Why are the Democrats silent?

On April 8, 1933, the Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Union ("GSU") proclaimed a nationwide "Action against the Un-German Spirit." It climaxed in a "cleansing" by fire — a book burning.

Included were books by Jewish, pacifist, religious, liberal, anarchist, socialist, and communist authors — books deemed "subversive, or that "represented ideologies opposed to Nazism.""


William L. Shirer in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" describes what followed:

"On the evening of May 10, 1933, some four and a half months after Hitler became Chancellor, there occurred in Berlin a scene which had not been witnessed in the Western world since the late Middle Ages."

"At about midnight, a torchlight parade of thousands of students ended at a square ... opposite the University of Berlin. Torches were put to a huge pile of books that had been gathered there, and as the flames enveloped them, more books were thrown on the fire until some 25,000 had been consumed. Similar scenes took place in several other cities. The book burnings had begun.

"Many of the books tossed into the flames in Berlin that night by the joyous students under the approving eye of Dr. Goebbels had been written by authors of world reputation, They included Erich Maria Remarque, Albert Einstein, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells, Emile Zola and Freud. In the words of the student proclamation, any book was consumed to the flames 'which acts subversively on our nature or strikes at the root of German thought ...'"


By September 22, 1933, the Reich Chamber of Culture was established under Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, with sub-chambers to "guide and control" the fine arts, music, the theater, literature, the press, radio and films.

Paintings and sculptures fared no better than books. In "Mein Kampf", Hitler vowed that on coming to power he would "cleanse" Germany of "decadent" art and replace it with a new "Germanic " art. Shortly thereafter, 6,500 "modern" paintings, including works of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso, were removed from German museums.

As he opened his new "House for Germanic Art" in Munich, on July 18, 1937, Hitler, as Shirer noted, condemned "modern" art:

"Works of art that cannot be understood but need a swollen set of instructions to prove their right to exist and find their way to neurotics who are receptive to such stupid or insolent nonsense will no longer openly reach the German Nation. Let no one have illusions! National Socialism has set out to purge the German Reich and our people of all those influences threatening its existence and character .... With the opening of this exhibition has come the end of artistic lunacy and with it the artistic pollution of our people."


Hitler established the Commission for the Exploitation of Degenerate Art headed by Hildebrand Gurlitt. Hitler's instructions were to sell for foreign currency 16,000 pieces of "degenerate" "modern" artwork that had been removed from museums or confiscated.

To that end, Gurlitt and his fellow commissioners set up a display near Berlin. The sale of art labeled by Hitler as "rubbish" and Goebbels as "garbage," was a failure. To spur sales, Gurlitt and his cronies publicly burned 1,004 paintings and sculptures and 3,825 watercolors, drawings and prints in front of the Berlin Fire Department. This "auto de fe" had its effect. The Basel Museum and modern art enthusiasts scurried with cash in hand to the rescue.


All totalitarian governments and dictatorships operate on the premise that "error has no rights."


Today, conservatives are blocked from teaching and speaking at some colleges. Murals of Columbus are threatened at Notre Dame. George Washington's statue is destroyed. The Lincoln Monument is defaced. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "Gone with The Wind" and "To Kill a Mocking Bird" may not be seen or read in some places. Doors at President Trump's rallies are blocked.

Conservative "speech" is to be silenced, shut down. A New York Times editor loses his job for publishing Sen. Tom Cotton's op-ed.

Where is the condemnation of all this by Democrats holding high office?


When I was of college age, American liberals denounced campus censorship. They denounced the film censorship of the Catholic Legion of Decency. They approved Supreme Court rulings that protected unpopular forms of speech, including the provocative Nazi demonstration in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, the wearing of a shirt that said "F ... the Draft," the right of a jerk to call police officers "f...ing pigs," and a person's right to burn his own American flag.

There once was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, JFK, Adlai Stevenson, and Paul Simon, of which I was a proud member. Would they have remained silent?

Mayor Richard J. Daley certainly would not have. Or should he have allowed Chicago to be looted and burned?

This piece was published originally in the Moline Dispatch, Rock Island Argus and QC Times on June 26, 2020

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

The Bill of Rights is Experience - Not Mere Words

In 2008, The U.S. Supreme Court decided District of Columbia vs. Heller, construing the meaning of the words found in the Second Amendment.

                  "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
                   the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."


The District of Columbia insisted that the American people have a right that "shall not be infringed" to "keep and bear arms,"but only in connection with "militia" service. The court rejected the District's contention, holding that the right to keep and bear arms is personal to the individual.


A well-respected local columnist has now disagreed with Heller's holding.

                   "The ludicrous position we are in would not be possible without ignoring
                    the first thirteen words of the Constitution’s Second Amendment: "A well
                    regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State ..."

                    "Anyone conversant with the English language would recognize this as the
                    rationale for not infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
                    With the rationale gone — States now maintain a National Guard for which
                    weapons are supplied — it would seem the ground on which the amendment
                    stands has caved. I’m surprised the Supreme Court’s "originalists" haven’t
                    noticed this. They might also examine the argument for the amendment in the
                    first place."


His disagreement is premised on (1) "thirteen words," and (2) the existence of the National Guard.


Our Constitutional Rights, however, have never been understood solely by looking at words on paper. They have always been understood by looking to the historical experiences of the English and American peoples. Most are responses to abuses of royal power. These rights, including the right to keep and bear arms, pre-existed our Constitution. The Constitution does not grant these rights; it recognizes as the inalienable rights of free men.


The most basic right of any man, is the right to act in self-defense. This includes the right to defend family. It is not dependent on the existence of militia, National Guard or police.


Early Americans, who lived in the newly formed towns, and in or on the edge of the wilderness, kept guns for defense of themselves and their families. The kept them for use during militia service, but also when at home to protect themselves and their families from robbers and hostile Indians. It is that pre-existing right that is guaranteed by the Second Amendment.


The Court considered our columnist's "13 words." His argument was forcefuly advanced by Mr.
Justice Breyer and rejected.

The Court construed the words of the Amendment consistently with the history and usages of firearms by the American people. In the process, it reviewed English history, our colonial history, the Federalist/Anti- Federalist debates, drafts of the 2nd Amendment, similar State Constitutional provisions, legal writers, Constitutional scholars, and the Court's own precedents.


It then wrote,

                "We reach the question, then: Does the preface (the "13 words") fit with
                 an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear
                 arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding
                 generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed
                 that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-
                 bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the
                 people’s arms, enabling a select militia ... to suppress political opponents.
                 This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the
                 right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.


                "We hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the

                Second Amendment... Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise 

                of Second Amendment rights, the District ... must issue him a license to carry it 

                in the home.


               "We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we
               take seriously the concerns raised ... The Constitution leaves the District
               ... a variety of tools for combating that problem ... But the
               enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy
               choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns
               held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that
               the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing
               army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide 

               personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is
               perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of
               this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."


Without the right to possess and use a gun in your own defense when home is invaded by an armed intruder, all your other Constitutional rights, can in an instant, be irretrievably taken from you. Murderers aren't concerned about affording their victims fair trials, due process, freedom of speech or the free exercise of religion.

This piece was published originally in the Moline Dispatch, Rock Island Argus and QC Times on June 19, 2020

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

Why are the Innocent Being Punished?

No justice system worthy of its name punishes the innocent.

The Book of Proverbs, teaches, "Acquitting the guilty and condemning the righteous - both are detestable to the Lord." Exodus ordains, "The innocent and the righteous slay thou not." These principles are foundational to our Western justice system. Even in descriptions of justice systems that come down to us from antiquity, the innocent aren't punished. Recall the biblical story of Esther.

In The Eumenides, a play written by Aeschylus 2500 years ago, we meet the Furies, ancient goddesses, who mercilessly punish all who commit blood crimes. They pursue Orestes who has killed his mother to avenge her murder of his father. When Orestes entreats the goddess Athena to do justice in his case, she invents a a new system better calculated to do justice - the jury trial. While Aeschylus gives us a dramatic explanation of how juries came to be, Aristotle's The Constitution of the Athenians, describes the real Athenian jury system. But one truth is clear: both the Furies of fable, and the real Athenian jury existed only to punish the guilty; never the innocent.


In medieval Europe to end "justice" by revenge, the Germanic peoples invented the wergild. If the murderer paid the sum of blood money required by the law, his victim's relatives were required to accept the money in lieu of taking revenge on the murderer. Again, the Germanic system was designed only to punish the guilty; not the innocent.

Even in medieval Trials by Ordeal and in Trials by Combat, it was believed God would shield the innocent and suffer the guilty to fail the ordeal and suffer the punishment prescribed by law.


Indeed, no Western system of justice that I am familiar with has ever permitted the taking of revenge on persons who have had no connection whatsoever with the crime committed or on their property. And yet, in 21st century America we see mobs rushing to embrace destruction of the innocent and their property.


Implicit in their rationale, if not explicit, is the presumption that when a black American is murdered by a policeman, that justice will not be done in either the state or federal courts. It would be one thing to await verdict and sentence before concluding that justice will miscarry. It is an entirely different thing to pre-judge that justice will miscarry. But that is a principle "justification" for the mob violence, arson and looting agains the innocent. But even if justice miscarries repeatedly, how can it be justice to take revenge on or punish the innocent?


Is this this way just people think?

Major premise: B1, B2 and B3 were murdered by policemen.

Minor premise: Justice miscarried or is likely to miscarry in their cases.

Conclusion: Therefore, we are justified in creating a new justice system that punishes innocent people who had nothing at all to do with the murders of B1, B2 and B3 which countenances the killing of the innocent, and stealing or destroying their property.


It has also been argued that the "protesters" who riot "simply want the police to take accountability for their actions." But how does burning down and looting the store or home of a person who had no connection whatever with the police misconduct further the goal of having the police "take accountability?"


Getting rid of rotten cops is a good idea. But how does throwing rocks or bottles at a good cop advance that agenda? The good cops are innocent of wrongdoing. How does killing or harming them, or destroying neighborhoods advance the goal of getting rid of rotten cops?


In Minneapolis 4 our of 8000 cops were involved in George Floyd's murder. Were all 8000 cops rotten? How does disbanding the police department and firing good cops advance justice? These protests began because the protesters were certain that George Floyd was innocent of anything whatsoever that could possibly merit the death penalty. The good cops are innocent of anything meriting the loss of their employment. The peaceful people of Minneapolis are innocent of anything that would warrant depriving them of police protection. Recall the biblical story of Sodom?
"For the sake of 10, I will not destroy it."


When I was a boy, my mother taught me that "Two wrongs don't make a right." My Catholic schooling taught, "The ends don't justify the means."


The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides,

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, ... or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Every American, therefore, has the right to speak against evil, to peaceably assemble, [or demonstrate] and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


But there is nothing in the First Amendment or any other clause of the Constitution that authorizes any American to engage in riots, mob actions, looting, burglary or arson.Nor is there any language whatever therein that permits revenge, lynchings, and/or vigilantism.


No Constitution of any enlightened state permits the punishment of the innocent, or the theft or destruction of their property. Indeed under our Constitution, property cannot be taken even by the government without paying just compensation, and without due process. Mob violence is the antithesis of due process.



The riots, looting and destruction of property occurring throughout our country clearly demonstrates to any thinking citizen the dangerous folly inherent in doing wrong to right a wrong. Riots, looting and property destruction of the innocent can never be "just means" to accomplish the "end" of bringing the murderers of George Floyd's justice. Wanton destruction of an innocent neighbor or his property can never be justice. In the words of President Lincoln, no man has "a right to do a wrong."


The English-speaking people tried other systems of justice before settling on the jury system. Our founders knew that jury trials, whatever their shortcomings, were essential to guarantee our liberties from kings and dictators. Only those who have not thought it through would eschew the jury trial for the alternative of mob violence,  revenge, lynchings and/or vigilantism.



For 2000 years Christinas have professed to loving one's neighbor as oneself. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is said to be the "Golden Rule." If you are innocent of wrongdoing, would you want your neighbor to burn your house and business because a police officer misused his authority?


In the "Man for all Seasons," St. Thomas More asked Roper, "when you've knocked down all the laws of the realm to get at the Devil, where will you hide when the Devil turns and comes after you?"


When Constitutions are trashed, dictatorships follow. America has a choice.

This piece was published originally on QCOnline on June 7, 2020

Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea

This is the Genius that you Elected

As a guy who spent thirty-two years of his life in public service, my tendency it to assume that public officials who hold press conferences are doing their best to provide us with accurate information. I start with the assumption that the President or Governor is surrounded by experts who educate him as to the facts, and that he has better information than I do.


This week, two things have happened regarding Gov. J. B. Pritzker's handling of the Coronavirus pandemic in Illinois that have disabused me of those assumptions. Indeed, those two things strongly suggest Gov. Pritzker and the "experts" surrounding him are blithering idiots.

                                                               #1

April 20, 2020, the Governor held a press conference. Governor J. B. Pritzker was at the podium.


Reporter. "Earlier this week, the State reported the death of a teenager in Cook County. Are you familiar with this case? If so, is this the State's first teenage death, and if so, can you tell us if the teenager in question had underlying conditions?"

(Governor indicates that Dr. Ngozi Ezike, Director of IL Dept. of Public Health, should answer the question. Pritzker vacates podium. Dr. Ezike takes podium)


Dr. Ezike. "I don't have that information at my disposal at this time. I know that we have had people of all age groups die. I just want to be clear as to the definition of death by Covid. The case definition is very simplistic. It means that at the time of death, it was a Cover positive diagnosis."


(So if you tested positive for Covid, and you are killed in an auto accident or by falling off a cliff, if you are positive for Covid, it's counted as a Cover death? Precisely )

Dr. Ezike. "So that means if you were in Hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and if you were also found to have Covid, that would be counted as a Cover death. It means technically, that even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had Covid at the same time, it's still listed as a Cover death. So, everyone who's listed as a COVID death doesn't mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of the death."

           https://week.com/2020/04/20/idph-director-explains-how-covid-deaths-are-classified/


(So, you wonder why the numbers can't be trusted? If a teenager is shot dead while strolling down
Michigan Avenue, that's listed as a Covid death???) 

                                                                      #2


Then on April 22, 2020, Chief Judge Michael McHaney of the 4th Judicial Circuit of Illinois sitting in Clay County gave an opinion in Mainer v. Pritzker, pointing out the utter irrationalitof Governor Pritzker's rules and the application of those rules shutting down non-essential businesses in Illinois:


“Since the inception of this insanity, the following regulations, rules or consequences have occurred: I won't get COVID if I get an abortion, but I will get COVID if I get a colonoscopy.

"Selling pot is essential, but selling goods and services at a family owned business is not. Pot wasn't even legal and pot dispensaries didn't even exist in this state until five months ago and, in that five months, they have become essential, but a family-owned business in existence for five generations is not.

"A family of six can pile in their car and drive to Carlyle Lake without contracting COVID but, if they all get in the same boat, they will.

"We are told that kids rarely contract the virus and sunlight kills it, but summer youth programs, sports programs are cancelled. Four people can drive to the golf course and not get COVID but, if they play in a foursome, they will.

"If I go to Walmart, I won't get COVID but, if I go to church, I will.

"Murderers are released from custody while small business owners are threatened with arrest if they have the audacity to attempt to feed their families.

"These are just a few of examples of rules, regulations and consequences that are arbitrary, capricious, and completely devoid of anything even remotely approaching common sense.


"State's attorneys in this state, county sheriffs, mayors, city councils and county boards have openly and publicly defied these orders followed by threats to withhold funding an revocation of necessary licenses and certifications unless you obey.


"Our economy is shut down because of a flu virus with a 98 percent plus survival rate. Doctors and experts say different things weekly. The defendant cites models in his opposition. The only thing experts will agree on is that all models are wrong and some are useful.

"The Centers for Disease Control now says the virus is not easily spread on surfaces. The defendant in this case orders you to stay home and pronounces that, if you leave the state, you are putting people in danger, but his family members traveled to Florida and Wisconsin because he deems such travel essential. One initial rationale why the rules don't apply to him is that his family farm had animals that needed fed. Try selling that argument to farmers who have had to slaughter their herds because of disruption in the supply chain.


When laws do not apply to those who make them, people are not being governed, they are being ruled. Make no mistake, these executive orders are not laws. They are royal decrees. Illinois citizens are not being governed, they are being ruled. The last time I checked, Illinois citizens are also Americans and Americans don't get ruled. The last time a monarch tried to rule Americans, a shot was fired that was heard around the world. That day led to the birth of a nation consensually governed based upon a document which ensures that on this day in this, any American courtroom tyrannical despotism will always lose and liberty,  freedom and the constitution will always win.”

Published June 3, 2020
Copyright, John Donald O'Shea 2020