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| Obama Cult "O Loko Haram" |
Two years ago when Obamacare ordered the Catholic Church to include birth control and abortions in its health care plans, the nation’s Catholic Bishops threatened to shut down or sell off all hospitals, and it appeared that the threat had staved off our imperial government.
Catholic hospitals are an important component of our nation’s health care system, providing the only source of medical care in some areas, and only a fool would want to see them shut down. That was the prevailing wisdom at the time.
Now, I believe that thinking was wrong, and it appears that the Obamistas do want them shut down, provoking a crisis and providing a pretext for more government intervention. This is about the state breaking one more private institution to its will. Progressivism is an inexorable march to absolute state control, and this is just the next step.
What’s Obama’s end game?
Employers that furnish health insurance have to cover it. But employers don't have to furnish health insurance -- and some of those with a religious mission may decide not to. When the District of Columbia passed a law that forced Catholic Charities to provide medical insurance to the same-sex partners of its employees, the agency elected to simply drop coverage for spouses.
Anyone left without health insurance under the administration's rule can go to new state-run health insurance exchanges to buy individual policies. But here again, the administration rejects freedom of conscience. The only policies available will include coverage for contraceptives -- including those the church regards as "abortion drugs" -- and sterilization. (Steve Chapman)The end game is to herd more human cattle and sheeple into the Obamacare box canyon, while trampling our old fashioned morals and ushering in a new era of progressive utilitarianism, freed from fusty shibboleths like human dignity and sanctity of life.
And the Catholic Church, which snuggles up to big government at every opportunity instead of preaching the Catholic doctrine of Subsidiarity, should learn a lesson from all of this:
Get in bed with Uncle Sam and don't be surprised if you get more than a good night's sleep -- Ronald Reagan
52 comments:
One of the interesting things that Carney said at the Presser was that is was a "Bi-partisan" Institute that made this decision. A good clue as to what we have in store regarding rationing and how it will occur. ANyone recall "Death panels"?
Anyone left without health insurance under the administration's rule can go to new state-run health insurance exchanges to buy individual policies.
After six months of not having any coverage!
Believe me, I have checked those rules -- largely because of Mr. AOW's condition.
I'm not sure, but another requirement for those exchanges may be that one cannot find insurance any other way (that is, must produce a certificate of denial).
Private coverage is, of course, more expensive and come with reduced benefits.
The end game is to herd more human cattle and sheeple into the Obamacare box canyon...
I'll also add this....Private health insurance will not be able to survive, largely because only those who have serious pre-existing conditions will be buying health insurance. Private health insurance will become more and more expensive -- until it prices itself out of the market.
Not to be flippant, but it is my considered opinion that CONTRACEPTION is better by far than MISCONCEPTION.
What we need are more ADULTS -- not more children begotten by the misbegotten.
'Nuff said!
~ FreeThinke
That said, I did not miss your main point about this attack on religious scruples being just another in a long serious of ploys determined to establish TOTALITARIAN regime in Washington, DC.
Since Ignorance and Stupidity seem to have taken over the vast majority of our deliberately STUPIDIFIED [I coined that term, because I am sick to death of seeing "dumbed-down" -- itself an assault on linguistic decency] population, I see little hope that we can avoid the degradation of lapsing into dependency on dictatorship.
~ FreeThinke
And it IS an attack on religious freedom as well, of course.
I wonder what will be done about the Christian Sicentists -- a small-but-signifiant sect that does not believe in "materia medica?" If the government can force Christian Scientists to buy health insurance, "the free exercise of religion" is OVER and DONE WITH.
But then I am one who thinks the Mormons should not have been forced to abandon polygamy either.
Either you believe in liberty -- or you DON'T.
Liberty for only the things that YOU approve of, is not liberty at all.
~ FreeThinke
Well this is a tough one. I can see the church not covering birth control, but abortions is a bit much.
Hear me out before you stone me!
The Catholic Church believes that abortion is morally permissible if the mother's life is in danger, if the baby was produced through rape, or if the child is a product of incest. The most important one is the danger to the mother's life.
It would be fairly ridiculous if a family had to bear the cost burden of a medical procedure to save the mother's life, especially when the church says that the procedure is morally permissible in that circumstance (regrettable as it may be).
Birth control is more of a preference than a potential essential to someone's life, but abortion is a medical procedure, and to deny coverage to a medical procedure that could potentially save a mother's life is immoral in my opinion.
This is coming from a Catholic, btw.
The Catholic Church believes that abortion is morally permissible if the mother's life is in danger, if the baby was produced through rape, or if the child is a product of incest. The most important one is the danger to the mother's life.
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Nope. In Judaism you MUST save the mother's life but Catholicism only permits abortion in the case of a tubal pregnancy.
Research the story of Dr. Goldner in New Hampshire.
Anyway, I don't know why The Black Messiah picked this fight. There's no upside.
Ducky is right, but abortion is not the issue. The state forcing people to do things that violate their morals is the issue.
AOW "Private coverage is, of course, more expensive and come with reduced benefits." I don't think that's true, particularly when it will come to Obama care. I'm already hearing very odd things from friends whose loved ones have been in the hospital...reduced benefits are coming, BIG TIME.
If the Catholic church allows for abortion in the case of rape, they're not against abortion for the reasons of protecting the unborn. SF, it's incorrect that they approve abortion with rape?
Jack, what about the unborn baby's life?
Gad, what a tough subject.
I suppose Obama's willing to die on this hill because he wants everyone possible on the gov't teet from jobs to health care to killing unborn babies. With a government safety net that HE likes, he'd better wake up and realize all those unborn children who're killed aren't contributing to the jobs needed to support granny in her dotage! 'Get those babies born and get them grown and working...China won't keep loaning money forever'! :)
More ravages of Obama's attempt to destroy American health care.
What do you care, dmarks? Most of you aren't going t.o be able to afford it in a few years
With a government safety net that HE likes
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First of all z, this includes birth control coverage. Catholic women who say they aren't taking birth control are probably lying.
It is comforting knowing that you feel you should make the decision of whether or not a young girl has to bear a rapists or even her father's child.
Remember it when you get on the soapbox about Muslim fundamentalism (which you support much more than you admit).
Abortion is an intrinsic evil and cannot be squared with any posited "greater good."
I misread Ducky's comments. He is wrong saying its ok in cases of rape and incest.
The only reason it is judged morally correct in the case of an ectopic pregnancy is that the baby is not viable and the abortion occurs not as a primary act but as a secondary effect of saving the mother's life.
Highly legalistic, but it is quite logical when judged from a "respect life" standpoint.
I will return again to the point that the state has no business in any of this.
@ Ducky: It is comforting knowing that you feel you should make the decision of whether or not a young girl has to bear a rapists or even her father's child.
False argument. No one is saying that.
These are personal decisions, and government has no business, and no constitutional mandate to stick its nose into our private lives.
In my research I discovered that you are right.
But I also discovered that it's woreded in a convenient way to obviously satisfy one moral standard while satisfying another.
It's not technically abortion if it's done to save the mother's life. Then, it's considered an "operation." Of course, that session of "fun with symantics," was from ca 1951, one of the Piuses.
The Catholic church has always had a problem with the fact that many of its teachings are largely ignored by the laity.
I can almost guarantee that you will be very, very hard pressed to find a priest that would actually tell a woman that she must give her life to give birth to a child, or else face damnation from God.
You're onto something, Jack, but it's not semantics under the ectopic pregnancy circumstance. The unviable fetus indeed becomes a blockage and threatens the mother's life. It is aborted as part of the procedure to save the mother's life, but aborting it is not the main purpose.
So the Church would never tell a mother she has to sacrifice her life for the child.
I've had these conversations with an in-law who is a priest and Canon Lawyer. Among all the rules with pointy ends, there is still room for conscience and pastoral care, which provides more latitude than people would think.
Also, this is not the Middle Ages. If someone is at odds with Catholic teachings, he or she can leave without fear of retribution.
That's a principle difference between Church and State. Only the state, in this day and age, can bind your conscience with no recourse.
Well, from what I read from one of the popes, it doesn't just have to be in that case. It has to be clear that the mother will die in child birth, like she's about to give birth, or close to it, and the doctors say "this will kill you." It's then not considered an abortion.
I would amend your statement a bit about leaving the Catholic church. Part of the Catholic intellectual tradition is the notion that we should explore the ideas, even if our own ideas are at odds with the Church. Of course, there are hardliners that say "no, the church's rule is law." But things like Vatican II happened because the church realized that it was losing touch with the laity.
I mean look at the teaching on limbo. It was a few years ago that the church came out and said "okay, there's probably not a limbo." You think that it was all the clergy and had nothing to do with the laity?
It's not that the church is compromising anything, it's just revisiting its teachings. If the church was super-hardliner about everything, which it's not, then it would have to excommunicate like 80% of its flock world-wide.
Jack says:
"The Catholic Church believes that abortion is morally permissible if the mother's life is in danger",
That is/was not my understanding of Catholic teachings. Has this changed?
My only point was that no one gets burned at the stake for going against the Church nowadays. There is no similar escape from the power of the state, however.
Limbo has always been more of an intellectual construct to cover the logical lacuna between "unbaptized people can't get into heaven" and "innocent unbaptized babies can't be condemned to hell."
It's these fine-pointed arguments that while intellectually stimulating, I think have no place outside the halls of academic theology.
How could someone posit that an innocent baby would be denied heaven?
To me, this is human beings over-applying human logic to Divine action. God is not subject to earthly laws, and although our logic can't explain it, he can damn well bring up to heaven anyon he wants.
For those of you who insist on logic, a baby not yet conscious of good and evil cannot sin and therefor cannot forfeit heaven.
Bunker: It's a fine line, case-by-case thing.
Right Silver, and that's my point. You might think that that sort of thing is just some theological discussion, but even the limbo thing is considered to be a serious discussion.
The point is that the church has had specific standards, and they've admitted that they're not always right.
Well Silver, in the matter of rape the fundies are chipping away at insurance and the funding of Planned Parenthood so you can't say the extreme is innocent here.
Obama has pitched a foolish place to pitch his war tent but mark my words, he will throw someone under the bus and rescind the ruling. So when you look at it from the cynical angle this human crap pile forces on you it makes a sort of sense.
He'll be the big hero of religious freedom and the fight by the likes of L'il Ricky Retardo to force girls to carry that[ rapists child will continue emboldened. Which may be his plan.
Remember, he talks a lot and generally delivers the right of center position. It's early in this one.
I wonder how this will affect procedures such as tubal ligation and vasectomy -- the only safe, sane, fully dependable methods of birth control?
Does anyone know?
By the way, don't you just love the way certain childless women long past child-bearing age get up on their high horses, and make pious pronouncements that profoundly affect the quality of life for conscious, sentient beings not blest with the condition of sterility?
The idea that a woman should either be chaste or pregnant truly is Mediaeval, and should offend anyone who professes a belief in libertarianism.
The idea that a woman -- or in some instances a child of ten or eleven -- should be expected to carry the baby of her rapist or abuser to term is nothing less than obscene -- unless, of course, she truly WANTS the baby. That would be unimaginable to me, but To Each is Own.
Sally Jesse Raphael (the female Phil Donahue, remember?) once did a show on Women Who Fell in Love with Their Rapists.
So as far as I'm concerned the subject of bearing your rapist's child belongs nowhere but the annals of Freak TV.
It's the idea of FORCING anyone to do -- or not to do -- ANYTHING against his or her will and conscience by Government Edict that should get us up in arms.
If people honestly want to belong to a religious sect that would require them to bear a child who was the product of rape or incest that's entirely their business.
Even though I find the very though abhorrent, it should not be up to me -- or anyone outside that religious sect -- to make a decision one way or the other for those directly involved.
As Voltaire famously said, "I may not agree with what you say [or think or do], but I would defend to the death your right to say [or think, or do] it."
Vive Voltaire!
Vive la liberté!
~ FreeThinke
The Catholic church is not going to take this lying down. They will fight or wind up going to jail because they will not comply. They have very strict guidelines about birth control and abortion.
The government has absolutely no right to dictate to the American people about health insurance. That is not in our constitution, it is an arbitrary decision by Obama. And it must be overturned.
This is ludicrous.
By the way, don't you just love the way certain childless women long past child-bearing age get up on their high horses, and make pious pronouncements that profoundly affect the quality of life for conscious, sentient beings not blest with the condition of sterility?
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That's because many take birth control medication for other medical needs.
Not that the fringe right care, unless it effects them.
@ Ducky: Well Silver, in the matter of rape the fundies are chipping away at insurance and the funding of Planned Parenthood so you can't say the extreme is innocent here.
Ahhh Ducky... You make the typical leftist assumption that if the government doesn't do it it won't get done.
Planned Parenthood should get zero taxpayer dollars. You pro-abortion blood-lusters can give them money to continue the baby killing since you're so dedicated to again.
I will repeat: These are private matters and the government has no business getting involved.
This isn't even about religion or morals. It's about our God-given rights to life, liberty and property and the freedom to enjoy them as we see fit without taking orders from an constitution-trampling imperial government.
Leticia said it best:
The government has absolutely no right to dictate to the American people about health insurance. That is not in our constitution, it is an arbitrary decision by Obama.
I don't agree that the Catholic Church has snuggled up to big government. There may have been some groups that have snuggled up with big government but the Church doesn't really side with big government per se. Many American Catholic bishops? Yes.
Ducky said: "Not that the fringe right care, unless it effects them"
Name one view being discussed here that is "fringe".
Great quote at the end there.
If I understand this as well as the article, employers don't have to offer health insurance, but if they do they must cover birth control and abortions.
Simple enough, stop offering health insurance, add the company cost to the employees salary, and tell them if they don't like it, go talk to their congressman.
Shouldn't last much longer after that.
Silver, discrimination and other workplace laws have been at loggerheads with religious institutions for years. Obama didn't create this issue, initiate it, or even want it. This has to do with his labor - in particular female labor - support. They are an important constituency, and he needs them this year. The GOP has nothing for them, but if they feel Obama isn't fighting for them, at least a little (and this really is a bullshit, little thing), they may stay home come November.
That said, this constituency is a vital part of our country, they are our healthcare and education workers, and if an international church wishes to do business in a given nation, it must abide that nation's workplace laws.
Besides, what does the Vatican care? Whatever happened to their bullshit "Free Will" argument??? Silly, pointless hypocrites.
JMJ
Jersey,
Your comments almost made sense until the end.
What does free will have to do with the federal government mandating to people what health insurance they must buy?
What if a righwing government mandated that every American must buy a gun to protect himself or he would face an annual fine?
You progressive subjects worshiping at the altar of big government fail to see the big picture.
"The GOP has nothing for them?"
The democrat party shouldn't either. That's what's wrong with our formerly constitutional republic. Toqueville's prediction has come true. The monkeys have learned how to get peanuts by pulling the voting machine lever.
"Silver, discrimination and other workplace laws have been at loggerheads with religious institutions for years"
So you are saying what? That a church with 1 billion people worldwide is discriminatory? Or are you just focusing on the whole women can't be priests thing? Or perhaps because they don't have transexual drag queens reading the gospel?
"This has to do with his labor - in particular female labor - support. They are an important constituency, and he needs them this year. "
So, what? You're saying he's doing this for female Catholics?
So a relatively organized bloc of 22% of the population is not as important as the 'female labor' vote? ROFLMAO
I got news for you this is not "really a bullshit, little thing" to Catholics. The GOP couldn't have come up with a better way to get Catholic Democrats to align with fundamentalist evangelicals.
I think this whole thing can be summed up with one short biblical quote.
Luke 23:34 "forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing"
What's his next move? Passing a law mandating the ordination of homosexuals under EEO?
Silver,
I'm supposed to be Catholic through and through, so please follow me here...
"Your comments almost made sense until the end."
That's because I'm not a Catholic.
"What does free will have to do with the federal government mandating to people what health insurance they must buy?"
Well, nothing. This whole "mandate" thing was a conservative construct from the beginning. Just the same, I mentioned Free Will to make the point that the Church shouldn't be imposing itself on it's employee's healthcare.
"What if a righwing government mandated that every American must buy a gun to protect himself or he would face an annual fine?"
Then all the intelligently thinking millions of Americans would buy guns and think to themselves, "Wow. What a stupid government we have today."
"Toqueville's prediction has come true. The monkeys have learned how to get peanuts by pulling the voting machine lever."
Silver, our Welfare State is nothing compared to our Military and Police States. If you want to be honest, start railing against that. You're just another mommy-protect-me conservative otherwise.
JMJ
Silver,
I'm pro choice. Do you consider me to be a baby-killing blood luster?
I consider those who are pro-choice morally bankrupt. I find them scientifically challenged also because the science proves that the unborn baby is a human life. The unborn child has an unalienable right to life just as other human beings do.
Jack, since you consist of blobs of tissue why shouldn't we be allowed to decide to kill you all in the name of choice?
I'm a Catholic and I've used birth control. That is free will, something for which that I, and I alone am morally accountable for. My actions regarding birth control were mandated by neither the government nor the church, but by my own conscience.
That said, I vehemently oppose this mandate as a gross violation of religious freedom to the extent that I will write both my congressman and senator in opposition. What I may choose or not to do via the exercise of my free will should not be legislated for others to follow.
What is curious is how contraception has been redefined as healthcare. Other than control of distribution through the medical profession (doctors, pharmacies) due to the possibility of side effects or harm through misuse it is not medicine in most cases.
Medicine and/or healthcare by most common definitions, which seem to be in agreement is roughly:
The maintenance and restoration of health by the treatment and prevention of disease.
Unless of course you are willing to categorize pregnancy as a disease.
One could argue that while a condom can be considered essential in the prevention of STDs it is no more 'medicine' than a latex glove or hand soap. Hand soap being far more likely to have prevented the occurence of disease than condoms have.
Once could argue that neither the pill nor abortifacients are capable of preventing disease, nor are they prescribed for preventing disease or illness aside from occasional cases of off-label usage, that is, prescribed for reasons other than birth control.
One may argue that the state has a vested financial interest in paying for birth control, the cost being less than that imposed by unintended pregancy. But to argue that it has a right to mandate such payment by a religious institution that holds such action to be morally wrong doesn't stand up to scrutiny in the context of religious freedom.
Consider the implications if the Catholic Church simply decided to close Catholic Hospitals and Catholic Charities rather than comply.
I must admit that while aware of this issue I really hadn't paid much attention until this post. I have seen many arguments on other posts and comment pages that since Catholic Hospitals and Charities accept government money they must comply with government regulations.
These institutions have given far more to support the general welfare than they have received in recompense from the government. One might even argue that the acceptance of federal or state money for redistribution is an act of charity in itself.
Honestly, they could get by without it, and probably should be charging the government for their redistribution services, it is a mechanism that the government avails itself of, that otherwise would cost the government money to execute.
Cheers!
Stumbled across this gem in my research on this issue which resulted in a hearty belly-laugh, thought I'd share it:
Feb 3rd Mail Online:
At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington yesterday, President Barack Obama suggested that his desire to raise taxes on higher-income Americans was rooted in the Bible. 'For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that 'for unto to whom much is given, much shall be required',' he said.
Which prompted Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah (and a Mormon) to comment acidly: 'Someone needs to remind the President that there was only one person who walked on water and he did not occupy the Oval Office. I think most Americans would agree that the Gospels are concerned with weightier matters than effective tax rates.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096212/Barack-Obamas-reckless-politically-foolish-war-religion.html#ixzz1lfQewSGa
Jack Camwell said...
It's not that the church is compromising anything, it's just revisiting its teachings. If the church was super-hardliner about everything, which it's not, then it would have to excommunicate like 80% of its flock world-wide.
True. I would probably be the first one gone.
"'For me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that 'for unto to whom much is given, much shall be required',' he said."
The Federal government is tops when it comes to those "to whom much is given". IF Obama were serious about this scripture, he would have the government downsize and turn its assets over to the people.
Instead, he uses it as an excuse for the most powerful and privilaged (the ruling elites) to amass more wealth and power.
No Jersey, you are the one hiding behind the skirts of the nanny state.
And congratulations, you get the award for most incoherent statement of the week.
It's great entertainment watching doctrinaire "liberals" sputter and stumble as they try to defend their Mother Church, the federal government.
I REPEAT:
It's the idea of FORCING anyone to do -- or not to do -- ANYTHING against his or her will and conscience by Government Edict that should get us up in arms.
If people honestly want to belong to a religious sect that would require them to bear a child who was the product of rape or incest that's entirely their business.
Even though I find the very though abhorrent, it should not be up to me -- or anyone outside that religious sect -- to make a decision one way or the other for those directly involved.
As Voltaire famously said, "I may not agree with what you say [or think or do], but I would defend to the death your right to say [or think, or do] it."
Vive Voltaire!
Vive la liberté!
It is the tendency all human beings have to create authoritarian-totalitarian regimes to ENFORCE their personal notions of right and wrong on entire populations -- the tendency towards DESPOTISM -- that is our greatest curse -- thing we must learn to fight against on every front imaginable. It's the labor of countless lifetimes. The labor of AEONS. The Eternal Struggle against Darkness.
Whether imposed by State or Church, by Law or Doctrine TYRANNY is EVIL. Even if you think you think you love it, or feel comfortable with it, it is still evil.
Self-righteousness is the seminal influence, the cornerstone and foundation of Despotism.
~ FreeThinke
And BIGOTRY, by the way, does not mean irrational hatred for those unlike oneself. Oh no!
Bigotry is the wicked assumption that only the way YOU think, feel, believe and behave should have the right to exist -- that everything and everyone who seems "foreign" to you is illegitimate or at best inferior.
BIGOTRY is not HATRED so much as it is an astounding degree of CONCEIT and NARROW-MINDEDNESS.
Bigotry is VANITY.
Bigotry is PRIDE run amok.
~ FreeThinke
The Garden of Love
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
~ William Blake (1757–1827)
Submitted by FreeThinke
It's time the Catholic Church enters the 21st Century even if they have to go kicking and screaming. Calling this Jhiad is lame and ignorant. But typical of the loony right.
Libman: Speaking of lame and ignorant, I suggest you read the US Constitution.
Liberalmann...and this is what? Your decision?
"loony right"? more like the loony left.
Catholic Vote by election D/R:
2008 Barack Obama 54/45
2004 George Bush 47/52
2000 Al Gore 50/47
1996 Bill Clinton 53/47
1992 Bill Clinton 44/35
1988 Michael Dukakis 52/48
1984 Ronald Reagan 44/56
1980 Ronald Reagan 46/50
Well you get the idea, with the exception of Richard Nixon and Ike, Catholics have consistently voted Democrat all the way back to Truman.
George J. Marlin and Michael Barone, American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years Of Political Impact (2006)
Thanks Finn. Your own encyclopedic knowledge of the facts reminds me of Barone.
Libman: Yeah! And while we're at it, lets drag the public school system and unions away from the public teat and into the 21st century!
Encyclopedic knowledge? It's the internet...lol
Yeah, but you come up with it so fast, and always nicely formatted...
Interesting caucus tonight here in Colorado. Close race now between Romney and Santorum with roughtly half the precincts reporting.
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