Just How Narrow Minded Are Members of the GOP?
September 19th, 2008 | by Windspike |George W, proves once again that they are only interested in pushing their “morality” on us rather than protecting us. Instead of helping us, they inflict their values on us – which is contrarian to the principles these United States were founded under.
Again, they show us just now narrow they are and really, how uncompassionate these would be “compassionate conservatives” are.
LAST month, the Bush administration launched the latest salvo in its eight-year campaign to undermine women’s rights and women’s health by placing ideology ahead of science: a proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would govern family planning. It would require that any health care entity that receives federal financing — whether it’s a physician in private practice, a hospital or a state government — certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable.Laws that have been on the books for some 30 years already allow doctors to refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further, ensuring that all employees and volunteers for health care entities can refuse to aid in providing any treatment they object to, which could include not only abortion and sterilization but also contraception.
Don’t any of these right wing nut balls remember the days when women were flayed on unsterilized tables in the dark rooms of illicit abortion houses? Do GOP folks really want to go back to those dismal and lethal times?
The mission of the GOP to stop abortion show complete and utter contempt for the value of the women’s lives.
19 Responses to “Just How Narrow Minded Are Members of the GOP?”
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 19, 2008 | Reply
I don’t get it. Laws have been on the books already for 30 years allowing doctors to refuse to perform abortions but it’s unreasonable to allow employees and volunteers the same right? I don’t get it. It’s called individual rights. It’s the reason that, even when there was a draft, conscientious objectors were allowed to opt out of combat: because the law has no business requiring free citizens to do things to which they object on moral grounds. We conservatives are struggling to hold on to our rights as free people. Exactly no one is pushing anyone’s morality upon anyone…except, of course, liberals…who would require employees and volunteers to act against their conscience.
Liberty. It’s the opposite of totalitarianism: the desire to regulate every aspect of people’s lives. Get to know the concept.
By Paul Watson on Sep 20, 2008 | Reply
Craig,
Bad analogy. The draft is government compulsion. In the case of these people, they chose to do the job. What job allows people to pick and choose which parts of it they do? If they don’t do all the tasks of a job will their pay be reduced accordingly? If not, why should they be paid for not doing their job? Why should people subsidise these people’s consciences?
By Chris Radulich on Sep 20, 2008 | Reply
If a clerk decides it is morally objectionable ( as some churches have said in the past) to wed integrated couples, it that ok?
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
Paul,
Being a free-marketer, I find it odious to even have to discuss such matters but, alas, it becomes necessary, I find, due to the matter of Roe v. Wade wherein unelected Justices of the Supreme Court decided that it was their place to create a to-that-point unknown right, ex nihilo (an act of pure invention), for individuals to contract the murder of their own offspring in utero and that no one may outlaw such murders. It was this decision and others which followed which interfered with the consciences of individuals not to participate in or to abet such murders.
So then, my preferred world would allow employers to spell out to their employees what their jobs require, including acts that some may find objectionable. It would allow employers to make such acts compulsory as a requirement to obtain and keep said employment and to make refusal to do such acts grounds for dismissal. I have no problem with this.
On the other hand, my preferred world would permit employers to take their employees’ individual consciences into consideration and make accommodation for those objecting to such objectionable acts. I would prefer that the government stay out of regulating individual conscience.
On the other hand, I no more favor the chief executive using executive fiat to protect individual consciences than I do Supreme Court Justices using judicial fiat to make such protections of conscience a perceived necessity. The place for overturning judicial usurpation of authority rests with the people through their elected legislators or in constitutional convention, not the executive.
Chris,
I’m not sure what you mean by “it that ok?” Presumably, you meant “is that ok?” but even that does not erase the difficulty. “Ok” in what sense? Do you mean, do I, Craig R. Harmon, think it right to deny marriage to interracial couples? No. I most certainly do not think it ok. I detest the bigotry that would interfere with the love of two people.
That’s the wrong question, I think. The question is, as I think it, in whom does the Constitution grant the power to regulate marriage and the answer, as I think it, is to the people through their elected representatives in their various states.
However, as a matter of policy, I would not have the government force, upon threat of prosecution or loss of position, anyone to perform an act that they find morally objectionable. I would no more force a gun into the hand of a conscientious objector and force him to shoot it at another human being than I would force a clerk to perform an act that s/he finds morally objectionable.
Allow me to expand upon this: as a matter of public policy, I would chose to work to eliminate anti-miscegenation laws from all jurisdictions. If I succeeded in garnering sufficient support, the problem would resolve itself since the people of the state would either direct their elected officials to rescind anti-miscegenation laws or they would elect other officials who would carry out their will. They might even enshrine such a right within their own constitutions.
Were I sufficiently successful in garnering support from a sufficient number of Americans within a sufficient number of states, the people of those states would direct their elected legislative representatives to make anti-miscegenation laws illegal. At that point, federal law trumping state law as it does, such federal law would make it illegal to deny marriage to couples of mixed race.
However I find no grant of authority in the Constitution to the judicial branch of the central government to do so absent federal law or direct constitutional grant of authority and I find the thought of any branch of any government forcing any American to act against conscience under threat of prosecution or loss of position to be repugnant.
By Chris Radulich on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
find, due to the matter of Roe v. Wade wherein unelected Justices of the Supreme Court decided that it was their place to create a to-that-point unknown right, ex nihilo (an act of pure invention),
Pretty much like when they mangled the second ammendment to call DC’s ban on hand guns unconstitutional.
But then the definition of an activist judge is one who decision I disagree with.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
No. The definition of activist judge is someone whose decision has absolutely no basis in the Constitution’s text, history or logical inferrence from anything in the Constitution — that is, which is made up on the spot out of nothing at all, as if the Constitution itself were irrelevant, as if the only thing relevant were the will of the author of the decision. There are many decisions that the SCOTUS has come up with with which I disagree. This does not make the decision activist. Roe v. Wade is different. Not only do those who disagree with the decision find Roe wanting but even those who agree with the decision cannot defend the decision and have long ago given up trying for it is indefensible as legal or constitutional reasoning.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
At least the Constitution actually MENTIONS a right of the people to keep and bear arms. Actually, both the text and the history (both before and after the framing of the Constitution) support the D.C. gun decision, quite unlike Roe v. Wade.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
Every one of these bona fide legal scholars favor liberal abortion laws and they all find Roe v. Wade to be indefensible as legal reasoning. If they aren’t up to the task of defending Roe, I seriously doubt that you are but if you think you’re man enough, please, by all means, give it your best shot.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
But if you do decide to take up a defense of Roe, you will have to deal with John Hart Ely’s The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, the most complete destruction of Roe I’ve ever read.
By Chris Radulich on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
No the defintion of an activist judge is exactly that you don’t agree with him. Besides you support the war in Iraq. That means you only care about american babies. The rest are just collateral damage.
By Chris Radulich on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
By the way did you not make a defense of their decision on the second amendment based on self defense. Which is not mentioned in the constitution either.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
Chris,
I’m not here to defend the DC decision beyond what I wrote, which was in no way a defense of the DC decision as the correct decision. I do believe it to be correct but there’s no point in arguing anything with you since your mind closed shut ages ago and you only pretend to intellectual curiosity.
You of course are free to define ‘activist judge’ any way you choose; I define it the way I defined it above.
Since I told you that there are plenty of decisions by the courts with which I disagree but which I do not consider to be activists, it is perfectly obvious that the definition of activist judge is NOT any decision with which I disagree. I can therefore only conclude that you presume me to be lying, in which case there’s no point discussing anything with you so I’ll stop now.
Please go on with your life in your own, unique, closed-minded fashion and I shall attempt to remember to ignore you henceforth.
By steve on Sep 21, 2008 | Reply
Can I applaud you Craig? I mean… I stood right up and said… YES!!!
Awesome!
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
Steve,
If you’ve got two hands, you can. If I were Barack Obama, I’d say “Yes you can!” but I’m not.
By steve on Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
Just waiting for the day Craig when I can post his photo on my blog with “No You Can’t”
By Paul Watson on Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
I’m waiting for the day that Craig actuall answers my question: What other job in the real world, not the ideal world (where, incidentally, there would be no abortion in any event as it’s ideal), allows employees to pick and choose what they do? They knew what the job involved, they took on that responsibility themselves, now they should honour it. I thought Republicans believed in personal responsibility. Except when it comes to soldiers who must follow all orders regardless of conscience or doctors who must follow conscience regardless of their job. Very odd.
By Chris Radulich on Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
Please go on with your life in your own, unique, closed-minded fashion and I shall attempt to remember to ignore you henceforth.
Must have struck a cord since he has started to call me names.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
Um, Paul, apparently, being a doctor. For 30 years now, the post informs us, doctors have been free to refuse to perform abortions. Okay, maybe that’s not an “other job” but it’s a fait accompli and a 30 year precedent. But here’s the thing, how many real world job descriptions include actually destroying innocent human life or abetting in destroying innocent human life? Not many so why would the question of objecting to doing things that result in or from the destruction of innocent human life?
My answer is, outside of the military (conscientious objectors, refusing to obey orders to kill unarmed villagers and other actions that would come under the rubric of war crimes) probably none. The question of killing innocent human beings or abetting in that act comes up so rarely in the real world that it’s difficult to imagine the problem coming up in jobs outside of the military and medical fields.
I suppose the issue could come up in corporations that are government contractors involved in the military-industrial complex. A Quaker, say, who had been working in a completely benign division of the corporation, might object to being told to work in the division of the corporation involved in building bombs or land-mines or other lethal weapons. Should the corporation be allowed to force him to either work on the weapons or be fired?
Again, in the ideal world, corporations would make accommodations for the religious (or non-religious moral/ethical) beliefs of their work-force and government would stay the heck out of the issue but I can see an argument for protecting jobs based upon conscientious objections to certain jobs that might arise.
It seems to me that employers who wish to promote the moral of its workforce would be willing to take such considerations into…um…consideration but that doesn’t mean that they would.
I also can imagine, now that I am stimulated to do so by your renewed query, where workers would be allowed to refuse to work under clearly unsafe conditions: which unions long ago worked for and, if I’m not mistaken, won so that would be another precedent it would seem to me.
Chris,
You struck a chord when you (a) had a preconceived notion of what my definition of “judicial activist” was rather than actually inquiring of me what my definition was, then, once I had actually given you my working definition of the phrase, explicitly proving that my definition is not the one you presumed (b) ignored my working definition, effectively accusing me of lying about how I define the term, and fell back upon your preconceived notion. This is the unmistakable hallmark of one who lacks intellectual curiosity (the willingness and desire to learn new things and to accommodate said new knowledge into one’s world view) and whose mind long ago closed.
Yes. That struck a nerve. It also struck me that further converse with such a closed minded person as yourself was pointless. It isn’t name-calling when you yourself have proven so convincingly to have a closed mind; it is, rather, what we call describing reality.
If you want to be taken seriously, as opposed to being relegated to the Sandy-land of scorn and ridicule, you might try opening up your mind.
By Craig R. Harmon on Sep 22, 2008 | Reply
The sentence above,
should read: