Because ‘asshole’ isn’t a protected class.
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it doesn’t work the way you think it does.
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Remember though that some of the justices on the Supreme Court said that facts are irrelevant to the case, it all depends on what the company believes. If it believes that contraception is abortion, then it should get to make objections to it because it is abortion.
Going by the oral arguments (always risky, predicting the Supreme Court is difficult), it looks like the justices are leaning towards the corporate truthiness side of the case.
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I did. And yes, although it is unquestionably a reprehensible view and although I’m pretty sure I don’t personally know anyone who thinks like that, somewhere out there are women who think that women can be legally required to participate in a three-way with her boss. Such thinking is not necessarily exclusively within the purview of men.
Good luck with that. I don’t think it’s that the concept of “body autonomy” is so difficult to grasp, it’s that society doesn’t appear ready (yet) for legalized suicide that’s completely (I mean completely!) unrestricted, legal Krokodil, unrestricted abortions at 7 months, poor people selling off their kidneys, illegalizing various safety laws like mandatory seat belts, and a lot of other things that fall in that gray area your “Period” ignores but are going to get a little prickly with a lot of people.
Nuance is a bitch, laws tend to get messy, and I don’t see this particular fight (at least with its full stop “Period”) getting too far in the real world, really, like, ever. But as I said, I wish you the best of luck! In any case, it certainly sounds like a fun pronouncement to make!
Thanks @Robulus. Handled.
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To be fair if heroin were legal there would not be a market for krokodil. Note - I am not a libertarian - you are right that there are a lot of laws that are, in fact, for the common good. I would put seat belts, helmet laws (both of those especially if we have universal healthcare), restrictions on organ selling (which is really just another way to take abuse poor people through wealth disparity) etc. firmly in that category. We do have a lot of problems though with people trying to control other peoples bodies and what we do with them, and I agree with @Mikethebard that it’s a problem we need to fix.
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You seem to be laboring under the false premise that the Constitution grants us our rights. There are no constitutional rights. period. full stop.
It gives some powers to the state but the rights of the people are inherent and granted by no one. You are born with your freedoms. The Constitution and its Bill of Rights serve to limit the power of the government and not to grant you, the person, anything.
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Nonsense?
If a law says the government will not interfere with my right to eat cake, that is a law granting me the right to eat cake. With the law in place, any court or reasonable would agree that I have such a right, and without such a law in place, any court or reasonable would say, “There is no right to eat cake.”
But my freedom or right to eat cake is just as natural to me as my freedom to join a religion or to speak my mind. That is, to whatever extent the physical facts of the universe have conspired to allow me to do so, I am able to do so.
Perhaps the phrasing should have been “had it been left to the male justices, these fundamentals would have gone unchallenged,” but I think the overall point stands.
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I would respectfully disagree in general terms. It’s quite common for us to recognize something as a basic right, but still make exceptions or ask how far is too far.
- We recognize free speech as an absolute right, yet still have laws on slander, libel, inciting a riot, conspiracy, and yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
- We recognize the right to bear arms, but even the most hardcore gun nut will balk at allowing just anyone to own WMDs.
- We consider the freedom of religion to be a basic right, but we don’t allow human sacrifice, regulate where and how animals can be slaughtered, and if you choose prayer over medicine to treat your kid’s cancer, you’re going to get a visit from Health and Human Services.
We can still discuss and impose limits, but in all of those cases, recognizing the issue as a basic right changes the parameters of the conversation: We now need a truly compelling reason to limit those rights, as opposed to considering them a privilege that can simply be revoked if it causes too many problems.
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So if corporation = person = spunk, is wearing a condom the same thing as blocking a merger?
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I believe in yoga, energy healing and accupuncture as vital to my
spiritual practice. Can I refuse to cover employee costs related to
Western medicine while paying for Reiki treatments?
That’s pretty much the argument in a nutshell. If this is your belief system, why should the government prevent you from making it so? While I’d say it’s kind of insidious to run hidden religious agendas with a large chain store, I’m not sure there should not be a place in the world for openly running that kind of practice. You know, the liberty to be an idiot. Still, it would make sense to enforce an appropriate kind of corporate identification and structure if that is how you are going to run your company…
Legally speaking though, it’s a tax. If you don’t participate you pay the tax. Hobby Lobby just needs to pay its damn taxes.
To be perfectly honest, I draw the line in a slightly different place than most people, but it seems completely reasonable to me:
If I have a sole proprietorship, I think I should be able to run the business however I please. In that situation, I am the business. The money is all attached to my personal finances, I am responsible for everything related to the business. If I want to impose bizzare restrictions on my employees, refuse to do business with a certain type of person, or otherwise run things according to my own conscience, I think I should be allowed to do so.
But, the moment I separate that business from myself and make it it’s own thing- by creating a corporation, LLC, LLP, whatever- Then that entity needs to play by the same rules as everyone else. That includes nondiscrimination laws, it includes public disclosure of finances, it includes not forcing my own superstitions on my employees.
If I have a problem with that, I simply trade off the legal and financial protection that incorporation gives for the control of a sole proprietorship.
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So for example, if you wanted to open a retro-themed diner or exclusive movie theater…
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More important question; does that mean bankruptcy=abortion?
And you are welcome to move the fuck out of this country. We here in the USA value equal rights and equal treatment. If you don’t value that, move to libertarianville and stay the fuck out of my country.
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I also value equal rights and equal treatment, but while government, business, and public organizations need to be held to those standards, individuals don’t. Freedom includes the right to be whatever kind of asshole you want to be while under your own roof.
Again, I draw the line when someone’s business becomes a public entity rather than an extension of themselves. We can argue about where that line gets drawn, but we need to have that line.
I worry that if a Christian baker can be sued for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, then a gay baker can be sued for refusing to make a cake for an evangelical Christian who preaches against them. I worry that a neonazi can claim that his bigotry constitutes a deeply held belief, and that it is therefore illegal to discriminate against him. I am actually aware of the fact that the same law which protects my pro-choice protest also protects the forced-birth advocates across the street.
What I am saying is that assholes will use “equality” against you just as surely as they will use inequality against you- I want a clear line at my doorstep which they can’t cross, and if I truly believe in equality, then that means they can draw a line at their own door as well. Whatever policies we adopt to make everyone play nice in public, I still reserve the right to exclude whomever I want from my own home.
All I’m actually arguing for is for the line between public and private to be drawn at the point where a business gains legal recognition. That’s it.
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Actually, the people I would rather not associate with tend to be white. My prejudices are against a philosophy, not a genome.
Call me crazy, but once someone goes on record saying that they don’t believe I’m entitled to life and liberty, I really don’t feel like I can serve them with a clear conscience.
But if it makes you feel better to pretend its a racial thing, you go right ahead.
