by GENE HOWINGTON
Good art is at a fundamental level about honest expression. Business? Not so much. Especially in the case of Hobby Lobby it appears. The Christian-owned craft supply chain, were so morally offended by the idea of having to include emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices in their health insurance plans that they sued the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurers must provide these options. Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, (No. 13-354), is currently before the Supreme Court. Litigation is not cheap. Litigation all the way to SCOTUS considerable business litigation expense over what is at its core a personal religious conviction of the owners – the Green family – that by extension they seek to force upon their employees by denying them access to insurance to cover said contraception methods. In their complaint, Hobby Lobby details the great lengths they go to “avoid entanglements with objectionable companies.” This zealously pious tendency – which is perfectly within their rights as individuals – apparently doesn’t extend to their investment strategies. Molly Redden at Mother Jones has discovered that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan holds more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions and in two health insurance companies that cover surgical abortions, abortion drugs, and emergency contraception in many of the health care policies they sell. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “hypocrisy” means “[t]he practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case.”
This is particularly damning to the claimant’s pious posturing for a couple of reasons. First, there are investment funds that cater specifically to the delicate religious sensibilities of people like the Green family where stocks are screened out that religious people might consider morally objectionable. According to financial advisers, these mutual funds perform at comparable rates of return to “non-screened” funds. So either the Green family was ignorant of the existence of said specialty funds – a dubious claim considering their financial savvy and business acumen displayed elsewhere – or the power of their conviction has an upper limit on doing due diligence in their investing. Second, the religion from which they derive the self-righteous condescension to think the 1st Amendment allows them to force their employees into standards of medical care that they approve of while infringing upon said employees own individual civil rights to both free exercise and privacy in making their own medical decisions isn’t really big on hypocrisy as a Christian value. Consider:
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.” – Matthew 6:5
Does this apply to trampling the rights of your employees to show the world what a “good Christian” you are? Methinks so.
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” – 1 John 4:20
They may not hate their employees for who but they can say what is in their hearts, but they apparently hate their decisions about religious freedom and their own personal health care enough to spend a boatload of money to deny them their own choices. Could it be that they are withholding their love from their fellow beings because they think their fellow beings aren’t conforming to “God’s will”? And who exactly are they to say they know what God’s will towards others entails? Perhaps their employees that choose to live differently than the Green family are just as God made them. Gnaw on that for a bit.
“No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” – Luke 16:13
Busted. Yeah. That’s the word that comes to mind.
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:1-5
It seems to me that prejudging the most private and personal of individual decisions – free exercise and self-determination – is a mighty large log. Perhaps even a redwood.
And last but certainly not least (or even only) . . .
“But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” – James 1:25-27
Does not the law of liberty by the very definition of the word “liberty” – being “[t]he state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s behavior or political view” – mandate that all people have the right to be free to exercise their religion of choice according to the dictates of their own conscience and use their own best discretion in how to care for their own medical needs or wants?
To quote a famous Spaghetti Western anti-hero, “I reckon so.”
I think that part of the consequence of free exercise as guaranteed by the 1st Amendment is that an individual should be able to believe what they like and live their lives accordingly . . . but only to the point that their beliefs don’t trample on the rights of others to believe (or not) as they see fit and live their lives accordingly. Hobby Lobby (and the Green-owned Mardel chain of Christian bookstores) are for-profit businesses, not churches. In what is now a case of manifest hypocrisy, the Green family through their companies seek to impose their private personal morality upon their employees by denying them medical insurance coverage for procedures they don’t personally approve of all the while investing in companies that provide both the means and materials to perform said services. Not only is it questionable that the strict scrutiny standard will protect the rights of the Greens over the rights of their employees, it appears that the Green family lacks even the “moral authority” to claim theirs is a principled “Christian” decision. Perhaps they should recognize that each individuals choices on matters of conscience is inherent to each individual and not theirs to make for them. If the Greens object to contraception and abortion so much? They are perfectly free not to do either. The Greens should not be allowed to make that choice for others simply because they are their employers.
What do you think?
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Gene,
I just read that Mother Jones article this morning. It’s the absolute height of hypocrisy!
Elaine,
If you read through the complaint, starting on page two is a litany of how zealous the Green family (wants to seen as) in doing business to “comport with their Christian values”. To think they went to those lengths and were somehow unaware of the holdings of their mutual funds behind the 401(k) program or unaware that religiously screened options existed is laughable on its face. As I think you know, I do paint and draw a bit. I’m a crafty person in more than one meaning of the word. But since this whole deal erupted, I’ve taken all my art supply business (which admittedly isn’t nearly as much as it used to be) to their competitors at Michaels.
Gene, The right wing Dallas swiftboat Wyly family once owned Michaels but I think they have since sold it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2012/09/18/david-green-the-biblical-billionaire-backing-the-evangelical-movement/ Green comes from a family of pastors….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj44MwH5WTw
http://theusconstitution.org/text-history/2590/do-rights-employees-count-supreme-court-hears-oral-argument-hobby-lobby” Hobby Lobby has been billed as a clash between the religious beliefs of the company’s owners and the power of the government, but that is a too narrow a frame. As the Justices reflect on the oral argument, they should recognize that the rights of Hobby Lobby’s thousands of employees – who have deeply held beliefs and convictions of their own – are at stake here, too. The big question at the heart of the case is whether Hobby Lobby’s owners will be entitled to impose their religious beliefs on Hobby Lobby’s employees and deny them federal rights critical to women’s health and reproductive freedom. A ruling that would give business owners the power to extinguish their employees’ rights would be a grave setback for hard-working Americans. And as Justice Kagan recognized, it would also open the floodgates to numerous other claims challenging other important federal laws and threatening other employee protections. Employees should not have to check their personal liberty and human dignity at the workplace door.”
Smom,
One has to deal with the constraints of the local market. When I lived in KC, a much larger market than where I live now, I had the option of independent suppliers like (the excellent) Creative-Coldsnow. A bit pricier than the chains perhaps, but they have both an excellent selection and sell quality over quantity. Here? I’m lucky to have any alternative to HL.
Gene, I guess the only alternative would be to mail order.
That’s one thing I really like to buy brick and mortar, Smom.
About five years ago down here in Florida my wife and I went to a local crafts store to get decorations for a Chanukah party we were giving. It was a large store and we searched it all over to find anything related to that holiday. We were dumbfounded that there was nothing at all. We approached the employees at check out and asked where the Chanukah decorations might be. The looks we were given were quite strange, bordering on contemptuous and one said “We never carry materials like that.” We left, of course never to return, but we were struck by the attitude and the stupidity. We live in an area that has a large Jewish population and it would seem good business to have carried something of Chanukah. It was of course Christmas time as well and the store carried a full stock of Christmas decorations. Admittedly, this store wasn’t a chain store, but a local operation. We found a Michael’s though less than a mile away and they had all they needed. We told all of our friends, needless to say, and they won’t go to this store. Our friends have other friends as well, so the word spread.
My point is that this suit by Hobby Lobby seems counterproductive from a business standpoint. When it comes to Jews, although we are distributed throughout the country, we are a relatively small market. However, probably 90% of the country uses birth control and Hobby Lobby’s suit must seem wrong to those of them who are not fundamentalist, right wing supporters. I can only conclude, given their investment hypocrisy, that Hobby Lobby is playing to what it considers its customer base. That may well be their rationale. The reality though is that this suit is less about religious principle and more about right wing politics. Merely another way to attack Obama and his health care plans. I think it has and will backfire on the company in the form of loss of good will. The object of retail business is always market expansion.
so how many funds are the employees allowed to pick from? How many companies in each fund?
Do the Greens invest their personal money in the particular fund?
This isnt about hypocrisey, this is about individual rights and self determination. If the employees of Hobby Lobby dont like the health care plan, they are free to purchase their own or find another job.
Oversight –
noun
noun: oversight; plural noun: oversights
1. an unintentional failure to notice or do something.
“he said his failure to pay for the tickets was an oversight”
synonyms:
mistake, error, omission, lapse, slip, blunder;
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:1-5
http://thefederalist.com/2014/04/01/atheists-case-religious-liberty/
“As a humanist, what I regard as “sacred” is the power of the human mind to think and make judgments. To put this in terms borrowed from religion, when someone uses coercion to overrule the judgment of their victim’s mind, they are defiling my temple.”
“History shows that the only way to fight for freedom of thought is to defend it early, when it comes under threat for others—even people you strongly disagree with, even people you despise.”
This is nothing more than a witch hunt.
If a left wing atheist company was being forced to not supply contraception, I would support their right to do as they see fit.
This about individual rights, this isnt about market share.
bron, It is not impossible to research what mutual funds are invested in so they are being hypocritical. Every mutual fund has a prospectus. What about the rights of the women that work for Hobby Lobby?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/03/31/hobby-lobby-case-about-labor-rights-and-religious-extremism-not-birth-control/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-strikes-down-limits-on-federal-campaign-donations/2014/04/02/54e16c30-ba74-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html 5-4 decision
swarthmore mom:
they have the right to seek other employment. If the economy is bad, well that isnt Hobby Lobbys fault.
How would you like to be forced to put a cross in your front yard with a sign that said “We support Adoption”? Although I agree with adoption, it would piss me off to be forced to do it, my yard, my rules.
This ends where we are all forced to eat government meals, wear government issued clothes, drive government issued cars, live in government issued housing, read government issued books, watch government TV channels, surf on government controlled internet, etc.
You say it is only about contraception? I dont think so, it is about the rights of individuals to self determination.
Personally, I think Hobby Lobby is crazy to have such a policy but it is their company and they should have a right to provide whatever insurance policy they want, an employee has the right to purchase their own or not work for the company.
In a free society, no ones rights should be violated as long as their rights dont violate anothers. Contraception is a right but it is not a right provided by society at your request. It is my right not to want to pay for it, I am not forcing you to abstain from contraception by witholding funds or by refusing to cover it in an insurance plan. There are other ways of obtaining these drugs and you are free to obtain them as you wish.
“The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.
Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.”
Ayn Rand
Mike…. Surprisingly….. It does carry Chanukah items…. I was surprised…. However, I’ve since quit shopping at HL and I was given a gift recently and took it back …. The reason I put on the receipt was the denial of women proper health care…. The cashier looked at me and said really…. Under her breath she said…. I agree with you but I need my job……
Swm is correct about Michael’s…. But they went public…..
Follow…
Bron, I did not say the case was only about birth control. The implications are far reaching.
Smom:
what are the implications in your mind?
Ay:
that is the proper way to deal with Hobby Lobby, dont support them if you disagree with them.
How about the implication that the Greens think their rights to free exercise trump the rights of their employees to both free exercise and privacy under the 14th Amendment?
How about the implication that if the Greens want to participate in the chain of common commerce they are subject to the same rules as every other business?
Bron, What I posted above pretty well sums it up for me: “A ruling that would give business owners the power to extinguish their employees’ rights would be a grave setback for hard-working Americans. And as Justice Kagan recognized, it would also open the floodgates to numerous other claims challenging other important federal laws and threatening other employee protections. Employees should not have to check their personal liberty and human dignity at the workplace door.”
Hmm, what is the legal definition of a corporation?
Black’s Law Dictionary says a Corporation is…
“An artificial person or legal entity created by or under the authority of the laws of a state or nation, composed, in some rare instances, of a single person and his successors, being the incumbents of a particular oltice, but ordinarily consisting of an association of numerous individuals, who subsist as a body politic under a special denomination, which is regarded In law as having a personality and existence DISTINCT from that of its several members, and which is, by the same authority, vested with the capacity of continuous succession, irrespective of changes in its membership, either in perpetuity or for a limited term of years, and of acting as a unit or single individual in matters relating to the common purpose of the association, within the scope of the powers and authorities conferred upon such bodies by law.”
http://thelawdictionary.org/corporation/
So, the Hobby Lobby corporation, i.e. an artificial legal entity, has a “right” to freely exercise its religion??
Let’s recall the order of operations at work here: Mankind is born into a state of nature with ALL God given rights in his/her possession. Mankind thence enters into a compact forming a society whereby he/she confers several of those rights to the sovereign so as to better secure the “other rights retained.” (see Ninth Amendment).
Corporations are not born into a state of nature and therefore have no natural rights to freely exercise any “religious rights” much less recognize any God whatsoever.
Furthermore, corporations, BY DEFINITION, have an existence DISTINCT FROM THAT OF THEIR MEMBERS. It also exists in perpetuity; thus negating yet again any argument for “saving its soul.”
The only real hypocrisy at work here would be to confer upon this fictional legal entity rights which it never by definition could have been granted by God.
And that is the argument you present to the alleged “God fearing conservative” who sides with Hobby Lobby.
Try this on for size, B.
“I don’t think niggers are proper human beings and no one should have to work with them so I’m not going to hire any or anyone married to one regardless of what the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 15 U.S.C. § 1691 and Loving v. Virginia has to say about it.”
“I think abortion and contraception is wrong, so instead of following the law that says insurance companies have to provide this coverage, I’m going to fight based on the notion we as a company are exempt based on free exercise and despite what the ACA – held Constitutional by SCOTUS – has to say about it.”
Bingo, Bob. They are trying to do a Citizens United-style end run around the Constitution by pretending a corporation has inherent rights when by definition they have nothing of the sort.
Bron says: The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action.
That is just not true. Do you have a right to property? Do you have a right to own a diamond that you keep in a safe and never touch, wear, display or talk about? What “action” does owning something require? Isn’t your right violated if somebody takes your diamond from you?
A right does NOT pertain only to action or freedom of action at all. You can have a right to health care that covers various health issues. The right is whatever citizens agree to protect, regardless of whether it involves some choice by the right holder or not. You can have a right to life, that is not a freedom of action. You can have a right to a view, or to water, or to sunlight, or clean air, or a reasonable amount of peace and quiet, all of which can be be violated by your neighbor doing something on his land and disrupting or reducing the value of your land. The right to “value” in your land does not pertain to any action you take, it pertains to a state of mind, whether you enjoy your land or not.
Your Rights are dependent upon Society and what the agreement is between you and your Society that all people should have; specifically what the collective agrees will NOT be punished, and WILL be punished, BY the collective. That’s all. You have the right to life because I (and the majority) promise we will defend your life and punish violators of your right to life to the best of our ability. You have the right to property for the same reason; and the right to free speech for the same reason.
A Right is whatever the majority of the collective agrees shall be protected for all persons in the collective (including themselves). Health care that includes contraception is one such thing. If you want to cast that in terms of “action,” then employees now have the right to receive free contraception through their insurance and take it or use it as they see fit.
Just as you have the right to summon police for free assistance, even at the risk of law enforcement lives, if somebody is breaking into your house.
And Hobby Lobby is attempting to violate that right of employees, not by doing anything but by refusing to do something; i.e. through inaction. It would be like the police refusing to respond to my call because the person taking the call doesn’t like Atheists. He doesn’t get a choice, I have a right as a citizen to be treated equally. Neither should Hobby Lobby get a choice. Their employees have a right to all the same benefits prescribed by law for other employees of other companies.
Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot to complain about in re the ACA, but the coverage provisions are not one of them.
Yep, Never see these christian corporations in the pews.
http://www.commonblog.com/2014/03/26/hobby-lobby-andthelegacyof-citizens-united/ If you hear echoes of Citizens United in the corporations’ argument, your ears are not playing tricks on you. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood rely on Citizens United for their argument. Wielding the First Amendment as a sword rather than a shield, they call on the court to declare that corporations not only can choose which politicians to support or oppose on Election Day but also can decide are invalid infringements on their “religious freedom.”
Citizen United strikes again.
What almost everybody said but most heartedly what Bob said.
In the end Hobby Lobby is lobbying for the green. They’d be in much better hands if they worshipped
‘s rather than pseudo-god-fearing elephants.
The Supreme Court is becoming pothole makers,so watch out the road ahead is looking extremely
rough.IMHO.
I have said this before. I will believe corporations are people when the state of Texas executes one.
who made health care a right? As far as I can tell, it is provided to individuals as part of their compensation or as a way of attracting them to come work for a business.
If corporations provided lunch, do they have to serve what the boss doesnt like?
“who made health care a right?”
Almost every civilized Western nation except the U.S.
Not everything is about money, Byron, despite what you might like to think.
I dont think this is about money. If it was only about money, I would say “pay for the contraception.”
The company isnt denying its employees health care, it is refusing to pay for contraception.
Buy your own contraception or purchase a policy which provides contraception.
As far as I know there is no right to sex. I think Hobbly Lobby should pay for its male employees to visit a prostitute in Nevada at least once per month.
No. The company is refusing to pay for contraception which is mandated for all insurers to provide. All as in “all”. They are in essence asserting that they as a corporation have a right to free exercise, a right which in effect trumps the rights of their employees. Which is, by legal definition of a corporation, utter gibberish.
And this isn’t about sex any deeper than sexual reproduction is the most common path to pregnancy.
Also, since this isn’t about money, do you need to be cudgeled over the head again with the business case for single payer? For-profit health care insurance only benefits one narrow vested group: health care insurance providers who profit by taking in premiums, not by paying out claims. The vast majority businesses would receive a boon in the form of reduced operating expenses by not having to pay profit driven premiums for employee health care, freeing that money for reinvestment and creating more jobs and making us more competitive with the bulk of the Western world who don’t have to worry about providing that as an “employment incentive”.
Really, Byron, your insistence is clinging to the notion that corporations are people is contrary to basic legal theory. It’s wrong when you do it. It’s wrong when the Gang of Five does it. The holding in Citizens United rationalizing (in the worst meaning of that word possible) the expansion of corporate personality is one of the most convoluted irrational decisions to come out of any SCOTUS in American jurisprudence. It’s pure fascism on top of being simply factually wrong about the nature of the corporation as a legal entity.
So now government can mandate [read use force] employers cover or pay for whatever the government thinks is best?
What if Hobby Lobby was a sole proprietor? What is the difference?
So you think it is OK for government to force people to do something? I cant wait to see what you have to say when Christians are in power and they force women to carry children to term.
I know lawyers every bit as good as you and Bob who think it was an appropriate decision and that it was not fascism. I dont know enough about the law but I do know that anything which allows more freedom of action is a good thing and I see the problems with big corporations but most corporations are owned by small businessmen and women.
Do unions influence the political process? Unions are associations of individuals just like corporations.
A group of citizens can organize and form a corporation to influence the political process so I see no problem with more freedom to do so.
Argument to the absurd.
We aren’t talking about people, Byron.
We are talking about businesses. Interstate commerce.
Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 3 – “[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;”
The government has the right to regulate commerce. I know, I know, that’s a huge fly in the greasy ointment that is your laissez-faire fantasy world, but good luck on revoking the Commerce Clause.
“What if Hobby Lobby was a sole proprietor? What is the difference?”
None whatsoever. They would still be a for-profit (for tax purposes), non-educator (in the religious sense of education), with a primary purpose of selling chattel for profit who serves and employees people of differing religious beliefs. Now if they were a small halal or kosher butcher where the inculcation of religious values is a primary function and they primarily employ and serve people of the same religion? That is an already recognized exception. The Greens are not engaged in a “religious endeavor”. They are selling art supplies and some of the best art in the world was and is made by complete and utter heathens. You want to talk about force? They are simply trying to leverage the corporation they control to force their religious values on their employees not all (or maybe even most) share those particular values.
“I know lawyers every bit as good as you and Bob who think it was an appropriate decision and that it was not fascism.”
Then you misunderstand my position in re the ACA. I think the mandate essentially forces the public to purchase a privately provided for-profit product creating de facto corporate welfare and that is fascism. At it’s core, the DNC’s and the President’s position when the ACA was challenged was based on an assertion that expanded the outer boundaries of the Commerce Clause, but that isn’t what the case was decided upon. In a startling example of getting the legal reasoning right for once, Roberts counter-argument in the majority opinion upheld the ACA based on valid exercise of taxing powers is sound reasoning (basically that the primary function of the ACA is to impose a tax penalty for not having insurance rather than a mandate it be purchased) albeit sound reasoning that leads to an undesirable outcome unless you are a private for profit health insurance provider. Two paths to the same conclusion, one based in faulty logic, one based in proper logic and both leading to the same undesirable effect in implementation. “Logical” and “correct” and “desirable” are not always the same thing. This is in stark contrast to the bullshit arguments Scalia made in Citizens United which completely ignores basic legal definitions and uses convoluted rationalizing to justify it. But I digress. The mandates concerning coverage required and denying the ability to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions? Aren’t fascism at all.
“Do unions influence the political process? Unions are associations of individuals just like corporations.”
Argument by false and/or incomplete analogy. Corporations and other business entities are in the primary business of making money. Trade unions are at their core not for profit political associations with the primary business of organizing and lobbying. Although I think lobbying overall needs to be severely restricted from the whorehouse it is at the moment (while still allowing for the Right to Petition) and those changes should apply to all lobbying organizations from unions to People For The American Way and the like, the comparison here is apples and oranges.
“A group of citizens can organize and form a corporation to influence the political process so I see no problem with more freedom to do so.”
Then you don’t understand the nature of what corrupts the political process or that corporations – for the thousandth time – are not people and enjoy a distinct and discrete legal existence from that of their members.
There is a way to make all of this a non-issue.
Universal single payer health care insurance.
Like most of the rest of the civilized Western world enjoys and in some cases enjoy as a specifically enumerated constitutional right. Where costs are kept low by having the largest risk pool possible and businesses don’t have a say in health care coverage of their employees at all unless it is to offer supplemental benefits as an incentive.
But nooooooooooo.
Got to protect them insurance company profits! It’d be a huge hit to the fundraising ability of pols otherwise! And as we all know, the Constitution says that making pols rich is the primary job of Congress. Oh. Wait. No, it doesn’t. It says the job of Congress is to look out for the best interests of their constituents. All of their constituents, not just the wealthy and corporate campaign contributors.
But again, I digress.
Bron says: who made health care a right?
Congress, presumably acting on behalf of its citizens, a super-majority of which DO believe health care is a right in the modern world.
Your argument about “who made it a right” implies all Rights are already defined; whether using my philosophy of collective generation of Rights [CG] or you’s guys “State of Nature” [SoN] philosophy; they are not.
In the SoN argument, you have the right to take your chances without health insurance, others have the right to deny you health care. But to live in the society, you can surrender that right for the benefits of society: A larger insurance pool, a nonexistent or manageable level of uninsured workers skewing the prices, an assurance that your life, health and care does not depend on having money well beyond your ability to earn.
In my CG argument, the majority of the collective agrees to grant and protect certain rights, these are defined as laws (constitutional or otherwise) guaranteeing, within their court system, certain privileges or entitlements of all citizens, and punishments for violations. Free speech is one such right, health care (or health insurance availability and affordabilty) can be another.
I could counter your question with “who made free speech a right?” It was just men that identified that Right, Bron, nothing else. Likewise it was just Congressmen that determined health care insurance should be a right.
Bron says: As far as I can tell, it is provided to individuals as part of their compensation or as a way of attracting them to come work for a business.
That is how it has been, and that was found wanting, leading to runaway prices and a LACK of health care in an untenable model. So Congress, doing its job of adapting the country to modern technology and scientific understanding in the treatment of diseases that heretofore simply led to permanent disability or death, identified at least health insurance as a Right.
This is a result of a rather common failure of the free market philosophy; namely that without an imposition from the outside it is effectively impossible to achieve some goals the majority of citizens believe are necessary goals.
For example, in insurance, before the ACA if a company agreed to insure a customer with a pre-existing condition like cancer, they were guaranteed to lose money on that policy. If they unilaterally began to accept patients without any qualification on pre-existing conditions, they would become a singular target for the uninsured with pre-existing conditions that nobody else would insure, and thus be so swamped by such patients they would be driven into bankruptcy. From a business standpoint in that milieu, “doing the right thing” for those with pre-existing conditions is doing the wrong thing for one’s investors and other insured clients, and would quickly become a net harm anyway — After paying out all their capital and reserves for the care of patients with pre-existing conditions and going bankrupt, all their relatively more healthy clients would be left without insurance, their investors would be left without money, and the patients with pre-existing conditions would again be without insurance and unable to buy any, anywhere.
However, if ALL insurance companies are forced by law to stop considering pre-existing conditions, then there is no particular reason for the uninsured with pre-existing conditions to swamp one or the other; no singular targets are created. Competition doesn’t change, all the competitors suddenly have the same new cost to deal with. The entire industry IS able to absorb such patients and pay for their care, even though no single insurer can do it alone. That is also the logic the mandate that everybody have insurance is based upon; increasing the pool of premiums in order to mitigate the risk and share the cost of the few high-cost patients.
Back in the 1700s people accepted that certain diseases or injuries, or even a simple infection, could result in death. But like all living people, the reason they accept such things is because they know, deep down, that nothing could be DONE about it.
But here is the thing about that: What if something CAN be done? People then and now expect that if something CAN be done it SHOULD be done. People then and now believe they have a Right to LIFE, and that if society can save their life it has a moral obligation to try, even if they cannot pay. People then and now believe that when it comes to actual life and death, people should be treated equally, and wealth or lack thereof should not determine who lives and dies.
It is about money, and it is also about intent, and the perception of intent has changed as expertise in medicine has increased. What could not be treated in 1700 can be treated in 2014, so people no longer accept death by such diseases as something they cannot do anything about, they know something can be done, and still think it should be done, that their Right to Life trumps the insurer’s right to profit by denying them treatment.
Rights are defined (both major Rights in the Constitution and minor rights in Law) as we go, partially in order to correct free market failures, and partially to address steady progress in the science of all sorts of fields. In this case, medicinal science. Because I think this is an inherent part of human psychology; as part of being a member of society the vast majority of people believe they have at least a Right to Life, and in keeping with my CG philosophy (which is what I think the majority of people really follow) they think that Right must be enforced and protected by the rest of society; that if society can save an innocent life then society is obligated to try. They think they have earned at least that much consideration by being a member and following the rules and paying their taxes, that they do not deserve to die or suffer so the wealthy jerks at the top of the hill can make a little more profit.
“I cant wait to see what you have to say when Christians are in power and they force women to carry children to term.”
Bron,
Let’s look at another aspect of where your libertarian philosophy leads us. I understand that your “free market” belief is intertwined with the right of business to operate without government restraint gleaned after reading your comments for so many years. Your position on this case is consistent with the views you’ve long expressed. I contend that this vision you’ve developed is a short-sighted one since without restraint on business and capital, the corporate world controls the “rights” of us all. Our Constitution supposedly ensures the right of free expression and this right is considered preeminent. Yet under the aegis of the ALEC organization many State legislatures have begun to pass laws limiting the right to speak out against practices in the agribusiness sector. While you and your co-believers in the libertarian philosophy might feel this is an unreasonable concept to be put into law, your constant support of the “rights” of business as almost absolutes, leads inevitably to such laws. A “free market” cannot exist without government restraint because without that restraint the biggest firms will move to control the market.
What you fail to realize in your quote above is that your philosophy actually would empower those who would take power and impose their religious views on the rest of us because the are backed by the same corporate forces as Hobby Lobby. Your libertarianism will actually lead to the opposite of the freedom you desire and after all these years you can’t get that into your head. You and I agree that people deserve a maximization of their freedom to act and express as they choose. Unfortunately, you have been captured by the meme that “government is the enemy of freedom.” While government may well be the “enemy” at times, it remains only a mechanism to be used for good or ill. The real enemy of individual autonomy is, as it always has been, corruption in the name of wealth and power. Your philosophy enables this corruption by ignoring its reality.
I’ve tried to explain to him before Mike that government is an engineered tool just like any other and that malfunction rests usually in bad intent by those with the most control over the tool and/or poor design.
Bron:“I cant wait to see what you have to say when Christians are in power and they force women to carry children to term.” That is exactly why I continue to strongly oppose fundamentalist christians like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz along with orthodox catholics like Rick Santorum when they run for political office.
Gene:
I wasnt speaking of Obamacare but Citizens United. Which is what I thought you were saying.
In regards to Obamacare I think it is most definitely fascism and worse.
Smom:
and why I oppose Obamacare.
Mike Spindell:
I wrote to a couple of state legislators about the unseemliness of using state funds to pay for Alec memberships.
For me, this isnt about business, take business out of it, this is about individual rights only. I dont think any business has the right to run roughshod over anyone.
I dont think a mining company has a right to spoil private or public waterways, or an oil company to leave a toxic pond behind. There do need to be some regulations protecting the commons and the individual. That is what the Constitution was created to accomplish in conjunction with good science. Many regulations have no scientific basis, others are to give tax or other competitive advantages to one business over another. That is wrong.
I think the bail out of Wall St. was horrible, I think giving tax payer dollars to corporations is terrible.
I think most of this is caused because we have a large, redistributionist government.
I am all for unions and class action lawsuits.
The only things that matter are individual rights, the right to life and property.
Mike Spindell:
Do you really think that I think letting the state stifle dissent is a good thing? Come on.
In all of my reading of history, I have never once seen a corporation set up gas chambers or purposefully starve people to force acceptance of state policies. Now I will readily admit that some corporations are not moral actors but they can be controlled through market forces. We could bring Exxon Mobil to its knees by only buying from Citgo. There is only one DMV and IRS.
I think your ideas will lead to that dystopian future neither one of us wants. As far as I can tell, reality is on my side.
“The only things that matter are individual rights, the right to life and property.”
Too bad for you none of those are protected absolutely by the Constitution.
Again, your dogma has run over your karma.
B,
You said, “So now government can mandate [read use force] employers cover or pay for whatever the government thinks is best?”
Last time I checked Citizens United didn’t address employers paying for squat for employees, so either you were really really confused or you were talking about the ACA and contraceptive coverage in health care insurance plans.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/03/hobby_lobby_contraception_case_briefs_reveal_what_the_religious_right_really.html
“Make no mistake: If Hobby Lobby wins, the fundamentalist views I’ve been detailing (and despairing) win, too. Here’s the cherished ideal that will have its moment of ascendance: Women should welcome pregnancy at any time. Because if that blessing comes, it was divinely intended, and any other goal, at any moment, must yield.
These Supreme Court cases are ostensibly about a few lines in the many pages of Obamacare regulations, but really, they’re about sex and power. As New York Times columnist Gail Collins pointed out last week, “The war on abortion is often grounded in a simple aversion to sex that does not lead to procreation.” The same is true of the war on birth control. It’s supposed to be over, but it’s not. Because according to the segment of the religious right that signed on to these briefs, there is only one way for true women to wield power: by giving it up to become God’s (and their husband’s) handmaidens.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/hobby-lobby-sebelius-contraceptive-for-profit-lawsuits Seventy one other companies don’t want to cover birth control.
“Do you really think that I think letting the state stifle dissent is a good thing? Come on.”
Bron,
As I’ve said before and believe, you are a good man and a decent man. The problem is that you don’t understand how your political beliefs empower those who would stifle dissent. I don’t believe you are for pollution, racism and oppression of unions, etc. However, you don’t get that many of the people who would support those noxious beliefs also consider themselves your allies and many call themselves libertarians. It is all well and good to advocate a humane and just society as I know you do, but you have no conception of the mechanism that would bring that about and it certainly isn’t what many define as a “free market.”
Bron: All rules, regulations, laws and rights ultimately have to end in force. As Charlton has documented, from his own experience, some people will respond to absolutely nothing else. They cannot be reasoned with. They will ignore laws against murder, or Rights to life, or anything else.
Your problem is you want to live a life where nobody ever gets to tell you what to do. Period. Nobody can ever force you to comply with anything. Period. That infantile demand, if met, would mean nobody ever has any “rights,” simply because we could not pay anybody to guarantee people protection regardless of the victim’s ability to pay up.
So by implication what you want is just mercenary anarchy, if you cannot defend yourself, and you cannot pay, and no altruistic benefactor is willing to pay for you, then you are just screwed and without any rights, because rights are not meaningful if they are not protected by overwhelming force against the sociopaths and psychopaths and greedy, brutal thieves.
All one has to do is look to failed regions of the world to know that you cannot count on altruists to arise, but you can count on brutal, murderous, raping warlords to put together gangs of fighters, and then negotiate with each other to divide the land into territories, with implied ownership of full exploitation rights of the people within their territory.
So you will get what you were trying to avoid, a dictator in charge that takes what he wants and you cannot do a damn thing about it. There are no contracts without courts, there are no courts without taxation, there is no taxation without ultimately resorting to force. It isn’t possible to have a government without resorting to coerced enforcement of rules, and any attempt to do so would immediately result in even greater coercion, to the point of enslavement.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/obamacare-could-be-covering-millions-more-blame-rick-perry “According to research by the Commonwealth Fund and the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly 4 million people could be covered by the ACA’s Medicaid expansion but aren’t, because of the political theater of their leading Republican officials.
In many cases, these are states with tighter-than-average Medicaid eligibility, so the ACA’s expansion would do a lot of good. Seven of the ten highest-poverty states are refusing Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion is actually a pretty good deal for states, with federal funds covering most of the cost and lowered expenses related to uninsurance, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
The biggest offender is Rick Perry’s Texas, a huge state with high rates of poverty and uninsurance. More than a million Texans could be benefiting from Medicaid expansion, but apparently that’s less important than Perry’s posturing.”
I am all for government to protect us from wolves, that is what government is for.
Some government is necessary, I am not arguing for no government, I am saying we need a government which is limited. The one we have now is way too big and much too powerful.
Tony C:
I want a life where I dont get told what to do by people who think they know what is good for me. I am smart enough to know what to do and what not to do. I even obey the speed limits and the law of gravity.
Maybe you need to be told what to do, but many adults dont and function pretty well without having a paternalistic government hold their hand and wipe their nose and kiss their boo boo.
Only children are told what to do.
In gravity’s defense, it really doesn’t give you a choice in the matter.
Great discussion Gene.
Swarthmore,
It is criminal that the poorest states have refused the help their own citizens. Their political decision will kill people.
“I am saying we need a government which is limited. The one we have now is way too big and much too powerful.”
Bron,
The devil is in the details. Most libertarians for instance don’t believe in government regulation of things food standards and agriculture. This allows people to be poisoned, waters polluted and possibly the spread of disease.
Thanks, Larry.
Nice job you did covering this topic at the other place as well.
Bron says: I want a life where I dont get told what to do by people who think they know what is good for me. I am smart enough to know what to do and what not to do.
I disagree with laws like that. The vast majority of laws aren’t about what is good for you, they are about what is good for ALL of us. Whether individuals like them is rather immaterial; it is impossible to get a unanimous vote on virtually anything of substance out of 240 million adults.
Your self-centeredness makes you think Health care insurance is about YOU, but it isn’t. It is about society and the people falling through the cracks, that are costing us money and grief, and arguably motivating crime and harm as a result.
I can understand if somebody wants to risk their life or even commit suicide with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or thrill seeking (like skydiving, speed racing, mountain climbing, whatever). As long as there is well-informed consent, I have no moral objection.
But your objections do not fall into that category. Your objection is that you and businesses must follow regulations that prevent you from harming others.
Your objection is not about whether you have the choice to harm yourself, your objection is that you want to be able to offer people a choice that lets you harm them, even to the point of their circumstantial coercion (e.g. if they do not accept your terms that harm them, they will starve, or lose their home, or risk death).
There is a difference. Take the speed limit on the freeway as a simple example. You can see that in two ways: You could say the limit protects drivers from themselves, but to me that is not a compelling reason to have a speed limit at all. If I could be 99.9999% certain that the only person ever harmed in an auto accident would be the driver alone, and never any passengers, bystanders, or people in other cars, I would say eliminate the speed limits. In fact, I support the elimination of speed limits on closed tracks: If you want to try the 200 mph motorcycle in the rain, I think that other than a reasonable precaution that you are in your right mind, not coerced by others or by desperation, and you know you are risking a high probability of death, you should be allowed to do that. Pay for the cleanup of your body parts up front. It isn’t much different than skydiving, Formula One racing, skiing, or mountain climbing without any equipment.
In other words, I am not in favor of imposing and enforcing the speed limit because such limits are good for the driver; saving those lives is incidental to the equation. I am in favor of imposing and enforcing speed limits because drivers can do things that leave others with no choice; the equivalent of coercion or assault or murder. And waiting until that happens and THEN punishing it causes more harm and cost than penalizing speeding, it is the difference between preventive medicine and curative medicine. An ounce of prevention, in this case, is worth a ton of cure; speed limits save the lives of innocents and children and infants.
The Health care insurance debate is the same thing as a speed limit. Any good it does you personally is just an incidental side benefit, the point is preventing the harm and carnage to society. To what extent the ACA does that I cannot be sure yet, but like the speed limit laws, I do not see the point as protecting individuals, the point is to protect the rest of us from them.
As much as your past arguments show a desire to dismiss the idea of a society, you cannot. Individual choices impact upon others that have no choice in the matter, and as much as you want to leave those impacts up to lawsuits and the courts to determine damages, the damage by definition in that scenario is already done. Prevention of damage is less costly than alleviating damage, in fact some damages (like death, permanent disability or the destruction of valued property) cannot be alleviated at all; no amount of money compensates for the loss of a child’s life, or indeed the loss of a great-grandmother’s life.
What you see as people telling you what is good for you is a misinterpretation, in my view. I don’t really care, if people wish to dispose of themselves, eat or drink themselves to death, drug themselves to death or die seeking one more adrenaline rush, they get a free pass from me.
My concern is, and has always been, the prevention of harm, either definite or probable, and either intentional or unintentional, malicious or negligent. Along with the preservation of choice and the ability to walk away from a deal or offer without catastrophic consequence.
Being smart enough to decide for yourself isn’t good enough, because in many such decisions, you are not deciding only for yourself. Your decisions create consequences and thus you are indirectly deciding for others without their consent. That is a necessity of reality; I have no idea what I will encounter on the road if I choose to drive, my choice to drive is going to have some unavoidable influence on everybody else on the roads I drive. They do not choose to have me there, in their way and endangering their lives. That interaction demands we all limit our choices of behavior to some set of fair rules that prevents us from doing harm to each other, or at least minimizes that harm, and the only plausible way to get compliance for such rules is to make them law with punishments for non-compliance.
“Being smart enough to decide for yourself isn’t good enough, because in many such decisions, you are not deciding only for yourself. Your decisions create consequences and thus you are indirectly deciding for others without their consent.”
Tony,
Your entire 5:49am comment from which the quote above was taken is simply brilliant. In America the word “freedom” is so often misused as an excuse for people being allowed to limit other people’s choices. Today among right wing circles it is used as a rallying cry to allow selfish interests the right harm others and thus deprive those “others” of their own choices. All society’s become fragile systems in times of stress. Those purportedly pushing a credo of liberty and freedom have in their propaganda and mythology gone far to destroy America’s concept of itself as a one Society. Weakening of the social bonds that create the feeling of being part of a society ultimately lead to strife and chaos. The destruction wrought by those with too much power who have deliberately led us to this state may in fact lead to their own destruction. As the privileged class of Rome learned those “barbarians” they hired to run their legions soon realized that their power of arms trumped the power of the gold paying their salaries. The “barbarians” concluded why not have both the power and the gold.
99>1
Tony C:
“Your decisions create consequences and thus you are indirectly deciding for others without their consent.”
Should I laugh at this or just shake my head in sadness?
And government regulations create unintended consequences which do harm to real people on a grand scale. Me deciding to eat a cheeseburger harms no one.
Since most government regulations are about tax advantages and competitive advantages for particular businesses at the expense of the individual it seems to me you are supporting the big boys and I am in favor of the little guy. Which is me, I am a little guy. I have no oil wells, no coal mines, no private jet, nor any money in them. The little guy is being margenalized and pushed aside by big government and big corporations using each other, like a hammer and anvil, to smash the individual.
A fusion which ignores the individual and imbibes the state with immutable, tyrannical power.
But hey, if that is what progressives are all about, carry on but dont claim to be for the little guy when your policies support the big boys either in government or business or both.
Bron says: Should I laugh at this or just shake my head in sadness?
Your emotional reaction is not a refutation of my logic.
Bron says: Me deciding to eat a cheeseburger harms no one.
I agree. In fact, I specifically said I don’t care if you want to eat yourself to death, drink yourself to death, or drug yourself to death. I think you should be free to do that. Certainly whatever health consequences there might be for eating a cheeseburger (and I doubt there are any significant ones) are included within my belief you have the right to literally gorge yourself to death.
Bron says: Since most government regulations are about tax advantages and competitive advantages for particular businesses
No they aren’t, that does not constitute “most” regulations at all. To the extent any regulation is purposely designed to help a particular business, or even a particular industry, I object to it and would have it struck down. I think the purpose of government is to impose restrictions upon businesses, not to provide aid to them. Ever.
Bron says: it seems to me you are supporting the big boys and I am in favor of the little guy.
You have that backwards, you support the big guys by letting them take unfair advantage of the little guys, by using their financial power to prevent little guys from getting a foothold, and driving them out of business.
By advocating for no regulations, you support the big guys against the little guys in a no-holds-barred fight. Big companies with lots of money can crush little guys in a whole lot of ways, including nuisance lawsuits and false patent claims and just violating patents and copyrights with near impunity because they have an army of lawyers to delay endlessly. Microsoft is the poster boy for that kind of thing; look at what they did to Netscape (and got away with doing to Netscape). The big corporations would do far MORE of that if they were not regulated.
Bron says: imbibes the government
You mean “imbues,” and no it doesn’t.
Bron says: carry on but dont claim to be for the little guy when your policies support the big boys
I DO claim to be for the little guys, because I believe the government and law has the duty to ensure commerce is a game played fairly, and regulate companies to ensure they are competing on merit, meaning some mix of sustainable price, quality, service, guarantee, ethos and / or prestige or brand identification.
I do not believe large companies should be allowed to sell at a loss to drive competitors out of business, I do not believe companies should be allowed to engage in false advertising about themselves OR their competitors, I do not believe companies should be allowed to lie about the ingredients or content of their product, or lie about its efficacy. I do not believe companies should be allowed to hide the dangers of their product, or use dangerous or carcinogenic ingredients, or endanger workers, investors, customers or the public in any way. No regulation means no holds barred, and in such circumstances the meanest, baddest, richest dudes win, because people with morals cannot compete against people without them.
That should be obvious to you, but apparently is not. A person with morals has constraints and things they will not do just to win. A person without morals, a sociopath, has no such constraints, and therefore a much larger palette of actions with which to compete. Sociopathy is an advantage in business, that is why so many businesses implicitly encourage it — It is profitable. Which brings me to the finale; business regulation should always be aimed at eliminating or minimizing profit by harm, and never aimed at protecting or increasing profit, either for an individual company or for an industry. Any regulation that makes a particular business or industry more profitable (like the ACA does) is most likely a bad or corrupt regulation that should be eliminated or could be much improved.
The only exception to that, in my mind, is protectionism; I think we do eliminate or minimize profit by harm if we exclude products from this country produced in circumstances that would violate our own work and product safety laws. Such products should not be allowed in this country, they represent competition against domestic businesses on a non-level playing field.
good conversation… may it do good work.
One point that I didn’t see addressed is the essential Constitutional notion of the Secular State, vs having religion intertwined in the affairs of the state. Commonly known as the separation of church and state.
Look how desperately those who have even limited power, such as these employers over their small set of employees, would impose their own beliefs upon them. Imagine that mindset being an essential part of our governance. (And note how strong the attempt is to achieve that outcome is these days. And more concerning is how often it is succeeding these days. But all that for another post.)
Of course there is much to be said about this. In summary I say it would be (and is) the triumph of small minds. To the degree that this small mind is given power it destroys life and thinking and possibilities beyond its little scope and frame of reference. It requires adherence to its beliefs and structures as a first condition; as such the small mind prohibits any thoughts or explorations that might limit, or contradict those pre-defined core beliefs. Torpor ensues. A “dark ages” descends.
Beyond all the other excellent discussion in this thread, and the larger discussion of this issue vis a vis the S.Court and other forums… this is,in my pov, essentially an issue of religion and its fundamental need to conform all else to its own fundamental ideas and beliefs.
Religion not only wont stop until it achieves its goals – no matter how long it takes or decisively beaten it is along the way – it cannot stop. Its core belief is that it has the truth. No matter how ever else it engages the conversation it holds this to be the truth… and as such there is no real room for debate, only acceptance of its position.
Thus, for just one example, the relentless one note drone of creationists in the face of all evidence and intellectual, scientific defeat.
The hypocrisy that G. surfaced above does not phase them at all. Why would it? They are doing Gods work, and thus are immune from such petty things as hypocritical actions or any requirement for congruent thinking… as long as it serves “God’s” purposes…Which… strangely, so often turn out to be their own….
michaelbeaton: I don’t think it is about religion, really. Religion is a tool of oppression and always has been; it threads a path through error-filled evolved rationality muddled by emotions to find the Achilles’ Heel of the human mind; an infinite reward for an unprovable premise, combined with social pressure, itself evolved by 50,000 years of trial and error to win fervent allegiance to MEN throwing their voice into the sockpuppet of God.
The issue is just the egomaniacal desire for power and control over other humans. If it weren’t for religion, it would be something else. There are people that just want to be the King, and if that means being the King of their few thousand employees, that’s enough. Cult leaders, Politicians, CEOs, Warlords, Dictators, Crime bosses, Gang leaders, Chiefs, whatever, it has been a trait of some humans as long as there have been humans, no religion required. But religion, once discovered and refined, has been a very handy tool for them.
Neither do I. These people are not really all that concerned with the spiritual elements of a Christian or even religious life.
It is as you said… a tool. Religion happens to be a particularly effective tool when engaging issues of thought, power, and control.
To that end while it may be true …”… it would be something else”, even the list of would be ‘kings’ you identify are made all the more powerful when religion is part of what they do.
This is not a particularly unique idea. It is worked out in full in Toynbee, and is the essential cornerstone to our own political constitutional system.
You say ‘no religion required’… I reply that that may be true as far as it goes… but it is pouring concrete without rocks or rebar… it still works, but not as well, or as long …. when you add religion into the power grab, as I posit is precisely what is happening here , it is more effective.
BTW, religion does not mean go to church. Nor even an actually held set of beliefs, – as Gene pointed out in the hypocrisy bit – it just has to be power enough to force others to bear it.
Which is why, I posit, that the framers did not allow a state church to be established as part of the republic.
— Separate note: About the petitioners… they were chosen to carry this case as Justice Sotemeyer pointed out.
It isnt about belief, but power
And it isnt about life, it is about control.
Tony: “Religion is a tool of oppression and always has been; it threads a path through error-filled evolved rationality muddled by emotions to find the Achilles’ Heel of the human mind; an infinite reward for an unprovable premise, combined with social pressure, itself evolved by 50,000 years of trial and error to win fervent allegiance to MEN throwing their voice into the sockpuppet of God.”
Ah Tony, you are indeed an amusing solipsist; surfing that wave of metaphysical certitude of yours.
Don’t forget us!