GeorgiaDon

Then what you need to do is purchase a maintenance contract. Not Car insurance. I don't think you understand the difference between health care and health insurance.I don't think you understand the difference between birth control and Turtle Wax. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Although there are multiple causes of spina bifida, many of them not well understood, some factors are amenable to preventative treatment. Certain medications, as well as low folic acid/vitamen B-12 levels, and conditions resulting in a high fever early in pregnancy have been implicated. Risk from each of these can be reduced by prenatal care. A doctor can catch conflicts between medications and pregnancy, or order blood tests to measure folic acid levels and suggest supplements, or initiate treatment for infections before a dangerously high fever is produced. But of course these things can be done only if the woman actually has a doctor, as opposed to visiting the ER or a clinic and seeing a different doctor every time. Or perhaps you were suggesting that as long as we can't prevent 100% of spina bifida cases we should not try to prevent any? Is that what you mean about an "exclusive relationship"? I've read that too. It may be that kids that young don't really benefit from what amounts to "pre-kindergarden". It may also be that subsequent schooling tends to hold back the brightest students, forcing everyone into the same narrow performance range. At any rate, if your argument is going to be that failure in one thing means you're going to fail in everything, it's a wonder we (as a species) ever managed to make it out of the trees. I guess "if at first you don't succeed, try and try again" doesn't apply in your world? Can you honestly say that everything you have ever done has been a resounding success, that you have never failed at anything or tried a single thing that didn't work brilliantly the first time? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I can't disagree. However, even if you want to help someone, legally all you can do is try to convince them to seek help/treatment. If the problem is a mental illness such as paranoia or schizophrenia, virtually all patients do not recognize their illness. They hear what they hear/see what they see/feel what they feel, and you are the crazy one if you insist it isn't true. I once had an employee who obviously had paranoid schizophrenia; she was absolutely convinced that the police, people from her church, and others were following her and plotting against her. She often claimed to "overhear" people speaking about her when she was shopping, riding the bus, etc. She removed all the batteries from the smoke detectors in her apartment because she was convinced they were really cameras planted to watch her; by doing that she potentially exposed everyone in the building to risk had a fire started in her apartment. However as her employer there was nothing I could do to get her treatment, unless I was willing to sign an affidavit that she was suicidal or had made specific credible threats against specific people. Her illness made her own life miserable, but there was no way I claim she had threatened to harm herself or others. It was sad to watch, as she was a nice person but scared and lonely, yet any relationship never lasted beyond a date or two and ended as soon as people realized she was "not all there". Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I wasn't aware that autism was contagious. To spell things out for you, although you have a right to refuse medical treatment if you are sick, there are constraints on your ability to inflict that illness on others. Here in Georgia we recently had a fellow convicted and sent to jail for failing to inform several sex partners (some of whom became infected) that he had HIV. If you have certain diseases you can refuse treatment, but you will be quarantined as long as you are infectious. I am curious about LawRocket's opinion of the constitutionality of such restrictions. I can see an argument that one should know that unprotected sex with someone you don't know really really well exposes you to risk of all kinds of diseases, including HIV. On the other hand, is it reasonable to argue that I am knowingly assuming a risk of being infected with drug-resistant TB every time I venture into a situation where other people are present? Does the constitution allow any protection of the public at the cost of restricting the freedom of patients with highly infectious lethal diseases? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Sure. But do you have a right to go around infecting other people? How about if you have AIDS, or extensively drug-resistant TB? Is there any point, in your world view, at which your right to inflict your disease on others can be restricted? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Unless you can show that in the actual law, I'm going to call BS on this. If it is in the law, then it would apply to everyone, and I have received no such notice. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I didn't realize the ACA came with a cure for SB. Bravo!It's remarkable that the concept that prevention is less expensive than treating a life-long incurable condition is too much for some people to understand. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Maybe they could have 1 vote in each district, but be able to vote in as many districts as they want. I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court would go for that. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I don't actually know anyone who hates people just because they are rich. Do you actually know such people? On the other hand, I know quite a few people who resent how some people are able to use their wealth to buy political influence and game the system to their advantage. Examples include hedge fund managers who are paid millions of $$/year, but are taxed on that income at a rate far lower than anybody whose income is through a salary or hourly wage. While there may be valid reasons why people such as Romney are (or were until quite recently) taxed at only 15% on income from investments, whereas auto mechanics (as one example of people who get their hands dirty doing while working) are taxed at a significantly higher rate, perhaps you can understand why people would resent that arrangement. You may be confusing resentment of the special treatment the rich are able to buy for themselves with hatred of the rich. Of course the right wing of American politics done a fine job of painting any questioning of the special treatment the very wealthy tend to get as "class warfare". It's really quite brilliant, especially if you consider that the growth in income of the top 5%, compared to everybody else, suggests that it's the wealthy who have declared economic war on everybody else. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

So let's see if I understand this correctly: EPA: We need to establish standards for safe levels of exposure to diesel exhaust and fine particulates. Industry: You have no data to prove inhaling fine particulates and diesel exhaust is harmful. Why do you want to regulate something you can't prove is harmful? You must hate America! EPA: OK we'll get data. Industry: The EPA is experimenting on people!! Obama ordered the EPA to experiment on babies! This administration wants to kill unsuspecting Americans! Sort of a heads-we-win, tails-you-lose proposition for the gas industry. However, it's not surprising that, once again, you swallow hook, line, and sinker the propaganda of your corporate employer. Must keep those paychecks rolling, you know. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Here are three scenarios for your consideration: Scenario A: A politician is in a room with 20 constituents. Each constituent gets 5 minutes to speak without interruption. Scenario B: A politician is in a room with 20 constituents. One of the constituents has a microphone and a sound system that renders anything else inaudible, and uses it to overwhelm anyone else who tries to speak. Scenario C: Twenty constituents wait for a politician to arrive so they can speak to him. When the politician arrives, one of the constituents grabs his attention and whisks him off to an expensive lunch and an afternoon of golf, before any of the other 19 constituents can speak. In your opinion, which scenario maximizes free speech? Which scenario results in the politician getting a better idea of the views of all of the constituents? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I suspect it's an occupational hazard for lawyers to make the perfect the enemy of the good. After all, for many of them that's their bread and butter. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

No, it doesn't. This piece of "news" is another example of people inflating a long-known fact into a "paradigm-shifting revolution". When people are infected by flea bite, a prominent symptom is the formation of "bubos", grossly swollen lymph nodes. This is bubonic plague. Eventually the infection will enter the bloodstream (scepticemic plague) and ultimately the lungs, at which point the lungs begin to fill with fluid (pneumonia/pneumonic plague) and patients will begin to generate highly infectious aerosols when they cough. So in any particular location the epidemic is initiated by flea-transmitted bubonic plague, and as it progresses it transitions to mostly pneumonic plague transmitted directly (by coughing/aerosolized Yersinia) from patient to caregivers/family members. Pneumonic plague is especially deadly, often overwhelming a previously healthy patient in 24-72 hrs. Medical writings and etchings from the 1300s clearly show patients with bubonic plague, proving the role of fleas (and their rat hosts) in the Black Death. Incidentally, plague is fairly common in prairie dogs and rock squirrels in northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and in Colorado, and sporadically throughout drier areas in Utah and California. Several people get plague every year. Cats can be infected by hunting infected rodents, and infected cats tend to develop the pneumonic form of plague. Their salivary glands also get infected so their saliva is infectious. Cat owners have caught pneumonic plague and died from their cat coughing on them. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

That's certainly true. But do you think the owners know every line of every contract they pay other people to take care of? In this case we're talking about a small handful of contraception choices, out of a considerably larger set of choices that would still be covered. It's possible, of course, that they were fully aware that plan B and other problematic (to them) choices were covered, and didn't care until the issue became a leverage point to attack the ACA. If that's the case they are indeed hypocritical pricks. I'm personally more inclined to believe that they are sincere about their beliefs (as evidenced by other policies such as closing on Sundays) and that they were unaware that these few contraception choices were covered, or were unaware that some people associate (probably incorrectly) those methods with abortifacents. But of course I don't know. Clearly the people who raised the issue with the Greens (owners of Hobby Lobby) did so to stir up shit, and I would class them as opportunistic shits. Just so we're clear, although I understand that people with religious convictions could be upset about the law, I don't think that it's good policy to exempt for-profit companies from having to abide by laws that apply to everybody else. Conflating corporations with their owners opens a host of "interesting" problems. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

When my daughter was 17 she got pregnant. Much to my surprise I discovered that, although she was covered as a dependent under my health insurance, that insurance would not cover any of her pregnancy related expenses. My employer's policy (which is not mentioned in any of the literature that is actually available from Human Resources) is to cover pregnancy only for one's legally married spouse. As I was not expecting my daughter to get pregnant, it did not occur to me to ask human resources about coverage before allowing her to date. Also, having come from Canada where such matters are treated as medical issues and not as morality plays, it never occurred to me that my employer-subsidized insurance would refuse to cover a medical condition due to my employer's prudish moralizing. Does the fact that I did not know about the exclusion, even though the only way to have found out about it in advance would have been to ask the insurer directly (as the policy is not mentioned in anything human resources gives to employees, and full copies of the insurance contract are also not available), mean, in your eyes, that I didn't care that my daughter got knocked up by her boyfriend? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Perhaps. I also read somewhere that they were not aware that those methods were included in the coverage they provided, until they were informed by [whatever the conservative group is that recruited Hobby Lobby to the lawsuit; I forget the name and can't find it now]. Given the complexity of most health care policies, I think it is believable (and more likely) that Hobby Lobby's owners were simply unaware of every detail of the policy they made available to employees. I don't think it's fair to just assume they are being hypocritical. Anyway, as far as the law, and ramifications of the eventual ruling, are concerned, it doesn't matter if they are being hypocritical or not. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

You pose a question that is a good one. I can't say for certain in my mind that Fred Phelps was evil. He was the leader of a an off beat Christian cult; he was about as obnoxious as one can be but was he condemned by God? I don't know. This I do know, when you receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit He guides you on the path of righteousness. How well you follow His guidance is a function of your free will. My church believes that your salvation can be sacrificed and lost. I have trouble with that concept. Only God knows. I am responsible for me and me only.Some years ago I had a discussion with a self-professed evangelical Christian who insisted that Mother Teresa was currently in hell. His reasoning was that there was no evidence that she was "born again". Apparently it didn't matter that she clearly believed deeply in Jesus and devoted her whole life to His service. I'm not clear on just what he meant by "born again", but I got the sense that one has to lose their faith and then regain it in order to be "transformed". If you grow up with faith and never lose it, you can't be "born again" in the Lord, and so can't enter heaven. He belonged to a church that also thought that a good approach to converting people is to show up at public events (such as 4th of July fireworks) and scream at people (including children) that they are going to burn in hell forever. I am quite aware that he represents a tiny minority of Christians. It's still surprising to me that an otherwise intelligent and apparently normal (or at least functional) person could hold such unreasonable and rigid beliefs. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

It's interesting to contemplate that Phelps' one lasting contribution to society may have been to stimulate the formation of the Patriot Guard Riders. There's irony for you. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Oh, definitely humorous. Just a combination of "dropped out", GOP, and the RINO thread. Hope you're not freezing up in the mountains. I'm ready for Spring. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Dropped out like this? _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

So then, can organizations have principles? Is there a difference between asking someone to violate their beliefs, and asking them to violate their principles? I can see the semantic argument that you would need to have some form of self-awareness to believe something, but in this case "beliefs" is pretty much synonymous with "principles". Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

BLAME CANADA!!! I'll go buy my armnband now....Might be hard to goosestep in snowshoes. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Tearing up the bill of rights is hardly just "offending some people's sensitivities". If you are so scared of brown people that you are willing to do that, the USA is already dead to you. Indeed. Cheap labor to pluck chickens, pick fruit, and shingle roofs is obviously a treat that merits warrant-less searches, detaining people without probable cause (unless looking "foreign" is construed to be probable cause), and hurricane wire and armed guard posts on every inch of border (including the entire coast line I presume, so they can't get in by boat). Exactly the same "logic" you employ to conclude that the constitution supports suspending basic rights to fight illegal immigration. Once again we see your contempt for the Constitution on display. If you want to change the Constitution to allow the measures you suggested to Wendy to combat illegal immigration, there is an established procedure for repealing the Bill of Rights. You should probably start with the 2nd amendment, because once you get to the police kicking in doors to search for jews undocumented immigrants you'll have fewer problems if you've disarmed the population first. Good luck with that. Wendy suggested no such thing. That idea resides entirely in your own mind. It is a creation of your own fears and prejudices. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

They are taking the honorable position, which is in keeping with the spirit of the organization. Glad they didn't succumb to the opportunity to be petty. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Like the war on drugs? "This is a war" has always been a convenient excuse for those who seek power without the messy complications of dealing with constitutional rights. It is a tool of bullies. The Constitution doesn't say anything about "wholesale illegal immigration". The concept of illegal immigration would have been strange to the founders, as at that time you could just show up on some boat and be welcomed. Our convoluted and expensive immigration system is a relatively recent invention, basically designed to keep "undesirables" out. "Give us your poor, your huddled masses..." is ancient history. The Constitution says not a whit about skydiving. By your logic, we could say the Constitution doesn't support skydiving. Do we really want to go down that road? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)