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Post by showmedot on Dec 6, 2013 18:17:11 GMT -6
"Consider an owner who belongs to the Church of Christ, Scientist who decides that they don't want their insurance policy to cover antibiotics..."
Not that it matters much, but a CS business owner who attempted to restrict employee access to ANY type of medical treatment would be acting contrary to church teachings on at least two levels--
1) Christian Scientists, contrary to the common opinion, are not told by their church that they must not seek conventional medical care. Instead, the church teaches that each person should use hir best judgment and may go to doctors and undergo whatever treatment is prescribed.
Most will run the gamut of CS "treatments" first. However, in cases of possible broken bones, dislocations or the like which are considered mechanical failures and not diseases, they may go directly to an ER. Again, it's a matter of individual judgment.
2) It is completely contrary to the principles of Christian Science for a member of that faith to attempt to restrict what another person does. That would be interfering with the person's own "best judgment."
So said my former mother-in-law when I asked her about her having gone to an M.D. for an antibiotic for an infected wound.
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Apr 1, 2014 14:23:46 GMT -6
The solution here seems fairly obvious to all but Catholics and politicians. Birth control is an essential health service for women that decreases healthcare costs throughout the system. Any policy which does not cover it discriminates against women and adds to unnecessary healthcare spending. Perhaps CCC will stop back to tell me why I am wrong. Hi FB: I certainly can not tell you that you are wrong on this matter. Like the plaintiffs in the Hobby Lobby case, I have no problem with birth control although I believe abortion to be immoral. Your post does swing wider than the actual issue before the Supreme Court however - see my post in reply to Dot 1. Do you think that the Owners of Hobby Lobby should be forced by the Federal Government to pay for insurance that will pay for abortions? that is the issue from Hobby Lobby's perspective. Obviously there is an issue of whether devices and drugs which prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg cause abortions. But, that issue is a social/political/religious issue and I am not in favor of the Feds running roughshod over Hobby Lobby's owner's sincere opinion on the matter. Jim 1. "Hobby Lobby also provides excellent health insurance, which includes coverage for most — but not all — contraceptives. However, because of the Greens' firm belief in the dignity of human life and about when and how it begins, Hobby Lobby cannot provide coverage for some of the required drugs because they could cause an abortion." www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-garnett-obamacare-contraception-surpreme-cou-20131205,0,2899.story#ixzz2mcQCTPdxHere you go, Trout. Please explain this in light of your defense of "Hobby Lobby's owner's sincere opinion on the matter." www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/04/01/Hobby-Lobby-invests-in-contraception-manufacturers/6221396380280/
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2014 17:16:08 GMT -6
Hi FB: I certainly can not tell you that you are wrong on this matter. Like the plaintiffs in the Hobby Lobby case, I have no problem with birth control although I believe abortion to be immoral. Your post does swing wider than the actual issue before the Supreme Court however - see my post in reply to Dot 1. Do you think that the Owners of Hobby Lobby should be forced by the Federal Government to pay for insurance that will pay for abortions? that is the issue from Hobby Lobby's perspective. Obviously there is an issue of whether devices and drugs which prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg cause abortions. But, that issue is a social/political/religious issue and I am not in favor of the Feds running roughshod over Hobby Lobby's owner's sincere opinion on the matter. Jim 1. "Hobby Lobby also provides excellent health insurance, which includes coverage for most — but not all — contraceptives. However, because of the Greens' firm belief in the dignity of human life and about when and how it begins, Hobby Lobby cannot provide coverage for some of the required drugs because they could cause an abortion." www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-garnett-obamacare-contraception-surpreme-cou-20131205,0,2899.story#ixzz2mcQCTPdxHere you go, Trout. Please explain this in light of your defense of "Hobby Lobby's owner's sincere opinion on the matter." www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/04/01/Hobby-Lobby-invests-in-contraception-manufacturers/6221396380280/Hi FB: I personally have no idea in which companies my several mutual funds have invested. Do you? Have you checked your mutual funds for tobacco and gun companies? Seriously? The investment composition of a mutual fund is also a moving target of course. Assuming the Hobby Lobby owners are like me, this tid-bit does not affect my opinion of the sincerity of their beliefs at all. As a side note, The last paragraph of your linked article is the work of an ignoramus: "As of Tuesday afternoon, Hobby Lobby had not made comment on the report. Hobby Lobby may not know about their investments, but this news does have the potential to undermine their case in front of the Supreme Court, as Huffington Post politics reporter Elise Foley points out."Ms. Foley being the ignoramus du jour of course. If we assume that some of the Supreme Court Justices read "Mother Jones" (which seems like a reach) I am confident that they would not let a bit of partisan reporting sway their analysis of the real issues presented in this matter through briefs and oral argument. Lifelong jurists are adept at insulating themselves from the whims of the popular press. Jim p.s. There are important issues presented before the Court in this case. This is not a transparent right wing swipe at Obamacare. The briefs are here, if anyone is interested: www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sebelius-v-hobby-lobby-stores-inc/
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Apr 1, 2014 19:21:32 GMT -6
Hi FB: I personally have no idea in which companies my several mutual funds have invested. Do you? Have you checked your mutual funds for tobacco and gun companies? Seriously? The investment composition of a mutual fund is also a moving target of course. Assuming the Hobby Lobby owners are like me, this tid-bit does not affect my opinion of the sincerity of their beliefs at all. I expected this would be your response. Mine is this: A company that says that it does not want its hands dirtied by participating in the use of certain forms of contraception by women looks very hypocritical when it hasn't bothered to check to see if they are profiting from the same products. Perhaps the David Green is a true believer in the pro-life cause who, nearly unbelievably, forgot to check if he was investing his funds in the products he wishes to deny to his female employees. On the other hand, the entire religious anti-contraception campaign seems to me to carry an element of male privilege, with a palpable sense that controlling female sexuality is at least part of the agenda. At any rate, the story screams hypocrisy and I would be shocked if Green weren't chatting with his broker even now as part of damage control. As for the author's contention that this will affect the SCOTUS case, I agree that this is bunk. However, the idiocy of the final paragraph does not undo the legitimate point of the first.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2014 22:25:50 GMT -6
Perhaps the David Green is a true believer in the pro-life cause who, nearly unbelievably, forgot to check if he was investing his funds in the products he wishes to deny to his female employees. This is the key sentence. I disagree that it is "nearly unbelievable" that one would forget to check to see if the mutual funds they own invest only in companies that pass a moral litmus test. I would say that for most people oblivion to the component stocks in a mutual fund is "normal." For example, I would not directly buy stock in a gun or tobacco company. I imagine that some of my mutual funds would though, I really have no idea. My investigation of funds is limited to past performance, risk category and that sort of thing. My guess is that your own funds almost certainly invest in tobacco, big oil and armaments, unless you've been real careful or you avoid mutual funds altogether. Please let me know if you've verified that your own funds only invest in companies you are morally in sync with. If you have not checked, I would consider that normal, not nearly unbelievable and I certainly would never even consider playing the hypocrite card under these circumstances. Of course, you and I are not involved in high-profile litigation, but similar rules apply to us, in my view. Jim
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2014 8:38:22 GMT -6
Perhaps the David Green is a true believer in the pro-life cause who, nearly unbelievably, forgot to check if he was investing his funds in the products he wishes to deny to his female employees. This is the key sentence. I disagree that it is "nearly unbelievable" that one would forget to check to see if the mutual funds they own invest only in companies that pass a moral litmus test. I would say that for most people oblivion to the component stocks in a mutual fund is "normal." For example, I would not directly buy stock in a gun or tobacco company. I imagine that some of my mutual funds would though, I really have no idea. My investigation of funds is limited to past performance, risk category and that sort of thing. My guess is that your own funds almost certainly invest in tobacco, big oil and armaments, unless you've been real careful or you avoid mutual funds altogether. Please let me know if you've verified that your own funds only invest in companies you are morally in sync with. If you have not checked, I would consider that normal, not nearly unbelievable and I certainly would never even consider playing the hypocrite card under these circumstances. Of course, you and I are not involved in high-profile litigation, but similar rules apply to us, in my view. Jim p.s. FB: After thinking about this, I believe we've both been misled. How the hell would Mother Jones know where Green invests his money? They would not. After reading the actual Mother Jones piece, which I unfortunately did not do yesterday, it is clear that Mother Jones determined from public records what funds were available to investors (employees and management both) under the entire Hobby Lobby 401k plan. Some of these available funds invest in the companies that make the subject pharmaceuticals. My own plan has about 30 primary funds and literally several hundred secondary funds that participants can select from for their own 401k investments. As you know, a package of many available funds is made available to employees through the primary 401k provider (usually a huge insurance/investment company like Fidelity) Two things are clear after reading the actual article: 1. No one has any idea whether Green or any of his employees for that matter have actually invested in a fund that owns a stock in an "offensive" company. Apparently the opportunity to invest is enough for these bloggers to cry hypocrisy. 2. The various headlines that "Hobby Lobby invests in abortion drug manufacturers" are pure muck-raking B.S. Especially when those articles quote the total value of the Hobby Lobby employee's assets under 401k. First, see point one. Second, The 401k assets in the Hobby Lobby plan are not owned by Green or the company (except for their own participation). These assets are owned by the employee/investors of course. This story is rife with slipshod "journalism" if you scratch the surface. There is hypocrisy here, but it is not Green's. p.s.s. If checking the investment strategies of even one's own funds is so "nearly unbelievable" why did it take some muck-raker so long to fabricate this outrage? Jim
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2014 9:29:55 GMT -6
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Apr 2, 2014 14:57:57 GMT -6
This story got a ton of coverage, even from Jon Stewart--no friend of the right. It is news, and for the same reason as the Hobby Lobby story.
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Apr 2, 2014 15:22:41 GMT -6
This is the key sentence. I disagree that it is "nearly unbelievable" that one would forget to check to see if the mutual funds they own invest only in companies that pass a moral litmus test. I would say that for most people oblivion to the component stocks in a mutual fund is "normal." For example, I would not directly buy stock in a gun or tobacco company. I imagine that some of my mutual funds would though, I really have no idea. My investigation of funds is limited to past performance, risk category and that sort of thing. My guess is that your own funds almost certainly invest in tobacco, big oil and armaments, unless you've been real careful or you avoid mutual funds altogether. Please let me know if you've verified that your own funds only invest in companies you are morally in sync with. If you have not checked, I would consider that normal, not nearly unbelievable and I certainly would never even consider playing the hypocrite card under these circumstances. Of course, you and I are not involved in high-profile litigation, but similar rules apply to us, in my view. Jim p.s. FB: After thinking about this, I believe we've both been misled. How the hell would Mother Jones know where Green invests his money? They would not. After reading the actual Mother Jones piece, which I unfortunately did not do yesterday, it is clear that Mother Jones determined from public records what funds were available to investors (employees and management both) under the entire Hobby Lobby 401k plan. Some of these available funds invest in the companies that make the subject pharmaceuticals. My own plan has about 30 primary funds and literally several hundred secondary funds that participants can select from for their own 401k investments. As you know, a package of many available funds is made available to employees through the primary 401k provider (usually a huge insurance/investment company like Fidelity) Two things are clear after reading the actual article: 1. No one has any idea whether Green or any of his employees for that matter have actually invested in a fund that owns a stock in an "offensive" company. Apparently the opportunity to invest is enough for these bloggers to cry hypocrisy. 2. The various headlines that "Hobby Lobby invests in abortion drug manufacturers" are pure muck-raking B.S. Especially when those articles quote the total value of the Hobby Lobby employee's assets under 401k. First, see point one. Second, The 401k assets in the Hobby Lobby plan are not owned by Green or the company (except for their own participation). These assets are owned by the employee/investors of course. This story is rife with slipshod "journalism" if you scratch the surface. There is hypocrisy here, but it is not Green's. p.s.s. If checking the investment strategies of even one's own funds is so "nearly unbelievable" why did it take some muck-raker so long to fabricate this outrage? Jim You will get no argument from me that Mother Jones is not a reliable vehicle for unbiased coverage. Although good stories sometimes come (both right and left) from clearly biased sources (MJ, Drudge, HuffPo), it is worth it, in my opinion to wait for a story from a less suspect source, even if that source leans on the scoop from one of the polemicists. I doubt you disagree. This has been our plea to Ken for some time now--if Fox has a real story, a real network will pick it up in short order. I also doubt you really think that UPI exists in the same media space as MJ. As for your thesis, above, it is not difficult to find out where a corporation has its money invested. They are obligate to report this in shareholder reports. I could easily point you to such disclosures from any of the annual reports I receive on the stocks I own. The story, incidentally, clearly refers to the investments as being those by Hobby Lobby, and not by Mr. Green himself. Your objection is off base. Regarding the 401k theory, I think it is plausible that a sloppy journalist could make such a reach, but I don't thin that you have any evidence for this whatsoever. If this turns out to be the crux of the matter, I would agree with you that 401k choices by employees don't represent the will of the corporation. But think about that! Holy cats, Jim...neither do contraceptive choices by female employees. Now on to the personal. I know where my investments lie with a relatively high degree of certainty. Because most of my retirement funds are in S&P index funds, it is true that I have money invested in businesses such as those which you speciously float to cast me as a hypocrite on the same order as the moralists in question. If this were the case, you would need to demonstrate, for example, where I have taken a position that guns and tobacco ought to be illegal or otherwise removed from the realm of public choice. Good luck with that. The best that you will find is that I want these industries regulated in a manner consistent with common sense. As Stewart quipped in response to Bill O"Reilly's rant on marijuana legalization, the difference between pot and guns is that one can kill you right now, and should never be subject to any legal restrictions whatsoever. Regarding energy, you're nuts. I am a huge proponent of domestic energy, precisely out of the conviction that we are, as a nation, constantly going to war to secure resources that we have the ability to safely and cleanly develop at home. Again, I want regulation and environmental protection, but I invest heavily in energy stocks, even with my "personal pile" of investments. Fracking, pipelines, off-shore drilling--you name it. Damn it Jim (DeForest Kelly accent there), when did you get to be such a partisan that you would paint me personally with this sort of misplaced moralism? Sure, we have our disagreements, even big ones, and I have never hesitated to call you on some of them--particularly regarding your ongoing membership in the hopeless and unpenitently corrupt RCC. I hope you'll recognize that at least I wasn't off base in terms of what your participation consisted.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2014 17:07:52 GMT -6
p.s. FB: After thinking about this, I believe we've both been misled. How the hell would Mother Jones know where Green invests his money? They would not. After reading the actual Mother Jones piece, which I unfortunately did not do yesterday, it is clear that Mother Jones determined from public records what funds were available to investors (employees and management both) under the entire Hobby Lobby 401k plan. Some of these available funds invest in the companies that make the subject pharmaceuticals. My own plan has about 30 primary funds and literally several hundred secondary funds that participants can select from for their own 401k investments. As you know, a package of many available funds is made available to employees through the primary 401k provider (usually a huge insurance/investment company like Fidelity) Two things are clear after reading the actual article: 1. No one has any idea whether Green or any of his employees for that matter have actually invested in a fund that owns a stock in an "offensive" company. Apparently the opportunity to invest is enough for these bloggers to cry hypocrisy. 2. The various headlines that "Hobby Lobby invests in abortion drug manufacturers" are pure muck-raking B.S. Especially when those articles quote the total value of the Hobby Lobby employee's assets under 401k. First, see point one. Second, The 401k assets in the Hobby Lobby plan are not owned by Green or the company (except for their own participation). These assets are owned by the employee/investors of course. This story is rife with slipshod "journalism" if you scratch the surface. There is hypocrisy here, but it is not Green's. p.s.s. If checking the investment strategies of even one's own funds is so "nearly unbelievable" why did it take some muck-raker so long to fabricate this outrage? Jim You will get no argument from me that Mother Jones is not a reliable vehicle for unbiased coverage. Although good stories sometimes come (both right and left) from clearly biased sources (MJ, Drudge, HuffPo), it is worth it, in my opinion to wait for a story from a less suspect source, even if that source leans on the scoop from one of the polemicists. I doubt you disagree. This has been our plea to Ken for some time now--if Fox has a real story, a real network will pick it up in short order. I also doubt you really think that UPI exists in the same media space as MJ. As for your thesis, above, it is not difficult to find out where a corporation has its money invested. They are obligate to report this in shareholder reports. I could easily point you to such disclosures from any of the annual reports I receive on the stocks I own. The story, incidentally, clearly refers to the investments as being those by Hobby Lobby, and not by Mr. Green himself. Your objection is off base. Regarding the 401k theory, I think it is plausible that a sloppy journalist could make such a reach, but I don't thin that you have any evidence for this whatsoever. If this turns out to be the crux of the matter, I would agree with you that 401k choices by employees don't represent the will of the corporation. But think about that! Holy cats, Jim...neither do contraceptive choices by female employees. Now on to the personal. I know where my investments lie with a relatively high degree of certainty. Because most of my retirement funds are in S&P index funds, it is true that I have money invested in businesses such as those which you speciously float to cast me as a hypocrite on the same order as the moralists in question. If this were the case, you would need to demonstrate, for example, where I have taken a position that guns and tobacco ought to be illegal or otherwise removed from the realm of public choice. Good luck with that. The best that you will find is that I want these industries regulated in a manner consistent with common sense. As Stewart quipped in response to Bill O"Reilly's rant on marijuana legalization, the difference between pot and guns is that one can kill you right now, and should never be subject to any legal restrictions whatsoever. Regarding energy, you're nuts. I am a huge proponent of domestic energy, precisely out of the conviction that we are, as a nation, constantly going to war to secure resources that we have the ability to safely and cleanly develop at home. Again, I want regulation and environmental protection, but I invest heavily in energy stocks, even with my "personal pile" of investments. Fracking, pipelines, off-shore drilling--you name it. Damn it Jim (DeForest Kelly accent there), when did you get to be such a partisan that you would paint me personally with this sort of misplaced moralism? Sure, we have our disagreements, even big ones, and I have never hesitated to call you on some of them--particularly regarding your ongoing membership in the hopeless and unpenitently corrupt RCC. I hope you'll recognize that at least I wasn't off base in terms of what your participation consisted. You've gone off the deep end Fitz. I'm not trying to paint you personally with anything at all. I don't think that you, me (or Green for that matter) are hypocrites. Re-read my posts with a calmer eye. I've gone out of my way to describe one's oblivion to the component stocks of a mutual fund as "normal" It might have been ill advised to use you and me both as examples of this normality, but I never guessed you would think I was being duplicitous . If you think I am the sneaky back-door "tar you with hypocrisy" type you've lost all perspective. With my posts it is always WYSIWYG and if I want to insult you I'll be direct about it. See below. Your post is goofy but still disturbing. Jim p.s. On the merits there is an enormous amount of crap in your most recent post. No one, including Green is trying to deny contraceptive choice to women. Green does not want to pay for those choices. I think that is stupid on his part, but he has a faith based reason for his position. You disagree with him. OK, I get that, but why do you have to gin up a bogus hypocrisy angle to bolster your patented "good guy/bad guy" caricature view of these issues? Regarding all of the crap in the middle of your post, Hobby Lobby is a private company, you idiot, and has no obligation whatsoever to report on it's actual corporate investments. The only way the press gets info on Hobby Lobby's actual corporate investment portfolio is through a criminal breach of privacy. The part I bolded above...? You made that crap up. Shameful. Read the MJ article, I accurately described it. Here is the money quote from the MJ article since you were too fucking lazy to either read it or process it before you posted: "Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company's owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k). Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby's retirement plan have holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby's health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices." (emphasis mine)In summary, You've misconstrued my points, probably intentionally. You have twisted the MJ article to fulfill your weird need to vilify those who've hurt you in the past. You have fabricated laughable bull shit about "the investments as being those by Hobby Lobby" to rebut my accurate assessment of the actual source article. You must be having a really bad day. I still love ya, but this is perhaps your worst post of all time. Is that direct enough for you? Jim
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Post by showmedot on Apr 2, 2014 19:13:25 GMT -6
Wait a sec...did I miss something somewhere?
It seems to me a legit criticism that the 401K Hobby Lobby offers its employees incorporates mutual funds which invest in big drug manufacturers which produce the very abortifacients the Green family finds morally objectionable. I don't see how that differs from the corporation having to pay part of the cost for health insurance. What is the distinction I must be failing to grasp?
Retail employees often haven't anywhere near as much choice in where they work as you appear to assume they do. I worked retail for a decade, and I can assure you that a retail job that provides ANY decent retirement option at all can be the only viable option. The same is often true for health insurance. Even in a city of 350,000 such as where I worked retail, there were not a lot of retail jobs that offered health insurance at all, much less having relatively decent coverage. People thus had somewhat fewer job options than you suppose would be the case, especially if they had to have coverage through the woman's employer.
Quite a lot of retail employees, especially at places like Hobby Lobby, are supplemental income earners, almost entirely women. A surprisingly high number of the women I worked with carried the family's medical insurance because their husbands were self-employed or seasonal workers such as contractors or landscapers. For someone like these women, a Hobby Lobby job may be the ONLY feasible one in their entire town.
Thus, the fact that the Hobby Lobby health insurance wouldn't cover the "morning after" pill or IUD's could be a much bigger issue than those not having such limited job opportunities are aware.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2014 20:05:29 GMT -6
Wait a sec...did I miss something somewhere? It seems to me a legit criticism that the 401K Hobby Lobby offers its employees incorporates mutual funds which invest in big drug manufacturers which produce the very abortifacients the Green family finds morally objectionable. I don't see how that differs from the corporation having to pay part of the cost for health insurance. What is the distinction I must be failing to grasp? Retail employees often haven't anywhere near as much choice in where they work as you appear to assume they do. I worked retail for a decade, and I can assure you that a retail job that provides ANY decent retirement option at all can be the only viable option. The same is often true for health insurance. Even in a city of 350,000 such as where I worked retail, there were not a lot of retail jobs that offered health insurance at all, much less having relatively decent coverage. People thus had somewhat fewer job options than you suppose would be the case, especially if they had to have coverage through the woman's employer. Quite a lot of retail employees, especially at places like Hobby Lobby, are supplemental income earners, almost entirely women. A surprisingly high number of the women I worked with carried the family's medical insurance because their husbands were self-employed or seasonal workers such as contractors or landscapers. For someone like these women, a Hobby Lobby job may be the ONLY feasible one in their entire town. Thus, the fact that the Hobby Lobby health insurance wouldn't cover the "morning after" pill or IUD's could be a much bigger issue than those not having such limited job opportunities are aware. Hi Dot: I don't think you missed anything. Flitz desperately wants the Greens to be cast as hypocrites. They Greens must fill the role of villains in her black and white world view. Flitz deems them hypocrites because the Hobby Lobby 401K contains mutual funds that invest in the morning after/IUD providers. There is no evidence at all that the Greens invested any of their money or any Hobby Lobby money in the subject funds. The whole hypocrite theme was fabricated (sort of by Mother Jones, but more so by media outlets that "summarized" the original story) because of the possibility that such a hypocritical investment could have been made. In the real world 401k managers in private companies (like mine and Hobby Lobby) pick the funds available to the employees. It is unreasonable to assume that the Greens even thought about this before yesterday. I think the whole hypocrisy charge is awfully weak. First, most people, me included have no idea what individual stocks are in their funds. Second, Flitz claims that she knows what stocks are in her funds, but her funds are S&P index funds. There are hundreds of stocks in those I believe. Even though both of our funds contain stocks we would not buy directly, tobacco companies for example, I don't think that we are hypocrites. Why would I apply a standard to the Greens that I won't apply to me or my friends? Third and perhaps most importantly, no one, including Mother Jones, Flitz and me has any idea in what funds or where Hobby Lobby invests its own money. To base a hyperbolic hypocrisy claim on this sort of speculative pretext is ridiculous. Our conversation went off the rails a bit when Flitz mistakenly thought I was accusing her of hypocrisy, so I've been having fun at her expense. She knows this. You make good points regarding the single mothers and whether or not the Greens' faith position should trump federal law. I acknowledged that long ago. All I've been doing the last day or two is accusing the more partisan elements of the press of ginning up a hypocrisy charge for purely partisan purposes and trying to get Flitz to moderate her rabid position on this one. Jim
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Apr 2, 2014 23:37:50 GMT -6
Our conversation went off the rails a bit when Flitz mistakenly thought I was accusing her of hypocrisy, so I've been having fun at her expense. She knows this. Oh? Actually I was just sitting here thinking that you're acting like a total prick today. First of all, I didn't read the MJ article and I told you why. I don't consider MJ to be a credible news source to any greater extent than Fox. What I said was that sometimes partisan rags break legitimate stories. Drudge/Lewinsky would seem to have been a real story, whatever one's personal views on the sequelae. Perhaps I am naive in thinking that there is probably a value-added component when a story gets picked up by a more legitimate news service (AP/UPI/etc), but I don't think so. I suspect that the editors demand at least some vetting of a story rather than a wholesale regurgitation from the polemicist source. It turns out to be irrelevant in this case since the articles don't seem to disagree in substance (see below), but I don't think it is an unreasonable position to hold. Second, I wrote the following: As for your thesis, above, it is not difficult to find out where a corporation has its money invested. They are obligate to report this in shareholder reports. I could easily point you to such disclosures from any of the annual reports I receive on the stocks I own. The story, incidentally, clearly refers to the investments as being those by Hobby Lobby, and not by Mr. Green himself. Your objection is off base. Regarding the 401k theory, I think it is plausible that a sloppy journalist could make such a reach, but I don't thin that you have any evidence for this whatsoever. If this turns out to be the crux of the matter, I would agree with you that 401k choices by employees don't represent the will of the corporation."Fucking lazy" is one theory for why I said, in error, that I didn't think that you had basis in fact for thinking it was 401k money. Another theory is that I was posting from my cell phone in my rural hometown where poor signal makes it challenging enough to open one web page, let alone two or three, and therefore working from recollection of the story. However, knowing that I could be wrong, I posted the underlined statement in which I explicitly agreed that 401k investments don't wouldn't open a corporation to charges of moral responsibility. Beyond that, you basically didn't pay the slightest attention to what I actually said. You think that pension choices doesn't constitute any sort of moral endorsement by a company. I agree, but took that one step further by saying that insurance choices don't constitute a moral endorsement of female contraceptive choice. In other words, a corporation that takes an approach of "my money doesn't go for abortifascients" really is being ignorant or hypocritical if it then turns around and offers investments in the manufacturers as a part of their pension. For this nuanced position, I am a foaming at the mouth leftist and you are a rational centrist. Apparently this distinction gives you ample basis to assign me motives, 1 and to expound on a number of fact-free assertions about my investments. Since I am a leftist, I must oppose investments in the energy sector, 2 and further because I am such a lazy-minded buffoon, I must be ignorant of inevitable investments in tobacco and weapons. 3 I really don't know what crawled up your ass today, Jim. However, your synopsis to Dot that our conversation got off track because of a misconception on my part that you had gone personal is a pretty poor version of the day's events. Your recent devotion to directness leaves little doubt of your opinion of me or what you intended to express. 1 Not that you asked, but my motive here is that I don't believe that employers who offer health plans ought to be able to tinker with something as basic to health care as contraception in such a way as to force increased expense to female employees on the basis of personal religious objection. You can certainly disagree with this position, but to assert that my motive was actually a desire to punch back at demons from my past really demonstrates a shocking degree of low esteem for me as a free thinking individual. You've known me for what, 10 years? I have been pro-choice that entire time despite having spent a third or more of it as a principled Christian. I suppose in your view I must have been foreseeing maltreatment and punching at shadows for the first 3-4 years of our acquaintance. Here's another theory--maybe you're always the centrist because your ego is just really, really that big.
2 I currently hold positions of personally-purchased stock in Chevron, Kinder Morgan, Oasis Petroleum and Canadian Pacific Railroad--an intentional though indirect play on the Bakken shale. Together they constitute 20% of the holdings that I personally manage.
3 It's been many years since I could even recall from memory all 30 of the DJI. While I never had the SP500 memorized, I certainly have read through the list a few times in the past. I know for a fact that it contains both manufacturers of tobacco and various weaponry. I don't mind, and I don't see this a moral conflict. This is because I am not calling for either guns or tobacco to be unavailable or differentially expensive to people under my control. I smoke perhaps 5-10 cigarettes in any given year and the 5 minute buzz is absolutely exquisite. I understand why people get hooked. I certainly feel bad for people who are addicted and advocate corporate responsibility, but I also feel bad for alcoholics as I sit here sipping Grey Goose. For that matter, I also own a .22 caliber gopher filter for purposes of protecting my wife's flower beds. I'm a hell of a shot, actually. If you weren't so invested in the sort of caricature that you accuse me of, you wouldn't make such ignorant comments.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2014 8:37:49 GMT -6
Our conversation went off the rails a bit when Flitz mistakenly thought I was accusing her of hypocrisy, so I've been having fun at her expense. She knows this. Oh? Actually I was just sitting here thinking that you're acting like a total prick today. I really don't know what crawled up your ass today, Jim. However, your synopsis to Dot that our conversation got off track because of a misconception on my part that you had gone personal is a pretty poor version of the day's events. Your recent devotion to directness leaves little doubt of your opinion of me or what you intended to express. Flitz 1: You took personal offense based solely upon an uncharacteristically sloppy and careless read through of my position. I have not taken personal offense at all. I was actually kind of excited yesterday because I have the upper hand on the "hypocrisy" side argument. Usually you do not argue from a weak hand. The "directness" was in fun (at your expense of course) and leveled at you because you wrongly took offense and posted an uncharacteristically factually sloppy and personal reply. You've admitted to the sloppiness and I'm presently incredulous that you don't appreciate the source and scope of my attitude yesterday. Therefore, I am positive that the things you say above like, "Actually I was just sitting here thinking that you're acting like a total prick today" or "Your recent devotion to directness leaves little doubt of your opinion of me..." are delivered by you to me in the same vein. I could be wrong, if I am, just remember that I am the calm and even-keeled one. This is something you have mentioned many times over the years. Also, my opinion of you has been conveyed enough times in private correspondence. If you don't understand this, then, well, then you are an idiot. For reals. Also, I appreciate you and Dot's position on the merits of the underlying issue. I've mentioned that many times in this thread. I approach the underlying legal issue from a Constitutional Law perspective and therefore I see this as a complicated and reasonably difficult case because both sides have legitimate claims under the law. You and Dot approach the underlying issue from a feminist perspective and therefore see the issue as an easy one; "why should Green's personal beliefs be allowed to affect the health care choices of women who work for Hobby Lobby in any way at all..." I'm not going to argue against that position because I see the validity of it. Jim 1. I don't like aliases. I'm thinking your real name as I write this.
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Post by ken on Apr 3, 2014 11:19:33 GMT -6
The solution here seems fairly obvious to all but Catholics and politicians. Birth control is an essential health service for women that decreases healthcare costs throughout the system. Any policy which does not cover it discriminates against women and adds to unnecessary healthcare spending. Perhaps CCC will stop back to tell me why I am wrong. Here is the solution: The Administration should allow companies and individuals who have sincerely held religious objections a waiver to the ACA's birth control requirements. The administration could then provide funds to PP or a similar organizations to provide free or cheap birth control to the relatively small population of women insured by companies with waivers. I think that those funding mechanisms are already in place. 28 years ago when we were just starting out and did not yet have a family doctor my wife got cheap or free birth control from PP. Jim This answer is so simple. I wonder why it hasn't been viewed as an answer to the question.
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