The reckoning
Today, it’s the Catholic Church whose free-exercise powers are under assault from this cascade of diktats sanctioned by — indeed required by — Obamacare. Tomorrow it will be the turn of other institutions of civil society that dare stand between unfettered state and atomized citizen.
Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness. Little wonder the president barely mentioned it in his latest State of the Union address. He wants to be reelected. He’d rather talk about other things.
Remember, the power of the state is not always wielded by those you agree with. From the right or the left, fear that power, because it will come after you both when it finally has the ability to do so.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Today, it’s the Catholic Church whose free-exercise powers are under assault from this cascade of diktats sanctioned by — indeed required by — Obamacare. Tomorrow it will be the turn of other institutions of civil society that dare stand between unfettered state and atomized citizen.
Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness. Little wonder the president barely mentioned it in his latest State of the Union address. He wants to be reelected. He’d rather talk about other things.
Remember, the power of the state is not always wielded by those you agree with. From the right or the left, fear that power, because it will come after you both when it finally has the ability to do so.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
perhaps we will be saved by the fact that the unfettered state is a bureaucratic mess
I am disturbed by the numbers of folks – even those fighting the gov on other issues – who support this, and attack opponents as just benig anti women. Pointnig out most folks, even Cathlics, support birth control and the gov givnig it for free.
This is a hell of a reasno to lose a first amendment in the bill of rights – bribing folks with a couple dollars a year worth of condoms or such.
I have been arguing with my liberal friends about this for decades — going back to when I was a liberal. When you cede power to the federal government, and then the opposition party takes control of the government, you have no defense against that party using that power in ways you find objectionable. The only real defense for all of us is the U.S. Constitution — and the difficulty required to change it. Those who wish to circumvent it or ignore it will do so at their peril. As Sir Thomas More once said, in effect, our laws are the trees of the forest. They protect us from the whirlwind of evil. If we cut down those trees one by one, and they are eventually gone, then what is left to protect us when the whirlwind blows against us?
Or George Washingtons comment that Government is like fire, if you are its master, you have warmth and heat. If it becomes your master it will consume you.
Especially with medicine! If they payfor adn decide what treatments we can get etc, adn can order us to buy what they want to serve that interst. Obamas already talking about the staet choosing when treating you isn’t worth the cost – adn when the state pays your medical bills etc, why not outlaw/require unhealthy/healthy behaviors? Could a future state outlaw gay sex to control AIDs? Red meat and dairy to control heart deseases? It may sound far fetch but they are already trying to ban anything from cigaretts to Twinkies (no litterally Twinkies) “for the public good”. What right would we have to say no when even bill of rights rights are dismissed as unimportant compared to a public good?