tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14168956.post6555849708342427302..comments2024-03-08T08:54:08.632-05:00Comments on Bonfire of the Vanities: ObamacareFr Martin Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01375628123126091747noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14168956.post-85620877097744023312012-07-09T10:22:18.466-04:002012-07-09T10:22:18.466-04:00I lean toward the joint dissent too, although I fi...I lean toward the joint dissent too, although <a href="http://simondodd.org/blog/?p=565" rel="nofollow">I find the criticism of the Roberts opinion overheated</a>. I think, however, that you have to be careful in bringing up the DHHS mandate, which is an entirely separate issue. <br /><br />You may have read Fr. John Trigilio's commentary (<a href="http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/120705" rel="nofollow">here</a>, for example), which has been bouncing around the web, and which appears to base its harsh criticism of the court on a lengthy soliloquy about the DHHS mandate. That makes no sense. To be sure, I've faulted the bishops for their ongoing support of "healthcare reform" (i.e. greater federal government intervention in healthcare markets) because it seems obvious to me that the DHHS mandate is a natural and predictable result of a Democrat-controlled DHHS gaining the power to issue such regulations, rather than an aberration. It by no means follows from the statute, however, that DHHS <i>must</i> mandate contraceptive coverage—when I say that the latter is a natural and predictable result of the former, what I mean is that it is a <i>possible</i> result and one that can be predicted given the attitude of the left to contraceptives and the Catholic Church—and even if it did, I have <i>never</i> heard of a case in which the alleged unconstitutionality of an agency regulation was used to bootstrap an attack on the enabling statute with the proposed remedy being to strike the entire statute. And I cannot imagine such a case succeeding. The remedy in such a case—and this isn't such a case; those cases are still percolating below—would be to strike down the regulation. I find it mindboggling that Trigilio would fault the court in such strong language for failing to strike down the act on the basis of an entirely novel argument that was not pressed in this case nor, so far as I know, in any other case. Yet that is what he appears to be saying.<br /><br />I'm not saying that you're doing the same thing as Trigilio. I'm just saying that we have to be careful to keep the two separate. The DHHS mandate is the DHHS mandate. Yes, if the court had struck down Obamacare, the DHHS mandate would have fallen. But it does not follow that if the DHHS mandate has to go, the court therefore has a moral imperative to strike down Obamacare, which rises or falls on its own merits.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065798213115341398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14168956.post-87468703553494146792012-06-28T19:55:40.228-04:002012-06-28T19:55:40.228-04:00We vote for laws to do for us what we won't do...We vote for laws to do for us what we won't do for ourselves. All this decision says is that the Constitution allows for that. We surrender bits of our selves whenever we do this. If the law is amended to exclude abortion and abortion causing drugs would it be any better? We are upset that it will make us do something we don't like, but are willing to be forced to give money rather than willingly give help people who need it. And have a hierarchy for that, too. We will give money before we give our time, and time before we give our minds, and minds before we give our hearts. We wanted to buy the indulgence through taxes without investing the time to give properly and efficiently. And we would rather blindly support health programs than educate people to the conclusion of the choices they make well before they choose to kill a child. And we cannot bring ourselves to tell someone that we cannot continue as friends if it makes you think I can tolerate an evil act as a simply an alternative view of the universe.<br /><br />We are upset that the Constitution won't prevent us from harming ourselves, when in fact it does not demand we do so. We simply lack the will to avoid harming ourselves. This is not temptation placed before us by someone else. We worked hard to build this mess. Now we are upset that it went exactly where we pointed it. We want to outlaw temptation because we crave approval and won't resist it on our own. The first gift, after Life, was the gift to choose freely and we scorn it because we don't want to go to God for the strength to chose the right thing. We are prodigal children gambling on the death bed conversion so we can throw our lives away and cheat our way into Heaven by tricking God into forgiving us at the last minute. How vain we are to be upset with this decision thinking we can barter bits of our souls everyday and that we will have the will to stop just before we have gone too far. How does a person develop, spiritually, when the 'choices' are either anything or nothing? Even if we don't kill the child are we maybe killing their souls? <br /><br />We want to fit in, up to a point, and can't understand how this collection of breezes became a storm. Who keeps the Sabbath Holy instead of shopping all day? Who really fasts before Mass, or tries to cheat the clock? Who has the nerve to cross themselves before a meal in a restaurant? To skip the office lunch on Friday during Lent? Our souls were in tatters long before we got here.<br /><br />Read the prayers, pray before bed and when you awake. Go to confession preceded by a sincere and prayerful introspection. Contemplate the lives of saints. Learn to defend the faith from small daily challenges, only then will you gain the strength to defend our Holy Mother Church when the barbarians are at the gate.rcghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09131930849106490711noreply@blogger.com