Ellis Washington: Hate-crimes law = fascism

"Are we living in America or in Communist Russia under Lenin and Stalin?

"Of the many constitutional problems with hate-crime laws, one of the most venal, surreptitious and reminiscent of George Orwell's '1984' is the fact that these fascist laws punish our very thoughts. It is not so much a hate-crimes law, but in reality a thought-crimes law, for (absent an invalidation by the Supreme Court) people, particularly Christians, will be severely punished for speaking out against what they consider to be immoral behavior expressly prohibited in the Bible.

"The great Austrian economist and writer Friedrich Hayek, in his book 'The Road To Serfdom,' said, 'Wherever liberty as we understand it has been destroyed, this has almost always been done in the name of some new freedom promised to the people. … The collective freedom (the Tyrant) offers us is not freedom of the members of society but the unlimited freedom of the planner to do with society what he pleases.'

"Hayek was right, and though this book was first published 65 years ago he could have easily been speaking about President Obama today, for with these new, expansive powers Obama will have under the hate-crimes laws, like tyrannical regimes of the past, he can go after his No. 1 enemies – the Christian right and conservative media, including Fox News, alternative media like WorldNetDaily and talk radio like Michael Savage.

"Once he has silenced ministers, rabbis and conservative media from speaking out against immorality, and once Obama passes the health-care reform bill and the Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty in December 2009, he will have de jure (legal) and de facto (unofficial) control over every American from cradle to grave.

"Remember, America's enduring symbol of the rule of law, Lady Justice, wears a blindfold. Why? To demonstrate that Lady Justice is no respecter of persons; Lady Justice cares nothing about wealth, race, creed, color, gender or sexual orientation. All that Lady Justice cares about is Veritas – truth. There can be no truth in law without morality. There can be no morality in the law without God and the Bible."