Oh all right, I’ll indulge this petty need to write about Shithead Hall of Fame Inductee™ Kathleen Parker. It’s not that she hasn’t been dropping turd nuggets of all sorts lately, far from it, but I couldn’t bear to write another article blasting Susan Stamper Brown for “knowing” that Reaganomics worked. Really…you KNOW Reaganomics worked? And of course she sources nothing, but her “know”-ing, it’s maddening for sure, but I’m just not in the mood right now.
The National Prayer Breakfast is an antiquated joke. Every single year Obama seems to fail to give a proper speech. This years was no different. But this year, Ms. Parker has something to say about it…I think.
Bill O’Reilly’s column was finally put out to pasture late last year, and for good measure. From the little I covered of his articles, it was desperately necessary, as he was just not writing anything of substance. On top of that, the word count was woefully short. Perhaps the Washington Post should cut Ms. Parker’s output down to just one column per week, as she just quits on this piece. And really, she doesn’t need two columns.
Waddling out in to the tides of a religious column just isn’t in Ms. Parker’s wheelhouse. It’s painfully obvious to everyone involved about three oddly placed sentences-as-paragraphs in. Since I’m assuming she didn’t attend the event in question, she’s just hoping to fill a word count quota and move on to her next column idea. So sure, lets just assume that religious protections are under attack in America.
Obamacare is forcing for profit religious entities to cover contraception for it’s employees. Again, this goes back to my notion as to why that’s an attack on religious freedom, and having people who aren’t in need of boner pills pay for others need to defy nature, isn’t an attack on their freedoms from the un-need of boner pills?
That Ms. Parker states that religious-liberty lobby is losing is absurd. They’re not losing any ground, and if anything are attempting to strengthen themselves by coalescing in to concentrated tribes in the middle and south of the country. So sure, they may be marginalized in terms of mainstream popularity, but their far from out in terms of their single issue voter bloc, and the GOP right-wing’s ability to rile them up and drive them to the polls with the word “abortion”.
But this debate is more than just about birth control, it’s about the stability of the nation! If we force for profit businesses with “religious convictions” to offer basic insurance coverage to their employees, of which their use of it is absolutely none of their business, the religious freedoms are doomed!
This IS more than a debate about birth control. Indeed, it is yet another way for the GOP right-wing to team up with their 12th man evangelicals to try and dismantle Obamacare. Waste more time and money propelling this case through the federal court system, and ultimately, lose at the Supreme Court. But then, they have something to rile up the one issue evangelicals with for the 2014-2016 elections, and ultimately, lose there too.
The problem with the “but my religious convictions” argument is that these businesses are for profit. Religious groups are one thing, and ideally, if they are participating in the free market, they should be obliged to pay for insurance coverage, just the same as any other business. But businesses like Hobby Lobby, a non-religious corporation, are only a pawn in yet another campaign to destroy Obamacare. The fact that Ms. Parker parks them all together into this “persecuted” mass is a disservice to the argument she’s attempting to make. Thanks to Citizens United, corporations are people now, so I guess if they want to make a better argument they need to baptize their corporations and get them to start tithing to become religious entities fit for prosecution.
But then she just drops her entire thesis. Quoting Obama’s answer to Rick Warren back in the day: “It’s beyond my paygrade.” What an utter waste of time, right? All this stupid ass pontificating, and all you have for us is a shrug? Shame on you, Ms. Parker! Shame! What we are left with is a bunch of right-wing posturing about Obama-come-King nonsense.
Reducing the argument down to “free contraceptives for women” is an attempt by right-wing punditry to put the argument back in to the government overreach arena. That the whole reason of Obamacare is for the government to offer freebies to all the ladies, thereby locking them down in to democrat voters for the foreseeable future, just like what they did with welfare and the “others”.
But it’s not about “free contraceptives” it is and always will be about offering health insurance to anyone and everyone who wants it. This odd religious argument Ms. Parker makes is dangerous as it pertains to only a certain religious thought. What about other religions and their objections? Should we honor all of those as well? By Ms. Parker’s definition their religious liberties are under attack, and NO ONE is speaking up for them in the pundit class! And what about Hobby Lobby’s (probably non-existent) non-religious employees? Should they have their corporate overlords religion foisted upon them? What about their rights?
The answers? Oh yeah, that’s above my paygrade. But at least Kathleen Parker got her comments section in a tizzy! Over 1,000 comments and counting!
No comments:
Post a Comment