Don't do that ...

Patient:  Doctor, it hurts when I do that.  What should I do? 

Doctor:  Don’t do that.

Some solutions really are that simple.  So why do so many people ignore those?

For example:    

If you don’t like the pay or benefits offered by your employer, don’t work there. 

If you don’t like the policies of a company, don’t buy their stuff.

If you don’t agree with what an organization does, don’t donate money to them.  

If you don’t like the views of a speaker, don’t go to their speech.   

If you don’t like the views of a performer, don’t buy their work. 

If you don’t like what an author writes, don’t buy their books. 

If you think eating meat is bad, don’t eat meat. 

If you think sugary soda is bad for you, don’t drink it. 

If you think fast food is crap, don’t eat it. 

Nobody forces you to work for someone, buy from certain companies, donate money to causes, go to speeches, buy works of people you don’t like, or eat or drink something. 

In case everybody has forgotten, this is a free country.  You have free will. You also have the freedom to not do a lot of things.  You’re not a slave, an indentured servant, and you always have choices. 

I bring this up now because it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge anymore.  By design. 

A certain segment of our society wants to grant themselves new rights at your expense.  There’s a hard sell on by this administration and the media to make us believe this is all for our own good and to demonize anyone who dares to oppose, or even question, this agenda. 

If you follow the mainstream media outlets closely it appears to be a coordinated effort.  What’s most notable is what’s being left out of the coverage – the actual details – that if brought to light would profoundly change the tone and meaning of the final story.  It’s so obvious that I can only think this is being done consciously. 

A near perfect example is the coverage of the Hobby Lobby story and the Supreme Court’s ruling.  Hobby Lobby only objected to paying for coverage of what they considered to be abortive birth control, such as the morning after pill. They had always provided coverage of 16 contraceptive methods for their employees – a point left on the editing room floor – and objected to covering only four post-conception contraceptive methods. They faced fines of up to $90,000 a day for not covering those four. 

The Supreme Court narrowly ruled that the government could not compel closely and privately held Hobby Lobby, founded on Christian principles, to violate their beliefs opposing abortion, given other avenues available for the government to provide those four contraceptive methods in question.  Also, the possible financial penalty on Hobby Lobby for exercising their beliefs was excessive. 

That was pretty much the opinion of the majority. 

Interesting how this was covered in the media.

Harry Reid was quick with a sound bite about how “five men” shouldn’t decide what women should be allowed to do. That was on all the national news broadcasts that night.  Pelosi claimed that this opened the door for corporations to limit access to medical procedures for their employees. 

CNN and others pushed the angle that – in effect – the conservative, Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court had ruled that religious nutjobs could use this decision to withhold vital contraceptive coverage for their female employees, putting those employees at great risk.  Further, these all-male right-wing justices were opposed in their ruling by the three female justices and one enlightened male justice. (The dissent from Ginsburg was more widely covered than the majority’s opinion.)

They also implied, again by omission, that Hobby Lobby was always opposed to providing contraceptive coverage to its female employees – which was a bald-faced lie.  Then they took the “war on women” narrative even further by speculating, completely without basis, that because of the Hobby Lobby decision other businesses that didn’t want to cover any contraception methods could now refuse to do so, using vague religious objections. 

So the media and their Democrat friends used a narrow ruling – completely out of context, and with reckless disregard for the facts – to continue the “war on women” (by conservatives and religious fanatics) narrative, in other words. 

Please remember what the actual facts were:  Hobby Lobby already had – and would continue to – pay to cover 16 of the 20 contraceptive methods required to be covered by the ACA.  It objected to paying for four post-conception methods only, which it opposed on religious grounds.  The court upheld their right to not be forced to pay for those methods.  It said nothing about what female employees of Hobby Lobby could do on their own, including deciding to work for someone else. 

Which brings me back to my original point. 

The media, Obama and the far left keep approaching problems from the wrong direction.  Rather than concede that people have free choices to vote with their wallets and their feet, they presume people are helpless pawns.

 “Something must be done …” is always their battle cry, when, in truth, if they simply stepped back most social issues would probably resolve themselves over time.  But when government gets involved they are certain to make a mess of things, for no apparent reason except to prove how important and powerful – and necessary – government is. 

That’s the real scandal.  Government has the Roto-Rooter touch – just about everything it touches turns to crap. Almost every time it inserts itself into decisions people could easily and logically make on their own, it makes matters worse.  All politicians really need to do is stay out of things. 

Nobody is forcing female employees who want all 20 contraceptive methods covered to stay at Hobby Lobby, or anyplace else for that matter, or not spend their own money for those.  They can always try to get a job somewhere else that has the benefits they want.

That’s the free market. 

But instead of recognizing that option, and letting market pressures drive employers to provide more benefits to attract the employees they want, government feels the need to interfere.

Why? The official line is to protect the health of female employees who would otherwise be at grave medical risk without free condoms, IUDs, and birth control pills.  Who knew? 

The truth is that liberal and Progressive politicians wanted to provide free birth control to just about everyone to appease their allies, plus build their street cred for supporting women (unlike those mean-spirited, sexist religious nuts in the Republican Party).  However, as usual, they wanted somebody else to pick up the tab. In this case, businesses.      

There’s no proof that free birth control was desperately needed, or that it was priced out of the reach of women.  If anything there was ample proof to the contrary:  most birth control is cheap, often about $10 a month, readily available, and for the poor Planned Parenthood dispensed birth control devices and pills for free.  

So the bigger story is not about access to birth control, Hobby Lobby or the mythical war on women.  It’s about how much government, far-left Democrats, and Progressives are doing to limit our freedoms and our ability to make our own decisions.  And how much the media is trying make these efforts appear to be increasing our choices and freedoms, when the exact opposite is true.

What we’re seeing is a relatively small group of the political establishment shaping a new, Orwellian reality where words and acts only mean what they want them to mean, not what they have always meant. And where, as Orwell put it in Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. 

People do have free will. They do have choices.   Always keep that in mind. 

Even when those in the government and the media try to convince you that the choices they are making are actually your choices.  

They aren’t.