Here’s an interesting video. (H/T Ari)
See that guy? He’s your potential boss. Stop messing with this business and maybe he’ll hire you.
Tag Archives: Liberty
Michael Medved explains why Republicans should not drop social issues
Excerpt:
Third, the dividing line between economic and social issues remains far less crisp and definitive than generally assumed. Take for example the Democratic determination to provide widespread coverage for abortion as a key component of ObamaCare. Social conservatives fought this provision as a matter of pro-life principle, while economic conservatives opposed it as an expensive new entitlement — providing government funding for an elective procedure that remains, at best, deeply controversial.
Or consider current efforts by leading conservatives to trim federal funding to National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “Culture Warriors” dislike these programs because they support a politically correct, shamelessly leftist perspective, while fiscal conservatives despise them because they offer a prime example of bureaucratic bloat — a federal intrusion into an area (television and radio broadcasting) where the private sector does a mostly adequate job and even manages to turn a profit.
Most of today’s major economic issues in fact feature some significant social component, and nearly all socio-cultural disputes involve an economic dimension, influencing the spending crisis and the overall growth of government. When it comes to current battles over the meaning of gay rights, for instance, there’s no question that remaking society to treat gay and straight relationships as indistinguishable will impose a significant burden on taxpayers. If gay partners receive the same Social Security and Medicare benefits as married couples, a system already stretched to the breaking point will bear additional expenses running into the billions. This reform may or may not follow the dictates of fundamental fairness, but it is hardly without cost; you can’t provide equal benefits for a whole new class of beneficiaries without creating obvious problems in the system’s balance sheets.
[…]The only real alternative to government as a source of assistance, authority and a functioning civil society remains the “little platoons” described by Edmund Burke — families and communities shaped by attitudes that count as both economically and culturally conservative.
Michael Medved is kind of a Republican-In-Name-Only, like another famous radio show host Hugh Hewitt, but he’s right about this at least. I like Dennis Prager and Mark Levin better when I am listening to the radio.
Court says nurse who was forced to perform late-term abortion can’t sue
Story here from LifeSiteNews. (H/T Mary)
Excerpt:
Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Catholic nurse who was forced by a New York hospital to participate in an abortion does not have the right to sue her employer.
Administrators at Mt. Sinai Hospital had threatened Catherine DeCarlo with disciplinary measures in May 2009 if she did not honor a last-minute summons to assist in a scheduled late-term abortion. The hospital insisted on her participation in the procedure on the grounds that it was an “emergency.”
Lawyers for DeCarlo, however, have pointed out that the procedure was not classified by the hospital as an emergency, and the patient was apparently not in crisis at the time of the surgery.
DeCarlo claims that her participation in the abortion led to serious emotional trauma. She also claims that hospital administrators later attempted to coerce her into signing an agreement to participate in abortions in the future.
The hospital had reportedly known of the Catholic nurse’s religious objections to abortion since 2004.
Alliance Defence Fund (ADF) attorneys had filed two suits in the case – one federal, filed in July 2009, and another state, filed earlier this year. The federal suit claimed that Mt. Sinai ignored federal laws prohibiting coercion while receiving hundred of millions of dollars in federal funding.
In January the case was dismissed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, at which point it was appealed to the Second Circuit.
However, in today’s ruling the court found that there is no right to private action or private remedy under the statue cited by DeCarlo in her suit – the so-called “Church Amendment.” (Read the decision here.)
That amendment protects health care workers working for federally-funded entities from being discriminated against because they refused to perform abortions on religious or conscience grounds.
In other news, pro-abortion nutter attacks pro-life display with metal pipe and gets arrested when he turns to attack pro-lifers, too. Hey – anti-life is pro-violence. That’s their view.
Sorry if blogging is a little light lately. I am having fun reading Mary’s frequent debates on Facebook. It’s really fun!
WINTERY KNIGHT 