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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (23122)	2/18/2012 4:09:35 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

what differentiates this particular imposition of government power from the rest is that it is religious That and also that its an attempt to impose action that is perceived to be seriously immoral on people. Most government action, whether or not it involves religion, doesn't fit that in that category. Another difference here (not from all government limitations on liberty but from quite a few of them) is that both the constitution, and some statue law, would seem to oppose this action. And the constitutional objection is not just from the general limitation of the federal governments power (which does get abused or ignored quite a lot), but also specific protections in the bill of rights (about free exercise of religion in this case). As such, the libertarian aspect would get lost in the shuffle. I don't think it has. I've seen a number of people, with no religious objection to contraception (or in some cases to any form of birth control or even abortion), also oppose this policy for constitutional and/or libertarian reasons. Of course those issues are far from being the only or overwhelming reason, defending liberty here would also require giving "the other side" (for you, with the church and/or cultural conservatives being the other side in your case) a win, but I think that normally defenders of liberty should do that. Allowing neo-nazis to march in Skokie (or in Chicago were they originally wanted to rally, and eventually did) supported freedom even though it was a win for a bunch of Nazis. "the trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H L Mencken (not that I'm calling the church scoundrels, but you might see them that way) If even objections held by influential organizations and backed by long moral tradition, can't hold out against government encroachment, even when there is no compelling government interest, it become that much harder for others to hold out. Organizations in civil society can provide a bulwark against abusive government, but the way things are going that bulwark is decaying, which is hardly a good thing for liberty.