Holding the phone here might be good, yes.... - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 06/07/2011 10:44:54 PM
a few things came to mind.
First off...aren't you one of those who want to *force* me to buy health insurance? How is that different from a motorcycle helmet law?
First off...aren't you one of those who want to *force* me to buy health insurance? How is that different from a motorcycle helmet law?
Actually, no, I'm not one of the ones who want to force you to buy health insurance; I oppose federally mandated private health insurance--I just can't see any way it violates the Constitution. I'm still royally pissed at Obama for telling us during the primary that what made his health care plan different from Hillarys was that hers had a federal mandate and his didn't and then signing one into law once elected, but that doesn't mean he broke the law (it just means he broke a campaign pledge, but if I had a nickel for every time he's done that I'd pay off the national debt). I DO think healthcare is a universal necessity, that providing it "promotes the general welfare" as the Preamble states is the federal governments job and that a universal single payer option is a more cost effective approach than having individuals buy it (whether or not they can afford it) from various for profit private insurers with no responsibility for actual CARE. Thus federally mandated participation in a PUBLIC healthcare program strikes me as a positive and natural thing that would save millions of man hours lost to illness and injury (not to mention millions of lives), and no more an infringement on our rights than FICA or income taxes. However, a federal law requiring individuals directly purchase it from private companies unaccountable to them is counterproductive and unethical despite being legal, particularly when the very law creating that requirement does nothing to limit the skyrocketing cost of healthcare (even though that was the very motive for the bill). I've consistently opposed the healthcare bill from the moment the public option died; it's a trillion dollar windfall to private insurers largely responsible for the problem, who were just guaranteed 40 million new customers complete with a government subsidy we can't afford, giving insurers every incentive to continue jacking up prices and make the problem even worse.
Short form of the above: No, I've always opposed government forcing anyone to buy private insurance; I just don't think it illegal.
Secondly...since when do we have a total "right" over our own bodies? Prostitution is illegal in most areas. Illicit drug use is illegal in all areas. You cannot sell one of your organs....you can't even sell your own blood. Abortion isn't about "her own body"...cause if you really want to get technical, none of her body is being removed. None of her DNA is in the tissue. Abortion is about who's rights are more important...the womans or the babies. Is it her convience or the babies right to live? That's the debate.
Two issues here:
1) No, we don't have total right over our own bodies, but we should until/unless that right affects someone elses body. I'd certainly be a lot happier if marijuana were legal, though I don't feel quite the same about physically addictive drugs simply because addicts DON'T control their own bodies: The drugs do. Prostitution and organ marketing are disgusting and immoral; that doesn't make them illegal, and I don't think they should be, because what someone chooses to do with their own body is their business.
2) Abortion is most certainly NOT about whether a womans rights are more important than a babys; Justice Blackmun made that VERY clear in his infamous opinion for the majority on Roe:
We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
You and I agree on the answer, but that only means we're certain, not necessarily right. If the issue of when or even whether "a fetus" is "a baby" had been definitively settled, abortion at any time for any reason except to save the mothers life would be illegal virtually everywhere, but since the former is not true neither is the latter. It's a judgement call society therefore largely leaves to the individuals involved (though the various restrictions on late term abortions are highly suggestive of a tacit social consensus that a baby is present no later than the start of the third trimester). The debate is most definitely NOT about a womans "convenience" (a rather meager term for things like raising her rapist fathers child, permanent injury including sterility or near certain DEATH) versus the childs life, and no matter how many times people try to frame it that way it won't be.
You're going on and on about majorities and minorities, but what I see more from your post is a spirit of rebellion. It has nothing to do with the fact that many or few people see a particular point of view, but more from the fact that you don't like to be told what to do.
~Jeordam
~Jeordam
The individuals right to live according to their conscience and principles so long as they don't infringe on that right in others is not "rebellion", but its denial is tyranny. No one likes to be told what to do, and our entire system of government rests on the foundational belief that no one SHOULD be told what to do by anyone not involved. The nature of the particular action doesn't, or shouldn't, matter. Society can and should intervene when one member violates the anothers rights, otherwise any members could and would violate the rights of all others at will, and the state recognizes a duty to advocate on behalf of those unable to assert their own rights lest they be defenseless. But, by and large, if it's none of your business you're not entitled to any input. Even people who attempt suicide are only restrained by the state on the grounds and to the extent that the attempt demonstrates they lack the capacity to make rational decisions for themselves.
On a deeper level, even when it's legal to deny people freedom to do stupid, immoral or even self destructive things to themselves, that in itself is unethical and immoral. That's part of why even after we were called we CHOSE our Savior rather than being dragged to Him kicking and screaming. Another reason is that dragging people kicking and screaming doesn't, CAN'T, work. Think about it objectively for a moment: The ONLY being in existence with both the right AND POWER to force people to not only act but THINK as He dictates refuses to do it: How presumptuous is it for you or I, with neither power nor right, to do so in His stead? I believe Jeffersons line was "resistance to tyrants is obedience to God".
Short form of the above: See below for the Pithy Pet Phrase that's #1 for a reason.