Is the government forcing Hobby Lobby to pay because they're such a large business, or do small businesses have to do this as well? I'm not really sure how all of the taxing systems work, but I don't know that I agree with it. On one hand, you have Hobby Lobby reserving the right to not pay because it goes against their ideologies. On the other hand, one of our founding principles is religious freedom. Taxes go toward "the greater good," whatever that might be. Regardless of if they want to pay or not, isn't it a part of being in this country that your money doesn't always go where you want it to?
Another way to look at it - a lot of people don't want their tax money to pay for wars and weapons. Should they be allowed to dictate how their tax dollars are spent? (in some special way, I mean; not the normal through-your-reps way) Maybe they should be allowed to make that choice, but clearly they are not. Why is this different, exactly?
I think it'd be interesting for people to decide where they're tax dollars went. I'm not exactly sure how well it'd play out - it'd probably be too chaotic - but it's something to think about.
We vote on our representatives based on how well they represent us. But, often times that doesn't work out either because the candidate we didn't want won, or the representatives end up doing they're own thing regardless of what the people want. To bring two threads into one:
I wonder if they had a vote among Hobby Lobby employees, how many of them would want to support the tax and how many wouldn't, regardless of what the CEO thought, and then make a decision based on that. Where do you live, if you don't mind my asking?
I don't see how a vote among the employees would make any difference. Suppose they all supported the CEO (or they all didn't) - so what? It's a matter of law. Hobby Lobby may believe the law unjust (apparently they do), but that does not allow them to ignore it - at least, not without accepting the consequences of breaking the law.
I completely agree with you. The law is the law is the law, unfortunately. How easy was that transition? I've heard New Zealand is one of the post peaceful places to live.
| The law is the law is the law, unfortunately. I don't think it's unfortunate at all. The law is doing exactly what it should in this case (IMHO). About NZ - it's always hard to move a long ways from family and friends (it's a 12-hour flight, just the LA or SF). But this is such a wonderful place, and I love it here very much.
I agree with you in this instance. I overall of say there are definitely some laws many can agree shouldn't be in place. From what I've seen its an incredibly beautiful place.
This is a classic "slippery slope" argument, and it doesn't hold up. The government is not violating Hobby Lobby's religious freedoms - for one thing, Hobby Lobby is a corporation, and doesn't have religious rights (don't get me started on the whole "a corporation is a person" bullshit). A corporation in this country is required to provide health insurance for its employees under Obamacare. That health insurance happens to include coverage for the morning after pill and other birth control. While I am personally against abortion, the people in charge of that company are willfully violating the law, and in my opinion, should be prosecuted. The gub'ment isn't going to come into your home and force you to buy morning after pills for your daughter. By the way, I think this is a very interesting discussion, and I would have shared your post, but I really don't like the religious conservative blog you linked. I would have rather read one of the numerous legitimate news articles about this subject instead.Would you have a problem if the federal government required you to purchase goods or services that you believe to be immoral and against your most deeply held beliefs? That is precisely what is happening to Hobby Lobby right now. If this stands, what will keep this from happening to you?
Someone on Facebook had actually posted it and that's where I saw it. If I can find another article about it, I'll change the url. Edit: I can't seem to find an unbiased article...Hobby Lobby is a corporation, and doesn't have religious rights
I think you're spot on and that should be a sufficient enough argument for Hobby Lobby to pay.
I just realized that now my original quote doesn't make sense, lol. Also, it's interesting that you can completely change the title, url and description of a submission, even after people have commented. I can see a real potential for abuse as the userbase grows larger. Create a new account, submit until something gets shared by many popular users, wait until it's at the top of the "popular" page, and then change the url to goatse and the description to "OP IS A FAG LOL!" mk, what do you think about that?
Of course, but that isn't the point. A user can have a submission reach the "front page" of hubski without having a single follower. All it would take is someone posting some big news and using a popular tag that would be seen by a user with a lot of followers. That user shares the post, which is then shared by other hubski users, until it's the most popular thread of the day (since it's big news). It could be as harmless as someone rickrolling the entire community, or it could be something more malicious like malware or shock porn. My point is that if I wanted to, I could use TOR to mask my ip, create a new account and cause some havok. If I can do it, others can do it, too. If you have a vulnerability, eventually it will be exploited. I understand if you don't want to fix something that isn't (yet) broken, but after moderating reddit for so long, holes in the rules and potential exploits like this stands out as glaring red flags to me.
Yeah, I noticed that with another thread earlier. Nothing bad was changed, but the thread took on a different meaning.
If you want to be an employer, you must play by the rules. You may not dictate your beliefs on to your employees, and that is exactly what they want to do here. It's not fair and it's not right. What if your employer decided they didn't want to cover any medical care at all? There ARE sects that don't believe in medical care. Allowing employers to pick and choose in this way is not fair to their employees. But in the interest of openness, I should say that I have no dog in this fight - I don't reside in the USA.
This is pretty much the core of the issue right here I think. These companies think that the corporation or upper management have the right to use their position to trump their employees' decision making abilities. Just because the guy who runs the business is a hardcore fundamentalist doesn't mean that his employees are, or have any obligation to live their lives as such. You run a business, you provide healthcare, and you keep out of your employees private decisions. Just because you think contraception is a sin doesn't mean your employees lose the right to decide how to use the healthcare that they've earned.You may not dictate your beliefs on to your employees, and that is exactly what they want to do here. It's not fair and it's not right.