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Jewish World Review Feb 14, 2012/ 21 Shevat, 5772 Losing liberty By Cal Thomas
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of G0d?" -- "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." -- Liberty is always tenuous. Those who enjoy it seem to be a minority in the world. That's why liberty must not only be preserved by those who currently benefit from it; it must also be fought for and constantly renewed for future generations, because there are always those who wish to restrict or eliminate our freedoms. The Obama administration's ham-fisted attempt to require that contraceptives and abortifacients be offered to employees of Catholic and other religious institutions is a serious threat to our civil liberties. Yes, federal (through EEOC oversight) and state governments already play this role and have for a time. According to the But wait. Didn't President Obama give in to the concerns of Roman Catholic bishops by excusing Catholic institutions from paying for contraceptives and "morning-after" pills for their employees? Not exactly. The president disingenuously shifted the burden to insurance companies, which have now been ordered to offer the pills "free" to any employee who wants them.
Nothing is "free." The cost will eventually be added to the price of the policies, which the employer will wind up paying for anyway. The cost will then be passed along to the employee. The bishops weren't fooled. After initially expressing "cautious optimism" over the administration's "first step in the right direction," they issued a statement, reports the This issue was always about more than contraceptives and who pays for them. It is about individual liberty and whether the government under "Obamacare" has the constitutional right to dictate to private businesses and church-related entities when such orders violate conscience and religious beliefs. Would the administration also order a conscientious objector to engage in combat? It's the same principle. If the administration can get away with this, there will be no stopping it. If government can force an insurance company or institution to pay for a birth-control pill or a morning-after pill, it can, under the same authority, conceivably force them to pay for a euthanasia pill for those others have deemed unfit to live. Too extreme? Most inhumanities begin with extremes. What is to stop the government from such behavior? If the Constitution's protection of religious freedom is to be annulled, along with the already voided "endowed" right to life written into the Declaration of Independence, by what moral or legal authority can anyone stop government from doing anything? This is more than a slippery slope; this is an avalanche and it threatens our most fundamental rights, without which we morph into something other than the America we have known. Responding to the president's remarks in which he pulled back on his insurance company mandate, There are two possible remedies: A decision expected this spring by the What other liberties does the Obama administration want to subvert? In his Super Bowl Sunday interview with
JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.
© 2011, Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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