ll find a better, more clear example of how the left and the progressives operate.  Straight up communist doctrine and right out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook.  Intimidate into silence.  At first in this country it was done slowly by sneaking in small, unconstitutional laws that most people were to complacent to resist.  The first “big stick” used against the church in this country was MONEY.  LBJ had a law passed making it illegal for preachers to speak out for or against political candidates because he didn’t like that fact that they usually spoke out against HIM.  The IRS were his “Brown Shirts.”  They would revoke the tax exempt status of a church found in violation of this law.  Sadly, far too many churches and preachers let themselves and the Gospel be pacified by this intimidation, which has resulted in a much more timid church and body of Christians overall in America.  Now that most have been pacified over time, the left is stepping up its campaign to silence the church completely.  They are boldly employing thug tactics that have never before been seen in America, and haven’t been seen in a western country since 1930’s Germany.

If Christians, and Americans in general don’t stand up for EVERYONE’S right to free speech, then it will soon be gone.

---

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=123535

Mall to Christians: God talk banned!

Rules challenged as violating ‘principles of free expression’

Posted: January 30, 2010
12:10 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily

Arguments have moved to the appellate court level in a California case in which a man talking to two willing strangers in a shopping mall was arrested because the subject of the conversation was God.

The case developed several years ago when a youth pastor was arrested at the Galleria Mall in Roseville, Calif., for having a conversation about religion with two other people.

Matthew Snatchko, who works with youth at his church, was interrupted in the middle of a conversation by a security guard. A second guard joined the confrontation and told Snatchko he was being placed under citizen’s arrest for “trespassing.” (Phony charges to silence and intimidate since they knew they couldn’t arrest him for what he was doing.)

The pastor said he agreed to leave but instead, the guards grabbed him, roughly shoved him against a storefront window and handcuffed him tightly enough to draw blood. Snatchko later was taken to the police station where he was booked on charges of battery and trespassing.

A short time later the charges were dropped, but officials with the Pacific Justice Institute decided to pursue a case against the mall over the impact of the policy on free speech.  (Again, they were sending a warning.  “Don’t speak about any of that God stuff, or next time we won’t go so easy on you.”  These are the intimidation tactics of the left.  Look at Hitler’s National Socialist Party and his Brown Shirts, Stalin’s purges, and Mao’s tyrannical reign.)

After a Placer County Superior Court judge in 2008 affirmed the mall’s regulations, an appeal was launched to the 3rd Appellate District in Sacramento, and the briefs have just now been completed for that court’s review.

“It’s surprising that mall owners think they can arrest patrons for engaging in casual conservations,” said PJI Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds. “While a ‘don’t talk to strangers’ rule may be good for kids, enforcing it against adults is absurd, and we think it violates California’s free speech guarantees.”

The case is being pursued under the state’s constitutional provision for free speech, which extends protections to private locations, because the 1st Amendment to the Constitution deals directly with government restrictions.

McReynolds said had the case been argued in federal court, it would have had to focus on the discriminatory nature of the mall’s restrictions.

“Singling out religious speech for punishment violates our most basic principles of free expression,” said PJI President Brad Dacus. “If anyone can be arrested for wearing a Christian T-shirt or mentioning God in a shopping mall, we have lost not only our freedom, but our sanity as a society.”

(Read complete article HERE)

---