DelawarePolitics.net

Feb 9th, 2012 by FVoshell

My article on the subject from American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/the_state_ruling_the_church.html

A second article on the subject will appear in American Thinker tomorrow.

Posted in Stuff

75 Responses to “The State Ruling the Church”

on 09 Feb 2012 at 15:131FVoshell

Live link:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/the_state_ruling_the_church.html
on 09 Feb 2012 at 15:262Nitpicker

So, you agree that organizations run by Jehovah’s Witnesses should be able to decline employee health care which provides their employees with blood transfusions and organ transplants, even if the state insurance commissioner requires health insurance to cover those things, correct?

And even if those employees are not Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves, correct?

Can you explain why DePaul University, a Catholic educational institution, has been provided employee health insurance which covers contraception? I mean, who is forcing them to do that, and why was it not a religious issue when DePaul decided to do that?
on 09 Feb 2012 at 15:463FVoshell

I think it’s Mynym who has pointed out liberals love imaginary rather than real scenarios. The imagainary scenes are so much easier to mount arguments from–straw men, so to speak.

The truth is that the Jehovah Witnesses operate no hospitals, sanitariums, orphanages, schools, colleges, or social welfare agencies. From their perspective everything will all disappear in a few years anyway, so they don’t expend their energies in these areas.

Now about Duke: If that University has decided through some theological convolutions by members of its board that it will offer a health plan covering birth control pills, it is knowingly opposing itself to the Catholic Church’s doctrine and the Church will deal with Duke.

But the current mandate is issued by the the federal governement, which has decided the mandate supercedes Chruch doctrine and teaching and which has decided to force ALL Catholic insitutions to obey the mandate.

The one is an internal affair, the other has the entire force of the secular federal government behind it.

Religious liberty and freedom of conscience are squelched entirely.
on 09 Feb 2012 at 15:484Dave

I fail to see the impact of government regulating employer/employee relationships in religious institutions. Is a religious institution bound by any laws, such as labor laws, health and safety regulations, ERISA, etc. etc.? Where does one draw the line in regulation. Supposing a workplace practice of a religion is to have a twelve hour workday with no break for nourishment, is that acceptable? Do employees of a religious institution have any rights? If a religious institution accepts federal funding (for any reason) should they be allowed to ignore the conditions under which those funds were accepted? There is a slippery slope here. Religious institutions already have the benefit of not being taxed, what’s next, their workers would not be considered employees? Maybe they need to consider changing the relationship and having their workers be contract employees and not provide them any benefits!
on 09 Feb 2012 at 16:205FVoshell

Dave, please watch for the central issue, which I iterate in my article.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pxA7gsUo7Fk
on 09 Feb 2012 at 17:246Dave

The administrations regulation applies to health care providers, such as hospitals. No one is forcing a house of worship to provide contraceptive services. The question is, when a religious institution enters into the realm of the secular are they bound by secular laws?

By the way I disagree with the regulation. However, if hospital providing essential community services, enjoys a monopoly aided and abetted by the government (for instance a hospital that has no secular counterpart in the same service area leaving them to be the only game in town), then that hospital, if it treats all patients, must abide by regulations that all other hospitals must abide by. It it’s a Catholic hospital (and I’m Catholic by the way) and patients have a choice between the Catholic hospital and another non-religious hospital in the same service area, then the Catholic hospital can do what it wants.

But again this is a slippery slope – when is withholding services that are legal acceptable?
on 09 Feb 2012 at 18:537Nitpicker

“But the current mandate is issued by the the federal governement”

Oh, so it was okay when the State of Massachusetts did the same thing with every Catholic institution there.

And it was okay when the Bush administration – some ten years ago – upheld the central part of what you are on about now. You didn’t notice or care then, so tell me, what is the difference?

In December 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that companies that provided prescription drugs to their employees but didn’t provide birth control were in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex. That opinion, which the George W. Bush administration did nothing to alter or withdraw when it took office the next month, is still in effect today—and because it relies on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it applies to all employers with 15 or more employees.

Where were you then, Fay?
on 09 Feb 2012 at 18:588Nitpicker

“I think it’s Mynym who has pointed out liberals love imaginary rather than real scenarios.”

You mean, like the imaginary scenario that one single person will be compelled to violate their religious principles by requiring employer health plans to offer uniform standards of coverage?

No one – not one single person – is compelled by this regulation to take a single birth control pill.
on 09 Feb 2012 at 23:099Nitpicker

Fay, how about another very real situation. The basis of the objection here is that a portion of insurance premiums paid by believers will be subsidizing medical treatments of others with which the believers disagree.

Do you believe that Quakers should have to pay the full amount of their income taxes, even though a definable portion of those taxes pays for war?

In the late 1990s three court cases were filed by Quaker war tax resisters using the First Amendment guarantee to the free exercise of religion in an attempt to have penalties against war tax resisters removed and permit them to pay only for non-military programs. These cases were dismissed in lower courts, appealed, then dismissed again in the Second and Third Circuit Courts. In 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear any of the appeals.

Do you agree or disagree with that result? A simple yes or no would be fine.

I assume your answer would be “no” and that you agree that Quakers should not be penalized for refusing to pay the percentage of their taxes which funds war.

Am I correct?
on 10 Feb 2012 at 05:0610Jon Moseley

Nitpicker writes in #2:

So, you agree that organizations run by Jehovah’s Witnesses should be able to decline employee health care which provides their employees with blood transfusions and organ transplants, even if the state insurance commissioner requires health insurance to cover those things, correct?

I say, obviously, absolutely, of course, why are you even asking the question?

And even if those employees are not Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves, correct?

First, if someone wants to get a blood transfusion, they can always get supplemental insurance on their own, or if they consider it more cost-effective than insurance pay for it themselves.

Second, did someone put a gun to their head when they chose to work “there” (the non-existent imaginary places that don’t exist, as Fay points out)? Did they not know where they were going to work? I mean, if they were lied to and thought they were going to work for IBM, well we could argue “fraud in the inducement.” But, seriously, did they know where they were going to work? And why would you go to work somewhere if you don’t agree with what they are doing? If you are a health food nut, would you work at a marshmallow factory? Why would you apply to a Jehovah’s Witness organization if you don’t agree with them?

I mean, really. What is wrong with liberals? Should we require all employers to offer health insurance that covers “Liberal Confusion Syndrome” ?

Can you explain why DePaul University, a Catholic educational institution, has been provided employee health insurance which covers contraception?

How about that’s their decision to make, not yours or mine? What a radical concept: Freedom.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 05:2011Jon Moseley

Dave, you might try reading Fay’s post. It is a common, and lamentable, practice to IGNORE the carefully put together argument of a proponent of a point of view, and then ask them to explain piecemeal, what was already explained comprehensively and well in the original article.

Everyone knows that anyone who wants contraceptives has easy access to such measures even if he or she does not have a health plan that provides for them. The local friendly drugstore has aisles stacked to the ceiling with condoms and other “family planning” measures, while clinics such as Planned Parenthood hand out birth control pills and abortions with abandon — sometimes even to underage girls, as damning videos taken by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles have shown.

What are we talking about here? Are you really going to submit a receipt for $7.99 for a box of Trojans to your health insurance?

Any contraceptive option would be less than the deductible for any health insurance plan I’ve seen, with the exception of surgical sterlization.

The central issue is government intimidation of and control over religious institutions. It is government’s overriding of the consciences of Catholics and members of other denominations who oppose abortifacients and sterilization.

The 2013 deadline for Catholic institutions to conform to the health care mandate is the proverbial governmental foot in the door for controlling religious institutions — actually, for controlling all people of faith who disagree with the administration’s stance toward abortion.

This is where Dave and Nitpicker don’t get it.

First, they argue that government should intrude on people’s lives to the maximum extent, the outer boundary, of any power it can arguably claim to have. So if they can find any argument where government CAN do something, it SHOULD do it, to the extreme.

Second, government here is not prohibiting a practice that is independently in a neutral manner to religion prohibited. For example, Islamic sermons from Imams on Arab television teaching Muslims the correct way to beat their wives can be found all over You Tube. But the law in America prohibits anyone, regardless of their religion, from beating anyone, especially not their wives.

Here, the government is commanding religious institutions to *DO* something that their religion forbids. The government is commanding them to ACT in violation of their beliefs.

But there are even worse consequences if the government continues to try to coerce the church against its conscience and doctrines of faith and practice. If the push to force the churches into positions compromising its rules of faith and practice succeeds, and the church capitulates, there is absolutely no church or church institution the government will not seek to control completely.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 08:0612mynym

The question is, when a religious institution enters into the realm of the secular are they bound by secular laws?

On the other hand, the question may be when secular powers become more and more “total”/totalitarian in the lives of the people then when should they be actively resisted. It’s interesting how you framed it though, as if Catholics are almost “imposing” themselves on the public because their charities and hospitals exist. Of course, these days it seems like some people also flop down on the ground and begin crying about “inflictions” and victimization if someone else prays in public too.

I think the whole framework of how people have been conditioned to feel about religion these days is ridiculous. Many have a conditioned response where they will begin murmuring about “impositions” and so on even as the state totally imposes on them. For a more reasonable view I would look to history to find examples of where the balance is:

The official position of the Church was stated by Cardinal Eugenia Pacelli, the Vatican Secretary at State, in an address to pilgrims of the German Young Men’s League in December, when he said: “The church renders unto the State what is the State’s. As long as measures of the State do not hinder the church in effectively carrying out the God-ordained mission of salvation and as long as the State observes the God-ordained harmony of the two highest powers, or at least assures free and undisturbed activity on the part of the church, it will meet little resistance from the church. The church loves peace more than war. But it loves truth and God-given freedom more than the false peace of untruth and subjection.”
(Nazis and Church Groping for Issue
The New York Times, Feb. 14, 1934, pg. 4
by Otto D. Tolischus)

That seems reasonable to me. In other words, Catholics should generally be left at liberty to engage in free and undisturbed activity without the state imposing its views on them. Especially given that Catholics tend toward Leftist themes like maternal union and so on and are generally busy building hospitals and charities. They could be the natural allies of the “caring” Obama but instead it seems that the sinister aspects of his tender “administration” may make them into enemies.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 08:2113mynym

Also interesting:

The attitude of Catholic leaders in Germany ranges from that of Archbishop Conrad Groebar or Freiburg, who put him self “unreservedly” behind the new government to that of Cardinal Michael van Faulhaber of Munich, who proclaimed that the spread of “paganism” means civil war. Cardinal nan Faulhaber, long Nazism’s greatest opponent, is credited with having turned the scale against the Hitler putsch of 1923.
…..
Divorce From Politics Welcomed
Many good Catholics-and this includes many priests, this correspondent has ascertained-welcome the church’s divorce from politics; these always deplored the connection, even in self-defense. Others honestly hold it is the duty of every good German to ‘go into the State in order to help stabilize and save it from extremists.’ Many others still believe the Nazi promises…..
Finally, there is a goodly number to whom the brown uniform is a part of business, especially since opposition to it spells economic suicide. ….
If, therefore, the church should be compelled to fight it must select an issue which will put the struggle on a strictly religious basis….. The Nazis, however, with the clever tactics of ‘elastic’ attack and war of attrition* have dodged the issue so far, which is their biggest success.
……
Many Catholics believed the Nazi sterilization law such an issue because it is wholly contrary to church doctrine. But wiser heads of the church soon realized this issue could scarcely be discussed in public and not at all in church and school. Therefore a compromise was reached: the church obtained exemption of Catholics from active participation in administration of the law, but not from passive sufferance under the law. Catholic physicians and nurses in hospitals do not need to assist in sterilization operations but sterilization subjects, even when Catholics, must submit to temporal power….
A provision introduced into the penal code permitting euthanasia under certain circumstances likewise is contrary to Catholic doctrine but not a decisive issue.
The closest approach to open conflict is the struggle over schools and youth organizations. The school conflict just beginning is still not clear as to its ultimate ramifications.
….
(Nazis and Church Groping for Issue
The New York Times, Feb. 14, 1934, pg. 4
by Otto D. Tolischus)

*That is what will most likely happen in this case. It’s probably just an “elastic” attack that will be withdrawn. After all, pagans can come back another day after they have indoctrinated more of the youth based on pseudo-science and so on. Wouldn’t it be ironic if teachers became so dumb and degenerate that they couldn’t even indoctrinate students to the point of being half-witted enough to remember their pseudo-science? It’s hard to mobilize absolute degenerates, they’d have to at least be half-witted enough to believe themselves to be right about something with the “religious,” on the other hand, being wrong about things.

In any event, we’re always one generation away from civilization rising or falling in general.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 08:2514Jon Moseley

TRY THIS (by the way, I believe the National Center for Policy Analysis is led by that type of conservative that makes liberals’ blood run cold: An African American conservative):

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA546CAFEStandards.html

546 July 2006

CAFE Standards Kill: Congress’ Regulatory Solution to Foreign Oil Dependence Comes at a Steep Price

by Ryan Balis

On the heels of the Arab oil embargo, in 1975 Congress enacted Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards as a regulatory solution to reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil and gasoline consumption.1 CAFE standards mandate that vehicles sold in the U.S. meet fuel efficiency – or “fuel economy” – standards. Current standards require an average of 27.2 miles per gallon (mpg) for cars and 21.6 mpg for light trucks.2

Beginning in 2008, “one-size-fits-all” CAFE standards for light trucks will be phased out. New regulations will divide light trucks into six categories based on vehicle size – each category having its own mpg target.3 However, the fuel economy for these vehicles will be raised from the current 22.2 mpg to 24.0 mpg in model year 2011.4

According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimate, implementing this change will cost American consumers over $6.71 billion in added vehicle expenses from 2007-2011.5 Yet Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, calculates that the fuel savings will be a mere 0.44 billion gallons of gasoline annually.6 On average, U.S. cars and light trucks consume some 11 billion gallons of gasoline each month.7

Despite the new regulatory “reform,” high gas prices have lawmakers in Washington debating, once again,8 whether to impose even steeper CAFE standards. For instance, Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) proposed burdensome across-the-board legislation to increase CAFE standards to 35 mpg on both light trucks and cars by model year 2017.9 Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) have also recently called for CAFE increases.10

But such increases have unintended safety consequences for the safety of drivers and passengers. The reason is because carmakers build lighter and smaller cars that burn less fuel to comply with CAFE standards.11 The trade-off is these lighter, smaller cars fare much worse in violent crashes, resulting in greater rates of death and injury for occupants.

A number of studies have documented the lethal consequences of requiring carmakers to improve fuel standards.

* According to a 2003 NHTSA study, when a vehicle is reduced by 100 pounds the estimated fatality rate increases as much as 5.63 percent for light cars weighing less than 2,950 pounds, 4.70 percent for heavier cars weighing over 2,950 pounds and 3.06 percent for light trucks. Between model years 1996 and 1999, these rates translated into additional traffic fatalities of 13,608 for light cars, 10,884 for heavier cars and 14,705 for light trucks.12

* A 2001 National Academy of Sciences panel found that constraining automobile manufacturers to produce smaller, lighter vehicles in the 1970s and early 1980s “probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993.”13

* An extensive 1999 USA Today analysis of crash data found that since CAFE went into effect in 1978, 46,000 people died in crashes they otherwise would have survived, had they been in bigger, heavier vehicles. This, according to a 1999 USA Today analysis of crash data since 1975, roughly figures to be 7,700 deaths for every mile per gallon gained in fuel economy standards.14

* The USA Today report also said smaller cars – such as the Chevrolet Cavalier or Dodge Neon – accounted for 12,144 fatalities or 37 percent of vehicle deaths in 1997, though such cars comprised only 18 percent of all vehicles.15

* A 1989 Harvard-Brookings study estimated CAFE “to be responsible for 2,200-3,900 excess occupant fatalities over ten years of a given [car] model years’ use.” Moreover, the researchers estimated between 11,000 and 19,500 occupants would suffer serious but nonfatal crash injuries as a result of CAFE.16

* The same Harvard-Brookings study found CAFE had resulted in a 500-pound weight reduction of the average car. As a result, occupants were put at a 14 to 27 percent greater risk of traffic death.17

* Passengers in small cars die at a much higher rate when involved in traffic accidents with large cars. Traffic safety expert Dr. Leonard Evans estimates that drivers in lighter cars may be 12 times as likely to be killed in a crash when the other vehicle is twice as heavy as the lighter car.18
on 10 Feb 2012 at 08:3215mynym

You mean, like the imaginary scenario that one single person will be compelled to violate their religious principles by requiring employer health plans to offer uniform standards of coverage?

No one – not one single person – is compelled by this regulation to take a single birth control pill.

By the same logic it would be fine to pass a law requiring people to pull, clip and suck apart babies in the womb and deposit their remains in a bucket and so on. After all, as a nitpicking legalist you did not violate their conscience or compel them to do anything because it was not their own baby being torn limb from limb.

Doesn’t it become hard to maintain the imaginary passive position of supposedly never “inflicting” or “imposing” or compelling anyone else given that you are actually actively using the state to impose your views on others in reality?
on 10 Feb 2012 at 08:3416Jon Moseley

Oh, damn, I meant to post that under The Honorable Mayor Eastwood. Maybe someone can delete it.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 09:1017Jon Moseley

This ought to spark the Second American Revolution (or perhaps cause the vast Catholic voting bloc to join it, if you cound the tea party as the Second).

In effect, King George IV (nee Barack Obama, coronation name George) has just sent his Red Coats marching on Concord, and are now encountering the initial token resistance at Lexington Green (where my ancestor’s blood nourishes the grass). Will people stand up and take notice, or will they roll over and go back to sleep>

The regulations require Catholic — and other religious — institutions to SPONSOR and ADMINISTER health insurance policies to facilitate, advance, and further practices which violate their religious beliefs.

Apology is made that individual members of the insurance plan might, in some diffuse way, pay for someone else’s contracecptives, medical abortion, or NOT medically required (contraceptive) sterlization.

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the EMPLOYER paying for the health insurance policy out of the EMPLOYER’s own funds, as a fringe benefit? So it is THE CATHOLIC CHURCH which is being commanded to pay for abortions induced by medication, contraceptive sterlizations and other contraceptives.

Secondly, the utiliitarian defenses of Obama’s declaration of war ignores what religion means.

The Obama Administration is commanding the Catholic Church to publicly declare, as acceptable and right, practices which its religious doctrine forbids. Three Israelites Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were GOVERNMENT Administrators under King Nebuchadnezzar. They had voluntarily joined his government. But they refused to bow down to the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. SO, WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL, EH? JUST GO ALONG TO GET ALONG, RIGHT? All they had to do to keep their goverment jobs, and their lives, was to make an outward show of worshipping the golden image. But to do so would be a public repudation of their religious beliefs. They refused, got thrown into the fire, but were not burned.

The Obama Administration is — KNOWINGLY — asking the Catholic Church to make a public repudation of Catholic teaching, by openly endorsing what the Catholic Church forbids. Obama KNOWS this. He is not worried about people getting their $7.99 box of condoms paid for. He is trying to delegitimize religion.

Dave, if someone put a gun to my head and commanded me to write a letter denying Jesus Christ and swearing allegiance to Satan, or perhaps Mohammed, and the letter would be immediately burned, and no one would ever see it (but God), I would not do it. I would have to choose being killed rather than to deny my faith. That is because God would know, and I would know, and the next trillion years in heaven is more important than this brief earthly existence.

Now, in the crazy, mixed up world of american public debate, it somehow adds to credibility to explain that I don’t personally agree with the Catholic Church on contraceptives — although I do on abortion-inducing drugs. Yet I am outraged and up in arms about the Obama Administration’s trampling on their beliefs. Why that passes in American political debate to prove my bona fides is beyond me, but people denigrate speakers as merely acting out of instinctive conditioning in their superstitious beliefs. I don’t even agree with those beliefs, yet I say we may need to raise a holy ruckus. (To me, God’s instruction for Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the (then empty) Earth and subdue it, does not translate into an individualized commandment for every couple, although every Christian should seek to know God’s specific will for their individual lives in prayer, and faithfully obey God’s voice in all things. I make no excuse to disregard God’s will, but seek to know it more precisely for my own personal life.)
on 10 Feb 2012 at 09:2518Jon Moseley

Dave writes in #4

Is a religious institution bound by any laws, such as labor laws, health and safety regulations, ERISA, etc. etc.? Where does one draw the line in regulation.

Where that regulation conflicts with the institution’s core religious beliefs. For example, a business cannot hire people based on their religious beliefs. A religious institution has every right to hire people who share their religious beliefs, otherwise it could not carry out its religious mission.

(And by the way, people don’t understand that: An Italian restaurant is allowed to hire only Italians, in order to create an environment of an authentic Italian experience, probably with everyone speaking Italian. Where laws undermine the church’s ability to function, they must fall to the “free exercise of religion” commandment of the First Amendment.)

The Obama Administration is demanding that the Catholic Church publicly repudiate some of its religious teachings, by declaring (through their actions) as acceptable what their religious teaching proclaims as unacceptable.

If an employment law forbids a requirement for employees to pray during the work day, this cannot and must not be applied to a religious institution.

Do employees of a religious institution have any rights?

If they chose to work for a religious institution, they have chosen to conform to those beliefs. You have to accept THEIR choice to submit to those religious beliefs. It is not your choice to undo their choice of where they want to work.

If a religious institution accepts federal funding (for any reason) should they be allowed to ignore the conditions under which those funds were accepted?

YES. Federal funding is supposed to be to further a purpose — not as a backdoor means of controlling people, beyond the legitimate scope of authority of the Federal government. Where the Congress does not have authority to pass regulations, it should never be using Federal funding to do indirectly what it is not permitted to do directly.

Religious institutions already have the benefit of not being taxed, what’s next, their workers would not be considered employees?

EVERY non-profit organization has the benefit of not being taxed, including the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women (do you think I could get a job at N.O.W. as a conservative Republican male?), and even Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington where Melanie Sloan “earns” $230,000 a year for running around slandering people without foundation.

Many hospitals, religious and non-religious, are non-profit institutions.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 11:0419Geezer

Fay, your entire article is rendered pointless when you make the leap of “faith” to describe what “must be” the motivations of those with whom you disagree.

Perhaps that’s how you learned to argue in theology school, but it doesn’t work here in the real world. It is the textbook definition of the “straw man,” the very thing you criticize Dave for supposedly employing (your definition is, perhaps you’re aware, inaccurate).

Of course, the vast bulk of what gets printed on this blog consists of criticism of imaginary motivations of The Left. Without straw men, this blog would go dark.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 11:4320mynym

Fay, your entire article is rendered pointless when you make the leap of “faith” to describe what “must be” the motivations of those with whom you disagree.

I think the confusion arises when people on the right assume that people on the left are intelligent enough to see the endpoints or goals of Leftist memes. After all, it’s hard to imagine that Obama or people in his administration actually think of themselves and their motivations as more tender, loving and caring than Catholics in general. Or that the people within it actually think that they will do more for poor women than Catholic charities and hospitals and so on. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could be that stupid and ignorant and honestly imagine that they are better at helping poor women than Catholics. And yet this is more than likely what they are imagining of themselves as they try to enact their policies.

At some point it becomes the material of satire, as was demonstrated when they framed their intents and motivations as tender and caring while supporting the brutality of sticking scissors in the heads of babies and so on.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 11:4321Hube

Of course, the vast bulk of what gets printed on this blog consists of criticism of imaginary motivations of The Left. Without straw men, this blog would go dark.

The blog on the other side of the coin, DL, is precisely the same. Yet, you comment there frequently positively. Oh, that’s right, I forgot — you’re a liberal, not internally consistent.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 11:4822Dave

“First, they argue that government should intrude on people’s lives to the maximum extent, the outer boundary, of any power it can arguably claim to have. So if they can find any argument where government CAN do something, it SHOULD do it, to the extreme.”

I don’t know about Nitpicker, I don’t believe he is arguing that and I certainly am not arguing that. Your statement is completely false. I have never said that. I do not advocate that and nothing I have posted should have given any critical thinking rational person the impression that those are my views. Perhaps that the problem – one needs to possess critical thinking skills and be rational!

I will says this – where the where government CAN do something, it sometimes SHOULD do something. Your most egregious error – of which there are many is that you endown others with the same characteristic as you possess – absolutism. You perceive statements made by others as absolutes (always) rather than a balance (sometimes). You live in a world where everything is on/off, yes/no, true/false, 1/0 (binary). I live in a world where there are shades of grey. Where sometimes government is the right answer and yes sometimes the right answer gets screwed up by Congressional overkill, patronage, and partisanship. That you cannot see that makes me wonder why I am wasting my figurative breath. Your cognitive dissonance is astounding.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 12:1623mynym

A good summary of the Right’s view:

The Obama Administration is — KNOWINGLY — asking the Catholic Church to make a public repudation of Catholic teaching, by openly endorsing what the Catholic Church forbids. Obama KNOWS this. He is not worried about people getting their $7.99 box of condoms paid for. He is trying to delegitimize religion.

It’s more likely that Obama and progressives within his administration are ignorant enough to imagine that they’re merely helping and caring for poor women and will progressively do so more and more. The fact that all the caring and love that they’re full of happens to come into conflict with the Catholic church is secondary to their image of themselves. And if that is the case then people in his administration are not knowingly trying to do away with other religions to establish paganism, it just happens by happenstance to emerge in the chaos of the world that what they imagine of themselves and reality generally does so. The way that they imagine things comes naturally to them.

Nature calls and excrement happens….
on 10 Feb 2012 at 15:0324Frank Knotts

I don’t understand why so many of you are upset about this government intrusion into your faith. Many of you are the same ones who were demanding that public meetings be lead in prayer by elected officials. That public schools have a designated time specifically for prayer. Why? if you are so in favor of blending your faith into government, are you shocked and outraged that the other side now wants to inject government into you faith?
So many of you have been willing to dilute the establishment clause of the First Amendment so as to demand the “power” to have a government sanctioned prayer at meetings and in schools, now you see that in return the other side is willing to dilute the prohibit clause to allow them to mandate behaviour of faith based organizations.
This is exactly what James Madison and others were warning us about when they cautioned us against the mingling of faith and government.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. This is so clearly a two way street. If you insist on forcing your faith into government, then you must expect and accept government being forced into you faith. This is why I have said that to protect faith from this sort of power grab, we must avoid all, I repeat all interaction of the two beyond what any individual brings to the table based on their own beliefs and the effect those beliefs have upon their decision making.
Do you folks even realize what you are demanding here when you say that government has no right to mandate this sort of thing upon religious organizations? DO YOU? You are asking for a, wait, here it comes, that’s right you want a “SEPERATION OF CHURCH AND STATE!!!!!!!” Ah ! Ironic is it not? All of the crying about there being no seperation of church and state in the Constitution, and now you are upset that the left has taken you up on it. Hope you are happy. We true conservatives have been trying to tell you, but you were too caught up in the whole RINO , liberal name calling.
Maybe we could try telling them there is no right to bear arms, I’m sure they would love to take us up on that one too. DAMN!
on 10 Feb 2012 at 15:5325mynym

This is exactly what James Madison and others were warning us about when they cautioned us against the mingling of faith and government.

If you understand him then what would he have said about religiously inspired resistance to the eugenics movement? Were they mingling with government? Or if some of them prayed in public or as public officials did that empty everything they said about the eugenics movement of meaning?

This is so clearly a two way street.

The emergence of nature based paganism, its establishment and the consequent removal of all other religions from public life is not the equivalent to the Jewish and Christian view of separation of church and state. In fact, if the Jewish view is extirpated then all that happens is that the church and the state become one.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 16:1426mynym

If you insist on forcing your faith into government, then you must expect and accept government being forced into you faith.

Local officials saying a prayer is not the equivalent of force and coercion or the national establishment of religion based on force and coercion. The state forcing individuals to violate the sanctity of their conscience is closer to coercion. It’s probably hard to remember given all the theatrics with respect to “infliction” and victimization these days but it’s not all equivalent.

Ironically Earth Day and so on is closer to a national establishment of nature based paganism than some local officials praying. It’s not all equivalent. Even the “righteous” mind that has made a bit of the law into a blinding absolute should be able to see that.

Ironically, when you allow the Jewish view of separation to be degraded and done away with in public life then the state progressively becomes the church. After all, pagans do not believe that their faith (to the extent that they are even aware of their thoughts and faith in things) needs to be sanctified and “separate.” If history is any measure then in their minds it’s generally all unified and the state, church and god are essentially one.
on 10 Feb 2012 at 16:4727Dave

“Local officials saying a prayer is not the equivalent of force and coercion or the national establishment of religion based on force and coercion.”

It isn’t? Doesn’t that depend on ones perspective? If I were of a non-Christian faith and listening to the Lord’s Prayer was the price of admission to participating in democracy wouldn’t that be the equivalent? I am assuming you use the term “force” to mean non-physical force.

“The state forcing individuals to violate the sanctity of their conscience is closer to coercion.”

And if the individual is forced to listen to the Lord’s prayer which may violate their own faith, as a the price of admission, would that not be coercion?

We see things through our own lens. To you and I, the Lord’s Prayer is benign, even desired, but can you speak for others? If they feel put upon, intimidated, infringed does it matter? Or does it matter only when you think it should matter? Where do you draw the line? Is it coercion and force only when you consider it coercion and force?

I do not pretend to empathize with everyone. I don’t walk in their shoes. I can only listen and try to understand. Sometimes, I do. Often I do not. But, force and coercion take many forms, for example if the someone had the following thought: “I went to the county council meeting and even though I did not want to pray, especially the Lord’s Prayer, I felt as if I was coerced into going along to avoid being noticed. I felt like I was subtly forced to pretend to pray.” Surely you can see how some folks might have that thought and those feelings. To you that may not be coercion, but then you don’t get to define for everyone.
on 11 Feb 2012 at 08:2128Nitpicker

As long as we get to tell Muslims where they can or can’t build a mosque or any other facility, it’s all good.
on 11 Feb 2012 at 09:5529Geezer

“The blog on the other side of the coin, DL, is precisely the same.”

No it’s not. It’s similar, but not “precisely the same.” Most posts there are not about the imagined thought processes of The Right.
on 11 Feb 2012 at 09:5930Geezer

“I think the confusion arises when people on the right assume that people on the left are intelligent enough to see the endpoints or goals of Leftist memes.”

I think it arises when people on the right imagine themselves intelligent enough to see “endpoints” or “goals” of “Leftist memes.” These things people on The Right (how come you don’t capitalize that?) claim to “see” are known as “hallucinations” or “bogeymen.”

Because your every argument is reductio ad absurdum, you wind up mostly sounding absurd.
on 11 Feb 2012 at 11:4331Frank Knotts

mynym ashed me, “what would he have said about religiously inspired resistance to the eugenics movement? ” They key word is inspired mynym. This goes to my statement in comment #24, “This is why I have said that to protect faith from this sort of power grab, we must avoid all, I repeat all interaction of the two beyond what any individual brings to the table based on their own beliefs and the effect those beliefs have upon their decision making.” Of course people of faith are and should be moved by their faith to act in certain ways.
This is however very different from demanding a government sactioned prayer before a public meeting.
I cannot understand the duplicity of some people to think that they can demand that government sacntion their faith and then be outraged that government then feels that it has the right to be a part of faith.
mynym I have linked to this many times here but once again please read this and you will see Madison’s concerns about the mingling of faith and government.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions64.html
on 11 Feb 2012 at 23:1132Rick

Since BO is a career professional politician, he will soon instruct HHS to temper their requirements- until he’s re-elected, of course.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 06:4733mynym

This is why I have said that to protect faith from this sort of power grab, we must avoid all, I repeat all interaction of the two beyond what any individual brings to the table based on their own beliefs and the effect those beliefs have upon their decision making.

In “righteously” crusading to protect faith based on Judeo-Christian principles it seems to me like you may be going too far. Your views must be checked and balanced by the fact that expressions of faith should not be done away with in the name of protecting faith. But there seems to be no limit to your view, so a national establishment of religion is the equivalent of a local establishment, which is the equivalent of some local politicians praying and so on. There is another form of decentralized government, the family. Do you think it is more pure and righteous and prevents a “dirty” mixing of power and faith if a father runs from the table to pray in the closet instead of praying with his family?

Madison didn’t always get his way because other people balanced his more radical view of “righteousness” in this case but at least he was generally talking about Congress establishing a religion or a national establishment of religion. Apparently you’ve gone one step farther and become blinded by the right. It’s true, local politicians praying may be using the opportunity to portray themselves as more righteous than others. And it may be that a father who brings prayer to the table publicly instead of running to the closet (because that’s what Jesus said, etc…) may only be doing so to look righteous. And so on. But if you want to pursue your own view of righteousness in these matters then you’ll have to pass a law or change the Constitution instead of apparently just making up things about the Constitution. Ironically the reason Madison wrote about it was because his radical views about how righteous it is to avoid “mixing” and so on were being balanced out. That’s why he didn’t always get his way and chaplains were not done away with and so on. And I doubt that he should have got his way because he seemed to be blinded by his sense of righteousness on that issue.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 06:5034mynym

These things people on The Right (how come you don’t capitalize that?) claim to “see” are known as “hallucinations” or “bogeymen.”

History shows otherwise….
on 13 Feb 2012 at 07:1535Jon Moseley

Calling all Mitt Romney supporters (you know who you are, like CL):

Your TEAM is on board, too. This is a UNITED FRONT against the Obama arrogance and dictatorial approach to America: Mitt Romney is right in there on this issue 100%. We are all ready to go “full speed ahead” on exposing this left-wing agenda.

Peeling away Catholic votes from Obama, at least if they stay home in November, could be the one greatest action to defeat Barack Obama.

MITT ROMNEY CONDEMNS THE OBAMA ATTACK ON RELIGION on February 11. Mitt Romney calls Obama’s Friday, February 12, compromise “DECEPTIVE” — and does an excellent job of exposing how absurd the Obama fig leaf is: “Do you know any companies that give things out for free…”

“This is an attempt by Obama to put sand over the mess he’s made.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ-JBYfUyvk&feature=player_embedded

Mitt Romney explains that he FOUGHT similar efforts in Massachusetts, and repeatedly vetoed such attempts in Massachusetts. Some have pointed to Massachusetts, but Romney clarifies that he vigorously fought against the Massachusetts legislature AND VOWS TO REVERSE OBAMA on such measures now.

NOTE: Obama already promised once not to do this, then broke his word. Why should Catholics and other religious followers BELIEVE that Obama won’t break his word again after re-elected in November?

NOTE ALSO: I don’t know the price of birth control pills, so I asked my father, a retired doctor. (Anyone can see prices displayed in the supermarket of some birth control.) Dad confirms that the costs of contraceptiives are MINIMAL (other than surgical sterlization). Dad says his heart medication is (loosely, speaking colorfully) 100 times more expensive than typical birth control pills. So THERE IS NO REASON WHY ANYONE NEEDS HEALTH INSURANCE TO REIMBURSE THEM $7.99 for a box of condoms or maybe $12.99 to $16.99 for the super economy pack. How many people are really going to send in a receipt for $7.99 to their health insurance?

Some of the discussion at CPAC was that THIS IS TO CREATE A PRECEDENT TO EVENTUALLY MANDATE THAT CATHOLIC HOSPITALS PERFORM ABORTIONS.

THIS IS ABOUT ABORTION, NOT CONTRACEPTIVES. Once the Federal government establishes the raw power and precedent that religious hospitals do not have any religious exemption, they will then be required to perform abortions.

And the ultimate goal is to crush religious resistance to the liberal agenda in American life.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 08:5336mynym

And the ultimate goal is to crush religious resistance to the liberal agenda in American life.

Even if Obama mandated that Catholic hospitals perform abortions in the name of helping the poor I suspect that Delawarean liberals would say that those who argued that the this was doing away with religious resistance are merely “hallucinating” and so on. They seem incapable of seeing a meaning, goal or endpoint to things other than what they imagine to be true. In this case, they seem to imagine that Leftist chickenhawks in the “war on poverty” want to help poor women. So that is all that need be said.

And since they do not believe that there is a conspiracy of intelligent people or an intent to establish paganism (mainly because there generally isn’t) this means that people are not establishing it while undermining other religions. But it is, in fact, the only form of religion that is currently being established by the state due to the decline of American civilization in general. The Right thinks of this as if people are are intelligently plotting but it’s more likely that it arises naturally based on stupidity and ignorance.

That’s why meeting to celebrate Earth Day or some other form of nature based paganism and superstitions in government buildings or the EPA imposing regulations based on pagan superstitions is not to be “separated” and so on.

But if religions which are not rooted in nature so much as meet in a public building then they are to be separated, if not more actively extirpated based on “mandates” which arise naturally from a pagan view of the world:

A worship service is an act of organized religion that consecrates the place in which it is performed, making it a church,” Judge Leval wrote. Churches “tend to dominate the schools on the day they use them…NYT

Notice his view of religion rooted in space and merely “occupying” buildings, apparently it never occurs to the pagan mind that they could be “dominating” others and “imposing” their superstitious views on them.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 09:1137mynym

Another interesting contrast in the pagan mind is the notion of occupying space to make a point about what’s “right,” yet when Israel occupies space to defend itself….. well.

In any event, one thing that the Left and American liberals in general can never seem to imagine is that they’re imposing and inflicting their views on others. And if history is any measure then they’ll be complaining about the “impositions” of others even as they force everyone else from the public square. One irony is that if churches actually did close down and stop their rampant and almost violent “inflictions” and “impositions” on everyone and so on then we’d all be a lot worse off. So fiscal only conservatives better find a way to manipulate the economy to create enough money for gun buy back programs and so on.

The spirit is free but physical solutions to spiritual problems are exponentially expensive. (But one would think that fiscal only conservatives could still recognize that the writing is on the wall based on economic language alone. Shrug…. )
on 13 Feb 2012 at 09:3738Jon Moseley

Frank Knotts writes: ““This is why I have said that to protect faith from this sort of power grab, we must avoid all, I repeat all interaction of the two beyond what any individual brings to the table based on their own beliefs and the effect those beliefs have upon their decision making.”

But this does assume a logical consistency on the Left and the ruling elites. You are assuming that what the government does will be an even-handed, two-way street. What we have seen instead is that the government intrudes any where and way it wants, while seeking to discourage, discredit, and silence religion (at least where it disagrees with the ruling elites). So moderation in religious expression is unlikely to be met with an equal response from government. A voting bloc that the ruling elites fear is more likely to protect religious liberty.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 09:5339Frank Knotts

mynym, I base my views not only on Madison, but also on the teachings of Jesus. To compare a government sanctioned prayer with that of a father is a bit of a stretch. I personally prefer my faith at home where it belongs. This does not mean that any and all shows of faith are wrong. However I do not want my government involved in any way. I will bring my faith to the government table based on my views and beliefs, the same as you and others are free to do, but this should not require that we all stand and recite the elected officials choice of prayer and or faith.
Jon the balance you speak of must begin with the people, if they are demanding a government sanction of faith through a government lead prayer, then they have set the precedent for the mingling. Would we not have a better arguement against government intrution.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 10:1340Jon Moseley

Frank, yes, that’s correc. But the government and the liberals who run it respect power (votes) more than logic or reason.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 11:4241mynym

To compare a government sanctioned prayer with that of a father is a bit of a stretch.

You’re already stretching your law or principle from the national government to the states and then on to local government. I only took it one step lower to see how it would apply. Is it always the teaching of Jesus to leave the table to pray in private and so on or is there yet space to live in what you’re thinking of as a universal law or principle?

I base my views not only on Madison, but also on the teachings of Jesus.

Apparently you’re reading some fragments of His teachings and deriving laws and so on. At least you’re one step above those who don’t bother to read. But it seems to me that the world is alive… for example, how does your law apply to the Confessing Church and its role in attempts to assassinate Hitler?

A random note on that:

Bonhoeffer’s God is a suffering God, whose manifestation is found in this-worldliness. He believed that the Incarnation of God in flesh made it unacceptable to speak of God and the world “in terms of two spheres” — an implicit attack upon Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms.Wiki
on 13 Feb 2012 at 11:5142mynym

….if they are demanding a government sanction of faith through a government lead prayer, then they have set the precedent for the mingling. Would we not have a better arguement against government intrution.

I have little use for local politicians praying but it cannot be said that they have set a precedent for the national government mandating that people violate their consciences. You might as well say that they’ve set a precedent for the national government to draft the Amish into military service or that they’ve set the precedent for the national government to mandate that someone provide an abortion or lose their job.

As far as I know, no one is forcing anyone to pray under threat of losing their job or anything else. It’s not the equivalent of the force or coercion involved in the federal government violating people’s consciences. And it certainly wouldn’t stop moves of the federal government toward doing away with liberty and violating the sanctity of the conscience if some local politicians did not pray at their meeting.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 13:0743Nitpicker

Incidentally, 28 states require contraceptive coverage to be included in prescription health insurance plans offered through all employers, including churches, rendering the proposed federal standard superfluous.

That doesn’t seem to bother Fay either.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 13:1744alpha

Jon Mosely says:

But the government and the liberals who run it respect power (votes) more than logic or reason.

Amen. May it ever be so.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 13:5845mynym

Incidentally, 28 states require contraceptive coverage to be included in prescription health insurance plans offered through all employers, including churches…

20 have exemptions, including Delaware…
on 13 Feb 2012 at 14:2046mynym

This story is ironic now:

On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took the unprecedented step of overruling the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to allow the emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step to be sold over-the-counter to consumers of all ages.
….
Secretary Sebelius’ move to overrule the FDA’s decision is unprecedented — until Wednesday, no HHS Secretary had ever vetoed an FDA pharmaceutical approval. ACLU

Maybe the Obama administration is just full of stupid people, so what they do one day (strong arming Catholics) vs. what they do on another (overturning the FDA in an unprecedented way to avoid offending Catholics) doesn’t have to make any sense. But like many on the Right, I’m tempted to think there’s some sort of pattern to it or reason for their actions. In other words, someone in the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want plan B approved, so it doesn’t get approved. It would be an interesting theory. There again, it’s probably just “Oh, we need the Catholic vote so we’ll take this unprecedented step.” and “Oh, I forgot we needed it.” incompetence within the Obama administration.

Anyway, it’s probably only a matter of time until a condom Czar is appointed to “save and create” jobs for their condom cronies.
on 13 Feb 2012 at 16:2347Dave

“In other words, someone in the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want plan B approved, so it doesn’t get approved.”

Of course that could not be the case here since Obama is a socialist and socialists would never cowtow to big pharma or wealthy financial interests.

I continue to be amused (amazed) that the significant effort to paint Obama as a socialist seems to have been abandoned in favor of painting him as an evil pawn of the capitalists. It’s hard to keep up with this stuff. Was there a memo on the switch?
on 13 Feb 2012 at 19:0048Jon Moseley

Socialism means that the government controls business and the economy. Think GM and Chrysler.

Communism means the government OWNS businesses and the economy. Think GM and Chrysler.

Socialists don’t mind if businesses make money… as long as they control the businesses.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 00:0649SussexAnon

Wow, so Reagan was a socialist for bailing out Chrysler the first time. Who da thunk?
on 14 Feb 2012 at 07:0550mynym

Of course that could not be the case here since Obama is a socialist and socialists would never cowtow to big pharma or wealthy financial interests.

It’s not kowtowing, it’s this:

An inherent aspect of fascist economies was economic dirigisme, meaning an economy where the government exerts strong directive influence, and effectively controls production and allocation of resources. In general, apart from the nationalizations of some industries, fascist economies were based on private property and private initiative, but these were contingent upon service to the state. The Economics of Fascism

He’s not “kowtowing” to special interests, he probably thinks that he’s using them when it suits him.

Ironically the only people he kowtows to are foreign leaders who overtly tend toward dictatorship, communism, socialism or fascism while snubbing those who do not. He literally kowtows: How low will he go? Obama gives Japan’s Emperor Akihito a wow bow

“The kowtow was a significant issue for diplomats, since it was required to come into the presence of the Emperor of China, but it meant submission before him.
….its meaning soon shifted to describe any abject submission or grovelling.”

I’d imagine that the memes in his head recognize their superiors? Anyway, a Leftist is literally kowtowing in his pursuit of equality before your eyes while all you can do is look to the Right seeking error.

I continue to be amused (amazed) that the significant effort to paint Obama as a socialist…

You need to do away with your fixation on condemning the Right long enough to seek the truth.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 07:1451mynym

Of course that could not be the case here since Obama is a socialist and socialists would never cowtow to big pharma or wealthy financial interests.

It’s not kowtowing, they view it as the use of special interests in the service of an agenda:

An inherent aspect of fascist economies was economic dirigisme, meaning an economy where the government exerts strong directive influence, and effectively controls production and allocation of resources. In general, apart from the nationalizations of some industries, fascist economies were based on private property and private initiative, but these were contingent upon service to the state. The Economics of Fascism

He’s not “kowtowing” to special interests, he probably thinks that he’s using them when it suits him. The only people he literally kowtows to are foreign leaders who overtly tend toward dictatorship, communism, socialism or fascism while generally snubbing those who do not. He literally kowtows, see: (How low will he go? Obama gives Japan’s Emperor Akihito a wow bow LA Times) Etc.

“The kowtow was a significant issue for diplomats, since it was required to come into the presence of the Emperor of China, but it meant submission before him.
….its meaning soon shifted to describe any abject submission or grovelling.”

I’d imagine that the memes in his head recognize their superiors? Anyway, a Leftist is literally kowtowing before your eyes and instead of seeking the truth all you can do is look to the Right seeking error.

I continue to be amused (amazed) that the significant effort to paint Obama as a socialist…

You need to do away with your fixation on condemning the Right long enough to seek the truth. Obama could be establishing a new form of fascism in front of your eyes and you’d still be going on ad naseum about how the Right is full of stupid rubes who believe simplistic memes but you’re knowledgeable and intelligent. We get it, you like to imagine yourself as intelligent and so on. Now what about the truth of things?
on 14 Feb 2012 at 07:4752mynym

Wow, so Reagan was a socialist for bailing out Chrysler the first time.

More kowtowing: Iacocca bows before Jimmy Carter after getting bailed out by Washington.

Questions about whether a quick federal fix is right—and will be enough The Carter Administration decided last week that now was the time to come to the aid of the nation’s most beleaguered major company. After weeks of rising pressure for a federal fix for the multiplying problems of Chrysler Corp., Treasury Secretary G. William Miller produced—and Jimmy Carter approved —a Government bailout. It was designed to prevent the nation’s No. 3 automaker (1978 sales: $13.6 billion) from sliding into a bankruptcy that could have put many thousands out of work and sent a shudder through U.S. financial markets.
….the Administration “recognizes that there is a public interest in sustaining [its] jobs and maintaining a strong and competitive national automotive industry.”Time

If you want an unlimited source of money* and to establish yourself as “too big to fail” then all you have to do is frame your business as fitting into nationalism in some way while kowtowing to corrupt politicians.

*Although it will be increasingly worthless due to the corruption of the economic language of the people. Then the power shifts to those who have resources in the real world and not scraps of paper based on a declining type of faith/credibility which trace back to the decline of American civilization. And interesting aspect of it is that when the government bails out rail roads, car companies and so on there is typically a return on the “investment” to the government. Although if they were allowed to fail the returns to the companies that would have taken their place would probably have been much larger as the market would have created knowledge much faster. But in contrast, when they bail out the financial services industry the money generally seems to disappear into a morass of corruption.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 07:4953mynym

A history of the federal government moving toward too big to fail bail outs: ProPublica
on 14 Feb 2012 at 08:4454Dave

“We get it, you like to imagine yourself as intelligent and so on. Now what about the truth of things?”

I am intelligent, and so on. And the truth of things follows:

The nation’s leadership (Bush followed by Obama and others before them both) decided that shoring up certain industries (auto, farming, et al) was in the nations best interest. Were they right? I think it’s a mixed bag. Almost a damned if you, damned if you don’t. Jobs are saved, but government (and hence the people) pay the cost. If the auto industry failed, America loses more manufacturing capability, which affects our national security. However, other auto manufacturers were/are doing quite well without government props. The workers whose jobs were saved, continue to get a paycheck and continue to spend, thus supporting economic growth. But the nation is further in debt, which must be service, etc. …….

See how nuanced this all is? Isn’t this better than “Obama’s A Socialist” Maybe he and Bush’s decisions were wrong. History might tell us that someday, but you notice we could have a great discussion if we were not limited to “Obama’s a socialist. No, he’s not. Yes he is. Is not. Is so. Your mama”.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 09:2055Jon Moseley

SussexAnon wrote in #49: “Wow, so Reagan was a socialist for bailing out Chrysler the first time. Who da thunk?”

As my post made clear, the issue is Obama CONTROLLING GM and Chrysler, including breaking the normal rules of the bankruptcy court to engineer an outcome dictated by the White House.

The bailout of Chrysler in the 1980′s was controversial, but the rebuliding of Chrysler was led by the very strong figure Lee Iaococca — not by the White House. The US Congress when Reagan was President loaned I think $5 billion to Chrysler, if I recall, but then LEFT CHRYSLER ALONE to be responsible to rebuild and pay back the loan.

Furthermore, we do have divided government. When Ronald Reagan was fighting with a Democrat-dominated Congress and Mitt Romney was fighting with a Democrat-dominated Massachusetts legislature, the result of the sausage factory may not be pretty nor truly represent the political philosophy of Reagan or Romney.

The difference is which direction are people HEADING in, what are they PUSHING FOR? Ronald Reagan was trying to herd cats away from socialism and toward the greatness of America’s economic system based on freedom. Barack Obama and most Democrats (conservative Democrats now becoming extinct) ARE TRYING TO GO IN THE OTHER DIRECTION. It is not that Obama is being forced to accept some socialist-leaning progams or votes. Obama IS the force for socialism, dragging the Republican Congress in the direction of socialism.

So there is no comparison between a Reagan, or a Bush, or a Romney trying to pul lthe Democrats away from their addiction to “THE DARK SIDE” being socialism, and having to occasionally compromise.

In a system of divided government, you have to look at which direction a politician is pushing the agenda… not at individual compromises that are unavoidable in a power-sharing government.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 09:2856Jon Moseley

Apologies to mynym in #51:

I made the classic mistake of accepting the PREMISE of a liberal’s argument without CHECKING THE FACTS FIRST. It is astonishing how often when you check the facts, the premise of a liberal argument is factually untrue.

It was Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan, who loaned $5 billion to Chrysler. But, again, all the attention was on Lee Iococca as a VERY strong leader, becoming almost a cult leader (more respected than Donald Trump recently). There was even talk of Lee Iococca running for President, because his leadership — not Washington — turned Chrysler around.

To Dave in #53: I think we would agree, for once, that if government had not so badly damaged America’s manufacturing sector over many decades, the government would not be faced with the dilemma of having to prop up the companies that the government so badly damaged. Washington faces a no-win dichotomy as a result of decades of bad economic policy.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 09:3457mynym

Jobs are saved, but government (and hence the people) pay the cost. If the auto industry failed, America loses more manufacturing capability, which affects our national security.

Not necessarily, industries have failed in the past and there is evidence that they have to fail in order for the market to create knowledge. I doubt that fascist economics works. In a sense it may “work” and did work in Nazi Germany. But in undermining the character and free spirit of a people by shifting them to labor based on a mixture of coercion and propaganda and away from labor based on liberty it is exponentially expensive. What economic model “works” depends on what type of life people want. If you want a society that is progressively based on coercion or “incentives” and military expansion that creates jobs based on militarism and so on then fascism works.

I would note that it doesn’t seem to work in the financial services industry at all.

However, other auto manufacturers were/are doing quite well without government props.

Not to mention that we do not know how much wealth would have been created or how fast the markets’ search for knowledge would have taken place without government intervention. I suspect that the real reason that people will not have jobs in the end is that their economic language has been destroyed by corrupt politicians and not because a “too big to fail” industry was allowed to go out of business. After all, the latter creates opportunity while the former destroys it. We’ve been on the “too big to fail” path for a while.

History might tell us that someday, but you notice we could have a great discussion if we were not limited to “Obama’s a socialist. No, he’s not. Yes he is. Is not. Is so. Your mama”.

I’m not limited to that but we all need some entertainment sometimes. We already have a history of fascist economics. Although any “economic model” depends on people, their character and the nature of their spirit. So what works for Germany may not work in Greece. Something that the central planners of the European Union should have noticed…. but planners seldom recognize the most important things in life. So even if history shows that “serve the national interest” fascism supposedly works as an economic model in one instance and you begin planning for it, it may not work for Americans. Not to mention that fascism may become a part of changes in their spiritual condition which causes economic changes that “bubble” to the surface until the economy collapses due to lack of credibility/credit/faith.

The main thing to look at first in order to clear the ground and begin to search for knowledge is that the “fiscal only” concept that generally looks at people as cogs in an economic machine that can be tinkered with is rooted in ignorance.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 09:4958mynym

That is to say that no sooner have you touched the economy/”machine” to tinker with it based on coercion then it comes alive and moves in an unexpected direction and so on. So it is important to look to history or focus on experimental economics based on evidence in the real world while realizing that even then you won’t really have enough knowledge to plan for things because there is overwhelming evidence that people in the real world are living, knowing, creative beings. (Note that fascism in the past was linked to Darwinian creation myths which reduce people to blind, ignorant processes.)

For example, if prophecies of famine and so on were true in the real world and it was a certain form of science/scientia/knowledge then Al Gore could make a fortune on it. But instead he apparently makes his fortune by entertaining people with the idea that they’re preventing imaginary catastrophes in the future or selling them indulgences.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 09:5559mynym

Here’s another good link: What is a market bubble?

To summarize: “It’s not sustainable.”
on 14 Feb 2012 at 10:3060Dave

One of the key lessons I learned about economics in college was that macro economics is difficult to impossible to model accurately. The reason was very simple. There are too many variables that must be factored in order to arrive at a high fidelity model. Economic theory may work well in a local environment (think the home) because you can, to a high degree, control things like capital, labor, demand, etc. to make your economic model work.

My general outlook on economic machinations by governments, industry groups, etc. is that it is mostly trial and error and what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. So the question is, how much should our government attempt to influence the economy? It’s not an all or nothing, but to a greater or lesser extent. I believe that in desperate circumstances, such as a depression, the government must attempt some action, even though I recognize that the the outcome is chancey. In such circumstances, doing nothing is not an option. But how much is too much, too little, or just plain wrong are excellent topics of discussion and debate.

Agriculture is important to Delaware. The government spends money to subsidize farmers and ensure the continued viability of the industry. How much of that government “stimulus” is necessary? Is this a proper role for government? If left alone would agriculture do well enough on it’s own? Do we need fair trade pricing on agricultural products? Do price controls do what they intended? For us in Delaware these are important questions and many Delaware farmers probably would take the view that the nation needs food, but the automobile industry should stand on it’s own – sink or swim. So where do we draw the line?
on 14 Feb 2012 at 11:1961Rick

So the question is, how much should our government attempt to influence the economy?

Socialist-Democrats’ attempts ‘to influence the economy’ are really programs to increase the percentage of Americans reliant on largesse from the public treasury. Essentially, cash for votes. This explains why the ever-growing parasite class votes exclusively Socialist-Democrat.
on 14 Feb 2012 at 16:5762Jon Moseley

Dave wrote in #59:

One of the key lessons I learned about economics in college was that macro economics is difficult to impossible to model accurately. The reason was very simple. There are too many variables that must be factored in order to arrive at a high fidelity model.

This is exactly why, as Frederick Hayek proves convincingly, goverment management of the economy is impossible. Centralized manaement of the economy is impossible, because the volume and pace of information is astronomical and impossible for any system to process. The government is always too late and behind the curve, even if it could grasp any sizable piece of the data at all.

The decentralized economy of individual actors motivated by their own self-interest is not only morally superior but the only workable model, because centralized planning is fundamentally impossible, according to Hayek.
on 15 Feb 2012 at 09:2963Rick

Remember when the British government decided to consolidate the auto industry, under the badge ‘British Leyland?’ The ‘government’ was the majority ‘owner’ of MG, Triumph, Morris, Rover and Land Rover, Daimler, Jaguar and so on.

Jaguar and Land Rover were sold-off to pay accumulating debts- and they survive today. Where are MG, Triumph, etc?

Sort of like our government ‘business’ failures, the USPS and AMTRAK. Can the government do anything right?
on 15 Feb 2012 at 10:0564mynym

The bitter ironies of those who sit at the top of governmental pyramid schemes aborting the generation of wealth: China’s Ghost Cities and Malls

“Things may not be as rosy as they seem.” …based on illusions generated by coercion, the sacrifice of the poor and an abortion of the creation and generation of real wealth.

Consider that even observing things changes reality, let alone trying to plan it. Not to mention that economic schemes based on coercion change the character of the people who create and the product of whose labor is “the economy.” For all the talk of change and progress on the Left, it doesn’t seem like they understand much about progress. For example, notice how the NYT (i.e. journalists/imbeciles) were taken in by illusions* rooted in coercion to the point that they wrote that China was going to shift toward an economy based more on people at the bottom beginning to consume wealth. No… so far, only those at the top of the pyramid scheme have Ipads and so on. Apparently this is so that they can better organize their sacrifices of the poor in their schemes.**

*Not that this is saying much. It would be like a journalist/imbecile at the News Journal believing that when people abort their babies it provides care for poor women and a better life for all in general. The illusion or meme doesn’t even have to be that powerful, in the mind of an imbecile it may as well be the equivalent of reality. And as long as it lasts until they’re dead, well.
on 15 Feb 2012 at 10:0665mynym

**

According to Reuters, China’s Communist Party members can now carry the RedPad Number One, which among other things comes bundled with software that allows up-and-coming commissars to monitor both the news and the journalists who report it.
For Chinese communists, only RedPad, not iPad, will do CNet
on 15 Feb 2012 at 10:2866mynym

Centralized manaement of the economy is impossible, because the volume and pace of information is astronomical and impossible for any system to process.

Notice the link between “closed system” Darwinian creation myths promulgated by the state and socialism, it’s ironic because Darwinism was and is the projection of capitalism onto nature.

The link of Darwin to Malthus has been recognized and accorded proper importance from the start, if only because Darwin himself had explicitly noted and honored this impetus. But if Darwin required Malthus to grasp the central role of continuous and severe struggle for existence, then he needed the related school of Scottish economists…to formulate the even more fundamental principle of natural selection itself.
….
In fact, I would advance the even stronger claim that the theory of natural selection is, in essence, Adam Smith’s economics transferred to nature. (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen Jay Gould :122)

You might say that Leftists are dumb enough to believe that capitalism created progress as we know it (not to mention every other organism that exists) on the one hand while rejecting it on the other.

Meanwhile, back in reality, empirical observations in biology do not always comport with the ideas of capitalism being projected onto it. In contrast:

…the anthropological fable is a work of imagination, a historical scenario, yet offered as an explanation of one or another social phenomenon of either that time or our own. It is a kind of reverse science fiction*, situated in the past rather than in the future. …
What claim can this kind of historical fiction make to be scientific? It simply cannot, even in the loosest sense of science. It is just that the anthropological fable appeals to ideas of competition, struggle, selection, etc., ideas of Darwinian biology–or rather, socio-economic ideas that Darwinism borrowed and naturalized, thus giving them scientific backing. Returned to the sociology from whence they came, they are endowed with a kind of scientific aura, and their use in anthropological fables confers on the latter a dignity to which they have no right.
The problem is that Darwinism, properly speaking, resorts to just this kind of historical scenario in its explanation of the origin of species. The simplest of these scenarios, in its modern form, sees a certain characteristic as appearing by chance mutation and, once shown to be favourable to its individual bearer, being preserved by natural selection. This basic model can be given added sophistication, mathematical for example, but the fact remains that the Darwinian explanation still consists in imagining a historical scenario… To criticize the explanatory principle that the anthropological model provides in social Darwinism is equally to criticize the Darwinian principle that explains the evolution of species by reconstructing historical scenarios. It thus amounts to an attack on science (since Darwinism is deemed scientific, at least among biologists)….
(The Pure Society: from Darwin to Hitler by Andre Pichot :47-49)

*Notice this pattern of socialists imagining things about the past (Ironically based on projecting capitalism onto it.) or imagining things about about the disastrous consequences of capitalism in the future are unified in this, they generally generate and sustain illusions of knowledge about progress based on imaginary events.
on 15 Feb 2012 at 10:5567mynym

One thing about what amounts to the emergence of literal monuments to Leftist pyramid schemes in China is that at least it leaves something behind. But it’s likely that if America begins to shift toward an “economy” based on coercion/taxes and continues to do away with liberty based labor and so on we probably won’t even get to wonder about the results in a literal sense. Instead, when the illusions and so on being used to shift the values of people disappear they will just evaporate into intangible things like an education bubble bursting or another failed “bail out” for the financial services industry. If those who sit in ivory towers are any measure then we probably won’t even get actual towers of babble to wonder about.

If that’s the case then there won’t even be a monument to ignorance left. Imagine that….

Of course, it may not happen.
on 15 Feb 2012 at 11:3268Geezer

Interesting analysis, but you overlook an important distinction: We don’t control nature, but we can control the economy and society — not much, but at least to some degree. We do not have to accept letting the losers die.

Unfortunately, the analyses you cite have simplified the theory of evolution to the point of meaninglessness (which might explain why you don’t understand it very well). Humans, like many other species, do not exist in nature as individuals but in groups. Those groups have increased in size and sophistication as time has gone on (sorry, I don’t know how to explain this progression other than to call it “progress,” though I suppose you would disagree, as you apparently don’t believe that humanity has “progressed” anywhere). As a result, individuals who might otherwise die on their own survive as members of a group.
on 15 Feb 2012 at 11:3569Rick

Once the government has stolen all there is left to steal, the producers will-by the necessity of self-preservation- flee. Then, the propagandized majority will see just how competent and just how benevolent their Socialist-Democrat masters really are.

“Stealing from one man to feed and house another is Theft”
on 15 Feb 2012 at 13:4970Dave

“liberty based labor”

Shouldn’t that be capitalized, you know, similar to Left Wing Socialist Fascist? What the heck is “liberty based labor?” I’m an at will employeed of a company. I continue to work there at there and my will. Is that liberty based labor? Or is LBL labor where I vote Republican?
on 15 Feb 2012 at 17:4571mynym

Is that liberty based labor?

Probably, although almost everything is progressively being undermined by corruption and the lose of a distinction between liberty and coercion, to the point that people now speak of the government “saving and creating” labor.

Another example, the very economic language by which people are at liberty to value your labor is itself being corrupted and shifted toward coercion. And coercion tends to destroy the creation of wealth…. not to mention the irony that corrupting the economic language of the people redistributes wealth toward the top of the pyramid scheme where the demagogues sit.

Or is LBL labor where I vote Republican?

What do you think?
on 15 Feb 2012 at 18:1472mynym

We don’t control nature, but we can control the economy and society — not much, but at least to some degree. We do not have to accept letting the losers die.

To the extent that there ever was a Darwinian “theory” of evolution it did predict survival of the fittest.* Given that Darwinism is generally based on imagining things it depends on what the proponent of “evolution” sees in the Rorschach test typical to hypotheses of evolution.

*Here is what Darwin saw as a scientific fact that people would probably have to resign themselves to:

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.
(Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd edn., London, John Murray, 1882, p. 156)

Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.
(The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1905, p. 286)

Notice how certain he was, about as certain as those who use pseudo-scientific ideas to predict environmental catastrophes in an imaginary future today. Apparently at some point people no longer realize that they are imagining things or begin treating their own imaginations as the epistemic equivalent of empirical or scientific evidence.

Apparently you see evolution differently than Darwin because you like to imagine things about evolution differently. Given that evolution, whatever it is, is often imagined to support one observation as well as its exact opposite that’s probably fine. Ironically, Darwin would have liked to see things differently but couldn’t due to the pseudo-scientific memes of his day that he helped to create.

In any case, neither your view or Darwin’s view of things in the Rorschach test of evolution is based on a rigorous form of science. Shifting around between numerous hypotheses is a long way from specifying the theory of natural selection or any “theory of evolution” in the language of mathematics to the point that it can be used to predict trajectories of adaptation in groups of organisms. Apparently too many people are too busy with pseudo-science and imagining things about the past to focus on science here and now….
on 16 Feb 2012 at 07:4473mynym

We’re also a long way from sound economic theories that are verifiable based on experience or experiments as well. For example:“We can always print money.”

Notice his absolute certainty and claim to knowledge based on a “faith based” illusion, it’s the material of satire and will almost certainly be burned if history and experience in reality are any measure. And the very specification that you might be led to imagine exists, whether it’s a specified “theory” of evolution or a specified monetary system, actually has no structure that can be verified or falsified in reality. It can be specified in a different way or inflated and deflated at the will of its proponents. This leads to corruption to the point that proponents of vaporous hypotheses do not even realize that they and what they imagine of themselves is corrupt.* After all, corruption itself entails a knowledge of integrity that relies on some form of specification. But note their statements of certainty about knowledge created mainly in their own imaginations, even as evidence in reality surrounds them.

*Perhaps the correction to vaporous or unfalsifiable hypotheses is necessarily iconoclastic and satiric as the critic themselves must drawn something out of it all the babble criticize:

The author assumes an iconoclastic and sometimes sarcastic stance from the outset, and this tone persists throughout the book. This alone may discourage some of his potential readers, most unfortunately, for here is a book that all evolutionary biologists should read. [...]
In the end, one is left convinced that the author’s criticisms and suggestions are, for the most part, correct. He hits hard at the innumerable “falsifications” (as he calls them), that have wrongly attempted to enshrine Darwin and natural selection. He concludes that “Darwinism was refuted from the moment it was conceived” (pp. ix, 404) and that … as a biologist and thinker Darwin was not a genius. He was not the ‘Newton of Biology’.. . . I would rather. . . bestow the latter epithet on Lamarck” (p. 421).
….
The book abounds with unique and pithy thoughts, but numerous other authors have subscribed to his fundamental theses… The list of people to whom the book is dedicated gives a clue to the free-thinking company sharing many of his views….
(Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth by Søren Løvtrup
Review author: Hobart M. Smith
Evolution, Vol. 43, No. 3. (May, 1989), :699-700)

One thing is certain, if people had half the knowledge and certainty that they claim to have then they’d be exponentially wealthier than they are.
on 16 Feb 2012 at 08:0574mynym

The specification or distinction between debt and assets, liberty and coercion… and more irony:Ron Paul questions Greenspan

Meanwhile, Delawareans are still scratching their heads over the distinction between government creating labor based on taxes or debt and labor based on liberty? Apparently that’s a distinction that is too hard to grasp these days.
on 16 Feb 2012 at 09:1575Jon Moseley

Dave, if you were as you wish to think of yourself, an open-minded and economic oriented independent, you would be keenly sensitive to the distinction between a command and control economy and the American system of free enterprise. Of course, my objection is not that you desire the wrong things, but I see you as more a captive of deeply-ingrained propaganda and assumptions than you realize.

I have never heard the term “Liberty based labor” but it is obvious enough that there is a gigantic difference in the world view of the Statists who believe the government should dominate society and those who beleive in individualism and the value of he individual making his or her own decisions about their lives.

The American economic philosophy (recognized by no less than the US Supreme Court in reviewing economic regulation, and upholding open competition as the core of our economy) is that the free choices of individuals, left alone from government interference to the maximum extent possible (i.e., without harming others) adds up to the overall value of the economic system and the success of the society.

America’s success does not come from central planners presuming to act as PHILOSOPHER KINGS, who know better than the poor slovenly masses whom the central planners keep as something close to pets. There is a term that few take seriously: Public SERVANTS. Government bureaucrats sees themselves as our masters, when they are meant to be our servant.

The distinction between a world view of government planning versus a society based on individualism and individual choices, I would have thought, would have been something Dave would be keenly sensitive to.

The State Ruling the Church

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