Category Archives: ethics

Hypocrisy, Part II

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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has an opinion piece in USA Today.

In her apologia for an Obamacare regulation that requires health insurance programs provided by a vast range of Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and so on institutions to provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacients in direct, open contravention of the teachings and beliefs of those institutions (and that requires those institutions to offer those insurance plans exclusively), she writes

One of the key benefits of the 2010 health care law is that many preventive services are now free for most Americans with insurance. … So is the full range of preventive health services recommended for women by the highly respected Institute of Medicine, including contraception.

So, no one is paying any taxes, or being forced to change their existing health insurance policies, to pay for this.

Nor is there any cancellation of religious teachings or thought or fundamental tenets by this Federal government, which used to be on the other side of a “wall of separation between Church & State.”  There’s an interesting view of “free.”

That’s why in the rule we put forward, we specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith. This exemption includes churches and other houses of worship, and could also include other church-affiliated organizations.

Umm, no.  Not hospitals, not doctors’ offices, not clinics.  These employ (quite properly) far too broad a range of employees to be able to fit within the carefully and deliberately narrowly drawn limits of this rule.

In choosing this [extremely narrow religious] exemption, we looked first at state laws already in place across the country. Of the 28 states that currently require contraception to be covered by insurance, eight have no religious exemption at all.

The religious exemption in the administration’s rule is the same as the exemption in Oregon, New York and California.

Of course, far be it from the Federal government to set an example.  Oh, wait….

Progressives and the Law

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I wrote about the Progressives’ attitude to the law last fall.  Here’s another demonstration of their view.

By now it’s well known that, in direct contravention of the law, the Democratic Party-controlled Senate has declined to produce a budget for over 1,000 days.  Now the Senate Majority Leader, harry Reid (D, UT) has openly stated that he will refuse to allow the Senate to produce anything related for FY2013.  Budget?  We ain’t got no budgets.  We don’t need no budgets!  I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ budgets!  What Reid actually said was just as fictitious.  Referring to last summer’s debt-limit deal, he claimed:

We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year — it’s done, we don’t need to do it[.]

And his other pet, Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) chimed in:

We have a budget. … It is a total falsity to say we haven’t passed a budget.

Despite this Progressive disdain, though, a budget resolution in the Senate is both legally necessary and highly useful.  Such a resolution serves as a blueprint for spending, and it provides a broad outline for the Senate Appropriations Committee’s spending choices.

Congressman Paul Ryan (R, WI) pointed out that the Senate Democrats

fell far, far short of solving this country’s fiscal problems.

and those Democrats

confirm they’ve given up on budgeting. What a disgrace. Reid’s refusal to budget is a recipe for crisis.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R, AL) said, as well (his complete statement is here),

Budget Control Act spending caps [that debt-limit deal], crafted behind closed doors and rushed to passage at the 11th hour under threat of panic, do not even approach the definition of the budget process that the law requires. They are not in any way or any sense a Senate Democrat budget plan.

Stand by for another year of Progressive disdain.  Remember it in November.

How Does the Reverse Play?

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The Democrats are once again complaining of Republican obstructionism.  Let’s see how their arguments play from the other side of the question.

Here’s the Democrats’ plaint:

Reid blasted Republicans for bogging down the payroll tax conversation Thursday morning with a debate about Boiler MACT rules, regulations designed to rein in toxic emissions from boilers that the GOP and some Democrats say are overly-burdensome on small businesses and could kill thousands of American jobs as currently written.

Here’s another view of that:

Republicans objected to Democrats bogging down the payroll tax conversation Thursday by spending time arguing against Boiler MACT rules, regulations designed to rein in toxic emissions from boilers that the GOP and some Democrats say are overly-burdensome on small businesses and could kill thousands of American jobs as currently written.

Reid again:

I want everyone put on notice – we’re not going to walk away without some tough votes. If they can’t do something, we’ll do it[.]

Another view, putting words into Mitch McConnell’s (R, KY) mouth:

I want everyone put on notice – we’re not going to walk away without some tough votes. If they can’t do something, we’ll do it[.]

Oh, wait—the House already is, as they’ve done for over a year, only to have Harry Reid (D, NV) actively block those bills from even getting a debate in Senate committees, much less public discussion on the Senate floor.

Sander Levin (D, MI) said

Families cannot afford a repeat trip toward the brink that House Republicans took them to in December and over and over again last year.

Another view:

Families cannot afford a repeat trip toward the brink that Senate Democrats took them to in December and over and over again last year.

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) weighed in.  She still thinks, in all seriousness, that the payroll tax holiday extension that’s the proximate subject of the present discussion even needs to be paid for.  Uncle Sugar can just borrow more.  (As an aside, I have to wonder whether this profligate borrowing is really just the Dems’ saying they have no intention of paying for anything—our grandchildren, who are being stuck with this exploding bar tab, can just borrow in their time.)

Hmm….

Two Mandates

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We’re well aware of the Individual Mandate that is the core of Obamacare.  We’re well aware of that “requirement’s” immorality and of its unconstitutionality.  We’re well aware of the naked power grab that this “requirement” represents for the present administration.  But it’s only background.

Here’s another naked power grab, as the present administration seeks to dismantle our Constitution and replace it with an unfettered government populated by Progressive Know Betters.

We have another mandate, a set of Obamacare regulations that deliberately attack, not the Commerce Clause that is the target of the Individual Mandate, nor the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, but the immediately following Free Exercise Clause: “nor prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].”

The Obama administration has just implemented new rules under his Obamacare that force

Catholic universities, hospitals, and charities to provide insurance for their employees covering contraception — even though that violates church teachings.

Moreover, these new rules expand “required” coverage to include the “morning after pill” and potentially sterilization and abortion.  Having tried once to dictate to a religious group who will be permitted to speak for them, now this administration is attempting to dictate to all religious groups what they will be permitted to believe, and how they will be permitted to act on those beliefs.  So much for free exercise.

The stakes are clearly understood.  Timothy Dolan, New York Cardinal-designate, describes the stark nature of this Progressive assault.

Never before has the government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience.  This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.

But this isn’t just a Catholic issue.  President of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, said he’s been contacted by Protestants, Mormons, Jews, and others who want to join forces with the Catholic League and with the bishops to overturn the new rules.

I’ve never seen anything like it.  They are lining up single file.

President Obama’s reaction to the objections is breathtaking in the cynicism he displays.  At his daily press conference, where Press Secretary Jay Carney recites Obama’s words, he insisted that he still offers

strong support for existing conscience protections, including those relating to health care providers….

and he went on to claim that the new rules don’t change that.  Then Obama, again speaking through Carney, dismissed the objections.

We understand that not everyone agrees with [the new rules].  All I can tell you is it was made after very careful consideration based on the need to balance…[religious rights and] the necessity to provide access to preventive services for women was an important consideration.

But Obama and his rule writers didn’t consider very carefully.  Hospitals can only invoke the “conscience clause,” and get an exemption from these new rules, if they turn away patients of other faiths, something that also is anathema to men of faith.  Theodore McCarrick, a retired Cardinal, points out the fallacy of Obama’s “rationale.”

That means we can’t say what we’ve been saying for 200 years, “Are you hungry?”  We have to say, “Are you Catholic?” We don’t do that.

But this latest move isn’t even just about religious freedom.  It’s about individual freedom, generally.  Government incumbents who will attempt these two pütschen will assault our freedoms everywhere.

Remember this in the fall.

Progressives, Occupiers, and Free Speech

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Recall the eagerness with which President Obama and his fellow Progressives in our Federal government embraced the Occupier movement.

The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side[.]

And Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D, NY), among others, had this to say:

The city’s actions to shut down OWS last [November] raise a number of serious civil-liberties questions that must be answered….

Now observe the Occupiers’ current behavior (I won’t recount the litany of murders, rapes, child abuse, and so on that went on in Zuccotti Park and elsewhere last fall).  In their Oakland riot earlier this week, police officers were pelted with bottles, metal pipe, rocks, spray cans, improvised explosive devices, and burning flares.  These Occupiers also broke into Oakland’s City Hall, where among other activities they broke an electrical box and damaged several art structures, including an art exhibit created by children and made from recycled materials.

On the other side of the country, the Occupiers behaved little differently.  The Executive Director of the Rhode Island Right to Life organization, Barth Bracy, said a Right to Life rally inside the Rhode Island state capital building had to be cut short as a result of Occupiers deliberately breaking up their rally.  These protestors “began screaming and refused to allow a…priest to deliver a prayer.”  Bracy noted further,

This is their idea of civil speech but we believe it’s an outrage.  They started heckling, chanting and blowing whistles.

The misbehavior deepened when an Occupier purposefully climbed onto a third floor balcony and dumped a box of condoms onto girls from a Catholic school.  These worthies even attacked a State Representative who was present for the original rally.

At one point they even attacked State. Rep. Doreen Costa. …  Costa said a female Occupier hit her on the head with a sign….

These aren’t isolated occurrences.  They’ve been getting increasingly violent since last fall, when it became clear the Occupiers weren’t going to get their way instantaneously.  And plainly, free speech, freedom to protest, means Occupiers get to speak, Occupiers get to protest, but no one else does.  An American’s speech is dependent on what the Occupier movement will permit, and nothing else.

Here is what Obama and his fellow Progressives have to say today about their allies, now that the Occupiers have shown their true colors.

…

These Progressives seem to share the Occupiers’ view of our free speech and our property rights.  Still.