Actually, it shows how specious you argument was.

From what I see, you are basically defining your own axioms so that everything is OK, with no reference to standard morality. Your argument is basically: let's assume anything already in the atmosphere can't be bad since it pre exists, and let's not worry about deaths as I'm not the one dying.

You would do well to pay attention to what I actually say and not suppose things in my stead. I have said it twice now so pay attention. Coal is not some super toxic material. It is damaging and kills people but it is not super toxic. The vast majority of people who die from coal exposure is a fraction of other things they die from.

First, the contraception mandate was not ever signed into law. It is a regulation created by the department of health and human services (also known as a rule) well after the law became law but the power to do so was in the law. Hobby Lobby is not required to follow the mandate.

Second, the parent I replied to was attempting to distort the ruling in order to inflame people with his wording choices on abortion. I pointed out how wrong he was.

Now, the RFRA or religious freedom and restoration act and the court ruling specifically spells out how and when these regulations can be ignored.

The court found that the mandate was not the least restrictive means and referred to what the government is already doing to get around religious arguments for other people, groups and entities as support for it not being the least restrictive. So according to this ruling, if there is a religious claim to be excluded and there is a less restrictive means to further the compelling government interest, it can be ignored by the person, company, group and so on.

but that doesn't mean the compelling government interest disappears or that the government cannot pursue it. It just means they have to use the lest (less) restrictive means to maintain or further it.

Where and what is? Restrictions on forming a corporation? No, it's not. Nothing in the US Constitution about corporations, you'd have to check state ones for their authority .

Listen, the constitution has provisions in it that says government cannot do certain things. The 14th amendment makes these prohibited things bound to the states also. If the constitution says no law can be made prohibiting the free exercise of religion, then any law, including state law, that says you have no religious rights if you do X is defacto unconstitutional. Quit forgetting the important parts in order to push what you want to demonize (corporations).

So, can the US government, either state or federal, require corporations to pass out bibles to all their employees and contractors and reserve one hour of the work week for paid bible study? If not, why not and how does that jive with your disposition on corporations?

But you're not offering any substantial reason for your prayer being mandated, or even the pledge of allegiance, while simultaneously ignoring the compulsory nature of public schooling. And you'll find little support for changing that mandate. Not zero, but little. It does exist, and a lot of silliness has resulted from that.

I didn't provide any substantial reason for prayer being mandated because the concept is ludicrous on it's own due to the US constitution forbidding it. But lets join your journey, suppose there was a study that showed people who pray do better in society (make better citizens) than people who do not. Surely you cannot be against better citizens can you? It doesn't matter though because it would still be unconstitutional. And yes, most school districts are incorporated for the purpose of separating their liability from the city. Or to be more accurate, "A school district is a legally separate body corporate and politic"

I'm not sure what you mean by "ever vote democrat again" but if you want to remove the officially endorsed partisanship in the US, I wouldn't necessarily mind. Get rid of those stupid partisan primaries, thank you very much. Especially since they come with stupid "official" requirements that aren't even enforceable. (Check the recent bullshit in Mississippi for example.) And the last part of sentence doesn't connect to the previous, so you'll have to explain what you mean by that before I can respond.

Yes, that came out mangled. What I was trying to ask is if you thought it would be reasonable for the government to say if you vote democrat you cannot have a bank account because they regulate banks? I would assume not but I saw your reply. Let me answer this, no it would not be reasonable because the government cannot make any law prohibiting your free speech or freedom of association and denying you the ability to have a bank account because of that would be violating the first amendment.

As for Mississippi, it's rather simple. Hold the primaries together, the person voting asked for either a democrat, republican, or independent ticket and they can choose from one but not more. If you feel the need to switch parties in order to vote whomever you think would lose to your guy, you run the risk of your guy not wining their primary.

This sentence also seems to lack context, yes, it's true, but you're saying this because of what reason? If you want to complain that the system of conducting elections in the US is poorly done, get in line. It's a long one.

It lost it's composure because I mangled the previous sentence. It's supportive of the government being able to check if you vote for a democrat or not in order to ban you from having a bank account. I would hope you would find the entire thought of that situation repulsive and unconstitutional- as it is just that.

You are correct, it does sound ridiculous. However, a lot of things sound that way in today's world.

Maybe the FBI and NSA couldn't use the monitoring they are doing on Americans to find people looking for this stuff in some attempt to find a terrorist cell so they released them to narrow down their search (either by looking closer at those who download it or those who don't but searched for it previously).

As for first responders, You can always know where first responders are by creating an accident that requires them. After about 10 minutes, attack with stage two. Car bombings in Iraq and other hot spots tend to use this. They send a bomb in close to an area, send another in to blow up, 10-20 minutes later, first responders are on scene trying to save lives and the second bomb goes off,.

Its not yhe data that thry claim is wrong with the lack of warming claim.

What they say busts the claim is that the oceans all the sudden are more of a sink then in years past. Actually, they do not claim anything is magically different other than the understanding of ow much of a sink the oceans are. Of course i find that problematic because the temps 30 years ago would have had the same intrraction. But evidently in the slow warming periods, it is important to make that claim as it clearly busts other claims.

And the brilliance of an AC poster failing to shine at all yet again.

Its not a binary answer as you suggest. Action can happen while even operating on inaction and there are litterally endless possabilities on action.

So is not caring and dealing with problems as they happen an action or inaction?

Actually, the spin is more likely to be something about if you got nothing tp hide, why did you refuse to release yhe communication and something about the courts sending a message to people who ask questions that this subject is off limits or you will pay.

Well, this should be kept in mind every time someone says "we've eradicated disease X, lets destroy the lab samples".

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/artic...

Actually, some supported schools quite a bit. Schools trained their employees. Factories had a problem with farm kids just wondering off and doing other things like they would on the farm. This was a big set back for industrialization so schools were opened in order to teach the children how to pay attention, follow direction, add and subtract and so on to be ready for the factories.

Perhaps after they were "trained", they decried their further education but initially, it was for their benefit for the most part.

http://www.geopolitics.us/why-...

IQ tests would pretty much fall under aptitude tests which under tort law seems to have been banned. It's also why a high school diplomas became necessary for trivial jobs- if someone had a high school diploma they met certain minimum job requirements. This also led to the schools becoming training camps for local employment opportunities also.

Employers used to give aptitude tests before everyone graduated high school or even before schools had real standards for a diploma. Eventually, these aptitude tests were applied to discriminate against people based on race or sex and so on and there were quite a few lawsuits over it that with employers losing. I believe the big one was Griggs v. Duke Power Co 1971 and there is a history after that including addressing a ruling in the 1991 civil rights act.

It's not specifically barred- but there is a high risk of being sued over their use- especially if the employment space is not diverse enough to "prove" they are unbiased (quotas).

Why is that relevant in any discussion about whether the rich should pay their fair share for the pollution they cause?

Because you specifically brought up helping the poor as if it somehow secured your position. I can see you are abandoning that now I guess.

Again, not relevant, unless you are arguing that welfare should pay the poor's medical bills and not those who injure the poor.

Again, you brought this up as a benefit to the poor. welfare already pays the poor's medical bills so should is not an operative term.

Or they spend the day at the mall or the library on hot days. Back in the first half of the 20th century before residential air conditioners, air conditioning was a big selling point for movie theaters.

Yes, in their diminished capacity, the poor are free to do as you say all day long and to hell with whatever they might actually want to do.

In your neighborhood, can you buy a gallon of milk without driving to the store in a car? Have you ever done so? If not, you are a slave to your car, not the other way around.

I can walk and/or ride a bike to get a gallon of milk. It's not practical or efficient to make a trip to the store for single items but I guess you have more free time then I do.

Why drive at all when you can bike everywhere? Oh that's right, because we've made the streets faster for cars and more dangerous for bicyclists, and pushed destinations farther apart and harder to get there by bicycle in order to make room for parking. We've taken away our freedom in order to give ourselves the perception of freedom. Isn't that ironic?

There is no loss of freedom for a perception of freedom. It's called efficiency and availability. But why are you talking about freedom as if only people who think like you have it?

I don't think paying the poor's medical bills and lost work days will make them poorer. Nor will keeping schoolchildren healthy and able to attend classes keep them from achieving their full potential.

I sure you don't think. You see, if you make everything more expensive, you are also making food more expensive, clothing more expensive, toiletries more expensive, electricity more expensive, just about everything will be more expensive including taxes for government services. Or do you somehow magically expect schools, fire and police departments, town halls and so on to not be hit by the carbon taxes in their electric bills and transportation costs for materials and so forth?

Or it would be online right now if externalities and other market failures were corrected.

No it would not. It doesn't exist, the capabilities do not exist. Nowhere does it exist. Not even in Germany where they are singing their own praises does it exist. It simply does not exist.

Why? You want something, is it not fair for there to be SOME conditions on that?

Fair? ITs freaking constitutionally barred. Should kids give up their rights to not have to pray in order to go to public school? It's the same concept or principle here- they can be home schooled or go to a private school if they don't want to pray to my God right. The government cannot say forget the constitution if you want to do X that we provide. If they did, X would be unconstitutional as well as the violations of the constitutionally protected rights.

Can the government say no one can ever vote democrat again and have a bank account because the government regulates banks? Secret ballots aren't in the US constitution so the mechanism can be created. And of course the answer is no- because your freedom of speech, freedom of association, cannot be limited by the government.

But why not? Clearly, if a robot can do hard labor instead of a human, that should be preferable on humanitarian grounds. If it can also do it for cheaper, then, as you rightly note, it should also be preferable on economic grounds. The only argument to the contrary is that people who are pushed out of jobs by robots (and this will clearly keep encroaching, so a laborer can only "retreat" by re-qualifying etc so far) are out of their source of income. But if the sole reason why we give them jobs is to provide them with income, then it's basically just a thinly veiled form of the broken window fallacy.

I'm not advocating it because I personally do not care about it. It's not my decision to make and my job will not be replaced in my lifetime. For those who will suffer this either in reality or by fear of it becoming reality, I feel for them. But it is not my decision.

And no, the reason we give them jobs is to trade labor for value. They provide value in creating wealth in which they get compensated.

That was the point that I was trying to make. Automation is inevitably going to drive down the cost of labor so much that selling it to obtain basic income will cease to be a realistic proposition for a significant part (long term, probably the vast majority) of the population. At that point we'll need to come up with some other arrangement.

agreed.

Note though that the long-term proposition is not "some people supported by the public". It's the reverse - "the public" supported by a few people (those who would still have jobs - like programming the robots). In fact, it's not even clear what "support" would mean, since, if most of society is basically on free welfare, then money is not really a universal medium of exchange anymore... the few people who still work - whom would they get the money for their work for, and what would they spend it on?

Hell, get that proportion high enough, and you'd probably have people competing to get a chance to do "real work" - for free.

It may sound silly, but a moneyless society like in Star Trek might be something we are eventually forced to evolve to. OF course when you have a machine that can pretty much make anything you want, it's a lot easier forgetting about the means to get what you want and need.

You are not disallowed. You just cannot require hobby lobby to pay for the procedure.

That's the biggest lie of this. No one is disallowed anything. All it means if that either you have to pay for it yourself or seek funding from a different source.

But I know what you are doing- parasite.. The problem is the entire concept is so out of whack with reality that no one will be inflamed by your choice of wording.

BTW, Roe V. Wade, the landmark ruling that prohibits government from banning abortions relied primarily on the fact that the government had no business knowing if you had an abortion or not or what kind of medical treatment you had and you were entitled to due process before they could violate your privacy. The PPACA or Obamacare for short, actually removes a lot of those impediments Roe relied on and I doubt it would still prevent government from banning abortions if they tried now. The problem is that the government now has a right to infringe on the privacy which forbade them earlier (at least on a federal level).