Candace Owens, Director of Urban Engagement for Turning Point USA, while speaking at an event at UCLA, spoke out to Black Lives Matter hecklers who were spewing the victimhood mentality driving much of the discord in the US.  Shortly after, Kanye West tweeted “I like the way Candace Owens thinks.”  Later, in defending her stance, Candace said “I believe the black community can do it without hand-outs. I believe the Democrats have strapped us to our past to prevent us from our futures. And I won’t stop fighting until all black Americans see that.  I’m not far right—I’m free.”  Both these individuals spoke their minds, which we, as Americans, can legally do, yet were condemned on social media, harassed, and bullied.

Then, in Philadelphia, at a very busy Starbucks, two black men entered the premises, sat at a table, and asked to use the bathroom.  When told that the bathroom is for customers, they refused to leave.  Ultimately, the police were called.  This is being heralded as a racist act; yet, a Starbucks spokesperson said ‘In this particular store, the guidelines were that partners must ask unpaying customers to leave the store, and police were to be called if they refused.’  Sounds to me like the manager was doing her job.  Yet, the incident has sparked protests, outrage and, of course, boycotts.  By the way, the female manager no longer works there.

I have worked in the food and beverage industry in many different cities and every place I worked had a policy that bathrooms were for customers and loiterers are asked to leave.  We never paid any attention to a person’s race or gender when enforcing this policy and I do not remember anyone ever refusing to either buy something or leave.

I think Starbucks may actually be creating a larger problem by backing down from their policy.  What would happen if I bought a cappuccino at Dunkin’ Donuts (it tastes much better and is definitely cheaper), then wander on over to Starbucks and use their table, their wifi, and their bathroom?

There may be a solution.  I spent several weeks last summer in some major cities in Europe and, since I do believe a business has the right to ask users of their facilities to purchase something, I usually entered, purchased and drank a cup of coffee.  Afterwards, I would use the facilities and frequently, I was surprised to find that, despite my being a customer, quite a few places also required payment to enter the bathrooms.  I found it both amusing and annoying but perhaps the businesses in America should take up this practice.

I’m scared.  America used to mean the land of the free.  We were proud of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.  We stood when hearing our National Anthem.  We held our hands over our hearts and pledged our allegiance to the flag.  We aired our differences with vigorous debate and peaceful protests.  No, we did not and still do not, all think alike.  But, that has always been one of the fundamental principles that made us American.  Churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples appear side by side in many cities.  People worship in different faiths but still joined together as friends and colleagues.  This was not that long ago.

And no, we are not perfect but today, our rights are being eroded.  What has happened to free speech?  Conservative values are being put down as racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic.  The far left in this country dominates most media outlets so we are inundated daily with damaging, rigid, radical ideology.  Christians are being demonized.  We cannot speak out for what we believe in unless we lean left.  Look at what happens on college campuses.  If a conservative speaker is invited, the left stages demonstrations causing security issues so they, the conservatives, many times, are silenced.

We find there has been an extreme abuse of power under the Obama White House using an unverified document to listen in on conversations of Trump campaign aides.  What about the clear bias shown against President Trump by high-ranking members of the FBI and the Department of Justice? What about the double standard applied when lying is a crime if you are Republican (Flynn) but not if you are Democrat (Clinton, Comey, Clapper, McCabe)?

And most importantly, why is it that mainstream media has abandoned its journalistic integrity in favor of not only partisanship but also extremely divisive rhetoric?  Scary times.

As most of us know, several days ago, after receiving a referral from Robert Mueller, the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid of the offices and residences of President Trump’s long-time lawyer, Michael Cohen. Many of us on the right look at these actions and scream “Unfair!” because after all, the FBI did not treat Hillary this way despite many wrongdoings. Meanwhile, leftist pundits are clapping their hands with glee over this move because they feel this action takes them one step closer to their ultimate objective — get rid of President Trump. Furthermore, many of these same pundits tell us we don’t need to worry about this attack on lawyer/client privilege.

After this happened, I, like many others, railed about the inequality of treatment in this country but there is an important issue other than injustice to which we must pay attention. In an article published by The Gatestone Institute, “Firewalls” and “Taint Teams” Do Not Protect Fourth and Sixth Amendment Rights, Alan Dershowitz wrote:

“An equally important harm is to important relationships that are protected by the law: between lawyer and client, priest and penitent, doctor and patient, husband and wife, etc. If an ordinary citizen, seeing that even the president’s confidential communications with his lawyer can be seized and perused, he or she will be far less willing to engage in such communications. As a society, we value such communications; that is why our laws protect them and that is why it should be extremely difficult for the government to intrude upon them, except as a last recourse in extremely important cases.

He ended this article with:

I challenge any reader who is not concerned about this raid to honestly answer the following question: If the raid had been conducted on Hillary Clinton’s lawyer’s office and home, would you be as unconcerned? The truth now!

It seems that every day we see assaults on our first amendment, the second amendment, and now the fourth and sixth amendment. What is happening to our country? Alan Dershowitz is a man we should all listen to as his voice seems to be one of few showing measured reason.

Yesterday, I defended Facebook when COO Sheryl Sandberg said that users who wished to entirely stop the social media platform from making money from their personal data would have to pay for the privilege, if the option were to be made available.  I still stand by that support.  However, today I learned that Facebook has censored Diamond and Silk, two sisters from North Carolina, social media stars, ardent supporters of President Trump, and said “The Policy team has came to the conclusion that your content and your brand has been determined unsafe to the community.”

Are you kidding me?  Censorship because someone in the Facebook company doesn’t like Diamond and Silk and their conservative opinions!?!  Really?  Facebook has seen live postings of shootings, murder, child abuse, and torture.  There have been countless instances of bullying and hate rants against police and military.  Facebook has been used to lure unsuspecting children and women into situations best not described. And yet, Diamond and Silk are determined to be unsafe by you.

We have a first amendment in this country which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s mission is to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together…”  Okay Mark–so do you believe that the world can only be brought closer together without debate, without  diversity of opinion?  Must we all believe the same as you?  You may be listed by Forbes as one of the world’s most powerful people but to me, you are a small, small man.  You need to learn that everybody is entitled to a viewpoint or opinion and we should respect that right even if we don’t necessarily agree with it.

All the political pundits seem to be apoplectic about the fact that Facebook says they may have to charge customers for a site where they are not inundated with advertisements.  Really?  How do they think Facebook makes money?  Most free apps include ads and that is just something you either deal with or pay to upgrade.  I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.  I, for one, am not a huge fan of Facebook and use it rarely.  Having said that, I do think it is a good platform for families and friends to share pictures and news.

My biggest problem with Facebook, texting, and other social media is that people don’t seem to communicate directly anymore–I mean actually talking and having full conversations.  You walk down the street and people are so busy looking down at devices that they are missing everything going on around them.  I’ve been to restaurants and seen several people at the same table, paying attention to the device in their hands rather than to each other. Our youth communicate with abbreviations and phrases rather than sentences.  Is this good?  And, as the cartoon shows–what is more important – life in front of you or the Facebook story you tell?

I’ve seen news stories that some Facebook and other social media executives don’t allow their own children to use these platforms so it makes you wonder.  The extent to which our youth depend on these devices can be scary.  And, what is so important that you need to look at your phone while you are driving?  What kind of example does that set?