That’s a reasonable defense but your conclusion isn’t entirely fair, imho. Is it really so much of a stretch for you to imagine that paying for a broad range of services that includes abortion would make the payer may feel complicit with any abortions that happen?
But on the other hand, Ultravirus, would you feel comfortable with an employer who refused insurance that covered blood transfusions on religious grounds?
That can’t be it. You know he’s talking about the ACA. So take a breath and say what you actually mean rather than ask a lame rhetorical question that will require 6 back and forths before getting to a point.
For example, I can say that I oppose illegal immigration because it often skirts the legally mandated pay scales and worker protections, depressing wages on the low end, and thereby artifically driving down the wages of OUR poor, as well as putting an extra burden on our already dysfunctional public healthcare system.
They provide compensation that allows a sinful employee to buy up a six pack of abortions. Is Hobby Lobby really less complicit because it the transaction was made through compensation X rather than compensation Y?
Thank Jesus that the abortions were paid out of account 700100 (wages&salaries) rather than 700400 (fringes)! To think we could have been somehow responsible for them!
Before I do, could you explain why you don’t just make your point? It’s obvious to all that you aren’t asking for clarification, you disagree that health insurance is mandated employment compensation. So just say that.
Let’s just say it’s whatever provision Hobby Lobby sued about. I presume that law mandated that they do something and they didn’t want to do whatever that something was. I’m pretty sure that something had to do with health care and women being sinful.
It’s not tortured logic. You can’t control everything that an employee does with their money but you can refuse to pay into a fund that lists abortion as a completely neutral medical cost.
To elaborate on what I said earlier, what’s really changed is that people aren’t letting conservative bigots hide behind a cloud of ‘respectability’ and are actually holding them responsible for the vitriol and violence they’ve been spewing for years instead of allowing them to cover it with a fig leaf of ‘difference of opinion’. People are saying ‘you want to hurt people? fine, I will treat you as someone who’s trying to hurt people’.
Also, I find it fascinating that the people complaining about ‘vitriol’ and the ‘lack of civility’ don’t consider people openly endorsing the quotes I included below my response to WillFarnaby to be engaging in any kind of vitriol. Apparently ‘I don’t want to hang out with racist/murdering/etc scum like that’ is a step to far, but literally letting someone bleed out or claiming that the natural state of black people is to be subjugated to the “superior race” is polite and reasonable. It appears that the need for politeness is really the need to bow to a certain demographic, and doesn’t apply equally.
Having someone declare it doesn’t make it so, especially when they’re known for using weird weird Libertarian definitions to justift things. Whether the phrase ‘taking proactive measures to kill people’ in Libertarianese applies is irrelevant to me. Here are some simple examples of what I mean, none of this is subtle or nice.
On the medical discrimination protections Republicans are actively promoting and protecting:
On whether Nazi flags have anything to do with killing people:
On the Confederate flag (Which is not about murder but enslavement, as I said)
IMHO, one reason for the vitriol is because of the roles in which both sides envision themselves.
Liberals frequently envision themselves in the role of the “educator,” and other people in the role of the “apologizer.” In other words, liberals picture themselves educating people into becoming more enlightened and progressive, and the un-educated people around them are supposed to dutifully nod, be corrected, apologize for their misdeeds, and become…liberal. This attitude naturally causes tremendous resentment and a feeling of being patronized.
Conservatives envision themselves as defenders of what is good, old and true, against…a horde of liberals and other “enemies” who would eat out the foundations of America and society like termites eating away at foundational wood. This, too, causes tremendous irritation and anger among those non-conservatives who are being portrayed as evil and enemies of America.
I agree with this, but why can’t we respect our differences outside of the political arena.
My brother in law is about as liberal as they come and we get along great. Yes, we needle each other whenever we get together. If he is at my house and brings Canadian beer I tell him that I don’t want socialist beer in my house and that he needs to bring good American beer. When he sees a black guy in my neighborhood he tells me that the local Re-Elect Trump committee must have missed that guy and I should probably bring it up at the next meeting to get rid of him.
There is no reason you cannot disagree yet still be friendly.
This is easy to say, but politics is life or death, or close, for some folks. It’s hard to be friendly with someone whose policies could result in harm or death to yourself or someone you love.
Which of Trump’s policies could result in harm or death to you or someone you love?
And I mean the policies, not what some third party idiot does in misguided reverence to what he believes is the policy. If we go down that road, then every policy could cause harm or death.
I think there’s a lot of truth to this. There are obviously times and areas where conservatives view themselves as “educators” (firearms is one area that comes to mind readily) and liberals view their political opponents as evil and enemies of America (see all the talk about President Trump and his supporters being treasonous / traitors), but at a high level, I think you’ve got the gist of it mostly right.
This is certainly part of it. Another part is that some people mentally exclude the middle. For some liberals if you’re not on board with everything Bernie, Warren, and AOC have to say you might as well be a White Nationalist. For some conservatives if you don’t own a MAGA hat you might as well be calling for the abolition of private property.
There is something to be said for knowing someone. You know your brother-in-law, you know he’s not a bad person, he’s not just a face on TV or faceless internet person. Social media allows us to talk with people we don’t really know, which is great for some things, but makes it really easy to misunderstand and dehumanize.