Why is the American Civil Liberties Union a wing of the democratic party? I’m Canadian, so I don’t really get it. They don’t support gun rights, which is a pretty big civil liberty issue.
Their interpretation says they have a collective right to bear arms, as opposed to an individual right to bear arms, which I don’t get, does that mean on the street we all can go to someone’s house and use their gun? Why would the ACLU argue in favor of a more narrow interpretation of the second amendment? Isn’t the goal to maximize civil liberties? Why would an organization founded to protect civil liberties argue for a more narrow interpretation of civil liberties?
If you’re saying only Militia members, at the time of the founders that was every able bodied white man, from the age of 16-45~. Are the ACLU arguing in favour of taking guns from all women and minorities and only leaving them to white guys?
And then there was the ACLU stating that contraceptive mandates in the Affordable Care Act didn’t violate religious freedoms, which I don’t get at all. If they were suing someone who got fired for getting an abortion, that would totally be a civil liberty case. Telling an employer they have to pay for an employee to do something they find reprehensible seems like the opposite of a civil liberty.
Finally, they argue and make lawsuits in favor of affirmative action, which may or may not be a good thing, but I don’t see how it is a civil liberty.
P.S. I hoped I stacked enough stuff to anger people, as this is the first Flamewars thread on the new forums, and it should “start a fight, argue in bad faith”, and most of all “be an insufferable pedant”
Regarding birth control I believe the rational is that only individuals have a right to religious freedom (I.e. no one is forcing the individual to practice birth control.) Once you get into an employee/employer relationship you lose individual rights because you are no longer acting as an individual but as an employer. Tldr: my right to enjoy an individual right can not be negated by your disapproval of that right.
Affirmative Action, is at its core a racist/sexist policy. With that said it is also known that if people are denied employment and education opportunities due to their race or gender we can never have true equality. As such the policy was created to speed integration and show those who oppose integration that their racist/sexist beliefs are based on false beliefs. It does introduce problems on the individual level when two not-equally qualified candidates both apply for the same position and the position is filled because of a quota rather than merit but that does not happen often enough at a large enough scale to make a huge difference. The policy can also result in highly qualified minority applicants to be fiercely sought after by employers because they get the benefit of a qualified employee and diversity bragging rights.
The second amendment is the one weird fight where the ACLU loses me. They should be on the side of gun owners but they are not. It might just be a political issue where the ACLU is against strict constructionalist interpretations on the US Constitution. Don’t really know.
The whole point of liberty around healthcare is that the provider of your healthcare can’t dictate how you utilize that care. That’s what the ACLU is fighting. Every employers has to provide full health care options, and should have zero say in how those options are exercised.
Having moved to a country where you have to pay for health care and insurance. I will pay literally anything for free sexual health care. Jesus for a tenner or two more for the pill to be free, sign me up.
Right, so, here’s the thing. In the US, healthcare is almost always only affordable when negotiated by your employer; otherwise, the vast majority of working Americans could not afford it.
Allowing employers to deny certain kinds of coverage means that you are de facto limiting an individual’s access to that coverage.
And opposition to birth control coverage almost always occurs along religious lines.
So now you have a quandry: whose liberties take priority? The right of an employer to limit the choices of their employees for religious reasons? Or the rights of the employees to have more choices?
The latter scenario is more in line with widespread civil liberties - giving more freedoms to more people, rather than empowering those with power to limit the choices of those without. And aside from that, what about the religious freedom of the employees?
That’s why this issue matters.
Answering the broader question: the ACLU appears partisan because by and large the Republican party cares about one civil liberty (guns) and wants to limit the rest of them.
Why? If I am buying a product from a corporation why should I be forced to purchase a product that I will NEVER use?
Seriously, take the morality out of it. Why should anyone ever be forced to buy something they will NEVER need.
Birth control coverage should be an optional purchase not a requirement. Even for women, birth control pills as a form of birth control (not hormone regulation and other not BC uses) are really only useful during the fertile years of early teens to menopause in their 40-50 age range.
From a logical standpoint it should be optional.
If you want to lump it into “fertility/reproductive” coverage then what does the male consumer get out of the coverage? Do they get free condoms (BC and anti-STD) or what? Both genders can get sterilization services covered (hysterectomy/vasectomy) so that is fair. Both can get fertility treatments, so that is fair.
Again, why should anyone be forced to pay for a service they will NEVER need?
You’re buying health insurance which may include birth control as an option.
Let’s take your logic further
There are a lot of coverages I’ll never need in my health insurance, like pap smear coverage or mammograms. I don’t need or use substance abuse or mental health coverages either. Why should I be forced to pay for those? I don’t use them.
The answer: You’re buying a suite of services, not individual services. Someone in the purchasing group may need those services, so the insurance company offers up a package that appeals to a broad customer base.
If you want pure a la carte coverage, take that up with an insurance company.
The “I don’t use it so why should I pay for it” argument is crap.
Pap smear and mammogram, yes. However that would easily fall under a general body health package that would include prostate coverage (women don’t have a prostate).
Mental health and substance abuse are coverages you never want to use but will be glad you have if something happens and you find yourself in a situation where the coverage is needed. As such they fall under the umbrella of unlikely rather than never services. I have zero problem paying for coverage in the unlikely category as there is always a chance that I may need it.
Requiring a no co-pay option on birth control pills gives a benefit to only one gender of customer. Anything that only impacts one gender without a comparable included offering for the other gender should be optional from a purely logical standpoint.
From an employer standpoint not covering birth control is stupid. Pregnancy leads to lost productivity from both mother and father, more so from the mother. The benefit of an employee with kids is obvious, they are less likely to leave the job unless a much better offer is made to them. However there is a point of diminishing returns and an employee with one kid is ussualy sufficient for an employer to gain benefits that outway any negatives.
[quote=“thewhaleshark, post:10, topic:339”]
The answer: You’re buying a suite of services, not individual services. Someone in the purchasing group may need those services, so the insurance company offers up a package that appeals to a broad customer base.[/quote]
Valid. However why force ALL packages to contain a benefit that does not apply to ALL participants? Why not offer two packages (or three for married folks) with services tailored to the genders of the plan participants? If a woman has no need for the male specific coverages and a man does not need the female specific coverages why not offer gender specific plans as an option? Then you can also offer a joint plan for married couples (or single parents with opposite gender children).
From a personal liberty point of view how is forcing me, as an individual, to pay for something I will never use just? Where is the justice in that.
Notice that I am not advocating a ban on birth control nor am I advocating that insurance companies should not be allowed to cover birth control as a co-pay or no co-pay option. I am making a personal liberty argument that an individual should not be forced to purchase something that they will NEVER use.
How much money will a health care provider save by a baby not being born compared to the cost of all the healthcare for a new baby and it’s life up until it starts paying its own health coverage?
This is literally the “Tax == Theft” argument. I have no kids, so why should my taxes go to schools? I am not a veteran, so why should my taxes pay for their health care? I’m not poor, so why should my taxes pay for poverty relief?
The reason you should be forced to pay for something you may never use is that the alternative is that service becomes inaccessible to wide swaths of the population who desperately do need to use it. This isn’t just a choice between “free to buy what I want” and “forced to buy something I don’t need”, it’s also a choice between “sexual health services are only for the rich” and “sexual health services are for everyone”. If you choose the money option over the moral option, well, the entire canon of human art and philosophy (from every civilization, for millennia) has plenty to say about you, little good.
[quote=“hmtksteve, post:13, topic:339, full:true”]From a personal liberty point of view how is forcing me, as an individual, to pay for something I will never use just? Where is the justice in that.
Notice that I am not advocating a ban on birth control nor am I advocating that insurance companies should not be allowed to cover birth control as a co-pay or no co-pay option. I am making a personal liberty argument that an individual should not be forced to purchase something that they will NEVER use.[/quote]Your “personal liberty” argument is equally applicable to pretty much any other area where the government intervenes in society, and the counterargument is the exact same counterargument that applies in almost all of those cases.
[quote=“malzraa, post:15, topic:339”]This is literally the “Tax == Theft” argument.[/quote]Indeed.
The government forces individuals to pay for things that they will “NEVER use” when there is a sufficient public good to be attained by them doing so. Universal health care is simply one such case.
If it were a single payer healthcare system then yes, the tax==theft argument would be true. However, under the current system healthcare insurance is a private industry. Under the current law citizens are forced to give money to a corporation to pay for a service they will never need.
Whether it is a private industry or not is irrelevant. Either way, there is a strong government interest in regulating that industry in order to achieve a public good.
Yes, the underlying legal and financial mechanics may be very different between the two, but the fundamental principles are the same.
So your argument is not “purchasing” things you won’t use?
Fine.
I don’t want to pay taxes for schools. I don’t have kids, don’t plan to have kids, and will never personally need schools. So fuck 'em.
I also don’t want to pay taxes for red states. None of my federal tax dollars should go to them. I’ll never need services from those states, so why should I pay any money into them? Roads in red states are red states’ problems, not mine.
I’m not old. Why should I pay for the services rendered to old people? I’ll pay for them when I’m old, why now?
Do a little basic research on the idea of shared risk before you argue that we shouldn’t “purchase” things we “don’t need”.
