Who’s kidding whom – protesters probably wish for ‘Sharia’ law in U.S.!

There were all those protests by right-wing nitwits held all across the country, including in Chicago on Saturday, to try to take up the cause of “Sharia Law.”

This sentiment not popular amongst protesters

Those are the provisions of law in many Muslim nations that are motivated by the Islamic faith, and not by man. They are the ones that often call for brutal physical punishments for those who violate what is perceived as “God’s word.”

SO I’M SURE the protesters, put together by a group calling itself Act for America, want us to believe they have grand noble intentions in terms of looking out for the rights of individuals who often suffer under such regimes from tyrants who claim they’re doing “God’s will” with their brutality.

Yet I can’t help but be skeptical of these socially conservative types, many of whom have as their real desire the intent to undermine the concept that we have freedom of religion and expression in this country.

They want to spew their rhetoric to stir up resentment against the Islamic religious faith because it isn’t their own faith. And they have the unmitigated gall to do so while waving about the stars and stripes and other symbols of our own nation – even though much of what they spew is “un-American” in its underlying principles.

I really do believe that these people probably wish that Christianity had similar provisions that could be a part of our own law and would impose equally-harsh punishments against people who aren’t exactly like themselves.

MY OWN VIEW of “Sharia law” and of the way many governments in Middle Eastern nations operate is that they are examples of the bad that can occur when one permits religion to have too much influence over the daily operations of a government.

They ought to be the ultimate reason why our society is superior for having a Constitution that does not provide for a national religion and, in fact, gets interpreted by the courts in various ways to ensure that religion does not have too much influence over our daily lives.

Which it shouldn’t, unless by chance we make individual choices to allow it to influence ourselves in such a way. It certainly shouldn’t be permitted to allow people to influence the way others think and behave.

So those right-wing nut-jobs who felt compelled to take to the streets and claim they were sticking up for “our” values and what “we” as a people stand for?

WHO’S KIDDING WHOM?

I found it reassuring to read the reports from Saturday indicating that counter-demonstrators outnumbered these crackpots by a significant ratio. The people who felt the need to stick up for real rights of people rather than the ones who want to look out for themselves and torment others are the ones worthy of our praise.

It wasn’t just limited to Chicago. I understand that in many cities, there were counter-demonstrations that outnumbered the conservative ideologues.

I also got a kick out of learning from a one-time reporter-type counterpart of mine who now works in Indianapolis that the Hoosier city had an Indy Pride parade that occurred the same day as the crackpots’ event. Which I’m sure infuriated them even more than anything associated with Sharia Law.

WE’RE IN AN “Age of Trump” in which the ideologues amongst us want to believe they are the majority – they keep hearing that “silent majority” phrase and want to take it literally. They want to believe their 46 percent really means most of us.

Seeing that sensible people keep prevailing may be a sign that our society has the ability to unite in ways that keep the crackpot element from going too far in trying to drag us all down their own depressing path in life.

Personally, I suspect that if many of these types who gathered to protest Islam were to ever meet up with the hard-liners of the Middle East who tout Sharia Law, they’d probably find they have much in common. Such as a desire to be able to torment those unlike themselves.

Just like I used to think that many of the “hard hat” types of our society had much in common with the Communists of old in terms of a willingness to believe there was nothing wrong with a totalitarian society that accepted the repression of personal rights and freedoms.

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Is Chicago a tyrant for wanting to ban the taking of up-skirt images & video?

It is an argument I hear occasionally from people with conservative beliefs on social issues – the problem with government trying to regulate our lives is that every time they pass a new law, they manage to steal another piece of our freedom.

Protecting us from perversion? Or hurting our rights?

As though the theoretical version of paradise is no government, and people having the ability to do whatever they want without risk of prosecution.

OF COURSE, THE more rational of individuals realize that government serves as the balancing act, of sorts, to ensure that one person’s pleasure isn’t someone else’s horror.

That certainly is what will be at stake when the City Council meets on Wednesday and includes among their activity a measure meant to protect the women of Chicago (and those ladies who choose to visit our fair city) from having their most private parts placed on the Internet for perverts of the world to view.

It got some ridicule and derision last week when a council committee reviewed an ordinance that includes up-skirt photographs and images among the list of things that can be considered an invasion of privacy.

Some may want to think that this is political people getting worked up over a non-issue. Others may actually think it is their right to take pictures up the skirts of women who happen to catch themselves in a moment of indiscretion.

ACTUALLY, IT’S ABOUT taking into account the fact that some people who try to get these pictures are of the approach that they’re somehow entitled to make some money off of someone else’s exposure.

These are the people to whom I want to scream, “Get a Job, you Loser!!!!” Of course, they probably think the rest of us are “suckers” for working for a living.

Aldermen in recommending the measure pointed out the fact that these up-skirt pictures that will soon become a criminal act have value for the people who take them.

Sure enough, look up “Chicago upskirt” on a search engine and you’ll find a string of websites that feature video snippets and still photographs that seem to be taken by people who hang around underneath staircases (think “el” trains and the stairs leading to lower Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive) with cameras ready.

PERSONALLY, I FELT a tad sleazy looking at these images, which seem to grasp the attention of those amongst us who get a rise out of a few seconds glimpse of panties – or no panties in some cases.

Then again, being in the news-gathering business, most of the up-skirt shots I have seen in my lifetime were those taken by photographers at basketball games who happened to be positioned near the cheerleaders. The pursuit of the perfect view of a player stuffing a ball also produces the occasional shot of a cheerleader with her skirt flopping up over her waist.

Those, of course, become images that never actually make the newspaper.

Personally, I feel a bit stupid that our City Council is compelled to have to pass an ordinance on this issue. It ought to be a common-sense idea that taking pictures up a woman’s skirt without her consent is downright creepy.

THEN AGAIN, WE have a society with some fairly creepy elements. Let’s hope we’re able to get this particular measure approved by the aldermen without anyone making some sort of stink that claims supporting the would-be photographers amounts to “freedom” and the “American way.”

But I’m also realistic enough to know that some people will try to find a loophole to try to get around it.

What happens on windy days when a sudden gust blows a woman’s skirt up in public and we get the perfect glimpse of her panties? Will we now get would-be photographers whipping out their camera-equipped phones in search of the “money shot?”

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