It was over a month ago when lawyers for Hobby Lobby went to the Supreme Court to argue that their company shouldn't be forced to provide insurance for birth control to its employees. Given how slowly the Court works we probably won't hear anything until the fall, but my prediction is they side with Hobby Lobby, probably 5-4 split on political lines.
My reasoning is (beyond pro-business politics) is the Court already declared corporations are people, which makes absolutely no sense. If you follow that logic then Hobby Lobby (the company, not the owners) is a person and "people" have freedom of religion. Thus to respect its religious beliefs it shouldn't have to insure birth control.
I think such a ruling, when it happens, invites disaster. It's one of those things where if you're feeling alarmist--and I am--you can envision how a policy like that could be grossly misused. I mean what happens if you an say the company is Christian, so it doesn't have to hire any Jews or Muslims or atheists or can purge itself of non-Christian workers for not supporting the company's religion? Or what if the company is Christian Scientist and decides it no longer has to offer any health care at all--except prayer?
It's worse than the idea that the pharmacist doesn't have to sell you birth control pills because it's against his religion because this would be on a company-wide scale. Given how so many companies are already trying to weasel out of Obamacare by for instance making employees part-time, this just gives them another avenue and the last thing we need are more corporate loopholes to screw people over.
But maybe I am being too alarmist. Maybe the Court will surprise me, like when they upheld Obamacare to start with. Stranger things have happened.
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On another note Saturday I was at Biggby Coffee to type and unfortunately they had Fox "News" on, which is the only time I'd ever watch any of it. On this show called "the Five" they got a chuckle out of a store with a "No Weapons Allowed" policy being robbed at gunpoint. This is one of the dumber arguments the NRA and its conservative lapdogs make. If robbers didn't rob places because there were guns possibly on the premises then so many banks wouldn't be robbed. When people are desperate and/or not in their right minds they don't give a shit that some wanna-be John Wayne might have a gun. And really NRA if everyone owning guns prevented crime then shouldn't Detroit (which probably has the highest number of guns per capita) be a paradise of order?
Then after that was an update on a mass shooting in Santa Barbara and one in Brussels. I guess those places had a No Weapons Allowed policy advertised, right?
Anyway, today is the day to honor people who (mostly) used guns responsibly. They are Everyday Heroes!
4 comments:
I think if we're taking the gun angle, then they, the NRA or whoever, should give us all guns. Yeah, give them to everyone and, let's make it even better, make it illegal to not carry the gun. Yeah, let's try that.
That's a Pandora's box, all right
And hundreds of stores get robbed on a daily basis, some of which have guns. The idea that an armed robber whips out his gun and somebody whips out their gun and plugs him in the eyes is a fantasy. What would happen in their fantasy scenario is a shootout breaks out where people are injured or killed, and one of them may or may not include the robber.
I haven't followed the Hobby Lobby case all that closely. But I doubt even this court would be so quick to undo the 14th Amendment and its applications to the states, plus Congress' power to prohibit racial or religious discrimination. Most people are free to discriminate in their private lives but not in employment, so arguing that a corporate person could do would seem unlikely to get very far.
The opposition to Obamacare is really amazing; it's still going strong after what, 2 years since the Supreme Court found it constitutional? I can't recall anything in my lifetime that generated such ongoing controversy. I wonder if Medicare faced a similar problem?
As for guns, I think you know my stance. I'd outlaw them all period. No hunting, no self-protection, nothing. No guns. It's not like having guns is going to help us rebel against the government anymore. Back when the 2nd amendment was passed, most people could afford (and make) the same kind of weapons the government had: muskets and mules. The government edge might have been in cannons, I suppose, but that's still a pretty even match.
Can you imagine a bunch of Tea Partiers taking up arms against Obama's drones and F-18 Raptors and aircraft carriers? "At least we've got our shotguns, boys! Now get them Fed'ral boys!"
*explosions from multiple drones overhead, Obama puts down his remote control and goes back to watching 'True Detective'*
Obama (turning to Biden): "Forget prying guns from their cold dead hands. I just vaporized 'em."
I hope you're wrong, my friend, but I fear the worst from this Supreme Court as well. I would like to see a unanimous ruling 9-0 against Hobby Lobby because it's wrong that a corporation should have protection under the First Amendment. They are not people. It's ridiculous and is just more overreach on the part of capitalist pigs.
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