Posted on 02/10/2012 7:45:50 AM PST by xzins
The Obama administration will attempt to accommodate religious groups that are unhappy with a new mandate that forces them to offer health insurance that covers contraceptive methods.
With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that fully covers birth control coverage, ABC News has learned that later today the White House — possibly President Obama himself — will likely announce an attempt to accommodate these religious groups.
The move, based on state models, will almost certainly not satisfy bishops and other religious leaders since it will preserve the goal of women employees having their birth control fully covered by health insurance.
Read more: http://www.700wlw.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104707&article=9741902#ixzz1lzdiipHz
Well, it is a law. Congress regularly authorizes some department to do the heavy lifting of implementing the law. Did HHS HAVE to do it this way? No. But this is what this little dance is all about. They are going to OWN us thru our medical treatment.
In this particular law, I personally fight it and urge others to ignore it in so far as possible.
I just hate it but there it is...
place,mark
We are supposed to be a nation of laws. Once the President has the power to “adjust” a law or change its enforcement by dictate, then we become subject to the will of the President, rather than the will of the people.
Of course in this case a bill was passed into law without those voting actually reading what would be contained in the law. The dictates of the “intelligentsia” demanded that health care for all be established as a “right”, whether it infringed on religious or individual rights actually contained in the Constitution.
This is socialism crawling, kicking, screaming, scheming it was toward the destruction of the form of government established by the Constitution.
In high school back in the early 1960’s we studied a book entitled “The Masks of Communism”. It explained that communist goals are achieved by proposing a radical idea, getting a reaction, and then settling on a compromise that still promoted communism (socialism). The radical idea was called a “thesis”. The reaction was called the “anti-thesis”. The compromise was called the “synthesis”. You are seeing the “synthesis” that still promotes the denial of individual religious rights, but mollifies the public. None of this is for the good.
The Administrative Branch is choosing which laws to enforce, and which to ignore. The discussion and pronouncements from the press continually express the power of the Administrative Branch as having the power of a dictator or king, none of which is contained in the Constitution.
Hence this branch of government is establishing the right of the President to dictate to the people, just as the federal government gave itself the right to dictate to the states. this came about when we started selecting senators by popular vote, rather than the states selecting senators to represent the rights of the home state.
On another front,immigration laws are on the books, enforce them. When any ruling authority chooses not to enforce laws duly passed and established as the law of the land, that ruling authority becomes dictatorial.
Are we destined to follow the path of Rome and establish a “Caesar” and our legislative bodies become nothing but a rubber stamp for our Presidents will? Our Founding Fathers warned us about this possibility, and established a form of government that would prevent this from happening. Then little by little rulings from the Judicial Branch have eroded states rights and individual rights to the point that the Republic called for in our Constitution is in danger of being converted to a socialist dictatorship.
Oh so very true, dear brother xzins! Insurance is designed to meet unforeseen emergencies, not to pay for routine goods and services that we want and can plan for — and in most cases can afford to pay for.
I am very perplexed by the language being tossed around about Obama's "mandate" and his supposed "accommodation" of "religious conscience."
The "mandate" is supposed to be about women's "rights" to make decisions about their own "healthcare," and to have them implemented at no cost to themselves. But if a healthy mother terminates a pre-born child, how can it be said that the termination had anything to do with her "health?" Let's be clear about this: Most of these babies are being sacrificed either for convenience or financial reasons, not for reasons of the mother's "health."
The funny thing is, if this is really about women's free "healthcare" choices, then why are the services being offered "for free" (i.e., with no deductibles or co-insurance) only those that relate to the prevention or termination of pregnancies? Are such services as fertility drugs, artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization also offered "for free?" I don't think so. Women are being subsidized only when they make anti-life choices, not pro-life ones.
Plus Obama's "accommodation" of "religious conscience" would be laughable, were it not so dangerous. In effect, he is creating a universal public benefit for women, and sticking the bill to the private sector — i.e., the insurance companies — to "accommodate" the religious conscience of those employers who opt out of insuring choices and behaviors that are antithetical to the deepest principles and convictions of their religious belief. The President entirely lacks constitutional authority to do this. He cannot just willy-nilly commandeer private sector resources to pay for his failed pet projects, "with a stroke of the pen." He has zero constitutional warrant in this regard.
Plus has Obama ever considered it possible that if an employer can get off the hook for insuring these "free services" to its women employees on the grounds of "religious conscience," that all of the sudden a whole lot of employers are going to have "religious conversions of conscience" in order to stick the bill to someone else?
It looks to me that Obama's proposal, in addition to being totally irrational, is thoroughly unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds (for it prohibits the free exercise of religious belief and expression) and Fifth Amendment grounds ("nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation").
Jeepers, I really think this dude is a madman....
Thank you so much, dear brother in Christ, for your wonderfully insightful essay/post!
How 65 Million people, our friends, family and neighbors BTW, voted for this guy is beyond my comprehension.
Obama has turned out to be everything we knew he would be and worse. The fact that his outrageous Unconstitutional acts have not brought scorn and contempt from the American people only proves how far our Country has fallen.
We have what amounts to a Government controlled Media doing their best to protect the American version of Hugo Chavez and the ignorant masses are too lazy to seek out the truth.
Pray for America, if Obama lets you that is. (hyperbole?)
I understand what Washington does - I’m not disagreeing with yoy that Washington has self defined what they will do -
My point is - a law should be sufficiently defined - that if someone took it to the Supreme Court - it could be found unconstitutional.
In this case - they wish to circumvent inspection - by not legislating the specifics. Then there is nothing to sue them for - because “the law” is insufficiently specific.
Then - they make up whatever they want.
It is pure BS - and invites open disrespect for the non-law.
This is tyranny - pure and simple.
Oh, no, sister Betty, you've opened another whole can of worms.
Where is the line-items for adoption services, free sonograms for pregnant women to view their pre-birth babies, for counseling about the dangers of abortion and breast cancer, abortion and depression?
Mind you, the government shouldn't be forcing these on anyone, either, but "women's services" are women's services. Goose/Gander and all that stuff. There truly is an imbalance there.
The bottom line with the new accomodation is that the church pays for a policy that still enables abortion and pre-abortion services. That is a violation of the 1st amendment.
An accomodation would be that the church can provide a perfectly satisfactory plan based on its beliefs.
Any additional coverage would be separately contracted by individuals on their own outside of that policy.
This is tyranny - pure and simple.
That, sir, it very much is.
Wish I knew how to turn this tide...
Indeed. And that "imbalance" speaks volumes about the entire point of the exercise: To inexorably discredit and efface the right to life of the pre-born as anything worthy of constitutional protection, in order to "liberate women" — for the "right" to abortion services is what is needed to make them "equal" to men. At least, that is the radical, "progressive" feminist view....
Evidently, radical feminists believe that Nature dealt women bad cards. Men can be as irresponsible with regard to their sexual behavior as they want to be, without having to pay much of a "price" (other than STDs or paternity suits). But when a woman is sexually irresponsible, there is a high degree of likelihood that she will conceive an actual child, and bear it in her womb for nine months; and then have to take care of it (with or without the help of its father) when it is born. The "level playing field" of male–female "equality" requires that this "injustice" RE: the "inequality" of responsibility as between the sexes for the unplanned-for child must be expunged. Which is readily achieved, through the "sacrament" of abortion....
[Of course, male–female bonding and the system of the natural human family has evolved to protect and nurture children as a shared responsibility of both mothers and fathers. But I gather any such old-fashioned notion as this is simply beneath the contempt of radical feminists....]
The radical feminist position utterly denies both Life and human nature. Nature intends human sexuality as the means of propagating new members of the human species. This is the "prime directive" of sex. [On this basis, I can only wonder what to call what gay folks do with each other: Since their acts can never produce progeny in principle, I strongly doubt that "sex" is the proper word for it.]
Of course, people have noticed that the sexual act is highly pleasurable in itself, quite apart from any intent to procreate. But on that score, can we not simply acknowledge that sexual intercourse is a "risky business?" And that when a person is engaged in risky business, they are the ones responsible for accepting the outcomes, even those not desired?
The only other alternative is to "socialize" the risks of irresponsible action by transferring their costs to policyholders and taxpayers. This can only guarantee more irresponsible actions by adults who ought to know better.
But it seems we can't have honest conversations about this subject anymore; the descriptive language — e.g., "women's health," "women's rights" — has been totally traduced by the political Left and (to me at least) is completely unintelligible. The language of public discourse these days is stuck in the mode of radical feminist progressivist ideological political correctness. As such, it has lost all contact with the actual reality in which people actually live and suffer....
I could go on; but I'll put a sock in it for now....
FWIW Thank you ever so much, dear brother in Christ, for your outstanding essay/post!
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.
I have leftard family, and leftardism goes all the way to top “intllectual” circles. I used to think “why don’t they understand a basic rational argument”. The reason is = they are irrational. They just - are.
In order to communicate with these people - we actually have to present irrational arguments. We have to communicate “to the audience” - not in our communication style - but in theirs. Feelings based silliness is what will work for the target audience.
I’m not really sure how to do that just yet - but that is how to do it. It takes forever to figure it out - but once you see it - perfectly obvious.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.
I have leftard family, and leftardism goes all the way to top “intllectual” circles. I used to think “why don’t they understand a basic rational argument”. The reason is = they are irrational. They just - are.
In order to communicate with these people - we actually have to present irrational arguments. We have to communicate “to the audience” - not in our communication style - but in theirs. Feelings based silliness is what will work for the target audience.
I’m not really sure how to do that just yet - but that is how to do it. It takes forever to figure it out - but once you see it - perfectly obvious.
Just as I pressed send - watching stupid “Criminal Minds” show -
Last quote -
“Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be converted by it”.
Ayn Rand
Kind of funny - I think I am so smart - and she just has a throwaway line. She had already been there. Better pick up my game.
Thank you for a great post, sister, and also for the tidbit above that is so often overlooked. In it lies the answer that the ages have discovered is the best way to balance the "inequality of the sexes".
The God-created biological urge, and the God-created, amazing pleasure associated with sex, and the God-originated explanation that man was without a NEEDED partner until woman was created, are the protections women have in this issue of children and sexuality. This wisdom of the ages, despite the radical feminists' reality defying distortions of "freedom", provides both woman and child with protection and sustenance. Moreover, it provide man with the bonding, affection, and the "one who has his back" that he so desperately, and sometimes unknowingly, craves.
If there is NO WAY to fulfill one's biological drive, if no way to experience that awesome pleasure, and no way to achieve that bonding OTHER THAN through the commitment of real marriage, then men would submit to that reality, because acquiring those benefits is so dear to everything conscious, subconscious, and subliminal in their very nature.
Women are protected by the bonds of marriage and not by the ability to kill their babies or to birth them out of wedlock. Men are fulfilled by marriage to their life partner. And children are launched through birth into a nurturing and protective home led by strong men and strong women.
A woman's best protection is now -- and always has been -- chastity until marriage.
Any other message is an effort to sexually exploit a woman.
Thank you for sharing your insights!
...Yes, we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child's game.... Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves.... And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil. Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in the other world, it certainly would not be for such as they....Here we see contempt for life; contempt for souls; contempt for God; a sick social order premised on a Lie.
Obama's healthcare mandate of free universal contraception/abortion services is effectively the state's permission, even encouragement to women to sin against Nature and Nature's God....
But it is clearly unconstitutional (not that Obama cares about that). It must not be allowed to stand.
A leader who knows Who God IS could not support such a thing.
I pray earnestly for a President who leads on his knees before God.
betty: Here we see contempt for life; contempt for souls; contempt for God; a sick social order premised on a Lie.
Alan Roebuck, author of A Nation that Honors Sin agrees with you, as do I. Read his article here:
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2011/08/05/a-nation-that-honors-sin/
Thank you for the link, dear spirited irish!
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