While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

[Woodsman]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

There is no logical reason to oppose the ruling if one accepts that people should be afforded the right to believe whatever they wish to believe and act accordingly.

The same court ruled in 1990 that Native Americans had no right to use Peyote in their religious ceremonies. In Employment Div. v. Smith. 494 U.S. 872 (1990), the Supremes ruled that The Free Exercise Clause permits the State to prohibit sacramental peyote use, and thus to deny unemployment benefits to persons discharged for such use.

Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court and wrote that religious people had no presumptive exemption from general laws. As long as the law wasn't specifically directed against a religious group and was “neutral and generally applicable”—the Constitution offered no religious exemption. Little wonder so many seem confused about the court's logic in Hobby Lobby, inasmuch as they turned logic, the law and Constitution it on its head and inside out in order to get the outcomes they wanted. Whereas in 1990 no actual person (natural, God created entities in possession of divine spirit) has the right to exempt themselves from law based on claims of religious faith and practice, they now rule that fictional persons (corporations, dead and soulless creatures of law) indeed have the right to exempt themselves from laws based on claims of religion.

When the respondents were peyote eating Native Americans practicing their religion in private, the court thought there was every logical reason to place limits on persons acting on their religious beliefs when they were contrary to generally applied law. When respondents are rich, white, straight Christians who want to force relatively poor and powerless employees - never mind the whole of the country - to accommodate their their religions beliefs, they reverse themselves.

This case was never about religious freedom.

[jk]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

jk, you aren't utilizing language appropriately and that is probably why you are confused. The Hobby Lobby decision has restricted and denied absolutely nobody any health care coverage. No restrictions have been placed on what people can receive from insurance, and no control over one's health care coverage has been given to an employer as a result of this decision.

Why can't people see this decision for what it is? It is purely and entirely an exemption in a legal mandate for religious reasons. That's it. It's nothing more. It doesn't prevent anyone from getting any coverage they want. It doesn't restrict people employed by certain religious employers from receiving health care coverage. All this decision does is take the gun away from the head of employers on one of the thousands of legal mandates placed upon them. That's it.

If someone believes that all health insurance is against their religion, let them operate on that belief. What possible harm can come from that? So long as people are not defrauded and made to believe that they will receive health coverage from their employer when actually they will not, we are left with simple voluntary association. People will voluntarily work for no health coverage in innumerable circumstances, just as they would work for any wage rate from $0.00 to the current or any proposed minimum wage. There is no harm in allowing people to accept those deals, but there can be significant harm in making illegal the voluntary economic association between two consenting adults.

The people interested in controlling others and their health care decisions are those who rail against the Hobby Lobby decision. There is no logical reason to oppose the ruling if one accepts that people should be afforded the right to believe whatever they wish to believe and act accordingly.

i can't quite tell is your post is meant as very dry satire. if not, i just want to point out that we don't live in an ayn rand novel, but in the real-life united states of america. i will add that this country is the only developed country in which the provision of health insurance is based on the choices provided by the employer. there is no other country with this curious arrangement, and this arrangement has consequences. thus there are mandates that employers over a certain size provide health care insurance, and that said insurance provide a certain minimum standard of coverage. hobby lobby has over $2billion/year in revenue, and a commensurate number of employees. as for voluntary association, i suggest you go down to your local unemployment office, and do a survey about how the people in line there conceive of their potential relationship with a currently non-existent employer. i'd really like to hear what they have to tell you.

[Ghent12]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

i still want to know whether hobby-lobby-decision supporters think christian scientists should be able to refuse to offer health insurance altogether? and if not, why not? and should jehovahs witnesses be able to exclude coverage for transfusions? and if not, why not? those are sincerely held religious beliefs.

i think these questions are being avoided because they show the contradictions between an employer-based healthcare system, which we have, and the newly awarded [by 5-4] ability of corporate "persons" to restrict health coverage based on the religious beliefs of their owners.

so. what are the answers? please enlighten me.

jk, you aren't utilizing language appropriately and that is probably why you are confused. The Hobby Lobby decision has restricted and denied absolutely nobody any health care coverage. No restrictions have been placed on what people can receive from insurance, and no control over one's health care coverage has been given to an employer as a result of this decision.

Why can't people see this decision for what it is? It is purely and entirely an exemption in a legal mandate for religious reasons. That's it. It's nothing more. It doesn't prevent anyone from getting any coverage they want. It doesn't restrict people employed by certain religious employers from receiving health care coverage. All this decision does is take the gun away from the head of employers on one of the thousands of legal mandates placed upon them. That's it.

If someone believes that all health insurance is against their religion, let them operate on that belief. What possible harm can come from that? So long as people are not defrauded and made to believe that they will receive health coverage from their employer when actually they will not, we are left with simple voluntary association. People will voluntarily work for no health coverage in innumerable circumstances, just as they would work for any wage rate from $0.00 to the current or any proposed minimum wage. There is no harm in allowing people to accept those deals, but there can be significant harm in making illegal the voluntary economic association between two consenting adults.

The people interested in controlling others and their health care decisions are those who rail against the Hobby Lobby decision. There is no logical reason to oppose the ruling if one accepts that people should be afforded the right to believe whatever they wish to believe and act accordingly.

[shiny!]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

Bill Curry, a former Clinton democrat, take on what his party needs to do . . .

This is excellent. Thanks, don.

[lektrode]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

Originally Posted by Woodsman I'll second that.

Thank you, gentlemen. That means a lot to me.

3rd.
VERY NICELY DONE, ms Shiny!

with an honorable mention to:

Bill Curry, a former Clinton democrat, take on what his party needs to do . . .

.. Still, liberals dream of retaking Congress as the Tea Party dreams of retaking the White House: by being pure. Democratic elites are always up for compromise, but on the wrong issues. Rather than back GOP culture wars, as some do, or foreign wars, as many do, or big business, as nearly all do, they should back libertarians on privacy, small business on credit and middle-class families on taxes.

and i remain
a 'small-r' type, formerly/proudly of The Live Free or Die State

[shiny!]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

I'll second that.

Thank you, gentlemen. That means a lot to me.

[Woodsman]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

+1
Thank you Shiny.
Yours is a voice of reason and obvious good will with concern for equity and the interests of all.

I'll second that.

[don]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

Bill Curry, a former Clinton democrat, take on what his party needs to do . . .

One reason we know voters will embrace populism is that they already have. It’s what they thought they were getting with Obama. In 2008 Obama said he’d bail out homeowners, not just banks. He vowed to fight for a public option, raise the minimum wage and clean up Washington. He called whistle-blowers heroes and said he’d bar lobbyists from his staff. He was critical of drones and wary of the use of force to advance American interests. He spoke eloquently of the threats posed to individual privacy by a runaway national security state.

He turned out to be something else altogether. To blame Republicans ignores a glaring truth: Obama’s record is worst where they had little or no role to play. It wasn’t Republicans who prosecuted all those whistle-blowers and hired all those lobbyists; who authorized drone strikes or kept the NSA chugging along; who reneged on the public option, the minimum wage and aid to homeowners. It wasn’t even Republicans who turned a blind eye to Wall Street corruption and excessive executive compensation. It was Obama.

A populist revolt among Democrats is unlikely absent their reappraisal of Obama, which itself seems unlikely. Not since Robert Kennedy have Democrats been so personally invested in a public figure. Liberals fell hardest so it’s especially hard for them to admit he’s just not that into them. If they could walk away they might resume their relationship with Nader. Of course that won’t be easy.

Populism isn’t just liberalism on steroids; it too demands compromise. After any defeat, a party’s base consoles itself with the notion that if its candidates were pure they’d have won. It’s never true; most voters differ with both parties. Still, liberals dream of retaking Congress as the Tea Party dreams of retaking the White House: by being pure. Democratic elites are always up for compromise, but on the wrong issues. Rather than back GOP culture wars, as some do, or foreign wars, as many do, or big business, as nearly all do, they should back libertarians on privacy, small business on credit and middle-class families on taxes.

[vinoveri]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

Hobby Lobby highlighted a serious problem with the current healthcare law: Religions have different, strongly held beliefs concerning when life begins, even how life is defined. There are other religious beliefs at stake as well, such as the ones you and I mentioned.

Whether it's a company refusing to provide a service on religious grounds, or an employee wanting a service that their employer objects to on religious grounds, no one wants someone else's religious beliefs imposed upon them- especially by force of law, and especially when it involves something as private as our own bodies and as personal as our relationship with our Higher Power, if we choose to have one. We are a republic, not a theocracy. And that's the problem when government tries to manage our private, personal matters as it does with the ACA.

Likewise I can respect people not wanting their tax dollars used for drugs and medical procedures that offend their religious beliefs, just as conscientious objectors don't want their tax dollars used to finance wars. Religious objections would only grow under single payer. The more that government intrudes into people's private lives, the more people are going to fight to make their beliefs the law of the land. There will be no end to it. The end result will be balkanization.

There isn't ever going be a perfect solution that satisfies everyone. As the libertarians are fond of saying, "Utopia is not an option." I think we should admit failure, ditch the ACA as well as the I in FIRE and go in the opposite direction:

1. Limit the federal government's control over our private lives and businesses. Stop it from trying be all things to all people. Restrict it to the things it's supposed to control: borders, defense, infrastructure, treaties, issuance of currency...

2. Make medical care affordable again, like it was before government and insurance companies took it over and made it unaffordable. What has caused medical care to become so expensive? A lot of the reasons don't have anything to do with healthcare. They have to do with inflationary monetary policy, special interests, campaign financing, regulatory capture, lack of term limits, etc. Fix those problems and we'll be fixing a lot more than an unaffordable healthcare system.

3. Separate insurance from employment. If employers want to offer insurance as an incentive, they can offer what they like and employees can purchase supplemental plans for whatever they want that isn't covered. And if people don't agree with a company's philosophy they can hopefully find a job elsewhere and shop elsewhere as well.

4. Create a system of plentiful low cost health clinics at the state and local levels. With a greatly reduced federal government we could afford it.

5. Use insurance for catastrophic events; for everything else, keep the medical relationship and financial transactions between patients and their doctors, where it used to be.

6. Look at systems in other countries and learn from their successes as well as their mistakes.

Perhaps I'm wearing rose-colored glasses about the good old days, but it sure beat the Big Government/Big Pharma/FIRE system we have today! Our current system is not only guaranteed to divide and offend as many people as possible, it's insanely expensive, bloated, and dehumanizing. It's an enormous tail wagging the dog. Perhaps even worse for the longterm, it's forcing the courts to make decisions that could have terrible ramifications for years to come. As long as we keep trying to fix something so broken by adding more caveats and addendums, we're only going to have worse and worse insanity.

Is there any candidate from either party thinking along these lines? Certainly not Liz or Hillary. The Left wants big government controlling health care. The Right wants FIRE controlling it. No one seems to want patients and doctors controlling it.

+1
Thank you Shiny.
Yours is a voice of reason and obvious good will with concern for equity and the interests of all.

[Slimprofits]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

i think these questions are being avoided because they show the contradictions...

Folks, we have a winner!!!

[shiny!]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

i still want to know whether hobby-lobby-decision supporters think christian scientists should be able to refuse to offer health insurance altogether? and if not, why not? and should jehovahs witnesses be able to exclude coverage for transfusions? and if not, why not? those are sincerely held religious beliefs.

i think these questions are being avoided because they show the contradictions between an employer-based healthcare system, which we have, and the newly awarded [by 5-4] ability of corporate "persons" to restrict health coverage based on the religious beliefs of their owners.

so. what are the answers? please enlighten me.

Women take them to prevent pregnancy no doubt. In any case, there effectiveness results in the deliberate termination of an innocent human life (blastocyst).

Hobby Lobby highlighted a serious problem with the current healthcare law: Religions have different, strongly held beliefs concerning when life begins, even how life is defined. There are other religious beliefs at stake as well, such as the ones you and I mentioned.

Whether it's a company refusing to provide a service on religious grounds, or an employee wanting a service that their employer objects to on religious grounds, no one wants someone else's religious beliefs imposed upon them- especially by force of law, and especially when it involves something as private as our own bodies and as personal as our relationship with our Higher Power, if we choose to have one. We are a republic, not a theocracy. And that's the problem when government tries to manage our private, personal matters as it does with the ACA.

Likewise I can respect people not wanting their tax dollars used for drugs and medical procedures that offend their religious beliefs, just as conscientious objectors don't want their tax dollars used to finance wars. Religious objections would only grow under single payer. The more that government intrudes into people's private lives, the more people are going to fight to make their beliefs the law of the land. There will be no end to it. The end result will be balkanization.

There isn't ever going be a perfect solution that satisfies everyone. As the libertarians are fond of saying, "Utopia is not an option." I think we should admit failure, ditch the ACA as well as the I in FIRE and go in the opposite direction:

1. Limit the federal government's control over our private lives and businesses. Stop it from trying be all things to all people. Restrict it to the things it's supposed to control: borders, defense, infrastructure, treaties, issuance of currency...

2. Make medical care affordable again, like it was before government and insurance companies took it over and made it unaffordable. What has caused medical care to become so expensive? A lot of the reasons don't have anything to do with healthcare. They have to do with inflationary monetary policy, special interests, campaign financing, regulatory capture, lack of term limits, etc. Fix those problems and we'll be fixing a lot more than an unaffordable healthcare system.

3. Separate insurance from employment. If employers want to offer insurance as an incentive, they can offer what they like and employees can purchase supplemental plans for whatever they want that isn't covered. And if people don't agree with a company's philosophy they can hopefully find a job elsewhere and shop elsewhere as well.

4. Create a system of plentiful low cost health clinics at the state and local levels. With a greatly reduced federal government we could afford it.

5. Use insurance for catastrophic events; for everything else, keep the medical relationship and financial transactions between patients and their doctors, where it used to be.

6. Look at systems in other countries and learn from their successes as well as their mistakes.

Perhaps I'm wearing rose-colored glasses about the good old days, but it sure beat the Big Government/Big Pharma/FIRE system we have today! Our current system is not only guaranteed to divide and offend as many people as possible, it's insanely expensive, bloated, and dehumanizing. It's an enormous tail wagging the dog. Perhaps even worse for the longterm, it's forcing the courts to make decisions that could have terrible ramifications for years to come. As long as we keep trying to fix something so broken by adding more caveats and addendums, we're only going to have worse and worse insanity.

Is there any candidate from either party thinking along these lines? Certainly not Liz or Hillary. The Left wants big government controlling health care. The Right wants FIRE controlling it. No one seems to want patients and doctors controlling it.

[jk]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

i still want to know whether hobby-lobby-decision supporters think christian scientists should be able to refuse to offer health insurance altogether? and if not, why not? and should jehovahs witnesses be able to exclude coverage for transfusions? and if not, why not? those are sincerely held religious beliefs.

i think these questions are being avoided because they show the contradictions between an employer-based healthcare system, which we have, and the newly awarded [by 5-4] ability of corporate "persons" to restrict health coverage based on the religious beliefs of their owners.

so. what are the answers? please enlighten me.

[lektrode]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

I think you might better direct that at someone else...And as you saw there was so much of it I suggested we stop shoveling.

Hope that helps.

eye read it all woody - didnt need the recap - but was hoping you BOTH would take my act of contrition as a suggestion that maybe we argue about why liz might be a better choice than hil (not that i'm suggesting such)

[lektrode]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

....simply highlighted that I thought Warren's "platform" had more traditional leftist base appeal than a populist candidate should have for broad appeal..... let's get back to lw and hc

yep - again, somewhat sadly - it seems the 'best hope' the dems are able to come up with is to appeal to ever smaller slivers of the electorate and their tendency to 'reach out' to one-issue/kneejerkers

[vinoveri]

Re: While Clinton Offers a Resume, Warren Offers a Plan

I think you might better direct that at someone else, lek. Vino broached the subject of Hobby Lobby now having "conscience rights." and this was the start of the conversation.
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...916#post283916

No No Woods, don't lay this one on me; I simply highlighted that I thought Warren's "platform" had more traditional leftist base appeal than a populist candidate should have for broad appeal. Other itulipers took it from there and opened the can of worms.
Agree with Lek, let's get back to lw and hc