GET A GRIP!!!

Oh Please….get a GRIP!!!

The Supreme Court just ruled on the Hobby Lobby case where the company sued to be excluded from the necessity of paying for certain types of contraception, to be precise, 4 kinds out of 20 that it considered abortive rather than preventive.  The court backed their claim and people went ballistic. I was naively startled by the response from some quarters.  The hyperbolic reaction would make you think that the decision made contraception per se illegal.  Of course it did no such thing.  What the case was all about legally and what the court tried to to was to juggle the internal conflict between two very poorly written laws passed by congress (an earlier protection for freedom of religion law signed by President Clinton and the Affordable Care Act rammed through by the disciples of Barrack) and the unintended consequences of their inevitable collision.  One reaffirmed their support for a citizen’s freedom to worship and practice their religion as their conscience dictates, and the other was the Affordable Care Act that imposed on employers the need to pay for the various types of “medical” care as defined by the politicians and lobbyists, not by doctors.

What was NOT at stake was a Constitutional issue, merely the conflict of two laws.  Even Allan Dershowitz, hardly a bastion of Conservative thought, called the ruling “Monumentally insignificant.”  In an interview the day of the decision he had this to say,

“Why is it insignificant? First of all, it was not a constitutional decision. Second, the effect will be that not a single woman will be denied contraceptive care or birth control care,” he said.

“The opinion made it clear that there are alternatives by which the women can get adequate contraceptive care and won’t be burdened in any way.

“It was a decision that tried hard to balance freedom of religion against the needs of the government. If the majority doesn’t like it, they can change it tomorrow because it’s not a constitutional decision.”

“[It] won’t, though, because Congress does support freedom of religion. I met the people from Hobby Lobby, they’re very decent people. I disagree with their views, but who am I to tell them that they’re wrong about their religious view?” Dershowitz said.

“They regard these four or five methods of contraception as abortion and as murder, and they just don’t want to be part of it. I don’t blame them for that, especially since there are alternatives.

“The Supreme Court made it clear: this is not as if they would refuse to vaccinate their employees, because vaccination protects all of us. This is something that can easily be balanced . . . It’s a win, win . . . Ten years from now or five years from now. no one will remember this decision.”

Nor was the issue of contraception itself questioned… merely who has to pay for it.  Let me be perfectly clear here… personally I believe that a woman has an absolute right to do with her own body anything she wishes.  Period.  But… if what she does with it is a result of a choice by her to engage in specific behavior, then I think the burden to deal with any potential consequences of that choice belongs to her as well.  If two people are involved, as in sexual relations, I do think that burden should be shared by BOTH parties and would favor legislation that made any man shown by DNA testing to be the father of a child liable for at least half of the costs of raising and parenting that child EVEN IF the woman subsequently got married to someone else.  But if the behavior was a matter of choice, and it was consensual in every way, then I do not feel the slightest imperative to have to contribute to paying for the consequences either as a taxpayer or as a consumer via higher prices.

Let me be equally clear here; if the behavior was NOT a matter of choice by the woman, i.e. if she was raped or in NO WAY consented to it – to include simply saying, “No!” then it is a completely different story.  The man involved, the direct and proximate cause of any result, should bear the burden for ALL costs whether that is for an abortion or for the raising of that child and I would support legislation to make that the law of the land.

I believe in Freedom.  But there is a price for Freedom, writ large and writ small.  The price for our nation’s freedom has been and will continue to be paid in blood by those willing to fight for it, even to provide those freedoms to others too craven to fight for it themselves.  But there is also a price for the application of those freedoms, and those should be paid by the citizens specifically enjoying those freedoms.

For Example, another current hot topic is the 2^nd Amendment and Gun Rights.  Let’s compare that with contraception “rights” from a Constitutional perspective.  If you have followed this blog at all you know I come down hard on those irresponsible gun owners that abuse their rights vis-à-vis guns and believe they should be hammered into the ground and perhaps be considered even treasonous since their actions bring about a real threat to the continuation of that (to me) fundamental right. At a very minimum, the individual cost of exercising a right is personal responsibility and personal accountability when that right is abused.  But apart from the granting of the right to engage in certain freedoms, there is no further entitlement granted by the Constitution or common sense.

For example,even though the right to bear arms is specifically spelled out in the Constitution, there is no place where it mandates that the government must supply the citizenry with guns.  They have a right to own them but must bear the cost of purchase and maintenance on their own if they choose to own one.  I think that is fair.  I would not be opposed if with the right to own a weapon came a duty to train and gain skill and discipline so long as the government did not have to pay for it.  But the Constitution does not mandate that all citizens acquire weapons, they are also perfectly free to NOT do so.  Therefore it has taken on itself no duty to provide the weaponry, it is a matter of choice whether to exercise that right or not.

But nowhere in the entire constitution is there a single word about any “right” to contraception or even abortion.  Those rights are modernly implied but not specifically spelled out.  So if there is no mandate for the government to purchase the weapons for which they specifically grant the rights of ownership, by what sophistry of reasoning do we think there is a mandate for them to purchase or cause to be purchased contraception for a behavioral choice?  I support making the costs applicable to the parties making the choices and engaging in the behaviors, but not in making uninvolved third parties liable for them.

This is hardly an isolated issue.  We are also, for example, granted freedom of the press but not the Right to receive free newspapers; we are granted freedom to assemble but not the Right to escape any costs of the assembly; we have the freedom to travel between jurisdictions but not the Right to a government-provided free means of transportation.  Those are freedoms spelled out carefully in the Bill of Rights, freedoms we often take for granted, but the costs of enjoying them is borne by the people engaging in them.  In many states including my home, Colorado, you have the absolute freedom to head off into the wilds but you must supply your own gear and if you get in trouble you will be liable for the cost of your rescue.

So even though this specific decision was not in any way tied to our freedom to have sex, to use contraceptives, to have abortions, it is being reviewed as if it somehow prohibited all of those things and was an attack on the Rights of women.  I do not believe it did any such thing.  One author stated that by not paying for it we were denying women the use of them.  What?  We would be denying the use if we made them illegal and said NO ONE can buy them.  Where did this new entitlement get spelled out?

Those who know me know I have a limp that comes from a service-connected injury.  Before that I could run, climb, do all manner of activities that required leg strength.  But no more.  Now I would dearly love to be able to climb to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite, but it is, for all practical purposes, impossible for me.  But wait, that is a public federal park.  Wheel chair access is mandated so why not an elevator or chair lift up the back of Half Dome?  Because it is stupid.  I would vote against it even though it might allow me to do something I would like.  Even though I was injured in service to the country I do not feel I am somehow entitled to that level of accommodation.  Sometimes live just deals you a bad hand.  Boo Hoo.  But that does not mean, in my mind, that the government owes me the cost and effort of making the limitations I sometimes face all go away. It may owe me a basic level of care and thus far it has provided that through the V.A. and I have to tell you I have no complaints about the care I have received in Colorado or California.  But it does not owe me the eradication of all inconveniences my injuries have created.

I do not philosophically oppose broad aid in health care even though I think the specifics of of AHCA are galactically ill conceived and will ultimately be economically ruinous for far more people than it will help.  For catastrophic illnesses that sometimes blindside us the potential was there to create a policy that could have been incredibly valuable. But I do not believe the government should bew paying for voluntary behavior even if it is not illegal behavior.  And no, by the way, I do NOT believe it ought to be paying for ED medicine such as Viagra for the exact same reasons.  But doing one stupid thing does not mandate doing another stupid thing… it means the first stupid thing should be stopped not used as an excuse for more.

So, again, get a grip here.

 

Aren’t You Tired of the Nonsense Yet?

San Diego — I am so sick and tired of the inane. petty, moronic, offal passing for political discourse I could scream.  Good grief people there is more at stake than the petty BS filling the sound-bites, talking points, and most of all simplistic, cartoonish Facebook posts increasingly corrupting cyber space as the election nears.

Is it really more important that one or the other will provide free birth control than what they will do to correct the suicidal course of our economy?

Is it really more important that they care one way or the other about same sex marriage than it is about how they will respond to global terror actions?

Is it really more important whether they will, in their heart, find solace in a belief in Allah or God or Yahweh or pure science, than what they will do to uphold their oath to defend and protect the Constitution?

Is it more important that they or their parents were born in Mexico, Kenya, Hawaii, or on the moon than whether they will work to make this country strong and secure?

It saddens me and sickens me to discover that apparently those inconsequential things that, in the cosmic scheme of things, will not make us one iota more secure and will not strengthen our economy or make us less of a debtor nation, are more important than the things that will do those things.

If we crash and burn economically because the dollar loses its status as reserve currency or our credit rating is so diminished by our profligate borrowing that interest rates on our debt skyrocket or, worst of all, our debtor nations have had enough and refuse to loan us another dime, it will not matter if we hand out contraceptives for free.

If we let the jihadist world see us as weak and incapable of (or unwilling to) protect our own people abroad, much less our own diplomats, it will make little difference if we allow or disallow same sex marriage.

And if we allow our national interest and standard of living based now on fossil fuels to be in thrall to countries that hate us and wish to see harm done to us, then it will make little difference if we are only “investing” in technologies still 10 to 30 years away from practical deployment and refuse to exploit our own resources in the meantime no matter how many Delta Smelts or Spotted Owls we save (unless we are saving them as a future food source which they may need to be when we can no longer afford to raise much less transport our foods because fuel costs have stopped the tractors and the tractor-trailers along with our cars.

And if we loose our basic freedoms, if we allow executive orders to openly countermand laws passed by Congress and transparently do violence to constitutional protections, then the change we will get will leave us without very much hope.

Here in California we are leading the charge to demonstrate just how uninformed we can purposefully become in order to maintain the free flow of government goodies given to those who will not produce, and taken from those who will.  Of very special interest to me is Proposition 30.  I find myself in the bizarre position of wanting it to pass even though I do not believe for one heartbeat it will do for education what the unions or the liberal academicians say or think it will.  I read the bill, something apparently those supporting it did not.  It allows the same escape clause for the state legislature to commandeer the moneys that the California lottery, also passed to support education, contained.  Education sees not a penny from that educational lottery anymore; and I think even if it actually does get what the Proposition promises — that is 11 percent for education broadly defined and, of a personal interested, only 4 percent of that 11 percent for Community Colleges —  that won’t even cover the deferments we endured for the past 4-5 years.  So why am I wanting it to pass?

Because academe is so sure it will solve all their ills and put us back on track, its passage will at least buy us some time to plan for the chaos to come when they realize the money isn’t coming as the ads and the unions promised.  If it does not pass, however, there will be an almost instant bloodbath of course cutting and with it the jobs of lots of adjunct professors and, in our case, a gutting of our program.  The governor even promised as much.  Whatever logic might be found in the concept that revenues are paid mostly by wage earners and in an age when unskilled labor is a dying need, wage earners need an education ergo education ought to be the last thing cut, is lost on politicians and the voters who keep voting them to return and keep it up.

What a joke this has all become.  And the biggest practical joke on our citizens is that our national choice of leaders is between someone who would like to see the country follow the lead of California or someone who would at least, perhaps (though not certainly) attempt to slow down that slide into ruin but not likely do what is needed to actually fix it.

I think the founders of the country, and, in fact, the founders of this state, would be disgusted by where it is come.  And truly saddened by the lack of people on the political horizon that seem to have an interest in saving it and have a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting elected to do it.  The only workable solutions would levy so much pain all around it is political suicide to propose it.  The parasitical class has become so large and so powerful politically the nation and the state have a far better chance of sliding into an implosion than of actually working to climb out of the holes we have allowed them to dig.  In another four years Greece may, by comparison, look like a model of fiscal responsibility.

And we are worried about who can marry whom or whether or not the government’s job is to try to make sure there are no consequences to sex.  If that turns out to be the position of the majority of voters in this country and this state then perhaps we deserve to implode.

 

It’s Not About Health Care, Stupid!

San Diego –– I thought i would have at least a week to sit back, take in the sad spectacle of presidential contenders forming their circular firing squad, and worrying perhaps more about issues of foreign polict such as actions in Iran and their proxy, Syria.  Now there is a chance for us to really get in deep doo-doo no matter what we do beause we have utterly failed to do what was called for back when we could have had some potentially positive inpact.  Now, if that explodes, we will truly be “damned if we do and damned if we don’t” no matter what.  Brilliant.  The only good side for the administration is it will be a great distraction.

But no, another flack has arisen over health care/insurance mandates that has both sides focussing on the surface and ignoring what, to me is clearly a huge issue over the power of the presidency and the government in our private and contractual lives.

What is it that makes some minds go numb when the messiah du jour speaks?  What arcane mesmerism makes them just assume that the assertions by their idols in government are accurate against all common sense and checkable facts to the contrary?  This whole flack about insurance companies being mandated to provide contraceptives is couched in the warm and fuzzy language of caring about women’s health care.

Bovine Excrement!

What it is about is a naked power grab that will set a precedence that you all will not like when a president of another party is in power that you fail to see?

We surely all know by now that the President thinks (because he has openly said so) that the Constitution is flawed and, by implication, needs to be replaced with one he would write.  His view is echoed by a Supreme Court justice just returned from the middle east, that garden of interpersonal relations and political sweetness where she offered opinions stating they should not use our Constitution as a model.  Statistics would probably show that at least 9 out of 10 dictators would agree with her… and with him.

Lets forget for the moment that Presidents and Justices swear an oath to defend, protect, and uphold that Constitution and just assume neither the President’s nor the Justice’s vocabulary permitted them to understand those words as most folks would.  After all, they are two syllables each and not words in the common TV-inspired language.  And no where are the terms “like” or “you know” or any four-letter epithets in evidence so the entire thing is rendered incomprehensible to most of the posters on that paragon of deep intellectual insight, Facebook… and apparently to the President and at least one Supreme Court Justice as well.

We almost have to assume that level of illiteracy otherwise their own statements and actions would make of them the ultimate hypocrites and surely they are not that… surely.  Or it would make some actions treasonous and surely we do not want to go there.   It does certainly give you a new respect for their writers who populate the teleprompters…

But here is the deal now as I see it: the president is usurping Constitutional limitations on his power, as well as congressional authority, by mandating all by himself that insurance companies of all types provide some service, targeted to a specific demographic, free of charge to the recipients.  So what is the problem?  I see several.

Problem One: He is proclaiming the presidential power to override personal contracts to mandate activity that is not even discussed in Congress.  There is no provision in the Constitution that grants him OR congress that power.  If it stands, then there is nothing to stop a President from the other party from declaring the opposite, or that he has the personal positional power to mandate that all insurance contracts for male employees contain clauses where they will be granted penile implants for free… or for that matter to interfere in any contractual arrangement he or she thinks should be changed for his view of the greater good.  If you support it happening now then you better be prepared to shut up when it happens in the other direction.

Problem Two: He is proclaiming the presidential power to provide special services for non-life-threatening issues to a limited demographic and not to another.  Generally in the interests of their beliefs in social fairness, the left argues that something must be done for ALL of those effected if it is done for any of them.  Well, as pointed out in the next segment, ALL policy holders or the companies that pay for them are effected whether or not they are female.  And since males generally do not have contraceptives, does this policy mandate that they must be given condoms for free? If not, then how does that equate to the equal social justice for all whined about by liberals? The answer, especially since those meds are already available for free from Planned Parenthood, is obvious.  This does not address some inequity: it is neither about social justice nor is it about health care.  It is about insinuating and asserting power.

What if instead of an evangelical Marxist you had an evangelical Christian Fundamentalist who mandated that such medications could not, as part of a government program, be given to ANYONE?  You would, if you support this mandate now, have to support that opposing president’s right to do that even if you did not agree with it.  Or are you only willing to ignore the Constitution when it goes against your personal wishes but want to see it used as a club when you agree with its provisions?

Problem Three:  He is ignoring the laws of economics by pretending that his mandate has no cost to it to anyone.  That is just economic ignorance gone to seed if you believe that.  Even New Math would let you figure this out for yourselves.  The medicines in question are not free to the providers, so who pays for it if not those for whom it is provided?   When Planned Parenthood gives the same meds out for free, the cost is borne by their contributors… but there is still a cost that is going to be borne by someone.

When a private company does it, that cost is borne by being spread across their customer base meaning, for insurance companies, the buyers of the policies are paying for something whether they want to or not and whether they have any moral objections to it or not.  And since Obamacare mandates that businesses pay all the costs of health care and provide it free to employees, the cost is borne by the business and ultimately by their customers… us.   And the slack is picked up by the taxpayers… again, us.  Free?  Not hardly.

Not enough problems for you yet?  OK, here are some more.

Problem Four:  He is talking out of both sides of his mouth when he argues that women should be in charge of their bodies (so they can abort a pregnancy if desired) but apparently now arguing that they are also so stupid or so weak they cannot take charge at the other end of the reproduction process and not get pregnant in the first place. So which is it?  Strong and intelligent or weak and stupid?  What works at one end has to work at the other or it is not true.

 I also need to have it explained to me how free contraceptions from this source is somehow better than the free contraceptives ALREADY available free from outlets such as Planned Parenthood?  This is not about women; women are being used as pawns in a power struggle and because the opening volley uses ammunition dear to them, they are following along without seeing past the immediate red herrings.

Problem Five:  It removes any pretense of allowing the free practice of any religion guaranteed in the First Amendment by demanding that anyone who is in anyway involved in paying the costs of this medicine must do as mandated whether or not they find the use of it voluntary and morally repugnant.

Remember we are not talking about pills for headaches or pain; we are not talking about antibiotics for helping to heal wounds or diseases – unless you think that pregnancy is a disease.  Obama apparently does; he already said he does not want his children to be “punished” with a child.  Punished with a child?  Really?

Is there anyone from basically grade school on up who does not now know how to make a baby and how to avoid that happening?  We are talking about dealing with the results of a voluntary act, except in the case of rape for which I would happily make an exception.

But the real issue here is the answer to a simple question: does the federal government, or the President, have, under the authority granted them by the Constitution they/he swore to uphold, the power to prohibit not just churches, but the people themselves, the citizens of this country, the free exercise of their religious beliefs unless those beliefs lead to some criminal activity?

If you do not know the answer to that then you really need to read the document this flack is all about.  And until you do that, you need to shut up and back out of the discussion until you can engage intelligently in the real issues.

Personally I do not believe the government has ANY business in this area at all.  I do not believe that abortion, except in the case of rape or incest, should even be a governmental topic.  It is not a constitutional topic.  I do not believe the government should take it upon itself to prohibit it or make it somehow illegal.  But I also do not think the government should facilitate it by making taxpayers pay for it.   I think it is entirely a private matter, a matter of choice that i think individuals have, but it is none of the government’s business one way or the other unless it is tied to some criminal act.

But this mandate is not really about that issue either.  Stripped of the obfuscatory shield of pretense at being about women’s health, it is about cold, naked power and whether or not the President, any president, has this sort of power.  It is not really even about contraception or abortion; those, along with “womens’ health care” are just the ammunition being used to rally some narrow-viewed individuals into the fray.  It is, at its core, about the power of the President and the government and how far that extends into private lives and business contracts.

And if it is allowed to stand, what it does is give any president, not just this president, the power to step into the middle of your beliefs and into the middle of your business contracts.  At least insist, even if you support the result, that it be debated in Congress and presented as a proper bill that does not do any violence to the constitution.  Then when he signs it it will be under the proper authority.

But that is not what he wants to happen.  He wants the authority to do it himself outside of congressional oversight and outside of the constitution.  This is a floodgate I do not want to see opened.  I do not want even Presidents I support having this much power because when it happens, the America of the founders will be dead.

Remember in the last post I said you had to take the complaints used as the rationals in the Declaration of independence as the foundations of the limitations to federal power protected by the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights.  Here, direct from the Declaration itself, is one of those things that pushed the founders into a war…

Speaking about the abuses of the monarchy they wrote,

“… He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” 

Can we spell “Czars” and the incredible expansion of them in the Federal Bureacracy where without congressional oversight they crank out regulations for the most intimate details of our lives?  Those are the sorts of things we rebelled against and created a government of only 3 parts where laws could come from only that set.

Or how about this complaint in the Declaration?

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation.”

That same Supreme Court Justice mentioned above once opined we should look to foreign laws; and this entire administration seems interested in allowing foreign bodies and departments such as in the U.N. to subject us to their rules.

I would suggest the transformation mentioned in previous posts is well underway.  If this latest power grab succeeds, and if Obama is re-elected and then is free to use that power as he wills without worry about future elections, we will see our country become unrecognizable in a very short period.  And if efforts are made to override the XXII Amendment all pretense will be gone.  I can live with a President Obama, I cannot accept a King Barrack I.

Should that happen, I think the people will decide it is time for another revolution as Jefferson anticipated, just later than he thought it would happen. And in the furtherance of that outcome, I will now go back to watching the presidential candidates beat each other up so the public hates them all and, int he process, do all that they can to re-elect Obama.