This is for you progressives in the audience. The conservatives and libertarians already know this, so you may skip down to the next post.
A right is something that is endowed to you by your creator, whatever you believe that is, and can not (legitimately) be taken away by any person or government. Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. Speech, religion, press, assembly, keeping and bearing arms, no illegitimate searches and seizures (ooops), and so on. It’s a short list, but a pretty comprehensive one.
The Constitutional Convention. Are they debating whether people have a right to happy hour between 5 and 6 every weekday? I think not.
Rights have one thing in common; they don’t infringe other peoples’ rights. When I exercise my right to speak, it doesn’t take away your right to speak. For that matter, when you talk about taking away my rights – like the Second Amendment – it doesn’t infringe my rights; I need to meet you with more, better speech, and convince more Americans that you’re a ninny. And I do.
But I digress.
There is no right not to be offended – because if we tried to say you had a right not to be offended, then it’d take away someone else’s freedom of speech. If person A makes a statue of the Virgin Mary out of cow dung, Catholic Person B isn’t getting any rights violated; they are fully entitled to show the world why Person A is a terrible artist, or make a statue of Person A out of goat dung, or whatever.
So since it’s been in the news for the past 24 hours, let’s talk about the “women’s right” to birth control.
You women (and men, ahem) have a right to your private life (NSA notwithstanding), and to live your life more or less as you want (yep, there are restrictions on snake-handling and marijuana and raw milk and machine guns and a bunch of other stuff, but work with me here). So go ahead and buy and use birth control!
Sorry, children. Everything that displeases you isn’t bigotry. Even religion.
But you have no right to force other people to buy birth control for you if it violates their beliefs, which are a right and don’t interfere with your rights (as opposed to wants).
Idiot columnistette Jessica Valenti thinks women should have sex *in* Hobby Lobbies nationwide to protest the ruling. Which is great, with two exceptions; 1) five’ll getcha ten the “women” will look like Jessica Valenti 2) That’ll open the door to people splattering guts and gore all over Planned Parenthood clinics. Choose your pointless symbolic gestures wisely, whiny spoiled progressives!
Frankly, you should have no more “right” for you to force anyone else to buy you contraception than I should to force you to buy me ammunition, not because of my religious beliefs (which say nothing about contraception) but because it takes my money. But that brings up an argument about taxation and government that goes way beyond this, and that we should actually have in our society (government should pay for nothing but the court system, defense, and arresting and prosecuting people who materially harm other people), but is a huge tangent from the discussion we’re actually having.
You have a right to use contraception. You have, currently, the legal means to force most people who work for most companies, and all publicly-held companies, to pay for them. You don’t have the right to violate the rights of privately-owned companies’ freedom of religion.
It’s pretty simple, which is of course why you all get it wrong.
Boy with all the wailing that was on my facebook feed yesterday you’d have thought they had banned birth control and legalized rape.
in the progressive world the unacknowledged role of women is twofold; a) cannon fodder for PR and protest work and, b) interchangeable erotic furniture progressive alpha males (Clinton, Gore, Kennedy & Co) keep around for convenience and because some of them can also cook.
Don’t think b) is true? Read the history of communism/progressivism in the US – start with Witness by Whitaker Chambers , in CPUSA of the 20th century women are interchangeable, disposable, and sex should be like the women, inconsequential.
The “Right to free birth control” is there for the convenience of progressive males like Bill Clinton who never know when they may need to get their weasel greased and don’t want to be faced with downstream consequences.
My FB feed made me want to break out the Tennessee Ernie Ford — apparently if your employer won’t subsidize your procreative prerogatives, you’ve sold your soul to the company store, or you’re a sharecropper. Or something.
Of course, people who dislike free will have a hard time understanding at will employment.
Oh, and kel is 100% correct, too.
Here is what’s scary. It was a 5-4 decision. We are one justice away from having one nasty anti-freedom supreme court. The left is very anti-Christian. They accuse us of having a “dog whistle” to use secret coded racist words. Look at what was said yesterday by Democrats. The left doesn’t have a dog whistle to spew anti-Christian hatred. They shout their bigotry through a blow horn. When they started giving a big push for homosexual marriage, many of us on the right said that at some point, it may be illegal to be a practicing Catholic or other Biblical Christian in the US. We are closer to that than many would think.
William Jackson, secretary of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, kept scant minutes. He missed this part:
Alexander Hamilton: “Mr. Chairman.”
George Washington: “The Gentleman from New York may speak.”
Alexander Hamilton: “Mr. Chairman, honored colleagues, I propose we add a Power to Article I of the Constitution. The federal government must be given the power to take money out of the pockets of church-goers to give to heathens to hire people to kill the own children. Liberty demands it. I call the question.”
George Washington: “All in favor?”
.
The first amendment was meant to protect religion from the state, not the other way around. The problem with an established church isn’t that the clergy controls the law, but that lawmakers use the established church as an instrument of oppression. This is what happened in England, Scotland, and Ireland in the 17th & 18th centuries, and this is what the founders wanted to avoid.
Our liberal friends are fond of quoting the first clause of the first amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” while ignoring the second clause “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
PM while I agree with you it was also done to prevent the First (insert random sect of christianity) Church of New York, Massachusetts, etc. I remember talking to a liberal the other day saying the main point of the First Amendment is to protect religious freedom, she flat out denied that. Worst.Date.Ever.
To me, all arguments are off when considering the object of the objections; sexual intercourse and some types birth control. The argument is, and will remain, that republicans are endangering “women’s health”, aka war on women. If the object in question were mammograms, pap smears, or other woman-specific medical treatments I’d agree.
I seem to be alone in wondering how voluntary, optional, usually recreational, sexual intercourse has become a mandated imperative. Worried about the big side effect of the practice, pregnancy? Then don’t engage in it: just say no. You will not die, become ill, or even jeopardize a worthwhile relationship. Better yet; use another type of birth control or engage in the myriad of sexual activities that don’t require non-matching genitals. While I am not prescribing across the board abstinence, if the loss of certain chemicals is problematic, don’t put yourself in the position to need them.
The modern view of humanity seems to be that engaging in sexual intercourse with any properly equipped hominid, with acceptable hygiene that crosses your path cannot be disrupted in the least. I don’t get it.
That’s where I am at. We are glossing over the fact that sexual intercourse is an option, not necessary for the life or health of the female participant. Why?
Joe you intolerant sexist, clearly you must know womyn should never be held responsible for the consequences of their actions. Report for re-education ASAP
Right on, Joe. When Sandra Flake was whining to Congress that she couldn’t have as much sex as she wanted because she couldn’t afford rubbers, I thought to myself: “Hey, ammo is expensive but nobody subsidizes MY hobbies, why should I subsidize hers?”
Unless having sex with strangers is not merely a hobby? Maybe she’s a professional? But then rubbers would be a deductible business expense; still not my problem. Pay for your own inventory, madam.
I know, POD, intolerant sexist. In which circle is that class being held?
POD 666-
Generations of American school children have been given the incorrect idea that the 1st amendment’s religious freedom guarantee was a result of the experience of the pilgrims. Bad example, the pilgrims were a small and very radical sect.
The real source of the first two clauses of the 1st amendment — what the founders were thinking of when they put it in the constitution — is the conflict between the C of E, and the Quakers, and the Presbyterians in the British Isles. The C of E was an arm of the British crown, headed by a British monarch. Quakers and Presbyterians would not give the Crown power over their religious life. People were arrested and imprisoned over this dispute. Many took refuge in the New World.
The 1st amendment’s religion clause guarantees religious diversity in the United States. It is this religious diversity which the Left opposes. The State demands that you place no other gods before it.
Many of us believe tha Atheism is a religion, and is becoming the state religion of the US. Do you really think that most left wing Democrats really care about those 4 types of abortion drugs that Hobby Lobby owners don’t want to pay for? Do they really care about someone who chooses to work for the Greens (who are very generous with their employees)? No. Its about Atheists wanting to crush Christians. Same with the homosexual marriage the Christian photographer. Its all about Atheists using the power of The State to crush Christianity.
I know, POD, intolerant sexist. In which circle is that class being held?
3rd level of hell, right past the screaming lawyers and child molesters.
I’m almost of the mindset that Jessica Valenti and her ilk should be forced to take the O’care birth control, we’ll be better off if they aren’t breeding.
Could no one find a penumbra dealing with Freedom of Conscience? Or was that the foundation behind each of the Bill of Rights?
Worst.Date.Ever.
(cue Waylon Jennings)
“I was lookin for love, in all the wrong places…”
And Chuck nailed it. Atheists managed to wriggle into the government and are using the power of the gun to crush Christianity. The first drop was Christmas Break becoming Winter Break.
And Easter vacation became spring break…….errrrrrr!!!!
Bite me Bill, I’d be careful, I have an awfully long file on you I’m sure Mrs.C would love to see 🙂
The Quakers and the Presbyterians had churches where power flowed from the parish up. In the C of E power flowed from the bishops down. The establishment clause of the first amendment — the first clause of the first amendment — clearly shows how important this principle was to the founders.
Atheism itself demands nothing of people who believe in it. Nothing at all. Leftists who call themselves atheists are usually people who believe that history is an external power capable of both driving human beings towards a goal, and judging human beings. Their god is literally progress,
I think Mr. D. does a great job bringing two decent SCOTUS decisions together in one comment with the “16 tons” reference.
Which, I’m told, is the weight of the ego of POD’s date. :^)
Bring it. You don’t know anything she doesn’t already know.
BB, the bigger ones are more fun and to put out easier.
I wonder. Corporations have been granted “personhood” under the law. However, are they “citizens”? Are corporations – persons for purposes of things like tort law, etc. – really members of the group of citizens defined as the “people” in the U.S. Constitution? Can corporations travel about? Do they have passports? Can they sit on a bar stool and argue politics with me?
Also, is spending money really a free speech right?