Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/538195
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS By Dick Polman Historywasmadethe morning of June 26, with the disposition of the most urgent civil rights issue of our time. The U.S. Supreme Court said things that gay Americans have longed to hear: "The court now holds that same- sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied them." The 5-4 ruling, written by Republican appointee and swing voter Anthony Ken- nedy, is vivid proof that (in the words of Martin Luther King) the long arc of history bends toward justice. This ruling has long been antici- pated, and for good reason. It was really quite simple: The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws, and gay people who wished to marry did not have that protection. It was only a matter of time before they got it. Kennedy's reasoning was simple: "Under the Due Pro- cess Clause of the Four- teenth Amendment, no State shall 'deprive any per- son of life, liberty, or prop- erty, without due process of law'....The identification and protection of fundamental rights is an enduring part of the judicial duty to inter- pret the Constitution....The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The genera- tions that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the ex- tent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they en- trusted to future genera- tions a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution's central pro- tections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed." One such claim was ad- dressed in 1967, when the high court finally recog- nized that racial intermar- riage was constitutional. And now we have this: "Un- der the Constitution, same- sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right." Kennedy also had a mes- sage for religious conserva- tives: Regardless of how much your faith compels you to dis- criminate against gays, bear in mind that the Constitution is a secular document. In his words, "The First Amendment ensures that religious organi- zations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family struc- ture they have long revered.... The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex." Translation: If you own a business that serves the gen- eral public, the Constitution trumps personal faith. What a week this has been. The Confederate flags are coming down, Obamacare is thumbs up, and gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. It's enough to make one proud to be an American. But an historic occasion like this wouldn't be complete without a thigh-slapping blast from Antonin Scalia, who (as he did yesterday, on Obam- acare) has lashed out with in- sult lines fit for a Fox News apparatchik. A quick sam- pling: "Today's decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Su- preme Court...an unelected committee of nine...But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today's judicial Putsch." That's junk food for the trolls. Setting aside the loaded word putsch, which is most commonly associated with the Nazis' attempted coup in 1923, I'll merely point out that Scalia had no prob- lems with being a "Ruler," with being part of an "un- elected committee," when he voted with the majority in 2000 to stop the Florida re- count and drag George W. Bush across the finish line; or when he voted in the ma- jority for gun rights; or for abortion curbs; or for wreck- ing the campaign finance laws. Whatever. Bottom line is, he and the rest of the re- actionaries have lost. Their only recourse is to chew the carpet. What matters — and what will likely endure forever — is the view of the majority: "The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach." This is a day to celebrate what is best about America. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks. org/polman) and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Philadelphia. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Commentary A great day in history Cartoonist's take Larger issues of the origins and "first principles" of Amer- ican freedom can be easily overlooked amidst the gather- ings, picnics, cel- ebrations and fireworks of our Independence Day weekend. Thoughtful pur- veyors of conser- vative opinion were illuminat- ing and elevat- ing; items from past Daily News issues inspired thoughts on "real world" aspects of our freedoms. For instance, we enjoy free- dom of movement around our towns, cities, and within and among our many states. Aside from military and security fa- cilities and agricultural in- spection stops, we are free of border checkpoints and de- mands for our travel papers. However, if you think about it, we often exercise self-im- posed limits on where we go due to concerns for safety based on real or perceived crime risks. A large part of that self-restriction is based on the failure to restrict the freedom of criminals, gang- sters and drug offenders who've been judged, convicted and legally incarcerated. Cal- ifornia legislatures and vot- ers have foolishly weakened that system without consid- ering the threats to their and their fellow citizens' freedom to safely move about our cities and state. So, when immigrants, le- gal and illegal, become em- powered to flout the law by ei- ther crossing our border, over- staying their visa or green cards, or committing crimes that should rightfully result in their incarceration and/ or removal, their freedom be- comes a threat to our freedom. Likewise, when a city like San Francisco flouts federal immi- gration law and proclaims it- self a "sanctuary city," its fair and law-abiding residents can become victims for the violent, lawless, psychotic criminal el- ement. The headline in the October 18 Daily News, "Thousands re- leased after immigration holds denied," described the conflu- ence of soft, unenforced immi- gration laws and the refusal of jurisdictions to protect the safety and, yes, freedom for citizens and legal immigrants to be secure in their homes and public places. The death toll at the hands of criminal illegal aliens has risen into hundreds and thousands over time—murders that should never have happened had our border been secured with dou- ble fencing for its length; had our law enforcement at local, state and federal levels worked cooperatively to find, deport or keep in prison those who've broken the law coming here and becoming predators; and had judges not violated the trust we, the people, place in them to see that we are pro- tected from such depraved law-breakers. Hence, Francisco Sanchez, a five-time deportee of Mexi- can origin, a serial violator of our laws, found his way once again to the "sanctuary city" of San Francisco, found drugs and a handgun and randomly murdered a young woman who was only exercising her and her father's freedom to move about their city. These types of heart-wrenching stories of murder, rape, child rape, in- jury, theft and destruction are a criminal and immigration plague on our seemingly free nation. When the laws are set aside for reasons of convenience or political correctness (i.e. not wanting to offend the immi- grant communities) or because of an artificially manufactured lack of jail space—those vio- lations of our government's basic obligations render our freedoms thin and tenuous at best. Young Americans are in- duced to take on debt through an abundance of accessible ed- ucation loan money; they are not encouraged to give fore- thought to the likelihood of using their expensive degrees to secure income sufficient to timely repay said loans. How economically or personally free are they when such loans impede their future employ- ment options? Such basic free- dom of livelihood becomes an illusion, does it not? The liberal solution appears to be "loan forgiveness" or other methods of relieving for- mer students of their first ma- jor financial obligation in life. What lessons, in the responsi- bility that needs to accompany any freedom, are taught to someone who has signed for a loan, partied away their years earning degrees irrelevant to high-paying jobs and then looks to everyone else, via gov- ernment, to bail them out? I'm just sayin'… (See: "The Hidden Student-Debt Bomb—Under the radar, maneuvers to avoid paying off loans are surging. 'Forbearance' has hit the $125 billion mark." The Wall Street Journal, 12/30/2014) I challenge anyone to as- sert that being provided with someone else's money— whether via a loan, a mort- gage, a gift, a trust fund or an income-qualified govern- ment benefit—does not dimin- ish one's freedom by degrees. And yet, the lessons of human nature—which never accepts "other people's money" with the same pride and freedom of choice as money earned through one's own efforts— have been lost over decades of time and dozens of benefit programs. So, it struck me that those lessons are also lost on Sacra- mento Democrats after read- ing, "Tackling poverty a Dem priority," June 6 Daily News (AP). Each and every idea for "tackling poverty" will inev- itably reduce incentives for the poor to freely provide for themselves, as well as inexo- rably diminish the freedom, ability and desire of busi- nesses to locate, grow and hire: "raising the minimum wage, expanding health care to immigrants, (unionizing) child care providers…subsi- dies for child care, tax credits to low income earners, expand welfare benefits and build af- fordable housing." The only problematic rub? Not enough money! On April 17, I read, "New Kansas rules would limit spending of welfare bene- fits by recipients," showing in plain terms that when other people are footing the welfare benefits/entitlement bill, they get to limit recipients' spend- ing freedom. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com. The way I see it To be free or not to be free Regardless of how much your faith compels you to discriminate against gays, bear in mind that the Constitution is a secular document. Don Polson So, when immigrants, legal and illegal, become empowered to flout the law by either crossing our border, overstaying their visa or green cards, or committing crimes that should rightfully result in their incarceration and/or removal, their freedom becomes a threat to our freedom. StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico 95973, 530 895- 4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator. nielsen@senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558-3160, governor@governor. ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393- 0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, John Brewer, 824-7033 YOUR OFFICIALS OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, July 7, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6