In this piece, I am examining contraception from a legal — not a moral — point of view.
In that context, I raise the following questions:
-- Does a married couple have the right to use contraception during their private act of intercourse?
-- Does the government have the right to enter their bedroom to investigate whether they are using a contraceptive?
Those were addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). There, the executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and its medical director were convicted of violating Connecticut law for giving married persons advice on how to prevent conception and prescribing a contraceptive.
Justice William O. Douglas wrote the majority opinion declaring the state statute unconstitutional.
"The (cited) cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. ...
"The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle, so often applied by this Court, that a 'governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.' ...
"Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship.
"We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights ... Marriage is ... intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, ... ; a harmony in living, ... a bilateral loyalty... [I]t is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions."
In an estimable concurrence, Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote, "The Court stated many years ago that the Due Process Clause protects those liberties that are 'so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.'
"The language and history of the Ninth Amendment reveal that the Framers of the Constitution believed that there are additional fundamental rights, protected from governmental infringement, which exist alongside those fundamental rights specifically mentioned in the first eight constitutional amendments.
"The Ninth Amendment reads, 'The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.' The Amendment is almost entirely the work of James Madison. ... It was proffered to quiet expressed fears that a bill of specifically enumerated rights could not be sufficiently broad to cover all essential rights and that the specific mention of certain rights would be interpreted as a denial that others were protected.
"A judicial construction that this fundamental right [marriage] is not protected by the Constitution because it is not mentioned in explicit terms by one of the first eight amendments or elsewhere in the Constitution would violate the Ninth Amendment, which specifically states that "[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'"
Few would argue that Griswold did not reach the right result. Even conservative agree with the result -- though they are uncomfortable with the terms of "penumbras" and emanations."
They feel Justice Douglas seems to be saying, " I can't find it anywhere in the language of the first eight amendments, but I know it's there somewhere!"
On the other hand, everybody -- especially conservatives -- seems comfortable with Ninth Amendment justification set forth in the concurring opinion.
Without question, Americans enjoyed the right to marry before the Constitution was adopted. And nobody, ever for a second, thought they were giving up the right to marry (which unquestionably included the right to have intercourse) when they voted to ratify the our Constitution. Except in the mind of a totalitarian, marriage is "fundamental right" and is unquestionably one of the other rights -- "others retained by the people" -- protected by the Ninth Amendment.
Forty-five years ago, the majority never dreamed that the government would want to get into the business of limiting the size of families. But Mr. Justice Goldberg for foresaw that eventuality.
"While it may shock some of my Brethren that the Court today holds that the Constitution protects the right of marital privacy, in my view it is far more shocking to believe that the personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution does not include protection against such totalitarian limitation of family size, which is at complete variance with our constitutional concepts.
"Yet, if upon a showing of a slender basis of rationality, a law outlawing voluntary birth control by married persons is valid, then, by the same reasoning, a law requiring compulsory birth control also would seem to be valid. In my view, however, both types of law would unjustifiably intrude upon rights of marital privacy which are constitutionally protected."
I can't help but wonder what Justice Goldberg would have said of about government requiring insurers to provide contraceptive coverage.
For those of you who would prefer not to share your bedroom with the government, the Ninth Amendment is your best friend. Griswold makes it "legal" for you (and not the government) to make the "moral" choice to use or not to use contraceptives.
Posted Online: March 27, 2012, 2:25 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
U.S. Apologies Aside, Murder Is Not a First Amendment Right
In America, the burning of a Bible is not punishable by death.
Indeed, if it is your copy of the book, you have the right to do so as a matter of symbolic free speech.
Recently, we have seen President Obama and those under him repeatedly and abjectly apologize because American troops in Afghanistan inadvertently burned one or more copies of the Quran.
In a letter sent to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Obama expressed his administration's "regret and apologies over the incident in which religious materials were unintentionally mishandled" in Afghanistan.
Then, Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific Security Affairs, told the American Muslim community "I come here today to apologize on behalf of the Department of Defense for the incident that took place in Afghanistan this week ... the burnings were done 'unknowingly and improperly.'"
Then, not to be outdone, Gen. John R. Allen, NATO's International Security Assistance Force Commander wrote, "To the noble people of Afghanistan --
"I have ordered an investigation into a report I received ... that ISAF personnel at Bagram Air Base improperly disposed of a large number of Islamic religious materials which included Korans.
"When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. ...
"We are thoroughly investigating the incident and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you -- I promise you -- this was NOT intentional in any way. I offer my sincere apologies... to the president of Afghanistan, ... and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan...."
In the meantime, the world has seen a week of rioting in Afghanistan. More than 30 people have been killed. Hundreds have been wounded. The AP reports "Protesters [note: not "rioters, "murders,"or "terrorists"] angry over Quran burnings by American troops lobbed grenades at a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan and clashed with police and troops in a day of violence that left seven international troops wounded and two Afghans dead." All this by the "noble people of Afghanstan!"
So copies of the Quran, rather than the bible, have been burned. Does that justfy riots that culminate in over 30 murders? Untold woundings? Burning out of towns? I use the word "murders" because when you throw a grenade into a crowd, or intentionally shoot somebody during a riot, or in the back of the head, that is what it is.
If American troops had burned a like number of Bibles, would Christians or Jews have taken to the streets, killed their neighbors and wrecked everything in site? Maybe in 350 A. D. Maybe in the middle ages.
There is a simple problem here. If the burning of a copy of the Quran justifies the murder of one human being, then a principle has been established. If it justifies one murder, then why not two -- or even a million? And if so, are we going to see like conduct from America's Muslim population in the streets of America when the next idiot or malevolent burns a copy of the Quran?
I can understand the president apologizing for our troops doing something insensitive. But why doesn't the president condemn the riots, the murders, the woundings and the chaos going on in Afghanistan? Or are we here in America willing to accept the premise that those of the Muslim faith are free to do anything -- including murder -- any time they perceive their religion to have been slighted?
Newt Gingrich, has said, "There seems to be nothing that radical Islamists can do to get Barack Obama's attention in a negative way and he is consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the United States, period."
I feel the same way. I don't think you apologize to murders, to arsonists, to looters or to people who behave like barbarians.
Citizen A may believe that the Bible is God's word, but that doesn't make it so. Citizen B may believe that the the Quran is God's word, but that doesn't make it so.
And if B is justified in killing A because A doesn't believe God wrote the Quran, I see no reason why A is not justified in killing B if B doesn't believe that the men who wrote the Bible were inspired by God.
For two centuries people have come to America to escape such intolerance.
In our country "freedom of religious belief" is an absolute right. You have an absolute right to believe that the Quran is the word of God, and your neighbor has an absolute right to believe that God inspired the men who wrote the Bible. But there are necessarily limits to the "free exercise of religion."
Another of our neighbors may have an absolute right to believe that God wants him to practice cannibalism. But his right to "freely exercise his religion" won't save him from prosecution if he actually kills and eats his neighbor.
Then too, while all of us in America have an absolute First Amendment religious right to believe that a certain book (e. g., the Bible, the Quran, the Torah) is "sacred," all of us also have the right of free speech. For a Muslim, that includes the right to deny that the Bible is sacred, and even to burn his own copy of it as an act of protest or symbolic free speech.
In America, a man's right to believe a book is "God's word" does not give him the right to enforce that belief upon his neighbor. Any American who can't accept the supremacy of our Constitution on these issues, is an American in name only.
Our Constitution simply does not permit killing in the name of religion. Without religious tolerance, we regress to the dark ages, where religious freedom and tolerance were unknown. Those that chose such a world, are but an airline ticket away.
Posted Online: March 07, 2012, 4:51 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Indeed, if it is your copy of the book, you have the right to do so as a matter of symbolic free speech.
Recently, we have seen President Obama and those under him repeatedly and abjectly apologize because American troops in Afghanistan inadvertently burned one or more copies of the Quran.
In a letter sent to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Obama expressed his administration's "regret and apologies over the incident in which religious materials were unintentionally mishandled" in Afghanistan.
Then, Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific Security Affairs, told the American Muslim community "I come here today to apologize on behalf of the Department of Defense for the incident that took place in Afghanistan this week ... the burnings were done 'unknowingly and improperly.'"
Then, not to be outdone, Gen. John R. Allen, NATO's International Security Assistance Force Commander wrote, "To the noble people of Afghanistan --
"I have ordered an investigation into a report I received ... that ISAF personnel at Bagram Air Base improperly disposed of a large number of Islamic religious materials which included Korans.
"When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. ...
"We are thoroughly investigating the incident and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you -- I promise you -- this was NOT intentional in any way. I offer my sincere apologies... to the president of Afghanistan, ... and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan...."
In the meantime, the world has seen a week of rioting in Afghanistan. More than 30 people have been killed. Hundreds have been wounded. The AP reports "Protesters [note: not "rioters, "murders,"or "terrorists"] angry over Quran burnings by American troops lobbed grenades at a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan and clashed with police and troops in a day of violence that left seven international troops wounded and two Afghans dead." All this by the "noble people of Afghanstan!"
So copies of the Quran, rather than the bible, have been burned. Does that justfy riots that culminate in over 30 murders? Untold woundings? Burning out of towns? I use the word "murders" because when you throw a grenade into a crowd, or intentionally shoot somebody during a riot, or in the back of the head, that is what it is.
If American troops had burned a like number of Bibles, would Christians or Jews have taken to the streets, killed their neighbors and wrecked everything in site? Maybe in 350 A. D. Maybe in the middle ages.
There is a simple problem here. If the burning of a copy of the Quran justifies the murder of one human being, then a principle has been established. If it justifies one murder, then why not two -- or even a million? And if so, are we going to see like conduct from America's Muslim population in the streets of America when the next idiot or malevolent burns a copy of the Quran?
I can understand the president apologizing for our troops doing something insensitive. But why doesn't the president condemn the riots, the murders, the woundings and the chaos going on in Afghanistan? Or are we here in America willing to accept the premise that those of the Muslim faith are free to do anything -- including murder -- any time they perceive their religion to have been slighted?
Newt Gingrich, has said, "There seems to be nothing that radical Islamists can do to get Barack Obama's attention in a negative way and he is consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the United States, period."
I feel the same way. I don't think you apologize to murders, to arsonists, to looters or to people who behave like barbarians.
Citizen A may believe that the Bible is God's word, but that doesn't make it so. Citizen B may believe that the the Quran is God's word, but that doesn't make it so.
And if B is justified in killing A because A doesn't believe God wrote the Quran, I see no reason why A is not justified in killing B if B doesn't believe that the men who wrote the Bible were inspired by God.
For two centuries people have come to America to escape such intolerance.
In our country "freedom of religious belief" is an absolute right. You have an absolute right to believe that the Quran is the word of God, and your neighbor has an absolute right to believe that God inspired the men who wrote the Bible. But there are necessarily limits to the "free exercise of religion."
Another of our neighbors may have an absolute right to believe that God wants him to practice cannibalism. But his right to "freely exercise his religion" won't save him from prosecution if he actually kills and eats his neighbor.
Then too, while all of us in America have an absolute First Amendment religious right to believe that a certain book (e. g., the Bible, the Quran, the Torah) is "sacred," all of us also have the right of free speech. For a Muslim, that includes the right to deny that the Bible is sacred, and even to burn his own copy of it as an act of protest or symbolic free speech.
In America, a man's right to believe a book is "God's word" does not give him the right to enforce that belief upon his neighbor. Any American who can't accept the supremacy of our Constitution on these issues, is an American in name only.
Our Constitution simply does not permit killing in the name of religion. Without religious tolerance, we regress to the dark ages, where religious freedom and tolerance were unknown. Those that chose such a world, are but an airline ticket away.
Posted Online: March 07, 2012, 4:51 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The Line Between Law and Morality
Note: Third in a series
If you are a fetus, it is "legal" for your mother to kill you. But is it "moral?" That is what this battle between President Obama and the Catholic bishops is all about.
The bishops contend that it remains "immoral" for a woman to kill her fetus, even if the government says, "it's legal." For the bishops, "legal" does not equal "moral." So, does something become "moral" when it is declared "legal?"
In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney penned the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case. He framed the issue as follows: "The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution."
His answer was as follows: "It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate (black) race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They (blacks) had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.
"The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives. ... The question before us is, whether the class of persons (blacks) described in the ... (pleading) ... compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they (blacks) are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they (blacks) were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."
Abe Lincoln, both before and after the Dred Scott decision, rejected the premise "that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery." For Lincoln, slavery -- regardless of the "legality" -- was "immoral. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal;' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another. Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature -- opposition to it, is (in) his love of justice. I object to it (slavery) because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another." -- Abe Lincoln, Peoria Speech. October 16, 1854
"Judge Douglas declares that if any community want slavery they have a (legal) right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there is no (moral) wrong in slavery; but if you admit that there is a (moral) wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a (legal) right to do (a moral) wrong." -- Abe Lincoln, Galesburg Debate, October 7, 1858
Now, 155 years after Dred Scott, we have Roe v. Wade. The Catholic bishops and those who agree with them, now stand in Lincoln's shoes. But instead arguing that it is "morally wrong" to enslave blacks, they teach that it is "morally wrong" to kill fetuses. They reject the notion, that because abortion has be made a "legal right," that is has now become "morally right." And they are treated by their fellow citizens with the same scorn as abolitionist were treated by many of the fellow citizens, and a significant portion of the press.
If you are reading this op ed, you are undoubtedly a "person," and a "human being." The fact that you are a "human being" is an incontrovertible medical and scientific truth. But are you a "person" in a "Constitutional sense?"
If you were a "person" "born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," you are a "citizen of the United States and of the State wherein you reside." And if that's the case, no state shall "deprive" you of life "without due process of law. -- 14th Amendment, U. S. Constitution.
But if you are merely a fetus, under the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade, while you may be a "person" or a "human being" in a "medical or scientific sense," you are not a person in a "Constitutional sense." As such, you have no Constitutional protections, and under Roe v Wade, your mother -- at her whim -- can kill you.
Under Roe v. Wade, you are not a "person" from the moment of conception. You are not a "person" from the point when you could live independently outside the womb. You are not a "person" even after 9 month in the womb -- even though you will be a naturally born healthy child within the next five minutes.
In Roe, the U. S. Supreme Court defined the word "person" for us to exclude "unborn [human] persons."
The Obama Administration now seeks to redefine "contraception" (preventing conception) to include "abortion" (killing a conceived fetus). And still not satisfied, the same Obama Administration is not redefining the term "religious employer" to exclude Catholic hospitals and Catholic Colleges, because the employ non-Catholics. And still not content, the Administration redefines killing fetuses as a "women's health issue -- as a "woman's right."
There is something intentionally intellectually deceptive in the word games and redefinitions of this administration. When a government redefines moral issues as "women's rights" and "women's health" issues, it obliterates "moral issue."
What then stops the government from ordering abortion of mentally impaired fetuses, or limiting the size of families in the name of "maternal health?" The power to define is the power to destroy.
Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2012, 6:10 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
If you are a fetus, it is "legal" for your mother to kill you. But is it "moral?" That is what this battle between President Obama and the Catholic bishops is all about.
The bishops contend that it remains "immoral" for a woman to kill her fetus, even if the government says, "it's legal." For the bishops, "legal" does not equal "moral." So, does something become "moral" when it is declared "legal?"
In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney penned the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case. He framed the issue as follows: "The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution."
His answer was as follows: "It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate (black) race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They (blacks) had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.
"The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives. ... The question before us is, whether the class of persons (blacks) described in the ... (pleading) ... compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they (blacks) are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they (blacks) were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."
Abe Lincoln, both before and after the Dred Scott decision, rejected the premise "that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery." For Lincoln, slavery -- regardless of the "legality" -- was "immoral. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal;' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another. Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature -- opposition to it, is (in) his love of justice. I object to it (slavery) because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another." -- Abe Lincoln, Peoria Speech. October 16, 1854
"Judge Douglas declares that if any community want slavery they have a (legal) right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there is no (moral) wrong in slavery; but if you admit that there is a (moral) wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a (legal) right to do (a moral) wrong." -- Abe Lincoln, Galesburg Debate, October 7, 1858
Now, 155 years after Dred Scott, we have Roe v. Wade. The Catholic bishops and those who agree with them, now stand in Lincoln's shoes. But instead arguing that it is "morally wrong" to enslave blacks, they teach that it is "morally wrong" to kill fetuses. They reject the notion, that because abortion has be made a "legal right," that is has now become "morally right." And they are treated by their fellow citizens with the same scorn as abolitionist were treated by many of the fellow citizens, and a significant portion of the press.
If you are reading this op ed, you are undoubtedly a "person," and a "human being." The fact that you are a "human being" is an incontrovertible medical and scientific truth. But are you a "person" in a "Constitutional sense?"
If you were a "person" "born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," you are a "citizen of the United States and of the State wherein you reside." And if that's the case, no state shall "deprive" you of life "without due process of law. -- 14th Amendment, U. S. Constitution.
But if you are merely a fetus, under the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade, while you may be a "person" or a "human being" in a "medical or scientific sense," you are not a person in a "Constitutional sense." As such, you have no Constitutional protections, and under Roe v Wade, your mother -- at her whim -- can kill you.
Under Roe v. Wade, you are not a "person" from the moment of conception. You are not a "person" from the point when you could live independently outside the womb. You are not a "person" even after 9 month in the womb -- even though you will be a naturally born healthy child within the next five minutes.
In Roe, the U. S. Supreme Court defined the word "person" for us to exclude "unborn [human] persons."
The Obama Administration now seeks to redefine "contraception" (preventing conception) to include "abortion" (killing a conceived fetus). And still not satisfied, the same Obama Administration is not redefining the term "religious employer" to exclude Catholic hospitals and Catholic Colleges, because the employ non-Catholics. And still not content, the Administration redefines killing fetuses as a "women's health issue -- as a "woman's right."
There is something intentionally intellectually deceptive in the word games and redefinitions of this administration. When a government redefines moral issues as "women's rights" and "women's health" issues, it obliterates "moral issue."
What then stops the government from ordering abortion of mentally impaired fetuses, or limiting the size of families in the name of "maternal health?" The power to define is the power to destroy.
Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2012, 6:10 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Friday, February 17, 2012
What Became of Freedom of Conscience?
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of the law?
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake! "A Man for All Seasons"
Notwithstanding all I said in Part I of this op ed, and notwithstanding Roe v. Wade, which holds that a woman has a constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, serious moral questions remain for anyone who feels abortion is a moral wrong.
(1) Because you may choose to have an abortion, must I perform that abortion?
(2) Must I assist you?
(3) Must I pay for your abortion?
(4) Must I provide you with insurance to cover the cost of your abortion?
(5) Must my business do "one of the above?" Must I do "one of the above" even if I happened to believe abortion to be murder, or tantamount to murder? Must I do so even though I believe abortion to be a grave sin? If you have "freedom to choose" abortion, why do you not recognize my "freedom to choose" to have nothing to do with your abortion? Why does your "freedom of choice" trump mine?
The bishops are fighting for their own "freedom of conscience." They are also fighting for all people — Catholics and non-Catholics — who believe as they do. Even those who administer colleges and hospitals which have employees!
When a woman has an abortion, an embryo, fetus or child is unquestionably killed. The only question is this: was the victim a human being? If life begins at conception, and if the victim is a human being, then abortion is murder or tantamount to murder.
And if committing, or assisting in an abortion, is morally wrong, I do not want to stand before my maker having assisted with an abortion — even if my assistance was only financial — there to be reminded that "whatever you did to the least of my brothers, that you did unto me."
That is what this battle is all about.
The Catholic Catechism contains this sublime teaching: "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. ... For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. ... His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1776)
Defending freedom of conscience is not just a Catholic issue. It is a fundamental human right to refuse to take part in morally evil actions: "To refuse to take part in committing an injustice is not only a moral duty; it is also a basic human right. Were this not so, the human person would be forced to perform an action intrinsically incompatible with human dignity, and in this way human freedom itself — the authentic meaning and purpose of which are found in its orientation to the true and the good — would be radically compromised.
"What is at stake therefore is an essential right, which, precisely as such, should be acknowledged and protected by civil law. In this sense, the opportunity to refuse to take part in the phases of consultation, preparation and execution of these acts against life should be guaranteed to physicians, health-care personnel, and directors of hospitals, clinics and convalescent facilities. Those who have recourse to conscientious objection must be protected not only from legal penalties but also from any negative effects on the legal, disciplinary, financial and professional plane." (Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life, no. 74)
One last thing must be noted. The USCCB position was not the position of every Catholic bishop. Some saw from the outset the USCCB position was fraught with peril. The dissenters felt that the USCCB operated under the naive assumption that placing unspecified control of the U.S. health care system in the hands of the federal government to get health care insurance for the uninsured outweighed the obvious risks. The USCCB chose to overlook the fact that the law would be implemented by an administration that did not shares it values as to the value of human life.
The bishops should have had my mother.
Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2012, 2:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake! "A Man for All Seasons"
Notwithstanding all I said in Part I of this op ed, and notwithstanding Roe v. Wade, which holds that a woman has a constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, serious moral questions remain for anyone who feels abortion is a moral wrong.
(1) Because you may choose to have an abortion, must I perform that abortion?
(2) Must I assist you?
(3) Must I pay for your abortion?
(4) Must I provide you with insurance to cover the cost of your abortion?
(5) Must my business do "one of the above?" Must I do "one of the above" even if I happened to believe abortion to be murder, or tantamount to murder? Must I do so even though I believe abortion to be a grave sin? If you have "freedom to choose" abortion, why do you not recognize my "freedom to choose" to have nothing to do with your abortion? Why does your "freedom of choice" trump mine?
The bishops are fighting for their own "freedom of conscience." They are also fighting for all people — Catholics and non-Catholics — who believe as they do. Even those who administer colleges and hospitals which have employees!
When a woman has an abortion, an embryo, fetus or child is unquestionably killed. The only question is this: was the victim a human being? If life begins at conception, and if the victim is a human being, then abortion is murder or tantamount to murder.
And if committing, or assisting in an abortion, is morally wrong, I do not want to stand before my maker having assisted with an abortion — even if my assistance was only financial — there to be reminded that "whatever you did to the least of my brothers, that you did unto me."
That is what this battle is all about.
The Catholic Catechism contains this sublime teaching: "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. ... For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. ... His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1776)
Defending freedom of conscience is not just a Catholic issue. It is a fundamental human right to refuse to take part in morally evil actions: "To refuse to take part in committing an injustice is not only a moral duty; it is also a basic human right. Were this not so, the human person would be forced to perform an action intrinsically incompatible with human dignity, and in this way human freedom itself — the authentic meaning and purpose of which are found in its orientation to the true and the good — would be radically compromised.
"What is at stake therefore is an essential right, which, precisely as such, should be acknowledged and protected by civil law. In this sense, the opportunity to refuse to take part in the phases of consultation, preparation and execution of these acts against life should be guaranteed to physicians, health-care personnel, and directors of hospitals, clinics and convalescent facilities. Those who have recourse to conscientious objection must be protected not only from legal penalties but also from any negative effects on the legal, disciplinary, financial and professional plane." (Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life, no. 74)
One last thing must be noted. The USCCB position was not the position of every Catholic bishop. Some saw from the outset the USCCB position was fraught with peril. The dissenters felt that the USCCB operated under the naive assumption that placing unspecified control of the U.S. health care system in the hands of the federal government to get health care insurance for the uninsured outweighed the obvious risks. The USCCB chose to overlook the fact that the law would be implemented by an administration that did not shares it values as to the value of human life.
The bishops should have had my mother.
Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2012, 2:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Catholic Bishops Should Have Known My Mom
Two of my mother's most-used cautions were, "Birds of a feather, flock together," and "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." It was her way of warning me to avoid certain companions and certain situations.
To get Affordable Health Care, the Catholic Bishops ignored both of my mother's cautions (Part I, today). But on the issue, of Freedom of Conscience, they are right (Part II, tomorow).
Many Americans didn't vote for President Obama. Many looked at the Rev. Wright and saw a minister seething with hatred and calling for the damnation of the United States. They were not persuaded that Mr. Obama was unaware of the content of Rev. Wright's rants. Then too, there was Mr. Obama's relationship with the now "respectable" William Ayers, who co-founded the Weather Underground, a self-described revolutionary and terrorist involved in a campaign of bombing public buildings during the 1960s and 1970s. And his position on abortion was there for all to see.
But many Americans looked beyond those relationships and voted for Mr. Obama. Many were Catholics who knew, or should have known, of Mr. Obama's positions on contraception and abortion. That includes some members of the Catholic clergy.
In his presidential campaign literature, candidate Obama hid nothing. Mr. Obama stated that he had stood up for women's choice throughout his entire time in the Senate and that he understood that there would be those who disagreed with his positions. He further stated that he believed abortion is a moral choice which no woman makes lightly, but that each individual woman is capable of making that decision on their own.
At an event sponsored by Planned Parenthood in June of 2008, Senator Obama re-affirmed his pro-choice views.
"I have stood up for the freedom of choice in the United States Senate, and I stand by my votes against the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. With one more vacancy on the court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a woman's right to choose for the first time since Roe vs Wade, and that is what is at stake in this election."
President Obama spoke openly about abortion position. Nevertheless, President Obama captured 53 percent of the Catholic vote.
Once elected Mr. Obama embarked upon an all-out effort to enact Affordable Health Care legislation (Nation Health Insurance), with an "individual mandate" (a law which requires individuals to purchase health insurance and threatens punishment for those who don't). The United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) actively supported President Obama's Nation Health Care legislation. Indeed on June 2, 2009, in an Action Alert, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called upon Catholics to help reform health care.
"In our Catholic tradition, health care is a basic human right. Access to health care should not depend on where a person works, how much a family earns, or where a person lives. Instead, every person, created in the image and likeness of God, has a right to life and to those things necessary to sustain life, including affordable, quality health care. This teaching is rooted in the biblical call to heal the sick and to serve 'the least of these,' our concern for human life and dignity, and the principle of the common good. Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans do not have health insurance. According to the Catholic bishops of the United States, the current health care system is in need of fundamental reform."
The bishops had a overriding goal. Christian charity had not provided every American with "affordable, quality health care." So, the bishops opted venture into the realm of politics and asked their flock to petition the government to create a system which would provide "affordable, quality health care" to those Americans without.
To get the legislation enacted, they arrayed themselves with groups whose views on abortion and contraception were utterly incompatible with the church's tenets on abortion. Then to make matters worse, they allowed the President and his friends in Congress to specify the details of what an affordable, quality health care should cover. Not satisfied with the efforts of individuals and charities to provide for the sick and the poor, the bishops asked the government to intervene, and relied upon their caveat in their call for reform "that the federal ban on funding abortions be continued."
Now the bishops see the details. Now they find they got what they bargained for — and sadly more!
The new Department of Health and Human Services interim final rules provide that the Health Resources and Services Administration "may establish exemptions" for "religious employers and health insurance coverage provided in connection with group health plans established or maintained by religious employers with respect to any requirement to cover contraceptive services under such guidelines."
The problem that the bishops have is with the definition of "religious employers." The term "religious employer" does not include "an organization (other than one that) primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization," or an "organization (other than one that) that serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization."
As such, the exemption is not broad enough to cover Catholic universities and Catholic hospitals.
Now, having entered the political thicket, the church now, seeks to avoid this peculiar form of individual mandate, requiring it to procure unwanted contraception, including the Morning After, or (abortion) Drug, insurance coverage, and complains that the government is ignoring the separation of church and state.
Having enlisted with the president and Congress in getting Affordable Health Care passed, the bishops now may have to look to that same President Obama, or perhaps the third branch of government, the courts, to extricate them from the consequences of their own doing because they now believe that a regulation passed pursuant to the legislation violates their freedom of conscience. Buyers' remorse! It now appears the Catholic bishops should have had my mom.
Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2012, 2:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
To get Affordable Health Care, the Catholic Bishops ignored both of my mother's cautions (Part I, today). But on the issue, of Freedom of Conscience, they are right (Part II, tomorow).
Many Americans didn't vote for President Obama. Many looked at the Rev. Wright and saw a minister seething with hatred and calling for the damnation of the United States. They were not persuaded that Mr. Obama was unaware of the content of Rev. Wright's rants. Then too, there was Mr. Obama's relationship with the now "respectable" William Ayers, who co-founded the Weather Underground, a self-described revolutionary and terrorist involved in a campaign of bombing public buildings during the 1960s and 1970s. And his position on abortion was there for all to see.
But many Americans looked beyond those relationships and voted for Mr. Obama. Many were Catholics who knew, or should have known, of Mr. Obama's positions on contraception and abortion. That includes some members of the Catholic clergy.
In his presidential campaign literature, candidate Obama hid nothing. Mr. Obama stated that he had stood up for women's choice throughout his entire time in the Senate and that he understood that there would be those who disagreed with his positions. He further stated that he believed abortion is a moral choice which no woman makes lightly, but that each individual woman is capable of making that decision on their own.
At an event sponsored by Planned Parenthood in June of 2008, Senator Obama re-affirmed his pro-choice views.
"I have stood up for the freedom of choice in the United States Senate, and I stand by my votes against the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. With one more vacancy on the court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a woman's right to choose for the first time since Roe vs Wade, and that is what is at stake in this election."
President Obama spoke openly about abortion position. Nevertheless, President Obama captured 53 percent of the Catholic vote.
Once elected Mr. Obama embarked upon an all-out effort to enact Affordable Health Care legislation (Nation Health Insurance), with an "individual mandate" (a law which requires individuals to purchase health insurance and threatens punishment for those who don't). The United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) actively supported President Obama's Nation Health Care legislation. Indeed on June 2, 2009, in an Action Alert, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called upon Catholics to help reform health care.
"In our Catholic tradition, health care is a basic human right. Access to health care should not depend on where a person works, how much a family earns, or where a person lives. Instead, every person, created in the image and likeness of God, has a right to life and to those things necessary to sustain life, including affordable, quality health care. This teaching is rooted in the biblical call to heal the sick and to serve 'the least of these,' our concern for human life and dignity, and the principle of the common good. Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans do not have health insurance. According to the Catholic bishops of the United States, the current health care system is in need of fundamental reform."
The bishops had a overriding goal. Christian charity had not provided every American with "affordable, quality health care." So, the bishops opted venture into the realm of politics and asked their flock to petition the government to create a system which would provide "affordable, quality health care" to those Americans without.
To get the legislation enacted, they arrayed themselves with groups whose views on abortion and contraception were utterly incompatible with the church's tenets on abortion. Then to make matters worse, they allowed the President and his friends in Congress to specify the details of what an affordable, quality health care should cover. Not satisfied with the efforts of individuals and charities to provide for the sick and the poor, the bishops asked the government to intervene, and relied upon their caveat in their call for reform "that the federal ban on funding abortions be continued."
Now the bishops see the details. Now they find they got what they bargained for — and sadly more!
The new Department of Health and Human Services interim final rules provide that the Health Resources and Services Administration "may establish exemptions" for "religious employers and health insurance coverage provided in connection with group health plans established or maintained by religious employers with respect to any requirement to cover contraceptive services under such guidelines."
The problem that the bishops have is with the definition of "religious employers." The term "religious employer" does not include "an organization (other than one that) primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization," or an "organization (other than one that) that serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization."
As such, the exemption is not broad enough to cover Catholic universities and Catholic hospitals.
Now, having entered the political thicket, the church now, seeks to avoid this peculiar form of individual mandate, requiring it to procure unwanted contraception, including the Morning After, or (abortion) Drug, insurance coverage, and complains that the government is ignoring the separation of church and state.
Having enlisted with the president and Congress in getting Affordable Health Care passed, the bishops now may have to look to that same President Obama, or perhaps the third branch of government, the courts, to extricate them from the consequences of their own doing because they now believe that a regulation passed pursuant to the legislation violates their freedom of conscience. Buyers' remorse! It now appears the Catholic bishops should have had my mom.
Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2012, 2:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
Thursday, January 12, 2012
"One Person, One Vote" vs. "Big Money"
Since the great 1964 Supreme Court case of Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 553, the rule in American elections (except in the case of U. S. Senate elections) has been "One person, one vote." But is that rule fatally undermined by a second rule that allows individuals, corporations, unions and PACs to make virtually unlimited "campaign donations" to candidates seeking election and re-election?
It is difficult to imagine a more eloquent and incisive explanation of the importance "one person, one vote" to a democracy, than the court made in Reynolds.
Plaintiffs filed a complaint contending that the apportionment of the Alabama Legislature resulted in a denial of "equal protection" under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
The district court found that "Population-variance ratios of up to about 41-to-1 existed in the (Alabama) Senate, and up to about 16-to-1 in the House. Bullock County, with a population of only 13,462, and Henry County, with a population of only 15,286, each were allocated two seats in the Alabama House, whereas Mobile County, with a population of 314,301, was given only three seats, and Jefferson County, with 634,864 people, had only seven representatives."
The district court said plaintiffs were denied equal protection "by virtue of the debasement of their votes since the Legislature of the State of Alabama has failed and continues to fail to reapportion itself as required by law."
On appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision stating: "Undeniably the Constitution of the United States protects the right of all qualified citizens to vote, in state as well as in federal elections.... It has been repeatedly recognized that all qualified voters have a constitutionally protected right to vote ... and to have their votes counted. ... The right to vote can neither be denied outright, ... nor destroyed by alteration of ballots, ... nor diluted by ballot-box stuffing. The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government. ... And the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise."
Citing its previous opinion in Gray v. Sanders, the court said, "How then can one person be given twice or ten times the voting power of another person in a statewide election merely because he lives in a rural area or because he lives in the smallest rural county? Once the geographical unit for which a representative is to be chosen is designated, all who participate in the election are to have an equal vote -- whatever their race, whatever their sex, whatever their occupation, whatever their income, and wherever their home may be in that geographical unit.
"This is required by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The concept of 'we the people' under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications. The idea that every voter is equal to every other voter in his State, when he casts his ballot in favor of one of several competing candidates, underlies many of our decisions.
"Continuing, we stated that 'there is no indication in the Constitution that homesite or occupation affords a permissible basis for distinguishing between qualified voters within the State.' And, finally, we concluded: 'The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing -- one person, one vote.'"
The court added, "'We found further, in Wesberry, that 'our Constitution's plain objective' was that 'of making equal representation ... for equal numbers of people the fundamental goal ...' We concluded by stating: 'No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined. Our Constitution leaves no room for classification of people in a way that unnecessarily abridges this right.'"
The Reynolds decision unequivocally states:
-- The right to vote granted by our Constitution "can mean only one thing — one person, one vote."
-- The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the "essence of a democratic society."
-- Any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government;
-- And the right of suffrage can be denied by a "debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise."
But there is a problem. Corporations, unions, PACs and very wealthy rich people can use their money to change the result of elections. Consider the effect of negative TV ads. A candidate atop the polls on Monday, can be at the bottom a couple days after the negative ads hit.
I may have one vote, just like George Soros, or Donald Trump. But their money -- like corporate, union and PAC money -- gives them power to influence voters to vote for the candidates they favor and against the candidates they oppose, that neither you nor I could ever hope to possess.
A friend of mine, a good attorney and lifelong Democrat, recently told me that the "system is broken, and cannot be fixed." I agree with him that the system is broken. But I still think it can be fixed -- but, only if something drastic is done.
Unless limits are placed on what individuals, unions, corporations and PACs can donate to candidates and incumbents anticipating re-election, all is lost.
The obvious solution is to set a "safe limit" (so small that no reasonable person would see it as an attempt to buy influence, and so small that no candidate or office holder would cast his vote in consideration of the donation).
Additionally, allow these "small, safe" donations only to come from individuals.
But if you feel compelled to allow unions, corporations, PACs and other entities to contribute, limit their contribution to the maximum one individual can give.
Individuals can join political parties, and vote for the candidates of that party. But they still must each cast their individual ballot. Freedom of association does not give them the right to "bundle" their vote.
The same must be true of political donations.
No person or entity can be allowed to bundle cash donations. Once bundling is allowed, bushel baskets of campaign donations drown out the voice of individual voters.
Unless something can be done to prevent candidates and office holders from taking donations in sums which appear to the public, the candidates and the officerholders to be large enough to give the appearance buying influence, I would have to agree that "things cannot be fixed."
Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2012, 3:31 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
It is difficult to imagine a more eloquent and incisive explanation of the importance "one person, one vote" to a democracy, than the court made in Reynolds.
Plaintiffs filed a complaint contending that the apportionment of the Alabama Legislature resulted in a denial of "equal protection" under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
The district court found that "Population-variance ratios of up to about 41-to-1 existed in the (Alabama) Senate, and up to about 16-to-1 in the House. Bullock County, with a population of only 13,462, and Henry County, with a population of only 15,286, each were allocated two seats in the Alabama House, whereas Mobile County, with a population of 314,301, was given only three seats, and Jefferson County, with 634,864 people, had only seven representatives."
The district court said plaintiffs were denied equal protection "by virtue of the debasement of their votes since the Legislature of the State of Alabama has failed and continues to fail to reapportion itself as required by law."
On appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision stating: "Undeniably the Constitution of the United States protects the right of all qualified citizens to vote, in state as well as in federal elections.... It has been repeatedly recognized that all qualified voters have a constitutionally protected right to vote ... and to have their votes counted. ... The right to vote can neither be denied outright, ... nor destroyed by alteration of ballots, ... nor diluted by ballot-box stuffing. The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government. ... And the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise."
Citing its previous opinion in Gray v. Sanders, the court said, "How then can one person be given twice or ten times the voting power of another person in a statewide election merely because he lives in a rural area or because he lives in the smallest rural county? Once the geographical unit for which a representative is to be chosen is designated, all who participate in the election are to have an equal vote -- whatever their race, whatever their sex, whatever their occupation, whatever their income, and wherever their home may be in that geographical unit.
"This is required by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The concept of 'we the people' under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications. The idea that every voter is equal to every other voter in his State, when he casts his ballot in favor of one of several competing candidates, underlies many of our decisions.
"Continuing, we stated that 'there is no indication in the Constitution that homesite or occupation affords a permissible basis for distinguishing between qualified voters within the State.' And, finally, we concluded: 'The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing -- one person, one vote.'"
The court added, "'We found further, in Wesberry, that 'our Constitution's plain objective' was that 'of making equal representation ... for equal numbers of people the fundamental goal ...' We concluded by stating: 'No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined. Our Constitution leaves no room for classification of people in a way that unnecessarily abridges this right.'"
The Reynolds decision unequivocally states:
-- The right to vote granted by our Constitution "can mean only one thing — one person, one vote."
-- The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the "essence of a democratic society."
-- Any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government;
-- And the right of suffrage can be denied by a "debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise."
But there is a problem. Corporations, unions, PACs and very wealthy rich people can use their money to change the result of elections. Consider the effect of negative TV ads. A candidate atop the polls on Monday, can be at the bottom a couple days after the negative ads hit.
I may have one vote, just like George Soros, or Donald Trump. But their money -- like corporate, union and PAC money -- gives them power to influence voters to vote for the candidates they favor and against the candidates they oppose, that neither you nor I could ever hope to possess.
A friend of mine, a good attorney and lifelong Democrat, recently told me that the "system is broken, and cannot be fixed." I agree with him that the system is broken. But I still think it can be fixed -- but, only if something drastic is done.
Unless limits are placed on what individuals, unions, corporations and PACs can donate to candidates and incumbents anticipating re-election, all is lost.
The obvious solution is to set a "safe limit" (so small that no reasonable person would see it as an attempt to buy influence, and so small that no candidate or office holder would cast his vote in consideration of the donation).
Additionally, allow these "small, safe" donations only to come from individuals.
But if you feel compelled to allow unions, corporations, PACs and other entities to contribute, limit their contribution to the maximum one individual can give.
Individuals can join political parties, and vote for the candidates of that party. But they still must each cast their individual ballot. Freedom of association does not give them the right to "bundle" their vote.
The same must be true of political donations.
No person or entity can be allowed to bundle cash donations. Once bundling is allowed, bushel baskets of campaign donations drown out the voice of individual voters.
Unless something can be done to prevent candidates and office holders from taking donations in sums which appear to the public, the candidates and the officerholders to be large enough to give the appearance buying influence, I would have to agree that "things cannot be fixed."
Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2012, 3:31 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
So, When Exactly is "Lawful Plunder" Appropriate?
In some of my earlier op-eds, I have argued that a just society "redistributes income" only in amounts sufficient to help people who are incapable of providing for their most basic needs.
But I have also argued that "income redistribution" when misused can quickly degenerate into "plunder."
(Note: I am not unmindful of the danger of all income in the nation gravitating into the hands of just a few. I plan to address this issue in the near future. But I am limited in space.)
I have argued that there is nothing "fair" about people who pay no federal income taxes, while insisting that tax rates be increased only on their "rich neighbors" who already pay most of the taxes, so that the "rich" will pay their "fair share."
Today I would argue that there is nothing "fair" about two large corporations, Sears and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, getting tax breaks amounting to $330 million per year, not available to all other Illinois corporations.
Gov. Pat Quinn justifies them saying, "You have to defend yourself. If Ohio is offering $400 million to Sears (to relocate) ... we will defend ourselves."
Translated, that means, that since Ohio is about to plunder Illinois, Illinois will allow Sears and the CME to plunder Illinois -- it will allow Sears and CME to escape the recent increase in the state income tax to 9.5 percent, while leaving the tax in place for all other corporations not threatening -- as yet -- to relocate.
If 9.5 percent is too high for the big boys to pay, and was a lousy idea in their cases, why don't the governor and legislators admit the increase in the state income tax was a lousy idea, and repeal it?
If there is something unseemly about the poor plundering the rich, there is something more unseemly about the rich plundering the poor.
In 1850, a French economist, Frederick Bastiat, wrote a pamphlet titled, "The Law."
In this age, when Congress gives a $500 million to Solyndra, and bails out Wall Street and GM with taxpayer dollars, does Bastiat look like a prophet?
"If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly.
"The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
"But there is ... another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others... Man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others.... Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain -- and since labor is pain in itself -- it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work.
"Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means --into the making of laws. Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
"As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder .... They emulate their ... predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
"In order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so. The excluded classes will furiously demand their right to vote — and will overthrow society rather than not to obtain it.... They will say to you: since everyone else uses the law for his own profit, we also would like to use the law for our own profit.
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.
"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim -- when he defends himself -- as a criminal.
"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
"Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole -- with their common aim of legal plunder -- constitute socialism."
Posted Online: Jan. 04, 2012, 2:09 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
But I have also argued that "income redistribution" when misused can quickly degenerate into "plunder."
(Note: I am not unmindful of the danger of all income in the nation gravitating into the hands of just a few. I plan to address this issue in the near future. But I am limited in space.)
I have argued that there is nothing "fair" about people who pay no federal income taxes, while insisting that tax rates be increased only on their "rich neighbors" who already pay most of the taxes, so that the "rich" will pay their "fair share."
Today I would argue that there is nothing "fair" about two large corporations, Sears and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, getting tax breaks amounting to $330 million per year, not available to all other Illinois corporations.
Gov. Pat Quinn justifies them saying, "You have to defend yourself. If Ohio is offering $400 million to Sears (to relocate) ... we will defend ourselves."
Translated, that means, that since Ohio is about to plunder Illinois, Illinois will allow Sears and the CME to plunder Illinois -- it will allow Sears and CME to escape the recent increase in the state income tax to 9.5 percent, while leaving the tax in place for all other corporations not threatening -- as yet -- to relocate.
If 9.5 percent is too high for the big boys to pay, and was a lousy idea in their cases, why don't the governor and legislators admit the increase in the state income tax was a lousy idea, and repeal it?
If there is something unseemly about the poor plundering the rich, there is something more unseemly about the rich plundering the poor.
In 1850, a French economist, Frederick Bastiat, wrote a pamphlet titled, "The Law."
In this age, when Congress gives a $500 million to Solyndra, and bails out Wall Street and GM with taxpayer dollars, does Bastiat look like a prophet?
"If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly.
"The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
"But there is ... another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others... Man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others.... Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain -- and since labor is pain in itself -- it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work.
"Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means --into the making of laws. Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
"As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder .... They emulate their ... predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
"In order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so. The excluded classes will furiously demand their right to vote — and will overthrow society rather than not to obtain it.... They will say to you: since everyone else uses the law for his own profit, we also would like to use the law for our own profit.
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.
"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim -- when he defends himself -- as a criminal.
"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
"Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole -- with their common aim of legal plunder -- constitute socialism."
Posted Online: Jan. 04, 2012, 2:09 pm - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
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