Comment Re:I don't see what good unlocking does (Score 1) 77
Chevy Chase was awesome...
I tend to wonder if you'd feel the same way if you owned a business and the Federal government passed a law stating you had to pay for female genital mutilation procedures for young girls and "straight camps" for gays.
Assuming I found the idea of male or female genital mutilation and "straight camps" reprehensible I absolutely would feel the same way. See below.
There were 4 specific methods which the owners found to be abhorrent to their religious convictions. In essence, they consider those 4 specific methods to be murder.
If I consider cockroaches holy I still don't have the right to forbid or obstruct a fumigator from doing his job.
There are many actions I disagree with committed in my name (and with my tax money) by the federal, state and local governments in whose jurisdiction I happen to reside. The fact I don't like how my resources are being utilized does not give me the right to refuse to pay taxes, permission to disrupt law enforcement activities or anything similar.
In both cases there is a law in place. In my case I have to comply or face the consequences. In HL's case, they apparently do not have to comply with some of the law because they don't like it?
While I understand that HL was able to summon the money and political clout to push the issue clear through the Supreme Court for an exception, I remain unconvinced that what occurred here was just/right even though it's clearly legal.
OT: Thank you for your considered statements, reasonable tone and for not trying to turn this into a flame war.
You just cannot require hobby lobby to pay for the procedure.
Hobby Lobby may not want to pay for certain (or any) coverage, but they are required to. The ACA was signed into law on 3-23-2010.
We're discussing under what circumstances (sky wizard edict, talking unicorn, invisible secret friend) parts of this law can be ignored, if you really want to ignore it and own a company, in light of the recent SCOTUS decision.
...people that run businesses must not be abused by the government and having their freedoms revoked just because they are running a business.
As I mentioned above, the owners of HL are free to use (or not) contraceptives as they choose. Weather they should be required to provide the insurance in the first place is a different matter entirely.
In this case which would you support, the freedom of the employees to make their own choices or the freedom of HL to try to dictate those choices for them?
They did not ask to be put into the situation where they control the womans healthcare. The government forced them, by law, to provide health care. Then the government forced them, by law, to include contraceptive devices that abort a fertilized fetus. (many of the contraceptive devices covered kill the post-fertilized egg) Their only option out was to pay a fine that would go directly to paying for the very same services they oppose.
From their point of view the government just required them to pay for their employees to have the ability to murder babies. Now, you can disagree with that point of view, I know I do. But it really is their point of view. They really do view it has killing babies. That's a violation of their ability to freely express their religion. The government could have addressed this a dozen different ways. Exempting them from the penalties if they didn't provide the care would have been the simplest. But they didn't. The whitehouse should have seen this coming, they should have provided a religious exemption, but they didn't.
This is getting a bit muddled, so I'd like to list a couple points of fact:
- HL is required to provide healthcare to their employees. The legislation has been enacted, it's a done deal.
- This birth control is part of that healthcare.
Nobody is telling the owners of HL not to use birth control. They have the right to make that choice for themselves.
We are talking about weather HL has the right to selectively refuse to provide this federally mandated medical care coverage to their employees because they (HL) don't like/agree/approve of it.
There will always be a need for car dealerships, but there is no good reason to ban direct sales. This is pure rent-seeking behavior. The dealerships should position themselves as Tesla's partners in buying/selling used Teslas and in repairs.
I'm not so sure about that. While I'm no expert on the subject I found this podcast. It's from NPR and 16 minutes long, but I thought it very informative.
One man's constant is another man's variable. -- A.J. Perlis
