When I read about it this morning, my first reaction was that this reeks of political correctness and hypocrisy. People on the left love it, absolutely love it, when people deceive employers to get jobs in private farm/meat facilities and take video of animals being allegedly abused. The videos of alleged animal abuse are done under false pretenses, on private property and are clearly edited to only show the most egregious examples. That is OK though because it helps advance the narrative. Videos shot of Mitt Romney giving a private speech or other conservative groups are likewise OK because they are on the right side of the political spectrum. Filming people selling human parts? That must be punished or at least the threat of punishment must appear to keep people from asking inconvenient questions. I am not the only one who noticed this, David French at the often useless National Review put out a piece that makes the same point, California Shamelessly Persecutes Pro-Life Journalists. Here is a sample:
That is so obviously true that only someone with their head buried in the sand up to their knees would not see it. That doesn't matter unfortunately because no matter how many hoax hate crimes are exposed or falsely labelled "Muslim bans" generate protests or whatever, the truth is irrelevant to far too many people and all that matters is pushing their agenda, even when the victims of their agenda are the most vulnerable human beings among us.
Whatever your opinion of using deceit and hidden films to expose wrong-doing, you have to recognize that there is rampant hypocrisy in this prosecution of David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt and especially when you consider that the charges amount to potentially 15 felonies. You can also be sure that if found guilty, the courts in California will impose the harshest possible sentence to send the message: you don't mess with the butchers at Planned Parenthood.
When your worldview sees one action when taken to "protect" livestock raised for food as being OK and even noble but sees the same action, and a less intrusive one, being done to protect unborn children as being a felony worthy crime, your worldview is exposed as irredeemable evil. Evil is a word we shy away from in our culture but there is no other word that suffices for those who approve of, engage in and profit from selling the human remains resulting from the willful aborting of an otherwise viable human life. It is evil and no amount of "nuance" or word-games will change what it is.
California’s case not only fails on the merits, it reeks of selective prosecution. There is no shortage of examples of concealed-camera videos in California exposing scandalous behavior (the Federalist’s Sean Davis has been tweeting them since the indictment), often in the arena of animal rights. In 2014, a group called Mercy for Animals released an undercover video that “allegedly show[ed] widespread animal abuse and cruelty at one of California’s largest duck farms.” Authorities reportedly responded to the video — by investigating the farm.
In 2015, the same group released yet another undercover video, this time exposing “apparent mistreatment of chickens at a Foster Farms poultry slaughterhouse in Fresno and at three poultry farms in Fresno County.” Once again, authorities responded — once again by investigating the farm.
But the lives and deaths of chickens and ducks rate higher than the lives and deaths of human babies in the womb, so the Center for Medical Progress triggered an entirely different law-enforcement reaction. Pro-life journalists must be prosecuted.
That is so obviously true that only someone with their head buried in the sand up to their knees would not see it. That doesn't matter unfortunately because no matter how many hoax hate crimes are exposed or falsely labelled "Muslim bans" generate protests or whatever, the truth is irrelevant to far too many people and all that matters is pushing their agenda, even when the victims of their agenda are the most vulnerable human beings among us.
Whatever your opinion of using deceit and hidden films to expose wrong-doing, you have to recognize that there is rampant hypocrisy in this prosecution of David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt and especially when you consider that the charges amount to potentially 15 felonies. You can also be sure that if found guilty, the courts in California will impose the harshest possible sentence to send the message: you don't mess with the butchers at Planned Parenthood.
When your worldview sees one action when taken to "protect" livestock raised for food as being OK and even noble but sees the same action, and a less intrusive one, being done to protect unborn children as being a felony worthy crime, your worldview is exposed as irredeemable evil. Evil is a word we shy away from in our culture but there is no other word that suffices for those who approve of, engage in and profit from selling the human remains resulting from the willful aborting of an otherwise viable human life. It is evil and no amount of "nuance" or word-games will change what it is.