In the spirit of NJ Governor Chris Christie playing election-year politics with people’s lives vetoing the legalization of gay-marriage passed by the elected representatives of the NJ State Senate because, to quote the Governor, “an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide;” here is a quote from someone present-day Conservatives pretend to have read books by respect on the subject of putting civil-rights issues up for popular vote:
“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)” — Ayn Rand.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
Lots of issues here.
@ Narf
Yes the government can tell you that you can't practice certain things and argue faith. If your faith requires human sacrifice can you still kill virgins? No, The Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v. U.S. “the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions.” and (referring to the above mentioned human sacrifice argument: “to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”
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@TheAlmightyNarf
“Standing up for religious freedom is a good thing, regardless of what religion it might be for.“
Employers are required by law to provide their employees with health insurance.
If I needed to get a transfusion / transplant to stay alive, and my employer said “Sorry but the CEO is a Jehova's Witness, so we don't pay for transfusions anymore because it's against his religion” then those religious beliefs actively put lives at risk, because somebody else's religion says “if you need a transfusion, then maybe you should die”.
You're advocating for the right for employers to hold people's lives in their hands. Or, maybe more specifically, you're arguing that employers should have the right to place other people's lives into the hands of gods that they don't believe in.
Employers do not have the right to refuse to provide health insurance regardless of whether or not they dislike the fact that people are getting healthcare that they think somebody doesn't deserve.
If I'm opposed to war, does that mean I can refuse to pay taxes until the war is over?
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@megabyte
It did pass the Senate and the House too. http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003712
In Congress bills can originate in either house. When legislation passes both houses it is often not exactly the same in both passed bills. When it is passed in both houses they send the bill to the conference committee which then works out a compromise bill which is then returned to each house and passed.
When the Senate bill was passed in December of 2009 the Democrats had a 60 vote filibuster proof lock on the passage and the bill was passed. The house passed their bill but it wasn't the same bill and it would need to go to conference committee to be aligned.
In the meantime Paul Kirk who was appointed to serve in the now passed Ted Kennedy's seat was replaced himself in the special election that Scott Brown won. The Democrats now only had 59 members in the Senate, which meant they couldn't override the Republicans filibuster.
However since the bill had already passed the Senate it would just need to pass the House. (see the 1975 seminal work I'm Just A Bill). Remember when the Republicans were screaming “They shoved the bill down our throats”? Well this is when it happened. The House which only needs a simple majority vote, pushed the bill through and the President signed and the Vice-President commented “This is a big fu%king deal.”
I hope this helps
http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003712
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Thank you, Mr. Opposition,for your fact-finding and general consistency. So what we have here is:
#1: It turns out that the election of Scott Brown is not how a bill does or does not become a law.
#2: It turns out that we don't actually have to give legal respect to any religious opinion that exists.
#3: It turns out that standing up for religious liberty no matter what religion it is is not only not a good thing, it's a dangerous thing (I'm not standing up for polygamy, genital mutilation, virgin sacrifices, honor killings, or denial of access to contraception, and neither should anyone else). Legally, that's because we don't have to, but MORALLY, that's because (and here's my problem with arguing about this) religion is generally bad news and we'd all be better off without it.
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@ Narf
No, you didn't. Because this is nto about religious liberties. This ais about peopel trying to get special rights from the government due to their religion.
“I shouldn't have to because any law that would make that an issue in inherently unconstitutional. The government simply can not make laws that would prohibit in any way the free practice of religion. The 1st amendment makes that crystal clear.”
Dear god this is getting stupid. NO it doesn't. The 1st amendment does not let you do whatever you want as long as you call it religion, You aren't allowed to sacrifice babies, or keep slaves, or not pay taxes or stone unruly children or go through traffic lights just because your religion says so.
And this law IN NO WAY affects people's ability to practice their religion. For fuck's sake it is explicitly spelled out time and time again.
You aren't defending religious rights because you don't have a right to be exempt from the law. You are demanding special treatment. You are demanding that the federal government give preferential treatment to one religion over another or religion over irrelegion and THAT violates the first amendment.
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Everyone in this argument has provided ample evidence for rational people to conclude that it is completely STUPID to tie people's health insurance to their employers (something anyone who has ever changed jobs already knows). Thank you everyone for getting to the root of this idiocy. Hopefully now this ridiculous health care law can be repealed and we can move forward with honest reform that actually makes sense (like moving the tax write off away from business and to the individual).
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No Ryan,
#1 a bill becomes a law by being voted in in BOTH houses. What we learned is that we have witnessed the party in question decide since they can't get this, they are willing to retractively decide a previous senate “would have voted for it” and offically declare it is all good that way. They have set a very dangerous standard here and the next time congress/senate/the president does it, regardless of who it is, you can thank Pelosi and her ilk for thinking of it and showing it works.
2) Actually we do. 1st Amendment demands it. What he have learned is that we have a debate with actually legitimate points… who's religion overrides, the employer or the employee?
3) We learned you hate religion… in all forms… in short, you are a dick atheist.
Done.
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Incidently, a dick atheist, is the kind who can't stand other people believe in something. If you are an atheist, and just let it go at that, you are not a dick atheist, you are just an atheist.
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Megabyte: and incidentally a dick christian is one who rams his views down everyone else's throat rather than just letting it go at that… hmm I wonder whether that describes you?
Also, Dude it did pass the senate. The house just decided instead of making the senate pass it again they would just pass the original senate version. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Also 59 votes to 41 is a very large majority. Filibusters were NEVER meant to force every single bill to have such a large majority. They were simply meant to force longer discussions on important bills. That happened job done. Maybe instead of blaming the democrats for some injustice you created in your mind you should blame the republicans for a gross misuse of the filibuster rule.
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@Anonymous
What we're seeing here is the same thing we saw with the birther movement. Anytime the Republicans don't get what they want the just try to find some reason to invalidate it. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes the majority of the country disagrees with you. Accept it.
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Well, Anon… I dont think it makes me anything… you know since Im not arguing for any specific religion. If anything, Im looking at a potential window for a debate. If the Employee's religious rights and the Employer's religious rights conflict, who wins? Im not sure we've had to ask this before… at least not in any kind of time I have talked about it.
Also, I never said it wasn't legal. But considering even you are admitting the bill as it was at the time of the vote was NOT what was passed, this should strike you as a rather alarming action. Im rather struck that Im seeing an 09 on the vote that went while Im seeing articles dated by the machines they are stored on at 2010 saying how Brown would be the one to beat Obamacare.
BEFORE you even think these must be “conservative idiots” or something else, realize what I am saying and get the idealog out of your logic processes.
We are looking at things saying to beat it AFTER that senate link says it was voted in… and dated by a computer, NOT by hand. Does this sound to you like this wasn't shady in some way? Really? Then add to that what you just said where they didn't even vote on the current version, and legal or not, it was CLEARLY meant to ignore what the people wanted… you know the people who put someone in specifically to be the last vote needed to cancel it.
At the very least, this is an accusation to level directly at Pelosi. (Not my only one mind you… I have real issue with anyone who is willing to use the death of a co-worker for their benefit before the body is even cold…. she is a monster for how she treated the late Ted Kennedy. but that is another issue for another day) She has set a standard that will happen again, mark my words… and next time you may not be happy with the results. I dont want to hear you bitch when you defend them now.
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Ok, a few interesting points up there and I'll try to get to most of them. But, first I'd like to give this analogy.
Let's say that some government official got it into their head the FDA knows what they're talking about and that restaurants should be forced to stick to stricter dietary guidelines like, say, the food pyramid. This law, of course, being mostly directed at fast food places that wouldn't know a vegetable even if someone chucked it at them. But then, lets say that this same law was being used to tell vegan/vegetarian restaurants that they had to start serving meat to adhere to the dietary guidelines and they could be fined or even shut down if they didn't, and there wouldn't be any exception given to them simply because they had moral issues with it. Would that be ok?
@ v_opposition
“If your faith requires human sacrifice can you still kill virgins?”
Ya know, I had to sit and think about that a bit, but considering that we live in a culture where suicide and assisted suicide are becoming more and more socially acceptable… assuming, it were a consensual act, that would be an entirely private matter that I don't think the government would have any business getting involved in.
That said, that court decision was clearly a case of one religion trying to force it's morals on another and would never hold up if it were made today.
I can understand the idea that the government should be able to prohibit an action regardless of religious belief (I don't agree, but I'll leave that for now). But, that's not what this case is about. In this case the government is compelling an organization to commit an action against their religious beliefs.
@ biomechanical923
“If I needed to get a transfusion / transplant to stay alive, and my employer said “Sorry but the CEO is a Jehova's Witness, so we don't pay for transfusions anymore because it's against his religion” then those religious beliefs actively put lives at risk, because somebody else's religion says “if you need a transfusion, then maybe you should die”.”
They would be putting your life at risk if they didn't bother telling you until you're on the operating table, sure. That should totally be illegal. However, if they made you aware of their policy upon employment, then it would be your own decision to make.
“You're advocating for the right for employers to hold people's lives in their hands.”
I'm advocating that employers shouldn't be compelled against their will to do something they find morally objectionable, and that the employee's life is and always will be in their own hands.
“Employers do not have the right to refuse to provide health insurance…”
Yea, well, we'll see how long that holds up in court.
“…regardless of whether or not they dislike the fact that people are getting healthcare that they think somebody doesn't deserve.”
“Deserve?” This has absolutely nothing to do what what anyone may or may not “deserve”. The Catholic church is opposed to contraception outright. They see the use of contraception as a sin, and that enabling someone else to sin is just as bad as doing it themselves.
“If I'm opposed to war, does that mean I can refuse to pay taxes until the war is over?”
I would completely support your civil disobedience in that case.
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First time I've seen anything by Ayn Rand that I agree with, though with all honesty all I know about her is gleaned from playing Bioshock and looking her up the “Useful Notes” section on TV Tropes so I'm not well versed with her works and objectivism in general. If the people have spoken and voted for the legalization, then the governor should accept it. I hope this shoots her in the foot. The people can elect their governors or has she vetoed that away too?
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@Echoed Wails
The Governor is a man.
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@Echoed Wails
Objectivism as a scientific philosophy insists that there's an objective truth that exists, but we don't know what it is yet, and that we should not inhibit science, art, or philosophy, because they help us on the path to discovering absolute truth.
Objectivism and Ayn Rand as the Fox News pundits like to throw it around, however, is pretty much just Economic Libertarianism. It's like anarchy but for rich people.
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@megabyte: classic, ignore my larger point and focus specifically on only the smallest part. You completely ignored the larger point, that the republicans have abused the Filibuster to the point that for any vote to pass the senate it needs 60 votes these days. That was never how it was intended to work. The democrats would not have needed to use a previous version if they could have brought the bill to a vote. 59 votes is more than enough for a majority. The filibuster is not meant to stop things from passing. They were intended to slow down important bills that are moving too fast and the minority wishes to force more discussion. That is it. Yes the democrats did game the system a bit I suppose. But they should not have had to. They had the votes, easily, with or without Kennedy.
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@ biomechanical923
I've always taken the stance the Ayn Rand was a sociopath who confused her disorder for a political philosophy.
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You're getting closer, Anon, but you are not there yet. You never mentioned a filibuster till now as a way to excuse the Democrats once you have been forced to admit wrong doing on their part, so don't tell me that was your point. It wasnt. Your point was to defend your party when at the very least the leads of it are indefensable.
And btw, there is nothing that needs to move slower then a 1000 page bill that most of the house hadn't even read and is going to change how things work for every citizen in the country. I would call that pretty justified, especially when there were at least 3 versions of it floating around and no one could explain which one they were talking about.
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Megabyte: I would look again I DID mention the filibuster in my original post to you. I have mentioned it twice now you just ignored it the first time. The filibuster DID slow the bill and however sad this is most of congress doesn't read ANY of the bills they pass. By your logic we shouldn't pass anything (though I must admit at this point we may be better off if that happened). But I digress, my point is that there are a thousand excuses to continue a filibuster, but when it all comes down to it there is only one honest explanation. The republicans didn't agree so they filibustered. It had nothing to do with the fact that no one had read the bill, the republicans hadnt either. It had everything to do with a knee jerk reaction against more complete healthcare coverage, however flawed the bill was. That is my problem with the republicans, and that is why I have trouble putting much blame on the dems for what they did. It wasn't exactly right, but what the republicans have done ever since Obama was elected has been worse.
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A quick question… which one was your original? You dont have a name, so that should be a legitimate question. And it makes it entirely possible to be missed, especially in a thread this long.
Still, let's move on with this one entry right here.
“The filibuster DID slow the bill and however sad this is most of congress doesn't read ANY of the bills they pass. By your logic we shouldn't pass anything (though I must admit at this point we may be better off if that happened).”
Well if they are not doing their jobs and seriously considering what they are passing (which requires at least READING it), then you are correct. They shouldn't pass anything… at all. And frankly, any one of them who isn't doing at least that should be tossed out of office as failures.
“But I digress, my point is that there are a thousand excuses to continue a filibuster, but when it all comes down to it there is only one honest explanation. The republicans didn't agree so they filibustered. It had nothing to do with the fact that no one had read the bill, the republicans hadnt either. It had everything to do with a knee jerk reaction against more complete healthcare coverage, however flawed the bill was.”
A flawed bill that no one read of this extreme reach is unacceptable. Sorry. It should have been scrapped and started again at best… especially when we didn't even know which version was which.
“That is my problem with the republicans, and that is why I have trouble putting much blame on the dems for what they did. It wasn't exactly right, but what the republicans have done ever since Obama was elected has been worse.”
It was far from right… it was a complete disregard of what the people wanted (again, they worked around an election won on being the vote to cancel this in one of the most liberal/Democratic states in the nation), gaming the system in new ways you can expect to come up again later, and if the results are not in your favor, you have NO RIGHT to bitch since you try to brush it off now…
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“if the results are not in your favor, you have NO RIGHT to bitch since you try to brush it off now…” sounds like what you are doing… just saying. Also I don't. If the republicans did the same thing with a bill I disagreed with I would not be mad that they passed an earlier version (if the bill passed, it passed. I don't care if it was 2 versions ago) I would be mad that they passed it at all. The health care bill was flawed, but not in the way you assumed I suggest. It was flawed because it did not do enough, not because it wasn't proofread enough (obviously just imho). If the dems ever managed to get enough group cohesion (never going to happen) to filibuster something you support to death, despite you having an overwhelming majority of support, I wager you would again be shrieking about how wrong it is. Just remember what you just told me when that happens.
And you keep complaining that I am shrugging off what the dems did. Guess what, you STILL have not said anything about what the republicans did. You are shrugging that off too. Every accusation you have made of others on this board you are equally guilty of. Do not be high and mighty about things you do yourself. Though that does seem to be the conservative way these days.
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“if the results are not in your favor, you have NO RIGHT to bitch since you try to brush it off now…” sounds like what you are doing… just saying. Also I don't. If the republicans did the same thing with a bill I disagreed with I would not be mad that they passed an earlier version (if the bill passed, it passed. I don't care if it was 2 versions ago) I would be mad that they passed it at all. The health care bill was flawed, but not in the way you assumed I suggest. It was flawed because it did not do enough, not because it wasn't proofread enough (obviously just imho). If the dems ever managed to get enough group cohesion (never going to happen) to filibuster something you support to death, despite you having an overwhelming majority of support, I wager you would again be shrieking about how wrong it is. Just remember what you just told me when that happens.
And you keep complaining that I am shrugging off what the dems did. Guess what, you STILL have not said anything about what the republicans did. You are shrugging that off too. Every accusation you have made of others on this board you are equally guilty of. Do not be high and mighty about things you do yourself. Though that does seem to be the conservative way these days.
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You're damn right I'm bitching about it. And I will again when it happens again, even if it brings about something I'm in favor of. You know why? It's a horribly dishonest tactic.
I also approve the filibuster because no one read the damn thing. If NO ONE read it, then NO ONE should have voted on it.
Of course if they didn't read it, they didn't do their job, and I want everyone who is guilty of that out of a their job. (Hey, if I decided not to do my job, I'd be out of one… fair is fair.)
In short NOTHING about it was right… not the bill (for now, you will have to agree to disagree with this, but stick with me), not the way it was passed, not how sides were picked on it, and not even how it was debated… no more right then them “having to vote on it to tell us what's in it.”
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