For not the first time in her distinguished career as a California Senator, Barbara Boxer demonstrates to the illiterati her absolutely mind-boggling command of logic:
“I have never heard Hobby Lobby or any other corporation, I could be wrong, or any other boss complain that Viagra is covered in many insurance plans, practically all of them, or other kinds of things, you know, for men, which I won’t go into,” Boxer said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Jansing & Co.”
The California Democrat was discussing the lawsuit before the Supreme Court Tuesday morning arguing that companies like Hobby Lobby, which brought the suit, shouldn’t have to provide for employees’ birth control because it violates their religious beliefs.
Host Chris Jansing pressed Boxer as to whether she could compare Viagra and birth control, saying Hobby Lobby and other advocates argue that birth control is a “life issue.”
“I have never heard them put any type of moral objection, remember, this is a moral objection, to men getting Viagra, but they have a moral objection to women getting certain types of birth control,” Boxer said.So let us get this straight, shall we? One of our distinguished California Senators equates (on moral grounds!) a drug that promotes conception with measures designed to prevent conception. Further, she is puzzled as to why she has never heard any religiously-minded employers complain about having to fund the former ("go forth, and multiply") while also being required by ObamaCare to fund the latter ("go forth, and subtract").
(And in point of fact, Sen. Boxer, have you ever been told what the co-pay is to purchase Viagra, even with insurance? It is anything but "free" -- try $20 to $25 per dose.)
Not content with laying out her stupefying ignorance of logic in public for all to see, the distinguished Senator then proceeded to double down on her idiotic remarks, after being questioned as to whether she really meant to sound so dumb:
“What’s their next moral objection, do they then object to vaccinations? Where do you take it from here? …Vaccinations?? Vaccinations??? She takes the syllogism in one moment from the killing of sperm to the killing of viruses? So now, the distinguished Senator not only equates the promotion of conception with the prevention of conception, but she equates sperm with viruses?
Where, indeed, "do you take it from here," Sen. Boxer?
Just listen -- the Honorable Lady from California isn't done yet:
“There has been a well-documented study by a university that gave women free birth control for several years. Abortions went down by 50 percent, Chris. So if you are for life and want to attack this issue for abortion, this is a place we could work together and reduce the number of abortions.”Oh, so now the point is that if employees don't get to kill sperm with free contraceptives paid for by their employer, they are going to kill more zygotes and fetuses instead? Well, that certainly makes sense.
Let's see if I can restate the proposition in equivalent terms: “If you were willing to pay women to kill men's sperm, then you would pay less for women to kill their fetuses and babies." Oh, yes -- that now makes perfect sense to someone who doesn't want to be forced to pay for either -- thank you, Sen. Boxer.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained -- Sen. Boxer adds, just in case we couldn't understand her the first time:
... [I]t’s the rights of the employees that are being restricted, not the employers.Once again, the Senator's superior brand of logic may escape you -- so let me translate:
Employers who are forced, against their sincerely held religious beliefs, to pay for sperm- and baby-killing measures for their own employees must not look at the fact that they are being compelled, just because they choose to hire employees, to violate those beliefs. No, sir -- once they hire employees, they lose those rights -- or at least, we (your benign Government) no longer recognize them as existing. You choose to go into business, you lose your First Amendment rights.
Not only that, but we (your benign Government, whom you elected) will create, out of whole cloth, the "right" to have your killing of sperm and babies paid for by your employer -- and in fact, we will even see to it that the human detritus so extracted from wombs will be used very efficiently -- to heat hospitals, for instance. And that right to kill for free, exercised by your employees, trumps your right not to have to pay for the killings if you don't support abortion as an option when it comes to human life. And if you don't agree, you are part of "the war on women."
Whoops -- I jumped ahead of the distinguished Senator a bit. She is still not through with displaying her superior logic that so entitles her to represent, in our august Senate, the low-information voters of California.
“I view this as very much an anti-woman position to take,” Boxer said. “And it’s important to note that women take birth control, more than half of them, as a medication for other conditions, so it is an attack on women. I think it’s an attack on the religious freedom of the women who work there. Remember, no one is forced to take birth control. It’s an individual right, and this is America, and this is the 21st century, and this is shocking.”Note first that no one -- and certainly no employer -- is preventing women from taking "birth control" measures, for any reason. (And never mind that if the medication is needed to treat other conditions than preventing fertilization, the employers' insurance will pay for it.) Likewise, as the Senator admits, no woman is being forced to take birth control measures against her will.
The only forcing that is going on is the forcing of employers to pay for their employees' "right" to
Since when did killing sperm and babies become a right to be paid for by others? Only since the Democrats rammed ObamaCare illegally through Congress -- that's when. And thus do they turn their violations of our rights into our supposed violation of their invented "rights."
It is all so topsy-turvy that even Alice herself would confess it made her head spin.
Is it any wonder that with Senator Boxer railing against American men having access to Viagra, our President is so willing to show the world how to stand up to tyranny without it? See what a difference the Democrats make with their logic?
Indeed, their logic dictates that there are not enough Democrats elected yet -- because the world still exists with people in it. So the conclusion for Christians is obvious: promote the Second Coming -- elect more Democrats!
1. Corporations are artificial legal fictions used to limit liability for stockholders and therefore can no more have a religion than fall in love.
ReplyDelete2. The individual rights of those who are stockholders cannot be transferred to the corporation as Scalia points out in Domino's Pizza v McDonald.
3. Religious convictions do not relieve an individual from following the law as Scalia pointed out in Employment Division v Smith.
I do not expect Justice Scalia to remain consistent and look forward to the rhetorical gymnastics he undergoes to try and hide his inconsistency.
Mike Alsobrook, don't spend too much time waiting for Justice Scalia to sort that out. While from a logical standpoint you may be correct about corporations, the fact is that from the standpoint of history (precedent), corporations are persons in they eyes of the law. ("On this point," said Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once, "a page of history is worth a volume of logic.")
ReplyDeleteSince corporations are persons, they, too, have rights under the First Amendment -- see, e.g., Citizens United; or even go all the way back to NAACP v. Button. So your first point is irrelevant: lots of people have no religion, yet they still have rights under the First Amendment. Nor is your second point necessary -- because corporations are persons in their own light, their constitutional rights do not depend on any kind of transfer theory.
Employment Division v. Smith involved a law of general application, not specifically targeted at churches. ObamaCare regulations, however, exempt churches but not other faith-based entities. By making the exemption, the Obama Administration admitted that the law would otherwise include churches in its compass.
And many churches are corporations, while others are not. So how do you draw a line between what churches believe and what private corporations believe? I don't see a principled way to do so, and that's why Hobby Lobby is before the Supreme Court.
In fact, many insurance plans have restrictions on drugs like Viagra thereby "dictating" how many erections a month a man may have. In the past, an employer could be petitioned by its male employees to change insurance companies in order to boost coverage for certain conditions. Under the law in question, employers must obey whoever is in power in Washington DC and thereby they lose their freedom to choose an insurance plan that serves both their employees and is in keeping with their religious values. This undermines free markets and opens the door for all sorts of future coercive measures from the Federal decision making process, a process that is controlled by bubble-headed lawmakers as described above. I would predict that if this law stands, eventually physician assisted suicide (euphemistically called death with dignity) will be the next insurance coverage issue for which corporations to have to provide coverage.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is worth noting that when Pfizer was developing Viagra they actually approached the Holy See for its perspective on the morality of the issue. This ought to be of interest to Ms Boxer as she is, alas, some sort of a Catholic.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure Sen. Boxer is Jewish, not Catholic, so the Holy See's take may be of limited interest to her.
ReplyDeleteBoxer is a long time supporter of even partial birth abortion. And once you hunt babies, other outrages come easy.
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