(NOTE: I am integrating two of my comments that Boundless chose not to post. I thank Martha Krienke for providing those comments in an e-mail so I could do that.)
Matt Kaufman of Boundless has this post regarding both the interview of Kirk Cameron by Piers Morgan, and Rush Limbaugh’s Slutgate. While I agree with much of what he has to say, I’ll take small exception to part of what he said here:
[What Rush Limbaugh said] distracted from the clear-cut, slam-dunk principle at stake — that the state has no right to order religious institutions to violate their principles…
I disagree in this respect: it’s more than religious freedom, although that is certainly a large part of it.
Ultimately, this is about government infringing on free markets and forcing individuals to subsidize what others wish to have for themselves.
This issue should have been addressed decades ago, but that conversation needs to happen sooner rather than later. It is long overdue, and there is no better time than the present, as we are at a financial crossroads as a society: our health care system is not sustainable as it is now.
This is not about what you or I want–or what we wish government could or would do. It is about pure mathematics.
But this practice of people–including Ms. Fluke–teaming up with government to compel entities to provide coverage against their will, is counterproductive to a free and responsible society.
(As an aside (planting tongue firmly in cheek): if Ms. Fluke has time for sex at a rigorous law school such as Georgetown, then she needs to drop out immediately and sue them, demanding her money back. They are doing her a disservice–not to mention falsely advertising their academic rigor–if she has that much time on her hands.)
As for what Rush Limbaugh said, ultimately, this issue is not about Sandra Fluke or Rush Limbaugh or contraception or even abortion; it’s about free markets.
If it were a man demanding that the university to pay for Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, or any other drug designed to facilitate the same behavior the consequences of which Fluke wishes to mitigate with university assistance, my view would be the same: it is not the responsibility of others to pay for a product you wish to have for yourself.
Rush Limbaugh was right until he started calling for her to make a sex tape.
Fact is, Fluke is seeking to team up with government and force the university to subsidize her chosen strategy for mitigating the consequences of her behavior.
As for what Rush called that behavior, it is no more harsh than what Scripture calls it (“Playing the harlot/playing the whore”). Moreover, the cause that she supports is right in line with those who sacrificed children to Molech. Only she–and her supporters in Congress–are worse than the Israelites of old: she wishes to force taxpayers to fund the practice.
As a libertarian, I’m all for keeping the government out of your bedroom. As long as you aren’t expecting someone else–me, my wife, a church, etc.–to endorse your behavior, it’s no one else’s business–not mine, not the government’s, nor anyone else’s–what you do with other consenting adults.
That said, the libertarian case goes both ways: just as what you do with other adults is none of my business, neither are your consequences my responsibility either.
You are free to take your risks, but you are on the hook for the outcomes of your choices.
Over here, we are all about people being grownups. We want men (women) to put on their big boy (girl) pants (panties).
That means accepting that
(a) it is no one else’s job to do for you what you can and should be doing for yourself;
(b) it is no one else’s obligation to pay for the risks you choose to take.
Until our society gets sober about those two things, we are going to continue to see our freedoms wane, and we will be the slave of the freeloaders.
As for Kirk Cameron: good on him. I think he did a decent job with Piers Morgan. He’s an actor, not a politician. Some folks will take issue with the way he answered some questions, but–you know what?–Jesus called His followers to be witnesses, not lawyers. He answered like the former, and one cannot fault him for that. It was quite ballsy for him to go on to Piers Morgan’s program and field those questions.
…that the state has no right to order religious institutions to violate their principles…
What about the rest of us? What makes religious institutions so damn special that they can chose which laws to comply with, but I have to bend over every time a government official has had too many beers and likes the way my jeans fit? What about MY right to keep what is mine? What about my right to not subsidize things I am religiously against… like being forced to give my money to other people for any reason?
The principle is not religious freedom, it is just freedom. The government has drawn a line in the sand and told us all which side to stand on. Only the religious institutions want to be on the other side and don’t care about the rest of us as long as they are exempt. The Catholic church and all their charities are very large employers. They must hire black people. They much put in wheel chair ramps and handicapped accessible bathrooms. They must use low-flow shower heads AND THEY MUST FUND ABORTION ON DEMAND. Unless all those religious institutions want to recant all their decades of undermining everyone else’s freedoms and they want to be on OUR side of the line again. Then I think we can find some room for them.
@Professor Hale
that is exactly my point; this is about free markets. free markets are all about personal liberties. this is my gripe with Kaufman; religious liberties are all well and good, but those are not restricted to religious bodies. they dtem from a predisposition toward self-determination.
this requires that people be responsible for the outcomes of their decisions, just as they are free to make those decisions.
@ReconsDad
Yep. The large issue is general freedom, not religious freedom.
If religious institutions can insist on exempting themselves from paying for certain things–contraception, abortion–on the basis of moral or religious conviction, then this should also be permitted of individuals, as they also have moral and religious convictions.
And for those religious institutions to demand that individuals support such governmental overstretches–and I’m willing to bet no small amount of money that the large majority of decisionmakers at GU supported ObamaCare–while claiming exemptions for themselves, is pure hypocrisy.
As an aside (planting tongue firmly in cheek): if Ms. Fluke has time for sex at a rigorous law school such as Georgetown, then she needs to drop out immediately and sue them, demanding her money back. They are doing her a disservice–not to mention falsely advertising their academic rigor–if she has that much time on her hands.
She’s also spent a lot of time being interviewed by various TV programs. A number of area colleges and universities are on spring break this week, but one would think a third-year law student would want to use that break from classes to send out resumes or study for the upcoming bar exam.
(sarcasm on)
Ummm… it doesn’t take THAT much time to do the horizontal hula, does it?
FIF-TEEN SE-CONDS!! (clap clap clap-clap-clap)
FIF-TEEN SE-CONDS!! (clap clap clap-clap-clap)
FIF-TEEN SE-CONDS!! (clap clap clap-clap-clap)
(sarcasm off)
As the legal correspondent around these parts, I can assure you Ms. Fluke won’t be studying for the bar exam. Law graduates will spend almost all of their time between graduation and the bar in a bar review course. Essentially all of them take a review course, and most take two. All bar exams in the U.S. are administered on the week of the last Wednesday in July.
Background: In almost all states, the bar exam has a national multiple-choice portion (known as the MBE) and a state-specific portion. A few states don’t use the MBE. Most folks who fail to pass the bar get tripped up by the MBE—the questions are often tricky; sometimes, all of the answer choices offered are wrong, though one is LESS wrong than the others; and the law that’s tested on the MBE is in some areas (notably criminal law) radically different from what is used in actual legal practice.
One company, known as PMBR, specializes in MBE preparation. BarBri is the overwhelmingly dominant company in the state-specific market; its courses include a brief MBE prep component. Those two companies try to schedule their courses so graduates can take both.
Most law grads are sitting in only one state, and will thus take the BarBri course for that state and PMBR. Some will sit in two states; some combinations of states are popular enough that BarBri will offer a combined course for folks sitting for both.
…but one would think a third-year law student would want to use that break from classes to send out resumes or study for the upcoming bar exam.
That is exactly what she was doing. No doubt, there are lots of advocacy groups just waiting to make her an offer.
@Cubbie
Pitino is a dangerous coach. If the game is close, the sky is the limit as to what he can accomplish in a mere 15 seconds…
Well if one is going down the free market route, you shouldn’t have to pay into any health system that provides care for lung cancer victims (smoking; you don’t smoke), or Type 2 diabetes (from poor diet; you eat a healthy one) either, etc. Why should any of us have to subsidize another’s foolish habits? Why should someone have to pay into a system that pays for my ski injury if they don’t ski? That’s unfair to them. Where does one draw the line?
Now, according to my state car insurance company, I must pay higher insurance premiums because I live in an area which files more at fault claims than a few klicks away. Area demographics have changed in the last 10 years where many wealthy FOBs with no prior driving experience have moved into my area. And so they drive their brand new BMW and Lexus SUVs with their pocket dogs on their labs sipping their tea and surfing Baidu on their iPads unsafely and crash frequently. I haven’t filed a claim in 20 years. Why am I being punished for their willful negligence? But, ask these questions and a human rights complaint is filed straightaway. Total bollocks.
@tannen
Why not? Other forms of insurance are treated this way. My car insurance–which, for all the hype about higher rates–has been relatively stable for the last 15 years. My premium depends, in no small part, on my own risks. I have not had a speeding ticket in almost 15 years; I have not had an accident in 7 years (and that one was a fender-bender).
Ditto for my life insurance. When I purchased my term life plan, I had a medical exam. As part of that, I peed in a cup, got blood drawn, had to step on a scale, and had to answer a buttload of questions about my medical history.
All of that should be fair game in a market economy: in both cases, my premiums were a function of my risk. Low (high) risk = lower (higher) premium.
In health insurance–especially group insurance–people who do the right things (exercise, eat sensibly, maintain good physical condition) pay the same premiums as the catastrophically obese. The retirees–who are in the same group–are catastrophically unhealthy and yet pay the same rate that I do.
If we allowed more competition–and permitted health insurance to be more comparable to car insurance and life insurance–things would change dramatically.
Of course, that also means that we would have to start treating health insurance as true insurance; i.e., a hedge against things that are not regular occurrences.