"Can you understand the feeling some conservative have?" -David Gregory, Meet The Press.Yes, I can understand. Conservative Christians are on a Totalitarian Birth Control Crusade. So, yes I understand. And the answer to these mendacious right-wing zealots is Fuck Off. Conservatives are regressive scum who espouse a totalitarian ideology designed to subjugate and oppress people.
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! noted,
According to the nonpartisan Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health issues globally, in the United States, “among all women who have had sex, 99 percent have used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning. This figure is virtually the same among Catholic women (98 percent).” According to a Public Religion Research Institute poll, 58 percent of Catholics believe that employers should provide employees with health-care plans that include contraception.Claiming this issue is about "religious liberty" is akin to claiming slavery is about "religious liberty". This is about Totalitarian Control.
What the Totalitarian Right-Wing christians want is, as Christopher Hitchens put it, "a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea."
After the deft move by President Obama laid clear the Religious Zealots motivations, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops continued down their road of moral turpitude bemoaning, “It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write,” the bishops said. “At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.”
Timothy Dolan speaking for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops proclaimed the President’s plan will require “careful moral analysis” and hoped "our religious freedom are not harmed by these regulations."
Religious authority. "Moral Analysis". What a joke. The same day the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops was frightened loose women would get contraceptives, previously sealed documents filed in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy listed at least 8,000 new instances of child sexual abuse by 100 alleged offenders - 75 of them priests, all of them previously unidentified.
So, Dolan and the bishops can take their "careful moral analysis" and stick it in the Vatican Catacombs.
As Jill over at Brilliant at Breakfast noted,
Where these absolutists are concerned, there IS no such thing as balance. You're either going to run this country as if it were a radical Christian theocracy, or you're going to run it in a sane manner.Jill is correct. The Christian Fascists are All In. They are never going to accept anything less than absolute power.
9 comments:
Keep the powder dry...
Sarge
Disaffected, I posted a link on my post, I hope a few people will follow it, I really liked it.
Sarge and Yellow Fringe,
This isn't going to stop, the Totalitarian Right is going to keep ratcheting up the rhetoric until...
Already, a panel of flabby old white virgins went onto Faux News to declare the issue could result in death! Watching Sean Hannity is akin to watching Saudian Arabian religious tv. Hannity's Faux Fatwa is next...
Interesting Cathar stuff. Never knew you were into that history...
Despite the Ad Hominem fallacy your argument is shot through with (the degraded state of the messenger does not invalidate the message), let's stipulate you are 100% correct and all religion should go to hell and vacate the public square.
We still have the problem of the federal government, with no constitutional mandate, pointing a gun at person "A" and forcing him to provide free stuff to person "B." A fundamental violation of our personal rights.
No one is trying to ban contraceptives. They are simply saying if you want them pay for them yourself. That is freedom.
Decoupling insurance from employment would solve most of this.
A woman could go to work for a dreaded Catholic or fundamentalist organization and procure her insurance on her own, without fear of the employer spying on her through her health plan or dictating to her what is must contain. That is freedom.
Okay Silverfiddle thank you for dropping over.
I fundamentally disagree with your gun metaphor because that is what many on the right do (taxes are stealing) when those taxes go towards something they don't agree with.
Also there is no Ad Hominem as Chruches aren't people they are institutions and the Catholic Church's "moral authority" rests upon a foundation of lies and falsehoods as well as being defended by hypocrites who care more about birth control than they do about members harming and abusing actual humans.
Right now, an employer is providing benefits as part of the compensation for working for them. So we have to deal with the system as it is not as we wish it would be (once again we are back to Plato and Aristole).
However, an institution or corporation can not under Equal Protection be allowed to say we disagree with your off-time activities so we are docking your compensation. If healthcare insurance coverage is part of your contract then altering it for some people is fundamentally discriminatory.
However, yes, uncoupling insurance from employment would solve some of this problem, but the reaction from the Controllers of Conservatives created false narrative which hampered attempts at modifying healthcare insurance.
The logical fallacy "ad hominem" still applies, in that you impugn the source of the information. You can google it to see what I am talking about it. Ad Hominem is not just a fancy word for insulting someone, it is also a category of logical fallacy.
I don't get the "Equal Protection" argument. There is a vast array of different insurance plans at different prices offered all over the US. Does that violate the same principle?
You argument about taxes is valid. You're the first lefty I've engaged in who was smart enough to pick it up.
The precedent is already set that collecting taxes is constitutional, and we all bitch because the money is spent on wars, or crony crapitalism or whatever, but the precedent is set, and if we don't like it enough we vote against the people blowing our money.
That is not the same as forcing me to directly pay for something for someone else. It is unprecedented.
If the constitution does not protect against this nature of direct coercion, we are open to all manner of forced action, all in the name of expediency.
You may cheer when your guy is jobbing your enemies, but the shoe could easily be on the other foot if a righty gets in.
Freedom for one, freedom for all, and that even means I'll fight for your freedom to do in your own personal life things I don't like, because what you do with your freedom is your own business.
Silverfiddle, while I am pointing out the evil bishops (who btw are not the "church") I am attacking their argument that their "serious moral concerns" are valid.
They are not. They have no authority in my eyes. They are using the fallacious Appeal to Authority.
Equal Protection is key to this. If the Church is covering the healthcare benefits of a person and they want a plan that includes contraceptives, the church can't then deduct an additional amount from that person if the agreed on compensation would have covered it.
They same way they can't deduct money which could be used to treat a her ion addict because they "morally object" to drug users getting therapy.
Now, your argument about freedom to choose would be correct if the catholic affiliated churches don't provide any benefits to anyone but if part of your contractual agreement includes health benefits then they are violating a contract.
This should be cut and dried just as if they said we are going to pay left-handed people less because everyone knows "sinister" derives from the latin for left and left-handed people are of the devil, which causes the USCCB "grave moral concerns".
Silverfiddle,
Who do you get your insurance coverage from and what is your age?
I find that those who bitched the most about Obama Care were covered by Medicare or their employer.
Retire at 62 and go out an try and find a Major Medical with a pre-existing condition. If you can qualify for coverage it will be likely with riders and exclusions and cost the gross national product of Peru to buy.
Insurance companies are glad to provide contraceptives as state laws require group plan to cover
pregnacies - less knocked up women;
more fucking profit.
Besides why should old white men be making decisions about birth control - I doubt Mitch McConnell can even get it up...
Sarge
Gene: I don't think this is an equal protection issue.
Some plans cover things that others don't, and its at the employer's discretion what they cover.
but if part of your contractual agreement includes health benefits then they are violating a contract.
Not if the contract excludes birth control they're not. That's the point.
You don't have a right for someone else to give you free stuff. That right does not exist.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who would want free liposuction and plastic surgery coverage in their health plans, but it ain't gonna happen.
And any leader of any church, or of any organization will rule by "appeal to authority," since the rules cannot be logically derived from concrete evidence.
Sarge: This isn't about old men deciding on birth control. It is about people being free to choose, and to pay for their own choices.
Anyway, we're talking past each other. Give the government the right to dictate this, and it sets a precedent for similar strictures on speech and assembly.
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