The Cellar  

Go Back   The Cellar > Main > Politics

Politics Where we learn not to think less of others who don't share our views

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 02-16-2012, 11:53 PM   #301
classicman
barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy.
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 23,401
No. It has been Religious organizations telling Government what they will or won't provide for far too long. They've been hiding behind the "religion" tag and getting the breaks for it.... sorry.
__________________
"like strapping a pillow on a bull in a china shop" Bullitt
classicman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2012, 12:07 AM   #302
TheMercenary
“Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo”
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Savannah, Georgia
Posts: 21,393
Quote:
Originally Posted by classicman View Post
No. It has been Religious organizations telling Government what they will or won't provide for far too long. They've been hiding behind the "religion" tag and getting the breaks for it.... sorry.
What do you care about what they do? Your statement is exactly why this government is out of control. What? Now we need someone to come tell us what we have to think, believe and if we don't tow the Obama Marxist Party Line we are going to be dragged to court or off to the gas chamber? Maybe just re-education camps. I think they are going to tell Obama and the rest of them to "fuck off, see you in court".
__________________
Anyone but the this most fuked up President in History in 2012!
TheMercenary is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2012, 12:13 AM   #303
Ibby
erika
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: "the high up north"
Posts: 6,127
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMercenary View Post
Not much different from what I said.
I would certainly argue that "presidential edict that churches provide birth control" and "refusal to exempt employers who claim religious affiliation from having to provide birth control like everybody else" are two wildly different things. clearly you disagree.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMercenary View Post
And my point is have they? Is anyone in the Federal government saying they must do this? Or is it just being challenged at the state level and the issue has never come up at a Federal level?
Please please please explain to me why a first amendment religious liberties question has to be differentiated on state/fed lines?

Also, as far as I know, there is NO challenge to the legitimacy of laws that say that first marriages and second marriages have to be treated equally by employers, either on the state OR federal level - but legally a marriage is a marriage, and if an employer's health care plan says that it includes spouses, that plan has to include ALL legally recognized marriages.

If I understand your point, you are arguing that since marriage (as it relates to insurance SPECIFICALLY) is RECOGNIZED by the federal government, but LICENSED by states, it is completely different from birth control coverage, which is mandated by federal order under Obamacare. Okay, fine. But the first amendment applies EQUALLY to state AND federal laws, and since a religious group can ONLY claim that their religious rights are infringed upon UNDER the first amendment, if religious liberty is the problem with the regulation, it does not matter if the regulation comes from the federal government or from a state government.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMercenary View Post
Haven't really thought about it much, guess I just don't care.
But it's the same legal, religious, and constitutional principle. Why do you care very strongly that birth control insurance coverage is a religious liberties question, but don't care at all about whether divorced/remarried spouse insurance coverage is a religious liberties question?
__________________
not really back, you didn't see me, i was never here shhhhhh
Ibby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2012, 04:53 AM   #304
TheMercenary
“Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo”
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Savannah, Georgia
Posts: 21,393
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ibram View Post
I would certainly argue that "presidential edict that churches provide birth control" and "refusal to exempt employers who claim religious affiliation from having to provide birth control like everybody else" are two wildly different things. clearly you disagree.
It is an end around by Obama, he called it a compromise, it is clearly not in the eye of those who are paying for the insurance and in this case that would be the employer.



Quote:
Please please please explain to me why a first amendment religious liberties question has to be differentiated on state/fed lines?
In general they are not, what is different is how and under what angle the different things are being challenged and under what umbrella they are being issued as laws or mandated. The marriage issue is being decided at the state level.

Quote:
Also, as far as I know, there is NO challenge to the legitimacy of laws that say that first marriages and second marriages have to be treated equally by employers, either on the state OR federal level - but legally a marriage is a marriage, and if an employer's health care plan says that it includes spouses, that plan has to include ALL legally recognized marriages.
And I don't see it being challenged as a Constitutional Right.

Quote:
If I understand your point, you are arguing that since marriage (as it relates to insurance SPECIFICALLY) is RECOGNIZED by the federal government, but LICENSED by states, it is completely different from birth control coverage, which is mandated by federal order under Obamacare. Okay, fine. But the first amendment applies EQUALLY to state AND federal laws, and since a religious group can ONLY claim that their religious rights are infringed upon UNDER the first amendment, if religious liberty is the problem with the regulation, it does not matter if the regulation comes from the federal government or from a state government.
It matters greatly. And in the case of marriage, I don't see anyone challenging it as a First Amendment issue.



Quote:
But it's the same legal, religious, and constitutional principle. Why do you care very strongly that birth control insurance coverage is a religious liberties question, but don't care at all about whether divorced/remarried spouse insurance coverage is a religious liberties question?
It is not the same when you address it as a states rights issue over a federal mandate, huge difference. I don't think the BCP issue is within the scope of what the feds can tell individual businesses to do. It is not as important to me what individual states choose to do on the marriage issue. It is important to me what the Federal government says we can and cannot do when it seems to be a clear violation of their power.
__________________
Anyone but the this most fuked up President in History in 2012!
TheMercenary is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2012, 10:13 AM   #305
Lamplighter
Person who doesn't update the user title
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Bottom lands of the Missoula floods
Posts: 6,402
Irony and coincidence are some of my favorite themes...
Given this discussion THIS week, we also have:

National Condom Week 2012

Quote:
National condom week will be celebrated during the week of Valentine's Day from February 14 - February 21 in 2012.

Many universities will provide sex education on campus during this week
(National Condom Week originally began at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1970s)
and Planned Parenthood across the country also usually sponsors a number of events

February is also National Condom Month with the goal to provide educational information
through events to such places as high schools, colleges, family planning organizations,
AIDS groups, sexually transmitted disease awareness groups.
Lamplighter is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2012, 11:52 AM   #306
Happy Monkey
I think this line's mostly filler.
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC
Posts: 13,575
Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Monkey View Post
If you invoke the First Amendment, as you did in post 226, then you are incorrectly separating the state and Federal level. It applies equally to both.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMercenary View Post
Ok, prove it. I never made such an argument about it applying equally to both. They are completely different. One is top down, the other bottom up. I would be glad to watch you show how they are the same. Please cite as you go.
Logic 101: If A implies B, then (not B) implies (not A).

According to the Supreme Court, since the 14th Amendment, the states are prevented from doing anything that the 1st Amendment would prevent the Federal government from doing.

A = The First Amendment prevents the Federal Government from enforcing this rule.
B = The First Amendment prevents the states from enforcing this rule.


Many states require insurance to cover birth control, therefore (not B).

(not B) implies (not A)

Therefore, the First Amendment does NOT prevent the Federal Government from enforcing this rule.
__________________
_________________
|...............| We live in the nick of times.
| Len 17, Wid 3 |
|_______________| [pics]
Happy Monkey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2012, 12:55 PM   #307
Ibby
erika
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: "the high up north"
Posts: 6,127
Sorry for the long long long quote-post, but I think this sums up my position pretty well, save the over-the-top slavery rhetoric. Underlines are MY emphasis, Bold is as in article.

Quote:
There's a basic, historical misunderstanding at the root of modern Republican philosophy. A little fact that seems to get overlooked. It's not their insistence that the road to fascism begins with good health care. It's not even the pretense that President Obama somehow masterminded an economic collapse, bank bailout, and massive deficit weeks, months or years before he came into office. No, the incident that the GOP has let slip is a little more basic.
The South lost. [...]

It's easy to see how employers might be confused, considering all the love being lavished on them by both parties, and with the paeans being sung to them as magical "job creators." And hey, we already pretty much handed over that fourth amendment to them, what with peeing in a cup or being able to fire people because of an old photo on Facebook. Republicans have been busy reinforcing that lesson by insisting that anyone who collects so much as an unemployment check should be subject to any rules they want to set. It's no wonder that the line between handing someone a paycheck, and holding someone's title, should have gotten blurred.

So consider this a primer to the confused American business owners and executives who might have listened just a little to long to all that sweet praise.

As an employer, you have the absolute right to religious freedom. Attend any church, temple, synagogue or reading room you like. Give as you feel obligated. Worship as you please. Place on yourself any restriction in diet, activity or anything else that you feel is in keeping with your beliefs ... but only on yourself. You don't get to impose these restrictions on your employees.

Your employees are separate from you. Not only that, they are equal to you in rights, no matter how unequal you may be in income. You do not get to tell them who to vote for. You do not get to tell them who they can love. You do not get to use your religious beliefs as an excuse to limit their health care.

No matter how strong your personal faith, your employees are not obligated to live according to those beliefs, expressly because they are personal. You may find it frustrating, but your employees have just as much right to their own beliefs as you do to yours, and whether you pay them pittance on an assembly line or six figures as a manager, you have zero right to carve off a slice of their freedom. The direction of the pay arrow has no effect on who gets to dictate to who.

If the government was telling you, as an individual, that you had to use birth control, that would be a violation of your rights. That's not happening. They're just saying that you don't get to make that decision for the people who work for your company. Because, really, you don't own them.

If you're still mad; if you're upset that healthcare has to be funneled through employers at all ... there's a cure for that. It's called "single payer."
__________________
not really back, you didn't see me, i was never here shhhhhh
Ibby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2012, 01:19 PM   #308
classicman
barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy.
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 23,401
Link for Ibs posted quote
__________________
"like strapping a pillow on a bull in a china shop" Bullitt
classicman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2012, 01:23 PM   #309
Ibby
erika
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: "the high up north"
Posts: 6,127
Whoops! I thought I popped it in the header. Thanks!
__________________
not really back, you didn't see me, i was never here shhhhhh
Ibby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2012, 02:02 PM   #310
Clodfobble
UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 20,012
Quote:
If you're still mad; if you're upset that healthcare has to be funneled through employers at all ... there's a cure for that. It's called "single payer."
I'm not mad, but yes, I am upset that healthcare is funneled through employers.
Clodfobble is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2012, 02:37 PM   #311
Ibby
erika
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: "the high up north"
Posts: 6,127
I was thinking about this again the other day and realized that to me, the idea of health INSURANCE is not the right way to frame the health care debate.

Insurance is a "gamble" that a private company can earn enough in premiums across its customer base to offset the costs of individuals who get ill.
What the left, as well as much of the developed world, has decided is that, well, "insurance" isn't enough. The societal social contract that frames a developed society, to people of my mindset, says that "we care for the sick". We as a society can afford that. We already do for the uninsured who still get care in emergency rooms - but if we build our system of health care to include those costs as part of a broad tax, roughly equivalent to what everyone is already paying in inflated health care costs, and then guarantee at least basic preventative and curative health care to all citizens, in a unified system, health care costs for EVERYONE will go down just on administrative streamlining alone. Instead of a for-profit cost-benefit, health coverage becomes a civil right. We all pay into a BIG insurance pot (either included or separate from income tax) - instead of under Obamacare, into a bunch of separate private mandated insurance pots - and then ALL get out of it what we need.
Personally, I trust a single-payer system staffed by doctors and civil servants to have the best interest of patients in mind more than I trust a for-profit company to do so, and thus I believe that healthcare through employers is just as broken as insurance purchased on the open market.

I think that single-payer is by far the ideal system for health care.
__________________
not really back, you didn't see me, i was never here shhhhhh
Ibby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2012, 06:03 PM   #312
classicman
barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy.
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 23,401
First off, this debate belongs in the Healthcare thread, but ...
I'll play the devil's advocate here ...
Quote:
include those costs as part of a broad tax, roughly equivalent to what everyone is already paying in inflated health care costs
Do you have any data to back that up?
Quote:
in a unified system, health care costs for EVERYONE will go down just on administrative streamlining alone.
Virtual impossibility. Perhaps overall, but when those who cannot afford are added, the cost will/must come from others.
__________________
"like strapping a pillow on a bull in a china shop" Bullitt
classicman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2012, 06:36 PM   #313
Ibby
erika
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: "the high up north"
Posts: 6,127
Quote:
Originally Posted by classicman View Post
Virtual impossibility. Perhaps overall, but when those who cannot afford are added, the cost will/must come from others.
They already do. Caring for an insured person, with both preventative and curative care, reduces health care costs throughout the system, and additionally, in the current system, curative care is already available for all but chronic diseases for the poor and uninsured, ostensibly for free, at great cost to the system. If we include caring for the currently-uninsured under the same umbrella as those that are currently insured, on top of the administrative savings for having one insurance framework to work under as opposed to a wide range of companies to deal with. I'm not saying that the ONLY reason healthcare costs so much more in the US than in the rest of the developed world is that our insurance system is broken, but it's a major driver of increased health care costs in America.
__________________
not really back, you didn't see me, i was never here shhhhhh
Ibby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-22-2012, 10:45 PM   #314
BigV
Goon Squad Leader
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Seattle
Posts: 27,063
Ibram and Happy Monkey, you speak well. I understand your arguments and analogies. I also agree with your complaints and your conclusions. One way of saying the main reason I'm unhappy with the whole argument about infringing on the religious freedom of .. heh.. an institution? They have freedoms? anyway... it is this.

I feel it is ****** inconsistent for such organizations to claim a religious freedom exemption for one subject and to overlook different subjects that are of comparable importance. Picking and choosing which of your religious sensibilites are offended strikes me as ... insincere.

You gave good examples with marrried versus divorced employees, and with straight versus gay employees. Additionally, claiming to be a religious institution for this topic, but not for other aspects of the law (tax exempt status anyone?) seems just plain opportunistic. It seems insincere.
__________________
Be Just and Fear Not.
BigV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-23-2012, 08:15 AM   #315
TheMercenary
“Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo”
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Savannah, Georgia
Posts: 21,393
Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Monkey View Post
Logic 101: If A implies B, then (not B) implies (not A).

According to the Supreme Court, since the 14th Amendment, the states are prevented from doing anything that the 1st Amendment would prevent the Federal government from doing.

A = The First Amendment prevents the Federal Government from enforcing this rule.
B = The First Amendment prevents the states from enforcing this rule.


Many states require insurance to cover birth control, therefore (not B).

(not B) implies (not A)

Therefore, the First Amendment does NOT prevent the Federal Government from enforcing this rule.
Religious freedom, Constitutional issue specifically described.

Marriage issue, states issue, marriage not specifically described in the Constitution and not being challenged from that respect.

Pretty clear to me.
__________________
Anyone but the this most fuked up President in History in 2012!
TheMercenary is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:54 PM.


Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.