Thread: Another Constitutional Crisis

Obama must think we are idiots. Matter of fact I'm sure he does.

Obamacare is forcing religious institutions to offer contraception and abortion counseling to employees in violation of their religious beliefs. The individual mandate is already UnConstitutional, but this takes it to a new level.

What is the great compromise he just proposed? The institutions don't have to give employees contraception, but the insurance companies they hire have to give it to the employees for free. This is a compromise?

Since when does Obama get to set policy anyway. I thought that was what Congress was for.

Oh, silly me, Obama doesn't believe Congress should be allow to limit him in any way.

This is quickly becoming trollish.

First of all, the individual mandate is not unconstitutional, it has been found constitutional by every competent court to have ruled on it due to the Commerce Clause, The Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Right to Levy Taxes Clause.

Second of all, when you get insurance through your employer, you're paying for that insurance, just the same as you're paying for your payroll taxes (yes, even the 7% your boss is supposed to pay) or your unemployment insurance. That money comes out of your paycheck. Requiring insurers to cover contraceptives prescriptions without a co-pay is not unconstitutional, nor does it infringe on the religious rights of the people who purchase it. The people who get that coverage still have a choice of whether they get contraception or not. Nobody is forcing Catholic women to purchase and use the Pill. They're saying that the insurance the Catholic (or other religious) hospitals and institutions select for their employees (not all of whom are Catholic) to purchase has to include contraceptive coverage. That's not a restriction on the religious institutions, it's a restriction on the insurance companies. And it's telling that 58% of American Catholics agree with these rules.

Finally, I'm getting rather sick of the attitude from conservatives that Obama and liberals or progressives in general are evil monsters out to subvert humanity and take absolute control over everybody's lives. It's ridiculous and it's offensive. Conservatives and liberals want the same things (I hope). They want people to be happy, healthy and secure in their lives, and behave in ways that benefit themselves and everybody else. We disagree on how to get there. Fine. But that disagreement doesn't make me, or Obama, some kind of communist monster.

Both liberals and conservatives, but mostly conservatives, need to drop the vitriol and the rigid adherence to ideology, and learn to let different ideas be tried and accept the evidence about whether, how and why those ideas work, or fail to work. Nobody wins when solutions aren't tried because they don't meet the a priori litmus test of an insulated and unrealistic ideology.

And just so you know, Justice Scalia disagrees with you:

We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.

Employment Division v Smith 494 U.S. 872

Congress and the courts have been sensitive to the needs flowing from the Free Exercise Clause, but every person cannot be shielded from all the burdens incident to exercising every aspect of the right to practice religious beliefs. When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.

US v Lee 455 U.S. 252 (1982)

Not true. The Constitution can not compel a private individual to enter into a contract with a company. That's what the individual mandate is attempting to do. You can not say it is Constitutional until the Supreme Court rules, and not all Justices agree on the matter. Also, not all the Courts so far have agreed either.

It is NOT a Tax. When the law was passed it was not called a tax. It is only after the fact that the Obama administration has tried to call it a tax.

The Government is ABSOLUTELY trying to control every aspect of your lives with Obamacare as Obama is proving right now by dictating what kind of coverage must be offered and who must pay for it even though he has absolutely no authority to do so. When ever the government takes control of anything like this then they have to power to tell you what you must do to get the money. In the name of Preventive Medicine they will be able to tell you what you can eat, what you can smoke, how you live, just as they are telling the insurance company right now what they have to cover and how much they can charge for it.

The government has already pulled crap like this by forcing all the states to raise their drinking age to 21 or lose highway funds, so don't tell me they won't do much more with this much power.

Oh, so conservatives must stop disagreeing with Liberals just because nothing is getting done? That's not how it works. Why don't you Liberals stop disagreeing with Conservatives and let us roll the government back some, or a LOT? Liberals just want everyone to be happy? Fine, get out of my pocket and stop ignoring the law of the land and I'll be happy.

Just because you don't agree with my position doesn't make it trollish.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

This is quickly becoming trollish.

First of all, the individual mandate is not unconstitutional, it has been found constitutional by every competent court to have ruled on it due to the Commerce Clause, The Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Right to Levy Taxes Clause.

Second of all, when you get insurance through your employer, you're paying for that insurance, just the same as you're paying for your payroll taxes (yes, even the 7% your boss is supposed to pay) or your unemployment insurance. That money comes out of your paycheck. Requiring insurers to cover contraceptives prescriptions without a co-pay is not unconstitutional, nor does it infringe on the religious rights of the people who purchase it. The people who get that coverage still have a choice of whether they get contraception or not. Nobody is forcing Catholic women to purchase and use the Pill. They're saying that the insurance the Catholic (or other religious) hospitals and institutions select for their employees (not all of whom are Catholic) to purchase has to include contraceptive coverage. That's not a restriction on the religious institutions, it's a restriction on the insurance companies. And it's telling that 58% of American Catholics agree with these rules.

Finally, I'm getting rather sick of the attitude from conservatives that Obama and liberals or progressives in general are evil monsters out to subvert humanity and take absolute control over everybody's lives. It's ridiculous and it's offensive. Conservatives and liberals want the same things (I hope). They want people to be happy, healthy and secure in their lives, and behave in ways that benefit themselves and everybody else. We disagree on how to get there. Fine. But that disagreement doesn't make me, or Obama, some kind of communist monster.

Both liberals and conservatives, but mostly conservatives, need to drop the vitriol and the rigid adherence to ideology, and learn to let different ideas be tried and accept the evidence about whether, how and why those ideas work, or fail to work. Nobody wins when solutions aren't tried because they don't meet the a priori litmus test of an insulated and unrealistic ideology.

And just so you know, Justice Scalia disagrees with you:


Employment Division v Smith 494 U.S. 872



US v Lee 455 U.S. 252 (1982)

I have no dog in this fight, other than to say that I disagree with your citation of Smith. The regulation of peyote is not analogous or controlling on this situation.

edit: I also like your use of the qualifier "competent" court. So the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals isn't competent?

Is it cuz they's suthen?

Conservatives need to lose the vitriol?

First of all, it is a tax. Any time the government takes anything from you, that's a tax.

Second of all, nobody is compelled to buy health insurance. There will be no jack-booted government thugs marching you at gunpoint down to the insurance office to purchase insurance. Rather, if you fail to have purchased insurance before the date the mandate kicks in, you'll pay a tax. You still don't have to buy insurance, and can choose to continue to pay the tax instead. So your overblown rhetoric about the government forcing you into contracts is just that, overblown.

Finally, you're not just disagreeing with me or Obama. You are outright saying that I, and Obama, and anybody who thinks the policies usually described as "liberal" or "progressive" should at least be honestly tried before they are condemned and rejected, is a treacherous, deceitful, evil, tyrannical monster who should be ridiculed and threatened at the least. That's not honest disagreement. That's irrational and ideological hatred.

Completely wrong. If you don't buy insurance the IRS is going to fine you. That sounds like being compelled to me.

The Communist Party used to hide behind the "Progressive" label all the time.

Honestly tried? Why should we try something that is flat against the law?

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

First of all, it is a tax. Any time the government takes anything from you, that's a tax.

Second of all, nobody is compelled to buy health insurance. There will be no jack-booted government thugs marching you at gunpoint down to the insurance office to purchase insurance. Rather, if you fail to have purchased insurance before the date the mandate kicks in, you'll pay a tax. You still don't have to buy insurance, and can choose to continue to pay the tax instead. So your overblown rhetoric about the government forcing you into contracts is just that, overblown.

Finally, you're not just disagreeing with me or Obama. You are outright saying that I, and Obama, and anybody who thinks the policies usually described as "liberal" or "progressive" should at least be honestly tried before they are condemned and rejected, is a treacherous, deceitful, evil, tyrannical monster who should be ridiculed and threatened at the least. That's not honest disagreement. That's irrational and ideological hatred.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

Honestly tried? Why should we try something that is flat against the law?

Now you're both talking about peyote!

You're just proving my point that you're only interested in trolling:

A fee imposed by the IRS? Hmmm, isn't that usually what we call taxes?

Progressive = Communist. Yeah, that's not offensive and insulting at all.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

...

The Communist Party used to hide behind the "Progressive" label all the time.

...

And so.....??

James.

They didn't call it a fee. They said it was a FINE. A fee is when you get something in return. If they fine you, you get nothing.

During the period they they were trying to sell Obamacare to us, they said over and over and over, this is NOT a tax. Only now that they are being told that it's unconstitutional are they trying to redefine it as a tax.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

You're just proving my point that you're only interested in trolling:

A fee imposed by the IRS? Hmmm, isn't that usually what we call taxes?

Progressive = Communist. Yeah, that's not offensive and insulting at all.