Posted on 02/17/2012 7:56:25 AM PST by WPaCon
The recent Obama mandate for universal birth control gave the Republicans an opportunity to fight for individual liberty -- and they missed it by a mile. Instead of attacking government-imposed health care as a violation of liberty, they only selected a minute fraction of the leviathan and subjected it to very narrow criteria. This was an opportunity to aim for the heart of ObamaCare, but critics asked for only a minor adjustment -- and that's all they got.
Government-mandated health care violates individual rights. The objection of Catholics to the funding of contraceptives is just one example of forcing people to fund and purchase the government health plan. Catholics aren't the only ones who have rights. Everyone -- including atheists -- has rights. Any basis or no basis at all is legitimate to opt out of funding and accepting a government program. There is no reason why an employer, or better yet, an employee can't contract for the exact health insurance that fits his or her needs.
The recent uproar by conservatives gives the impression that only the religious have rights. How about the rest of us? What if an agnostic objects to elements of government laws on principle or, perhaps, merely on a prudential basis? There was an opportunity to put the whole government-run health care system in the crosshairs. A passionate defense of individual rights could have and should have been the emphasis. But this wasn't important to conservatives. What did they do instead?
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
This particular event had considerable campaign value in establishing that the Acolytes of the AntiChrist are, in fact, anti-Catholic and anti-Christian.
We knew that already but the Bishops did seem a bit wobbly on the point.
In the long run the Obots still have to get annual appropriations through Congress even if nothing else happens to their little law. Plus, Obama won't be President 11 months from now. Harry Reid won't be minority leader. Joe Biden won't be Vice President. The MSM will be further out of business, and more Americans than ever will have guns and the right to tote them about protecting themselves.
The Bishops threw Catholic employers under the bus.
They never made it to the stadium or suited up for the game.
“The recent Obama mandate for universal birth control gave the Republicans an opportunity to fight for individual liberty”
Firsly, republicans would have to be conservative and actually understand conservatism in order to fight for individual liberty, and they are not.
Secondly, the republicans don’t fight for a damn thing.
Does John Boner look like a fighter to you?
He looks like a stinking, little sissy boy to me.
How about Mighty Mouse Mitch McConnel? Lindsey Graham? John McCain?
Anywho, that’s where we are.
Republicans in my opinion jumped on the Catholic Birth control mandate issue specifically because they saw what they thought was an opening in getting masses of Catholics behind them in opposing Obama-care as a religous liberty issue. The jury is still out but it looks like Republicans could end up stuck in a trap alone being portrayed as taking away women's contraceptives, which is a great campaign issue for Dems. Where are the Catholic Religious liberty Tea party rallies Bishops? You ever want support again?
Similarly they selected the personal mandates part of Obama-care because it looked like low lying fruit.
RE : “The recent uproar by conservatives gives the impression that only the religious have rights. How about the rest of us? What if an agnostic objects to elements of government laws on principle or, perhaps, merely on a prudential basis? There was an opportunity to put the whole government-run health care system in the cross-hairs. A passionate defense of individual rights could have and should have been the emphasis. But this wasn't important to conservatives. What did they do instead?”
I made the same point many times. Why can I be forced to buy ‘insurance’ (its not really insurance) that gives benefits that are of absolutely no use to me at all and are targeted to those who Dems think will swing the election, just because I am not part of a church business wise?
Alternatively, politicians forcing employers to give specific voters goodies while claiming it cost nothing to anyone, and claiming it's part of those specific voters rights, is a very powerful political lure to get votes.
I’ve been saying all week that people were getting conned by just going after this teeney part of Obamacare.
That’s the part I don’t fathom: Catholic organizations that object to being forced to pay for killing babies, but are willing to sit quietly and allow others to be forced to do the same.
Unfortunately, they are not right.
Conservatives will win and lose in court. They will win on the issue of the Commerce Clause; they will lose on the 16th Amendment tax argument.
And in this game if one wins on 9 points but loses on one point, then they lose period.
My opinion is not an opinion, it is the playbook the Left is using; the same playbook used by FDR lawyers in the 1930s to defend Social Security. The Left knows exactly what they are doing.
The problem is the current understanding and implementation of the “general welfare” clause. Somehow, it come to be interpreted that the federal government can use it as a tool to take control of virtually everything that goes on in the country. I hold that we need to actually go back and think about what the founders would have meant by “the general welfare”. I maintain that, given our founding documents and what they were escaping from in terms of the tyranny of England, their view of the general welfare had primarily to do with the preservation of LIBERTY, not redistribution of wealth, and certainly not collectivist dreams such as mandatory, socialized medicine.
obamacare is already a done deal. The SC will not overturn any part of it. The republicans were elected in 2010 to defund obamacare. What happened? Has anyone asked Hannity? sarc
In fact, I believe the SC will rule just before the election making obama “right”. This will make him an even bigger god to those who worship him and adding a whole lot more worshippers at the same time.
With that said, not having “insurance” for everyone is not the problem. It’s lousy doctors and rip off hospitals.
if i actually believed that the other wing of the tyranny-saurus bird, known as the rino-o-p wasnt cheering the power of bambamcare, id believe that they were 'stupid' and 'inept' in their pitiful shot across the bow...
allowing all the outrageous crap in this *law* and its edicts, while channeling ALL of their energy into 'contraception' is a joke...
raw power, that of *legal* life and death of both the unborn, and eventually the 'undesirables' of all ages is the goal of politics these days...
“Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. The let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him onto the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the ‘cause’, in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours — and the more ‘religious’ (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here.” — C.S. Lewis, from The Screwtape Letters
You said....
“Alternatively, politicians forcing employers to give specific voters goodies while claiming it cost nothing to anyone, and claiming it’s part of those specific voters rights, is a very powerful political lure to get votes.”
And difficult for any politician to oppose
This whole religious rights rhubarb is just a nice little wedge issue. It's a way to back-handedly diss the liberal bishops by defending their religious liberty and thus keep them from delivering as many Catholic votes to Zero this time around.
But the author is right: the real issue is not religious liberty. It's liberty, period.
YEP
Thanks sickoflibs
good to *see* ya Brother SJB...!!!
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