Better in their words…

Source: OVERTHROWN ☙ Friday, December 15, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS

WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY

🔥 Yesterday, Iowa ABC affiliate KCRG-9 ran a viral story headlined, “Satanic display at Iowa Capitol vandalized ‘beyond repair’; arrest made.”

The vandal is Michael Cassidy, 35, of Lauderdale, Mississippi, a Christian and a former U.S. Navy test pilot. Yesterday he was charged in Iowa with Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree, for beheading a darkly festive, life-sized statue of Satanic demon Baphomet that was recently and temporarily erected in Iowa’s Capitol building to celebrate the holiday season. Or something.

The picture above shows what the Satanic Temple’s display looked like before Mr. Cassidy installed some minor improvements to the authorized decorations. Here’s another picture, this one after the Temple’s sacred idol was beheaded and violently overthrown, or at least knocked over:

And here is Baphomet’s decapitated papier-maché head, brutally ripped off its mannequin body and disrespectfully stomped-on till it looked nothing like a normal ‘frightful demon’  but was flattened out until it looked more like a squashed spider:

I decided to post all these pictures and tell the full tale of the now-deceased statue since the U.S. media has embargoed all the details, which alerted me that the story was somehow more important than it looked.  In all the corporate media stories about the scandal, all you’ll get to see is the original display. And the stories say nearly nothing about Cassidy. I had to go to the Hindustan Times to find a single quote. The reporters probably tell themselves they’re discouraging vandalism or something.

Anyway, here is the dangerous scofflaw who committed this heinous act of property interference — an intolerant Christian, vigilante, vandal, idol-hater, veteran, former Mississippi Congressional candidate, probable racist and accused criminal mischiever Michael Cassidy:

The boogaloo began last week when the Satanic Temple of Iowa set up its Capitol holiday display pursuant to a legally-obtained permit. As shown above, the Temple’s Satanic holiday display included a fake, stuffed ram’s head covered with dozens of little mirrors, which was perched atop a beheaded mannequin wearing a blood-red cloak. Plus there were some candles and a few innocent pamphlets about worshipping the Prince of Darkness and an order form for soul trades.

The Temple said it never intended to aggravate anybody, but just wanted to share with fellow citizens a joyful and seasonal celebration of Satanists’ “right to religious freedom.” Or something.

The holiday statue was a briefly popular, if somewhat controversial, attraction. Well, it was popular with some people, like Jessica Cornish-Tilstra, who drove three-and-a-half hours with her daughter and her broomstick to see the display. Jessica was aggravated about Baphomet’s unjust persecution by vandals, scofflaws, and vigilantes. “I would never do that to somebody else’s property, and I don’t think it’s right that other people, based on their beliefs, think that they can do that just because they don’t like it,” Mrs. Cornish-Tilstra primly explained.

Suggesting something — you tell me — on December 1st Mrs. Cornish-Tilstra most recently posted to her Facebook a simple shot of a sleepy black cat overseen by a cute little shadow devil:

All last week the media delightedly covered the responses of people offended by the display. Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds blasted the Satanic statue as “absolutely objectionable,” and one Republican lawmaker vowed to draft a bill banning all Satanic displays on state-owned property. Many citizens rallied to oppose the display. Alert citizen Shellie Flockhart quickly organized a large prayer group against the display last week, and said she’s since received backlash and hate mail following her prayer efforts.

(It appears their prayers were answered.)

Despite the Satanic Temple’s very best efforts to spread light and joy for the holiday season through their demonic display, Shellie Flockhart remains unsatisfied.  “To me, it felt harassing,” she said. While Ms. Flockhart didn’t personally appreciate the display’s merits, she did broad-mindedly agree that everyone has the right to free speech. But she questioned the Satanic Temple’s motives, wondering whether instead of just a benign religious holiday decoration, the demon statue was really intended to troll Christians, Jews and Muslims, or worse, to draw an evil curse down on the State of Iowa.

“That entire thing felt like it was an attack on our State, on our legislators, on our governor,” Ms. Flockhart explained.

As it turned out, Mr. Cassidy did not share Ms. Flockhart’s broad-mindedness about free speech. More of a man of action, Cassidy felt convicted that he could not just stand by. “I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged. My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted,” the former Navy pilot explained simply.

After adjusting Baphomet a little, Mr. Cassidy turned himself in to officers at the scene. The Satanic Temple promptly pressed charges and wants the book thrown at Mr. Cassidy.

As you can imagine, despite the news embargo, social media lit up. Memers sprang to Cassidy’s defense:

Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA pledged $10,000 to Mr. Cassidy’s legal defense:

Mr. Cassidy’s brand-new GoFundMe for his legal defense rapidly reached its goal, and he closed it off, showing both grit and integrity.  So, no multiplier is needed. Not yet anyway.

Human Events editor Jack Posobiec is organizing a calling campaign to Governor Kim Reynolds, to demand she pardon Mr. Cassidy. You can reach Governor Kim Reynolds’ office at (515) 281-5211. The office is open today between 8:00 AM and 4:30 PM Central Time.

It’s a fun, feel-good holiday story, good versus evil and all that kind of stuff, but I’d like to engage with two thornier issues related to the Great 2023 Baphomet Beheading: the First Amendment and legal implications, and the media’s reaction.

🔥 Critics from all sides of the political aisle, as well as some Christians, loudly complained that Mr. Cassidy’s vandalism violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, displayed religious intolerance, and actually helped the Satanic Temple by allowing himself to be provoked into “violence,” which might have played right into the Temple’s withered hands.

As a threshold legal matter, Mr. Cassidy did not violate the Satanic Temple’s First Amendment rights. The Satanic Temple has a Constitutional right to free speech unhindered by government. The Constitution limits government, it does not provide citizens with rights against each other. This is basic Constitutional law.

Next, Mr. Cassidy did not display intolerance toward religion. Regardless of its tax status, the Satanic Temple is not a religion. The Temple loudly claims not to worship Satan. That claim is right on the front page of its website. They even say they don’t believe in Satan. Instead, they claim to be science-loving atheists. That’s not a religion. Taking them at their word, the kindest view is they are atheists generally mocking religion, specifically trolling Christians, and demanding respect.

So, while Mr. Cassidy may have displayed some kind of intolerance, it wasn’t intolerance towards other people’s religion.

Finally, fair minds can argue about what the Satanic Temple actually wanted, and whether they “really” intended to provoke someone like Michael Cassidy into a destructive act, so the Satanists can further cloak themselves in oppressed minority status. We can only speculate. Mr. Cassidy obviously weighed the risks and made his decision.

🔥 Here’s my legal analysis. There are two potential avenues of liability against Mr. Cassidy: criminal and civil.

The Satanic Temple has the right to sue Mr. Cassidy for property damage, probably in small claims court. If I were representing Mr. Cassidy, I would suggest he just mail them a check for a thousand dollars, which would exceed the value of the destroyed property, and would moot a lawsuit.

The Satanic Temple would be made whole, could build itself a new and improved Baphomet, and would have nothing but hurt feelings to complain about.

More interesting are the extremely minor criminal charges. What Mr. Cassidy has properly been charged with is the very same thing officials would charge a teenaged graffiti artist. It’s just above a traffic ticket. As a first-time offender, Cassidy should be looking at a few hundred-dollar fine and maybe a day of community service picking up trash in a park somewhere. He might even get pretrial diversion and keep a clean record.

Where things could go sideways is if the Biden Administration decides to make the case into some kind of example and commands the DOJ to discover a federal hate crime in there somewhere.  Then Michael would probably be at the mercy of an Iowan jury.

I don’t know him, but Mr. Cassidy is clearly smart enough to qualify as a Navy test pilot and officer. So he knew the risks and he knew what the cost of taking the demonic statue down would be. He accepted those risks and costs. He is also entitled to a legal defense, and I hope he raises the defense of provocation, which would make for a very entertaining case.

Sympathetic citizens are entitled to pitch in for his defense, and a jury is legally entitled to nullify the charges against him and let him go Scott free.

Good luck finding a jury sympathetic to Satan, the most hated figure in all of human history, infinitely more detested and abhorred than a thousand Hitlers multiplied by a million Dylan Mulvaneys. Satan is an essential icon of pure evil and the opposite of every good thing to every major religion and even to most secular folks. Why anyone would willingly identify with that personage — believe in him or not — is beyond me. It’s a marketing disaster so obvious it isn’t even worth discussing beyond pointing it out.

They would have picked a more attractive and less offensive avatar had they chosen South Park’s Mr. Poop.

I hope they do try the case. I would fly to Iowa to attend Mr. Cassidy’s trial.

🔥 Now how about our horrible, no-good, worse-than-useless media? How far they have fallen. Reporters used to think of themselves as intrepid free-thinkers, cool investigative reporters dodging CIA spooks, breaking the Watergate and Pentagon Papers stories, bravely bringing the beacon of truth against The Man and holding the Powers That Be to account.

Ha. That ship surely sailed. Now, mainstream reporters are just hopeless losers; pitiful, script-reading, neutered cowards, wind-up robots micromanaged by the same Powers That Be they used to hold to account.

Mr. Cassidy’s vandalism was widely reported in U.S. media. But left completely out of the clearly-coordinated mainstream stories were: Cassidy’s military background, any photos of the pushed-over statue, any quotes from Cassidy — a public figure who’s run for Congress twice — explaining his motives, nor even any picture of Cassidy! Not even his mugshot!

Nor did the U.S. stories mention anything about all his online support, which proves the story has clear public interest.

And, if they still ran Twitter, we’d be watching a metric ton of censorship landing on everybody. Of course, for safety (of papier maché dolls). And to stop misinformation — about the Satanic Temple. (Cue painfully-extreme eye roll.)

But … why? What about this story triggered the media-industrial complex so badly? They fully covered the earlier “Iowa Satan Statute” story, they couldn’t get enough of it, but when somebody finally pushed the damnable thing over, the deep state immediately strangled the media, right down to the local affiliate level.

I think it must be because the media’s original narrative was: haha, Christians, you have to sit there and take this disgusting, offensive statue in your state Capitol building. There’s nothing you can do about it. No lawsuit could even get before a judge before the display runs it two-week course. So it’s hopeless. Enjoy having your minds raped.

That’s what they wanted us to think.

But then the narrative spun wildly out of their control. One normal guy, a guy who’s nearly impossible to character assassinate as a ‘kook,’ stood up in the back and said, wait a minute. There is something I can do. It’s not hopeless. I can civilly disobey. Michael thought, I accept the consequences. I’ll be damned if that abomination stands upright in the Capitol for one more minute. I’ll go to jail or pay the fine or whatever, but I’m not putting up with that.

What the media and its deep state controllers wish to avoid more than anything is for people to wake up to their options for mild, non-violent civil disobedience. So they’ve turned the media’s shrinking machines onto this story and now they are trying to sweep it off into collective amnesia. Nothing to see here! Just a minor act of vandalism. Move along.

🔥 Love him or hate him, in the wake of the revolting testimony of the Ivy League presidents last week, Elon Musk called for the inglorious end of DEI earlier today:

In related news, two days ago Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt issued an executive order yanking every DEI office at every public university.

Activists have already filed Lawsuits against the Governor’s order, arguing it violated the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. But the order remains in effect while legal challenges are pending, and Oklahoma universities are currently undergoing the review process described in the order.

A few months ago in June, Florida passed a similar law, prohibiting the use of state funds for DEI initiatives at public universities. Legal challenges continue, but no court has yet agreed to stay the law. Meanwhile, Florida’s Board of Governors, which oversees the Florida State University System, is considering further restricting DEI programs, potentially mirroring Oklahoma’s move, and is said to be considering reviewing and maybe eliminating categories of DEI positions.

🚀 Good News! President Putin of Russia appears ready to negotiate with the United States. In the name of peace, I say let’s take him up on it. The Russian news agency TASS ran a story yesterday headlined, “Russia ready to resume dialogue with US, but groundwork needed first — Putin.”

During a year-end press conference yesterday, when asked by a reporter about the prospect of normalizing relations with the United States, Putin (who actually answers questions from reporters, unlike a certain politicians who use aliases like ‘Robert L. Peters’) said this:

“When certain fundamental changes take place (in the United States), they will begin to respect other people, other countries, to look for compromises rather than using sanctions and engaging in combat operations in a bid to resolve their own problems. In this case, the fundamental conditions will be created for the resumption of full-fledged relations. So far, there are no such conditions. But we are ready for that.

The United States is an important and necessary country in the world, (so Russia) is ready to build relations. But they are getting in their own way with their imperialist policy. Not in our way, but their own. Why? Because in the public conscience they must act like an empire. And once they agree on anything with anyone or make any concessions, the voters take it as a failure. That is why the ruling elite has to behave this way.”

That sounds like an invitation to me! Now, let’s see if we have a functioning State Department. Putin’s obvious sub-text was Ukraine. Let’s get this thing over with. Who’s with me?

Have a fabulous Friday! A holiday C&C will arrive in your email inbox tomorrow morning, even earlier than usual, just like something in your Christmas stocking.

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