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Although summer has hardly begun in Seattle, Mayor Durkan has broken up with her friends who were occupying Capitol Hill---friends she supported, calling their illegal takeover of part of the city, a "summer of love," and a "festival."
After 4 shootings and 2 deaths, the love is gone---and so are the former "heroes."
At least for now.
Here's what's happening.
Be informed, not misled.
The sweep.
Yesterday morning at about 5 AM the Seattle Police Department with help from Bellevue police and the FBI swept into the so-called "CHOP"---no-cop zone--- with heavily equipped officers and tactical vehicles to clear out the "zone" and arrest people who refused to leave.
Mayor Durkan, who little more than 2 weeks ago referred to the illegal encampment as a "summer of love," broke off her love affair with the group by issuing an executive order at 4:58 AM declaring, "gathering in this area an unlawful assembly requiring immediate action from city agencies, including the Police Department."
By 9:30, the police had arrested 31 who refused to leave their new country. One homeless guy who had moved in and was living with the group said he had felt "safe" and accepted and would miss living there with all the free stuff.
More than a half dozen people cuffed and escorted from #CHOP in Seattle in the last 20 min. #komonews pic.twitter.com/6IdaALnUfB— Denise Whitaker🏃♀️ (@deniseonKOMO) July 1, 2020
The little "country within a country" has been there for about 3 weeks. The leaders, who had driven the police from their East Precinct building in the zone, have told an adoring press that CHOP was an example of a new progressive kind of self-government ---with no cops.
After four shootings and 2 black men dead, and multiple injuries to others, at a place where they were claiming to be working for Black Lives Matter, even Durkan could no longer support their insanity.
As the exodus began, leaders shouted to the migration, "Everybody out," "We'll get another place," "Don't taunt the officers" ------"The whole world can see us."
The whole world has been watching.
The Washington Post reported US Attorney General Barr's response:
Attorney General William P. Barr praised Best’s [Chief of Police] move in a statement Wednesday, saying that violence in the area had undermined “the very rule-of-law principles that the protesters profess to defend.”
“The message of today’s action is simple but significant: the Constitution protects the right to speak and assemble freely, but it provides no right to commit violence or defy the law, and such conduct has no place in a free society governed by law,” Barr said.
This episode has been an example of where so-called leftist progressivism takes a culture. Every time.
"Everything the Left touches, it ruins"
Dennis Prager wrote an article for National Review, titled, "The Left Ruins Everything It Touches."
These are highlights from the article:
Education.
Prager quotes Harvard professor Steven Pinker---an atheist and a liberal---outside of the natural sciences and a few other disciplines (such as mathematics and business), "universities are becoming laughing stocks of intolerance."
When you attend an American university, you are taught to have contempt for America and its founders, to prefer socialism to capitalism, to divide human beings by race and ethnicity. You are taught to shut down those who differ with you, not to debate them. And you are taught to place feelings over reason---which is a guaranteed route to eventual evil.
The Arts.
Prager gives a couple of examples of the many ways in which the progressive Left is ruining the arts. I was aware of both, you may be as well.
In 2013, the Orange County Museum of Art in California placed a huge 28-foot sculpture of a dog outside the museum, where it periodically urinates a yellow fluid onto the museum wall.
In 2016, one of the most prestigious art museums in the world, the Guggenheim in New York, featured a pure-gold working toilet bowl, which visitors were invited to use. The name of the exhibit was "America"---so one could literally relieve one's self on America.
Race relations.
Prager notes --- keep in mind that he wrote this article in 2018---that the great Philadelphia Orchestra had been co-opted to become a voice for the leftest hate the previous week, calling what happened a "political rant put to musical garbage."
In the Fifth movement of the concert titled, "My House Is Full of Black People," the black teen narrator chants the following lines: "The country is full of black people/ All wanting to be heard/ While old white men draw lines on maps/ To shut all of them up."
Later in the movement, the teen yells, "If you would all just f ***ing listen."
You can see how far we have "progressed" in the past 24 months.
Free speech.
Almost half of all incoming college freshmen do not really believe in free speech because anything labeled "hate speech" is forbidden---not only on college campuses but in the general culture.
The whole idea of "free speech" is people's ability to discuss their point of view, whether you agree with it or not.
Today so many conservative points of view are forbidden, polls consistently show people are becoming more and more silent because they are afraid of retribution if their beliefs are not acceptable in the new, "progressive culture."
Human sexuality.
In my opinion, the most damaging, perverse burden the leftist--- so-called progressives--- have placed on society is the demonic gender confusion visited on our children through entertainment and indoctrination in public schools every day of their young lives.
The Left is poisoning our children with its commitment to ending male and female as distinct categories.
Prager says:
"One of the great joys of life, celebrating one's sex, is now deemed nothing more than a hateful idea in many of your children's schools."
The Left has misled Christians.
Chelsen Vicari has written a book titled, "Distortion: How The New Christian Left is Twisting The Gospel and Damaging the Faith."
In it, Chelsen writes:
"Some professing evangelicals are working to change minds when it comes to same-sex marriage, religious liberty, big government, and even the sanctity of life. Their success...is noticeable in some evangelical churches, campus ministries, and even Christian universities. The Christian Left is trying to creep in ---quietly championing a distorted version of the Gospel more consistent with political liberalism than biblical teaching. The Christian Left heralds its political agenda by undermining the authority of the Bible. Once the lines of Truth are blurred, confused young evangelicals start trying to reconcile their faith with same-sex marriage, tax payer funded abortions, etc...."
Be Discerning. Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Faithful. Be Prayerful.