Alito also said the decision is limited to contraceptives under the health care law. "Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer's religious beliefs," Alito said.Given the narrowness of the ruling and the fact that it doesn't interfere with the government's preferred policy outcomes, you might have expected this to be another unanimous ruling. No, it is not: it was a 5-4, conservative/liberal split. Justice Ginsburg, indeed, took the time to read her dissent in public. Her opinion is that this ruling won't turn out to be as narrow as it was crafted to be: she thinks it will have a sweeping effect that will create "havoc" for attempts by the state
He suggested two ways the administration could ensure women get the contraception they want. It could simply pay for pregnancy prevention, he said. Or it could provide the same kind of accommodation it has made available to religious-oriented, not-for-profit corporations. Those groups can tell the government that providing the coverage violates their religious beliefs. At that point, the groups' insurers or a third-party administrator takes on the responsibility of paying for the birth control.
That SCOTUS Ruling We've Been Awaiting
It turns out to be a very narrow ruling, not a ringing defense of religious liberty, but nevertheless better than an endorsement of the Administration's principle that people must submit their religion to the state if they enter the market. It also isn't an attack on the idea that free contraception should be made available to women as a matter of state policy:to impose its values on religious dissenters to assert a uniform corporate law.
Why Not Weigh The Fish?
On the intersection of Thales, Hume, a Thracian servant girl, and the Merry Monarch.
Violations of Human Rights
Did you know that the United Nations has found Detroit in violation of internationally recognized human rights? Specifically, the right to water.
A right to be provided with something you don't pay for, though? Who then must pay for it, and how do you guarantee that there will be enough of it if paying for it is not required? That's the conundrum behind the American concept, whereby your only (mostly) unlimited rights are rights to be left alone -- freedom to choose to practice your own religion, say. Even these rights, which require nothing from anyone else, are subject to practical limits. Even this morning we're waiting to see how unlimited that freedom is. The "Hobby Lobby" ruling is due today.
Still, it's interesting to see Detroit of all places hoisted on the UN's petard. It was the core of what Dr. Mead calls "Blue Model" Liberalism during the 20th century, the same sort of Liberalism that produced the UN and its structures.
UPDATE: Of course, health care is a human right, too.
“Disconnections due to non-payment are only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying," said Catarina de Albuquerque, who is the U.N.'s special rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation.That's an interesting claim, probably incompatible with the American understanding of rights. It's philosophically defensible, though, if you believe -- as one long tradition does -- that rights come from specific human needs. According to this tradition, if a thing is truly necessary for human beings to exist (like water), or truly necessary to develop their basic capacities (like education), such a being a right to it.
"In other words, when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections."
A right to be provided with something you don't pay for, though? Who then must pay for it, and how do you guarantee that there will be enough of it if paying for it is not required? That's the conundrum behind the American concept, whereby your only (mostly) unlimited rights are rights to be left alone -- freedom to choose to practice your own religion, say. Even these rights, which require nothing from anyone else, are subject to practical limits. Even this morning we're waiting to see how unlimited that freedom is. The "Hobby Lobby" ruling is due today.
Still, it's interesting to see Detroit of all places hoisted on the UN's petard. It was the core of what Dr. Mead calls "Blue Model" Liberalism during the 20th century, the same sort of Liberalism that produced the UN and its structures.
UPDATE: Of course, health care is a human right, too.
Syncopation
I tried my hand at setting a bluesy Bonnie Raitt number to musical notation. As before, you can hit the automated "play" button at the bottom left.
Jobs Aren't Fiefs
In his new(ish) digs at Takimag, Theodore Dalrymple takes a swipe at a French campaign "For Women in Science" - featuring posters that declare, "Science Needs Women." His case hits the main logical points you'd expect - "Science does not need women any more than it needs foot fetishists, pole vaulters, or Somalis. What science needs...is scientists." A couple of thoughts of my own:
There's a brand of sub-economic thinking that I think lies behind these posters. It's thinking of jobs (jobs as scientists in this case; but other jobs in others) as fiefs. If you're the Thane of Cawdor, you're entitled to the rents, and no one else; if you're also Thane of Glamis, you get the rents of Glamis and no one else. Presumably the King would like to have a good fighter in those positions, but more importantly he wants someone loyal (through family ties or otherwise), and the central concept is that whether you earned the fief through good service or not -- it is an award of the King's favor; it might go to anyone of any ability; but he chose you. There are only so many little plots of ground in the kingdom, and one more for someone else is one less for you. And if your family isn't getting these favors while his new in-laws are, they're "favored" over you, and if you felt entitled, you may just be angry. ("False, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence" may've been so motivated in his plots against Edward IV.) Naturally, then, in our world of political "tribes" -- you want your tribe to get its share, and you'll clamor and rebel 'til it gets it.
Since jobs, contracts, wealth, and talent are not like that -- abilities are not evenly distributed, and neither are the habits and attitudes that put those abilities to work; and a contract to perform services is not an entitlement of royal favor -- the campaign is as absurd as Dalrymple paints it, though it flatters resentment.
Unfortunately, in the midst of striking down one kind of sub-economic thinking, he falls into another himself:
The first is from King Lear:
My second response is indirectly from Jean-Baptiste Say -- who in turn formulated it in response to an earlier brand of subeconomic thinking. (Into which Dalrymple seems to be falling.) The economic world does not go 'round because we're overproducing stuff that advertising tricks us into wanting (so that our failure to want it would be a terrible harm, and we're only one great moment of enlightenment from collapse); but by people's efforts to get what they want. If we decided, all together, to acquire only what we "needed," we'd decide at the same time to produce only what we "needed" -- and at the end of the adjustment (which might be quite a shock, I grant) the economy would tick along just fine.
Doubtless it would be an economy of extreme poverty, and probably support only smaller populations - maybe built around some kind of subsistence farming, or maybe less than that - but in the world he hypothesizes, so what? No one would mind. It would fit the "needs" of that society. Rousseau might've approved, and we'd have no worries about who practices science...which, presumably, we would not "need" at all.
There's a brand of sub-economic thinking that I think lies behind these posters. It's thinking of jobs (jobs as scientists in this case; but other jobs in others) as fiefs. If you're the Thane of Cawdor, you're entitled to the rents, and no one else; if you're also Thane of Glamis, you get the rents of Glamis and no one else. Presumably the King would like to have a good fighter in those positions, but more importantly he wants someone loyal (through family ties or otherwise), and the central concept is that whether you earned the fief through good service or not -- it is an award of the King's favor; it might go to anyone of any ability; but he chose you. There are only so many little plots of ground in the kingdom, and one more for someone else is one less for you. And if your family isn't getting these favors while his new in-laws are, they're "favored" over you, and if you felt entitled, you may just be angry. ("False, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence" may've been so motivated in his plots against Edward IV.) Naturally, then, in our world of political "tribes" -- you want your tribe to get its share, and you'll clamor and rebel 'til it gets it.
Since jobs, contracts, wealth, and talent are not like that -- abilities are not evenly distributed, and neither are the habits and attitudes that put those abilities to work; and a contract to perform services is not an entitlement of royal favor -- the campaign is as absurd as Dalrymple paints it, though it flatters resentment.
Unfortunately, in the midst of striking down one kind of sub-economic thinking, he falls into another himself:
In any case, we all know that commercial advertising is not intended as an enquiry after truth: it is in general trying to make us want what we do not need, an endeavor which makes the economic world go round. If consumers suddenly decided that they would buy only what they needed, they would do more damage to the economy than whole skyscrapers full of bankers misappropriating shareholders’ funds!Cute, maybe, but poorly thought out. Firstly he doesn't say what he means by "need" -- an important qualification. "Need" for what purpose? To live another minute, or something more? Maybe he knows what kind of good life we "need" things for, but he ought to have specified or provided a link. (Normally someone who tells me I don't "need" something wants to justify taking it from me...Dalrymple, at least, isn't thinking that way, though I wish he'd watch that kind of language.) Assuming he has something in mind -- bare survival to an average age of 35, say -- I have two answers for him.
The first is from King Lear:
O, reason not the need! Our basest beggarsA perceptive thought from a man Dalrymple often recognizes as unsurpassed in his understanding of human nature. Humans as they are do not limit themselves to "need," and do not need anyone's advertising to persuade them to strive for much more.
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady.
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm....
My second response is indirectly from Jean-Baptiste Say -- who in turn formulated it in response to an earlier brand of subeconomic thinking. (Into which Dalrymple seems to be falling.) The economic world does not go 'round because we're overproducing stuff that advertising tricks us into wanting (so that our failure to want it would be a terrible harm, and we're only one great moment of enlightenment from collapse); but by people's efforts to get what they want. If we decided, all together, to acquire only what we "needed," we'd decide at the same time to produce only what we "needed" -- and at the end of the adjustment (which might be quite a shock, I grant) the economy would tick along just fine.
Doubtless it would be an economy of extreme poverty, and probably support only smaller populations - maybe built around some kind of subsistence farming, or maybe less than that - but in the world he hypothesizes, so what? No one would mind. It would fit the "needs" of that society. Rousseau might've approved, and we'd have no worries about who practices science...which, presumably, we would not "need" at all.
Iss a puzzlement
The central banks try to figure it out:
"Overall, it is hard to avoid the sense of a puzzling disconnect between the markets' buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally," the report read.My husband adds: "It is almost as if the true price of money has been obscured, but that's crazy talk."
The week in pictures
Powerline's week in pictures is always good. This one adds two good short videos.
The cartoon is tailor-made for our resident philosophers, in case they're planning on a family road trip this summer:
The cartoon is tailor-made for our resident philosophers, in case they're planning on a family road trip this summer:
So you want to be a moderate
Zero Hedge has an application form for Syrian rebels to fill out.
Complete the following sentence. “American weapons are…”
A) Always a good thing to randomly add to any international hot spot
B) Exactly what this raging civil war has been missing for the past three years
C) Best when used moderately
D) Super easy to resell online
The magic of crowd-sourcing
A Project Gutenberg pen-pal from Spain solved the mystery: the song was released on a 45 in 1973 or 1974 entitled "Tubular Bells," but the tune I remembered was Side B, also (confusingly) entitled "Tubular Bells."
I remembered the tune very accurately, as it turns out--even the ornaments showed up towards the end--but I'd completely forgotten the background arpeggio except as a dim memory of a kind of rhythm.
I just can't say what a relief this is! Now I want to go play with the noteflight score to put in the correct left-hand part.
I remembered the tune very accurately, as it turns out--even the ornaments showed up towards the end--but I'd completely forgotten the background arpeggio except as a dim memory of a kind of rhythm.
I just can't say what a relief this is! Now I want to go play with the noteflight score to put in the correct left-hand part.
". . . the other 24% are comatose."
Doom Awaits You, IRS
Why such uniformity of opinion on the matter? It might have something to do with the fact that no one believes the IRS accidentally lost their email records as the result of a cascading computer failure which the agency remedied by simply throwing the affected hardware away. When asked if they "believe the IRS that the emails were destroyed accidentally," or "they were destroyed deliberately," 76 percent of survey respondents said the latter. Only 11 percent of independents, 5 percent of Republicans, and 20 percent of Democrats managed to convince themselves that the IRS's story was possible, if not likely.Past due, really. The man was right: a jury, even a jury of public opinion, has every right to conclude that the evidence destroyed was probably not good for the IRS.
Violence and its discontents
From Ricochet:
Kevin [Williamson]’s mistake was stating the biological fact that Laverne Cox is a man. As my new allies inform me, this is hateful and indeed “violence” against transgendered people. I blame kindergarten teachers who have for years trained children to “use their words” as opposed to violence, when apparently, there is no distinction to be drawn between the two.Anyone who read "Anthem" in his/her/their/xyr youth will remember the fictional society's abolition of the pronoun "I" and the requirement that each persyn self-refer as "we."
Unclear on the concept
More from Maggie's Farm, linking the NY Post:
The New York City Department of Education employs a full-time director of homeschooling to manage the Big Apple’s roughly 4,000 homeschooling families.Well, as long as a government employee is still drawing a paycheck.
Goals for marriage
The NY Post examines divorce trends in the U.S. As Cassandra often has reported to us, women have been the primary instigators for a while, but socio-economic clout correlates strongly with staying married:
The author wonders whether women are abandoning marriages because their husbands are maladroit geeks and grubby slackers. My husband has been remarkably patient with my maladroit geekiness and grubby slackerdom.
In the 1970s, when divorce skyrocketed, Wilcox says, many researchers expected that the upper classes would be worst hit.
The sexual revolution seemed to free them from the social strictures of marriage. Hope for the future of the American family rested on those middle and even lower classes in the heartland.
In fact, the exact opposite has proved true. Marriage is thriving among the wealthy and educated.
“Who would have thought elites would have devoted themselves maniacally to their children’s success?” asks Wilcox.
It seems as though marriage does well when it is a vehicle for something else — whether that’s making sure your children have food on the table or that they get into an Ivy League school.Marriage does well when it is a vehicle for "something else"--than the "Cinderella romance" addressed by the article. Who'da thought.
The author wonders whether women are abandoning marriages because their husbands are maladroit geeks and grubby slackers. My husband has been remarkably patient with my maladroit geekiness and grubby slackerdom.
"A question foremost on everyone's lips"
An article summarizing trends in the Guardian quotes the burning issues posed by the thinking class, including the exasperation of a professional lesbian over the growing interest in same-sex marriage. Who needs marriage, anyway? "Same-sex marriage fits comfortably within the conservative ideology of the self-sufficient family and contributes to the politics of state austerity." Totally, and what's more:
H/t Maggie's Farm.
"Isn’t marriage merely a clever ploy to keep us quiet about the trickier issues such as the deportation of lesbian asylum seekers?"The scales have fallen from my eyes.
H/t Maggie's Farm.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)