Dakota Beacon

So, you talk about protecting fundamental freedoms and the Constitution but are willing let Obama run roughshod over the First Amendment out of the hope that the opposition of religious groups will help lead to repeal of the entire law?  Isn’t that kind of blackmail, the opposite, but moral equivalent, of divide and conquer?  Stick with us or your rights be damned!

That would be like watching Nazis kill innocents and doing nothing about it because it would be better to stop Hitler himself. 

The conscience bills, by the way, are not narrow exemptions.  They are broadly written for all persons, of all faiths, of any conscience, and concerning any procedure. 

But I suppose that does not matter to you since you think religious liberty is something that can be trampled upon on your way to defeating Obamacare.

Your comment doesn’t really merit much reply, but I will indulge inasmuch as so many are concerned with this and are grasping at straws to avoid the evil that is embedded in Obamacare.  There is, sadly, no “easy” way to fix this with patches.  What we have is a grotesquely wrong law on the books that needs to be addressed.  If we decimate the ranks of those who care about how it affecte them and don’t see the larger picture, we cannot stop the wrong.  Therefore, though you don’t deserve the time or space, though you do not know me at all and therefore are incompetent to judge what my motives are, though you throw around the eptithet “Hitler” with gross and indiscriminate abandon, because others care deeply - as I do - about this fundamental issue, I will answer thusly:
What do you see wrong with Obamacare . . . or any other form of socialized medicine?  I see a great deal – I see euthanasia enforced by “death panels” or whatever term you wish to use.  I see the murder of infants as though it were “medical treatment”.  I see the end of valuable medical research which has relieved much human suffering through medical advancements.  I see the kinds of abuse of medicine and health care which have run rampant throughout the Iron Curtain nations for many decades in the name of “programs for the benefit of the people” .  I see a program and a concept that Americans should work together to defeat.  This is a backward, Neanderthal approach to solving the problems of health care. 
I referred to Bart Stupak and his duplicity in this article.  Perhaps you think he did a service.  Maybe you think better of those who supported his amendment than those who opposed it.  If so, I disagree.  Stupak facilitated the passage of a bill that is riddled with evil and corruption and is a full menu of fiscal disaster for our country.  Had he not offered his “humane” amendment, support for this monstrosity would not have been sufficient for its passage.  You might say he put some delicious flavoring in the poison.  His subsequently procured “Executive Order” did the same thing for the Senate.  It caused that body NOT to revisit the issue with its newly constituted membership – which included anti-Obamacare Scott Brown, an unforeseen contingency.  So Stupak’s “humane” and “pro-life” efforts secured a bill which guaranteed an end result inimical to his stated and pretended position.  He had the help of shallow thinkers (perhaps like yourself) who don’t like the word “abortion”. 
Let me tell YOU something.  I have opposed abortion my entire adult life.  I have supported pro-life candidates and their positions.  I shall continue to do so.  I will oppose them if they try to do this for some and not others.  You cite the “universal” exemptions for “anyone”, no matter what denomination, etc, etc, etc., but what about the availability and encouragement of abortion for, let us say, a baby born to a mother without any religious conviction?  Should that be paid for?  If we protect SOME, and not others, those we protect we take out of the fight for all practical purposes, and leave the weak vulnerable. 
It seems whenever anyone cuts through the guff and tries to speak plainly about reality, some idiot decides to play the “Hitler card”.  Hitler has nothing to do with this.  We can’t be blaming Hitler for what our Congress did and what Bart Stupak accomplished.  Let’s call a liar a liar.  Let’s not fall back on Hitler.  Are you calling ME Hitler?  Then say so.  I oppose killing innocent people, whether their parents are “religious” or subject to “conscience” or not.  I also oppose allowing McDonald’s and Footlocker and AARP to be exempt.  Does this mean I’m for Obamacare?  No.  It means I am against it all the way.  Maybe AARP would have been an advocate for the elderly, as they proclaim, had they not made a deal.  The elderly are poorly served indeed, by Obamacare.  But they (AARP) got a deal.  It was good for them.  So they became Obamacare boosters. We need to live within the boundaries of our Constitution or examine them and change them.  What you advocate is permitting these special cases, however “broad” to override the Constitution which protects us all. 
If you really want to talk about Hitler, think of it this way:  might it have been better, after all, if Chamberlain had not made a deal with the jerk?  What if Chamberlain had said, we’re not going to spare the French if we don’t spare Czechs?  Do you, who are so good yourself, think that government by exemptions is a healthy system? 
You fail to convince me.  Not because I don’t care about human life but because I do.  Your silly amendment would not protect everyone.  And by saying “no” to this kind of thing we can defeat Obamcare for all of us.  If you are too shortsighted to see the truth of this you are hopeless, indeed.  Perhaps you need to listen better.

First, don’t accuse me of wrongfully bringing in Hitler.  You first used a Hitler analogy, though not by name, when you made analogy to Chamberlain’s appeasement.  What I did was no different.  If you would like I can change the analogy:  What you are proposing is like refusing to save a child about to be hit by a car because you would rather work at taking away the driver’s license.

Second, for all your insults, you never addressed the fundamental question raised by your post: Why should stand by and let religious liberty - not just any right, mind you - be trampled in your quest to overturn Obamacare?  Sometimes some things need to be sacrificed for a greater good, but religious liberty?  If you are willing to sacrifice religious liberty, how is that not an “ends justifies the means” philosophy.

Third, conscience protection bills are not “special cases” like the businesses that received exemption from Obamacare.  Religious liberty is a fundamental right.  You are essentially using religious liberty for political reasons.

Do you know what “fungible” means?  We don’t usually use the word unless we want to impress someone or maybe just be pompous.  I will be extremely precise and hope I impress you.  Money, tax revenue, is FUNGIBLE.  This means it’s like a quantity of water.  Your drop looks and works just like my drop or Harry’s or Larry’s or Sue’s drop of water.  If we all own shares of a lake and Sue and I and you don’t approve of the use of our water for cooling a nuclear arms plant but we think it should be used for supplying the local car wash, swimming pool and watering the garden in the park, someone at the Lake Water Use Regulatory Board can assure us with absolute truth that OUR water will not go to cooling the factory.  OUR water will water the garden and fill the swimming pool.  Does this mean the plant will have to shut down?  No.  Because Harry and Larry like it just fine.  So their water will cool the plant.  Everyone okay with that?  Well, Larry and Harry and, I suppose, all of the idiots are. 
If you or I or the thousands of Catholic or Baptist faithful, or just pro-life Americans elect not to participate in funding abortions or sterilization, etc., do you think for one nanosecond that these procedures will stop?  Do you honestly think that your effort to clean up your conscience with this absurd fiction will spare one single victim from abortion?  Maybe you do.  I know for sure otherwise.  Why?  Because money, tax dollars are fungible.  Whatever is needed to perform the “services”  of which you disapprove will be available.  The only difference is that people who live in a fog will THINK they aren’t paying for it when they are, of course.  See, I don’t want to pay for it.  It’s kind of like when a toddler thinks you can’t see him just because he can’t see you.  It’s something the toddler is expected to grow out of as he becomes more sophisticated.  Not everyone does, I guess.  So if you feel great about not “participating” because you checked a box on a form somewhere, if you really believe that this will prevent one single abortion at state expense – at your expense – dream on, pal. 
If you are serious about saving the unborn, as I am, you will want to end Obamacare.  Of course there are many, many other extremely good reasons for wanting to end it.  There isn’t time or room on this page for a list approaching a representative sample.  Suffice it to say that no good will ever come of this fiasco and a lot of evil will.  I wish to defeat this.  You are looking for some way to hide from the truth that you are going to be forced to pay for it.  I think you are the one with the problem.  The “amendment” which you seem to champion would be that ruse.  It would let you pretend that the problem went away.  It is like saying because you didn’t throw rocks, you just watched theNazis throw them, that you aren’t responsible for Kristalnacht.  It wasn’t your rock that hit the old lady.  It was theirs.  Your hands are clean.  I don’t see it the same way.  We never will, you and I. 
A lot of good, decent people are like you.  They hate fighting and harsh words.  They want the conflict and the evil to all go away.  Maybe this piece of paper will make the bad guys go away and leave us alone.  Maybe it will be all better tomorrow.  If we don’t know about the bad stuff it isn’t there.  But it is.  I don’t blame you for wishing it weren’t so.  I’m sure you want to find a way out of this horror.  I do too.  But I know this isn’t it.  It will take a concerted, united, all out effort.  Otherwise the abortions will continue.  The death panels will be seated and take up your case or your mother’s.  The research and development will stop abruptly and we will enter a new dark age of medicine.  We’re already preparing for a post-electrical world through the good offices of people like the philanthropic Al Gore.  This is just one more piece in the ultimate destruction of our nation, our culture and our world.  Do you want to stop it or check a box saying you don’t wish to participate in it?  You don’t have the rest of your life to ponder it, either, because this stuff is going ahead while you talk about amendments.
The most depressing aspect of this exchange is that you don’t seem to get it and I dread the possibility that you aren’t the only one who doesn’t.  Get this:  if you participate in a government-run healthcare program (Obamacare) and that system (Obamacare) provides coverage for abortions, you will be paying for – that is enabling and supporting – abortion.  You will be funding the destruction of human life.  You will not save one, single, innocent child from being murdered through abortion.  Do you understand?  The Nazis you like to talk about assured people it wouldn’t be them, too.  It would always be someone else.  They lied.

You prattle on about “religious liberty”.  In my view, and in that of many other Americans, this is only one aspect of our liberties.  If you want a special peace for yourself and to hell with the rest of us, I can’t see why you think your liberty should have any value for me.  Or the many ordinary guys who died in the various wars beginning in 1775, and are yet today, to preserve your pristine conscience.  Here is what I predict.  All the bishops and all the king’s men won’t be able to stop government funded abortion in America.  Your amendment is a fraud.  The only thing that will stop what you don’t want to participate in – the only thing which will get YOU off the hook - is a powerful   Conservative Republican surge that will sweep Obamacare into the dustbin for good.  If Obamacare stands it is over.  That is the game.  The final chapter is about to be written.  So just how do you want to participate in THAT?  Take a good look at your remorseless foes in this.  They are not worried about your amendment.  The bottom line here is that if Obamacare stands you will see the closure of parochial schools and religious-based healthcare and other services. 
The thing you and those who care about this issue need to do is get 100% behind every candidate and every effort to repeal and defund Obamacare.  Don’t look for a loophole for yourself.  Don’t fancy that you can snatch one child out of the path of this steamroller. You aren’t.  Your amendment won’t.  Killing Obamacare is the only thing that will.  The time is now to do this.  We can get the support we need.  I can’t understand you.  You must be in favor of salvaging Obamacare – at any cost. 
Here’s an idea for you.  Instead of writing another comment to me, why not write to your newspaper and to your Congressmen and Senators and candidates.  Tell them, one and all, and get your friends and neighbors together on this, talk to your family and the people in your parish or congregation and fight for EVERYONE’s liberty.  Not everyone opposes this on “religious” grounds and to be honest with you, they are every bit as worthy and valid as “religious” grounds.  Remember, before we leave Hitler behind here, after the Czechs were handed over as the price for peace for the rest of Europe, Poland was next.  Don’t try to find weasel room in this.  Be a patriot instead.

if kathleen sebelius were inclined to bow to the bishops, she might simply have honored the executive order stupak thought he’d gotten from obama in exchange for his vote. I, personally,  have my doubts as to whether stupak can honestly claim to have been duped. the man had been warned, back when it mattered. now, it would seem to me, we’re in the post double-cross stage of these proceedings. to angle for some special deal now for this group or that invites condescension, to put it politely. but hey- if any of you think you can make a deal with the people who are now going to tell you what’s in obamacaere, i wish you well. truly i do. i wished stupak well-a lot of us did. however, might not now be the time for all of us who oppose obamacare to stand together? that ought to at least give us the element of surprise.