What about the rest of us?

What about the rest of us in the Hobby Case currently in front of the Supreme Court?  

What is disguised as a 'religious liberty' case, is actually yet another in a seemingly endless line of efforts to discredit the Affordable Care Act.

A minority (Evangelical Christians are a minority in the United States), is seeking to foist its values on the rest of us.  I am a progressive Christian and I deep resent other Christians shoving their "values" down my throat.

One person's religious liberty is another's tyranny. What about the employee rights to equal protection under the 14th Amendment?

And what about the fact that providing abortive conception drugs in a person's insurance does not force them to use them?

The next step in this con is obvious, a conscientious objection to state mandated health insurance.

This is not a cute issue that is simply going to weaken and destroy the ACA.

It carries with it echoes of the past; of a Jim Crowe segregation and the great kill off of thousands of Native Americans in the name of God.


Southern Baptists, who for decades proclaimed religious freedom as the reason for segregation, were the vanguard of segregationists'  dubious use of the 1st Amendment Establishment Clause to support injustice.

The Bible, they claimed, sanctioned bans on interracial marriage, exactly like the Bible supposed bans gay marriage today.

The result?  A huge injustice and a way around the 14th Amendment.  The result?  A hundred years of one of the most brutal forms of injustice in human history.

The Bible also says Thou Shall Not Kill, and I was forced by the draft years ago to enlist in the Army.

Without my religious freedom being abrogated, which is most definitely NOT absolute, we lose WW I, WWII ,etc.  It is true there were ways to become a conscientious objector, but those were limited to individuals, not to companies!

There are no doubt lawsuits just waiting for the Supremes to rule in the affirmative and we will see employers claiming that state mandated health insurance is against their religious beliefs.  The conservative right (led by greedy health lobbies) will have their victory.

Recently Arizona's state legislature tried to take the 1st Amendment and twist it around to support bigotry.  "Christians" tried to use the establishment clause to claim that gay marriage could not be condoned, anywhere, because the Bible forbids it.

The Bible forbids a lot of things, including crucifixion, stoning to death; etc., that are long since past.  The Bible has been stretched into painful interpretations that have justified mass murder.

Religious liberty does not imply religious excess.  The 14th Amendment was passed exactly to curb the trick of using the 1st Amendment to condone injustice.

If anyone doubts that, read about Jim Crowe.

We stand again in front of a deeply conservative and reactionary Supreme Court, who doesn't seem to get it, and sides with the regressive gene in our national conscience.

God help us!

Each to His Own,

To each their own.  This saying is the backbone of conservatism in the United States.

What it means is:   me, I'm first, what I want is most important.

It is the backbone of liberty for most.  If I want to drive to Canada, and I can afford it, I can do it.  If I want to buy a RV, that gets 5 miles to the gallon, and drive to Canada, while the nation is starving for oil, so be it:  to each his own.

To most Americans this is the core to freedom.  Doing what I want to do is liberty.

Is it?  When all Americans subscribe to this credo, what about scarce resources?  What happens when the oil runs low?  What happens in a drought?  What happens with a scarcity of food, or health care for example.

At this point, the chorus from the right is "to each his own".  If you teach a person to fish...etc.

Now, narcissism is at an all time high in America.  Profit at all costs.  I am first.  Screw over the poor, they are lazy; all of these and more, are indicative of many America's attitudes.

But is this liberty?  Is it liberty when narcissism is so prevalent that millions do not have health care insurance for example.  The reaction to many to this injustice, is:  Let them go to emergency rooms.  The Republican Party to date has voted over 50 times in the House of Representatives to repeal the ACA.

Individual horror stories are trooped out, decrying rising premium rates, or cancellations in insurance.  Meanwhile millions upon  millions are for the first time in their lives getting affordable health insurance  and health care.

But this is tyranny according to "to each his own".  Libertarians rail against the ACA as socialism, tyranny; etc.  It is nothing of the sort.

The tyranny lies in the narcissism.  The tyranny lies in the widening gap between the haves and the have nots.

Look, there is economic liberty and their is political liberty.   The Constitution of the United States deals mostly with political liberty.  Liberty, according to political scientists, is voting, democracy, representative government, and the lack of a dictator or tyrant.

Liberty is NOT the right to squander resources, selfishness, and narcissism.

And this is the most divisive issue of our times.  Both on the left and on the right, narcissism is becoming a large part of political behavior.  People are increasingly voting their selfish self-interest.

This will increase as the inevitable decline in available natural resources occurs.  Global warming and peak oil are going to lead to less for all of us.  The narcissistic reaction will only makes things worse, widen the gap between the rich and the poor and lead to conflict and probably war.

To each his own will lead us to ruin.