The Maine Thing is Being Fertile

In Maine, we have found something almost as rare as a 3-legged Sasquatch. It's a Republican who wants to expand the Affordable Care Act.

Maine Senate Majority Leader Rep. Garrett Mason authored a bill that would force insurance companies to pay for fertility treatments. Which sounds, for a Republican, almost sympathetic: you have a couple trying desperately to have a child, and finally reach the point where their only solution is medical treatment that would cost thousands of dollars that they just can't afford. And Maine wants to make their lives just a little bit better.

Except for one thing: it includes a morals clause. The original language of LD 943, An Act to Provide Access to Infertility Treatment, has the following provisions:

A. The covered individual must be married;
B. The covered individual's infertility may not be the result of a sexually transmitted disease

And once again, the "small government Republicans" want to ensure that they can get the government to intervene in women's personal lives. Because everybody deserves the chance to have children, unless they're a slut. Because god knows that if they had an STD, they must have proven that they're unfit parents, right?

Now, Mason has said that he's open to removing the provisions. "I'm totally willing to do something that fits Maine better, and that is why we have the committee process."

Which is probably best. It's good that he's willing to remove these ignorant nanny-state provisions. I mean, it totally shows what a completely unthinking, small-minded, judgmental, moralistic fucknozzle Garrett Mason was to include them in the first place, but still. It's nice that he's willing to put them aside.

Because in its original form, this bill would lose the first time it went before the Supreme Court, which should have been obvious to anyone with the brain power of an Eastern White Pine (the State Tree of Maine).

It's good to know that rape victims who received an STD from their attacker might have had a good chance of being declared "unfit parents" in Maine, thanks to this simpering, slack-jawed, puffy-faced used car salesman.

I'm a little curious whether, if a couple has a divorce midway through treatment for infertility, would they be on the hook for the entire bill? Or just for the portion of the infertility treatment that came after the divorce was finalized? And would there be a "statute of limitations" for divorce? How long would the new parents need to stay married before the state wouldn't arrest them?

This bill has, at least, one area where it isn't discriminatory. Maine has recognized same-sex marriage since 2012. So at least it would be easier for lesbian couples to get pregnant.

You can get anything you want

You hear a lot about "enlightened self-interest" and mostly from people who think Ayn Rand's fiction illustrates a paved path to a better world. Of course I can't argue against enlightenment in principle or against the fact that as living beings we must put self-interest on a high plane. My problem though, is with the slipperiness of the term.  In general it resembles self-interest wearing a nice Sunday suit, but everyone has his own ideas, from the ascetic practicing Ahimsa, to the libertine, to the employer or Investor amassing wealth.  It's hard to pin down, but your idea and your degree of enlightenment is in the eye of the beholder.

In an age where religion as a moral teacher and ethical authority has exceeded the credulousness of many Westerners -- and in an America where the most audible religion has receded into vicious threats and angry condemnation of most things other schools of enlightenment might accept or even applaud there are too many tempting choices on the menu.   This Alice's Restaurant style religion  really doesn't serve to direct us away from the authoritarian self-interests of  its merchants if it has a direction at all. You can get anything you want, but will the waitress let you eat it?

Take Arizona Pastor Steven Anderson, for instance, whose obsession with regulating sexual thought and behavior and the consequences of defying preachers isn't much different than other sticky things left in the bottom of the religion barrel like sludge as the lighter substances in the crude evaporate off.  For his ilk, birth control is just an evil thing, because it introduces an element of freedom, an element of personal choice.  It allows that God's plan for unrestrained procreation be tinkered with by other concerns like health, economics or that Humanist blasphemy: the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

He's not content to give us his malediction without condiment however. He has to spice up the Crazy Christian Chalupa by insisting that women who don't feel like getting pregnant are whores and that women were meant to suffer in childbirth and probably suffer with the commandment to ignore her own needs and desires as well.  He has to point out to an audience  that needs, none the less, to give a false nod to science and pragmatism and public health, that birth control is somehow harmful to their bodies, unlike cigarettes and alcohol and punishment from the husbands to whom they are commanded to submit. After all, the woman not burdened and suffering as the Biblegod requires, is likely to "sin" which in general means to pursue life, liberty and all that happy evil  -- and that specifically means she's likely to have not only sexual thoughts, but act on them despite authority.

In general Steve, like the rest of the Oldest Profession, wants to tell us the freedom of not having to choose between love and suffering is  "ruining the country" which is really the admission that he and the other voices of ancient evil are losing control. It's also an unnoticed admission that the idea of Democracy is essentially and unavoidably sinful. 

Few of us would contest that enlightenment in the vague way most of us would define it, is the enemy of self-justified moral authority and divine but ambiguous wisdom, but who do we have to teach us just when altruism is required and how much and for how long?  Who will set guidelines with regard to how we treat others who compete with us or work for us -- or for whom we work?  Face it, the Bible leans both ways if we can discern any concern for human well being in it at all. The Bible in fact does not approve of democracy nor did Jesus and without democracy all we have left is -- well you know: people like Pastor Steven Anderson. He's no help.

So can we stop talking about enlightenment and begin to talk about our right to choose -- everything? Nobody is going to enlighten us without a self-interest of his own design and that means we have to settle for consensus and when 70% of America wants not only to have a minimum wage but to raise it, that's enlightenment enough and warring theories about what is good or bad or what Pastor Steve, Rand Paul, great yelping Yahweh or St. Loonie up the cream bun thinks are irrelevant.  Democracy is the best we can do and the only way we have to give everyone's enlightenment a voice. And what does that say about those who argue for limiting it to those with a specific interest?

If they can't hunt, put them on ice floes, right?

You know, it’s a funny thing. Every so often as I wander around the more religious blogs, I trip over the hair-rippingly stupid idea that atheists and agnostics have no moral center, and that morality is rooted in religion alone. You can occasionally run headlong into the matching idea that only conservatives are moral and upright, and liberals are twisted, evil libertines.

That being said, let me point out that the religious, conservative David Brooks just wrote a column for the New York Times in which he explained that, because money is tight, we should just let old people die and save our money for the young.

In case you think I’m taking him out of context, let me just hand you a towel as I reveal the money shot in the second paragraph.

Trim from the old to invest in the young. We should adjust pension promises and reduce the amount of money spent on health care during the last months of life so we can preserve programs for those who are growing and learning the most.

His mother must be so proud.

IMO: What's Right On What's Wrong

No pictures today. No jokes. There'll be plenty more to come, I imagine. Today, I want to spell out what I think is happening in our country, what I think it means, and where I believe true morality lies. This is for me. And for JMartin.

I had a couple of comments on a recent post( on my individual blog) from JMartin who made it clear that he or she did not agree with me, but was not swayed by demagogues like Beck and Palin. This commentor was interested in what others, who did not share his or her opinions, had to say. I realized that I read so many progressive blogs--from writers who are dead serious, to writers who use sharp-honed humor beautifully, to writers who wax obscene to make their point--I just assumed that everyone knows all the arguments, all the issues, all the stances available on the left. And that anyone can instantly recognize all of my positions by extrapolating logically from a joke here and a jab there. Or, else, I assume that no one gives a damn what I think. Well, maybe someone might.

So, here's what I think (and I'm not taking time to justify or explain these positions on this post):

1. The War In Afghanistan: The President could not have gotten elected if he had run on pulling us out of both wars at once, so he chose the one on which public opinion had most obviously soured. The Afghanistan surge was a waste of men and money, an expedient that just stirs the hornet's nest. Continuing to back Karzai was wrong. We can't afford to stay on in Afghanistan. The task now is to get out with some balance between saving global face (which ain't what it used to be, if it ever was) and minimizing further loss of life. And that's a balance that cannot be struck. It will be ugly for the Afghans; it will be publicized; we will be vilified; we will have deserved it. Bite that bullet, Mr. President. Fight terrorism as a police action, because terrorists are criminals; proceed accordingly. If there'd been a draft, neither war would have happened; we'd have cared enough to pay attention.

2.The Koch Party: At the bottom of the pile is the duped herd that actually thinks it is part of a grass-roots movement. This mass thinks it's been had, but it is confused about who the enemy is. It's members follow pied pipers, demagogues, and fools (Beck, Palin, Limbaugh) who are blinded by their own celebrity; they are delusional narcissists. Behind the mass and driving it are politicos who are determined to regain power at all costs (Gingrich, Boehner) and who believe that the end justifies the means. And, above the dust of this cattle drive are the Kochs, Murdoch, Cheney and corporate Robber Barons who believe that they belong to an entirely different species from the rest of us...and that works for them as long as we agree with their assumption that they deserve to be in control.

3. The Fundamentalists:  These are often so braided into The Koch Party and the Republican Party, they can be fooled into thinking they have a vital role in both--even a leadership role. Their primary cause is opposition to abortion and to anything that legitimatizes the LGBT citizenry. In fact, they provide a smokescreen that permits the Robber Barons to operate freely to ensure their financial monopoly. As long as the Fundamentalists are willing to beat the morality drum, Big Money will finance their cause. It's about the money. Corporate interests could not care less who gets an abortion, who marries whom.

The Republican party is hoping to let Reverend Beck and Spokesmodel Palin hold the moral hot potatoes for them, leaving the Repubs free to go after independents who have been scared into believing that only unfettered free markets can save us. We tried that already; they didn't and they won't.

4. Wall Street, Big Bank, and Capitalism: Investing is a game of chance largely played by computers now. We've applied our creativity and our energy to designing more and more complex financial products with which to rip off  the working class. Capitalism is a fine thing, but it is a cancer if it goes unregulated. The function of markets is amoral. Greenspan should be prosecuted. Elizabeth Warren should chair Consumer Protection, not advise it...unless there's a Cabinet position for her, even better.  Free markets will NOT operate indefinitely on their own to benefit individuals and the society, as the Bush years proved. In a society that worships The Free Market, money operates as a test of right and wrong--the good make it and the bad fail. And that's not right; hell, it's not even wrong.

5. The Economy, Taxes and Jobs: Mr. President, dump Geithner and Summers. Repeal tax cuts for the wealthiest echelon and save the endangered middle class. But do incentivize banks to loan to small businesses, which are more inclined to grow and hire. (Huge corporations are primarily motivated to perpetuate themselves and continue to grow profits by laying off, dropping benefits, and going off-shore for cheap labor; they do not turn tax cuts into jobs for Americans. They haven't in the last eight years and they won't, period.)  And, Mr. President, push those infrastructure jobs now. Not later; now. They won't put enough of America back to work to turn the economy around, but they might prevent another man-made disaster. We are already becoming a Second World country, with our potholes, our failed levees, our crumbling bridges and rupturing gas lines.

6. Healthcare: Change had to begin, but, no matter how many times I read about the palatable separate ingredients included, I fear that too many crooks cooks spoiled this broth. Glad we did it. Worried about it.

7. The Democrat's task: The real moral message is that the Koch Party, the Party of Wall Street, the Party of Big Oil, the Party of Big Insurance does not care one iota about those of us who earn less than that proverbial $250,00 a year. They sure as hell don't care about those of us who earn less than $100,00 a year. What's truly immoral is that our earnings are stagnant or reduced, our retirement funds were raped and left to die, we all know someone who was laid off and can't find work. We were seduced by predatory lending and our hopes, our credit, our very country, was destroyed when Wall Street bet that we couldn't pay off those loans. Small businesses cannot get loans now; they'd hire us if they could.

8. The Deficit Reduction Commission: Alan Simpson is demented. Social Security is not the problem; years and years of war is a much bigger problem. If Soc.Sec. is privatized, Wall St. will get that, too. At which point, every state might as well legalize assisted suicide.

How could anyone vote for the party that designed and engineered those moral crimes? How could anyone vote for the confused Koch Party candidates? How could anyone vote for the Republicans who ignored our streets, our gas lines, our levees? How could anyone vote for the party that was brought to you by Big Oil, and radicalized beyond the point where they are recognizable? How could you vote for any party that doesn't care enough about the unemployed to extend them the pittance of unemployment compensation? How could anyone vote for the party that wants to hold the middle class hostage to tax breaks for the richest 2% of the country?



[Imma turn the mic back over to Slutticia von Heretik, now]

p.s. Well, okay, maybe just this one picture. Big H/T to Tom Degan at The Rant

Let it bleed

"What about the Jewish heart and Jewish compassion and Jewish morality?"

asks Elie Wiesel. Perhaps those are no different from anyone elses heart, compassion and morality: just ornaments to wear on parade and to mock when it's not profitable or when we're not comfortable. People who are troubled by plans by the State of Israel to deport people born and educated there; sometimes minors, who speak the language and often no other language because their parents, brought in as 'guest workers,' have overstayed their visas.

In a country offering automatic right of citizenship to any Jew, born there or not, it seems inconsistent, unless we consider that universal human tendency to surround one's self with one's ilk. These native residents are not, of course, Jews and apparently the official design of Israel as a "Jewish State" is threatened by religious diversity -- and who or what country remains moral when threatened? Not the US, not Israel.

Eli Yishai, Minister of the Interior and the man who oversees immigration policy invokes the "bleeding heart Liberal" straw man so well used by right wingers everywhere as though compassion, mercy and indeed, morality had no place in that questionable construct: the Judeo-Christian ethos.

The US doesn't seem to be in a position to offer criticism or guidance, of course. We have our own problems reconciling our facade with what goes on, and like Israel, we cling to the word illegal as though it were a solid refuge against moral condemnation. People; small children who are illegal as a result of no action of their own and who have had no ability to comply with immigration laws rightly make one's heart bleed if one has a heart with blood in it. Indeed it can be said of both nations, that they make a big issue of alleging Biblical origins for their laws while using the law as though morality were too expensive, too inconvenient and too frightening.

It's ethnic cleansing and it's always a dirty business and these days our tendency to continue to make such noble statements as one finds on the Statue of Liberty reek of hypocrisy concerns me more than the admittedly real problems with uncontrolled immigration. Perhaps we should come clean and put an "If you're white, you're all right" in Lady Liberty's hand or at least stop pretending our laws are a salute to Jesus. If we follow through on the assault on the 14th amendment, making people born and raised as Americans, who pay taxes, have jobs and businesses but never knew there parent's weren't citizens, we're going to inherit the same moral dilemma. I have to wonder in fact, as to whether, having had a grandfather who was never a citizen, my mother would retroactively be an alien, making me, after 65 years as a citizen, subject to deportation and constant fear lest there be a midnight knock on the door by a black gloved fist.

If there's no moral problem with sending a kid who speaks only English back "home" to Azerbaijan or Guatemala with no chance of appeal, then it's time we stopped pretending we're any different from anybody else.

Yes you can, no you can't

Private morality does not seem to me to be the state’s business unless it compromises the public welfare.

-Bishop Shelby Spong-
_________

Yes you can, no you can't, yes you can, no you can't. It must be infuriating for California's same sex couples looking for stability and security in their lives. Gay marriage opponents have again succeeded in blocking further unions pending yet another appeal for reasons known only to themselves -- although most seem happy to tell you why they're against it.

Do the objections make sense or are they simply a reflection of a selective morality with perhaps a bit of personal anxiety adding a note of passion? The appeal that came quickly after the judicial decision to overturn the ban tells us that

"California, 44 other states, and the vast majority of countries throughout the world continue to draw the line at marriage because it continues to serve a vital societal interest."

And what would that social interest be? Why,

"to channel potentially procreative sexual relationships into enduring, stable unions for the sake of responsibly producing and raising the next generation."

Astonishing, isn't it that the conservatives behind this can still make a living challenging the right of the State to serve social needs while advocating it so vociferously in this instance. Doesn't Social Security and Medicare and welfare and don't income taxes serve a societal interest? Is there any evidence anywhere of a negative effect on the public welfare of allowing gay marriage?

Sure, I could ask silly questions about why older couples past child producing age are allowed to marry or people who don't want to or are unable to have offspring are exempt from the Biblical mandate to go out there and get pregnant. I could ask why the State of California can find a right anywhere in its constitution or the Federal Constitution to promote Christianity and I could snicker at the fact that it really doesn't matter whether people are married -- they make babies anyway and I could point out as well that stable, married gay couples seem to do as well if not better at raising children, but we both know I wouldn't get a sensible answer because the position isn't about any of those things. It's about a personal repugnance concerning the private behaviour of other people with its origins in a religious tradition not recognized or supported by the government of the United States. Preventing a social contract between same sex couples serves no more legitimate a societal interest than outlawing interracial marriage, segregating public facilities, keeping Jews out of Palm Beach hotels or preventing women from voting. Yet that same rhetoric was used to defend those things and worse.

Pace the nauseous nattering of people like Sarah Palin and a large number of Republican hypocrites, there is no clause in the constitution saying "insert the Bible here." The objections are an excuse and nothing more and they are neither supported by facts or reason.

Another frequent argument is that the court which overturned the ban was " ignoring the will of the people" which of course is part of the job description of the legislative branch; that being another bulwark against the mob rule our founders were so rightly worried about. That is, or should be embarrassing to those who have made careers bloviating about "activist judges" since what they're calling for is a judge who rules on personal and political sentiment rather than a strict interpretation of the law. Is this hypocrisy or duplicity? Does it matter?

Marriage isn't about breeding, it's about property and responsibility and the right of one person to care for another without legal hindrance. The law isn't about bringing a Christian or Jewish or Muslim utopia to the world in preparation for it's destruction. I agree with bona fide Libertarians that the role of government in promoting some vision of public good needs to be limited and its ability to intrude into the most private and intimate parts of the human experience needs to be restricted to matters of the utmost need. There is no need or evidence of need here. There is no logical or factual consistency here and the allegedly conservative position isn't conservative. It's everything conservatives tell us they hate: an intrusion into life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by a self appointed group of moralizers. Morality is not the government's business. Sin is not the government's business: It's God's business. God can handle it.