"When one provokes in a child a fear of the dark, one awakens in him a feeling of atavistic dread. Thus this child will be ruled all his life by this dread, whereas another child, who has been intelligently brought up, will be free of it."
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I've been thinking about what I wrote above concerning the SCOTUS decision - regarding Hobby Lobby - being a Reich wet dream and the possibility that their grand scheme may backfire. I really didn't pull those ideas out of my ass, others have been pondering this thought as well. Just maybe not in the same colorful language.
When one looks at the decision rendered by SCOTUS it has to be through the lens of the Reich's overall agenda - starting with a "reformed" interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause or an
outright repeal of the First Amendment, continuing with
the abolition of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending with
the implementation of dominionist ideology in order to govern by theocratic control. With the ruling in Hobby Lobby, the Reich will "now" be able to exempt themselves from any laws that they don’t like; that they find “religiously objectionable.”
Now here's where it gets a bit tricky. I have more or less insinuated on various occasions that nothing done within the ranks of the Reich are individually motivated.
Green's personally held religious convictions no matter how "sincere" they may be, have an agenda attached.
That agenda, "Hobby Lobby-related entities are some of the biggest sources of funding to the National Christian Charitable Foundation."
According to Eli Clifton, the National Christian Charitable Foundation then funds "a range of causes including climate science denial, charter schools, free market and pro-life advocacy." One of their biggest grant recipients, Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the bulwarks behind Arizona's failed SB 1062 legislation. And their mission, "'[making] certain that governmental laws cannot force people to violate their faith unless it has a compelling governmental interest–a balancing of interests that has been in federal law since 1993.'”
So what does this have to do with Hobby Lobby and the Reich's agenda. First
Steve Green has a
personal agenda.
One I have highlighted before.
That’s our goal, so that we can reintroduce this book to this nation. This nation is in danger because of its ignorance of what God has taught,,, Someday, I would argue, it should be mandated. (Starting about the 4:28 mark)
Book? Mandate? WTF you talking 'bout?
For those unaware, one of the goals of Mr. Steve "Hobby Lobby" Green, is to have a 4 year Bible curriculum, that they (the Green Scholars Initiative) write, be mandated in all public schools. Currently, the Mustang School Board (OK) approved Green's curriculum although it is still in draft.
I won't harp too much on the obvious (besides the legalities) but is this the "re-education" that
Richard Mourdock,
Tony Perkins,
Austin Miles and
Rick Santorum are talking about? In my mind, this curriculum is the
gateway to theocratic rule with "its primary intent the conquest of the land — of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ.”
Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ — to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest.
As
Leah Burton explains, "This notion of having to 'reclaim' something that they truly believe they lost is pervasive. In order to understand that they must convince you that we always were a Christian Nation and now it must be reclaimed by them in order to save our country from moral decline."
And what better way to indoctrinate the notion of Christian Nation
ideology, "Give me just one generation of youth, and I'll transform the
whole world." Sound familiar? It should,
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Steve Green said that, "We're working on 4 year public school bible
curriculum. The first year will be a summary of all three of those
section. It's history, it's impact and it's story. Then the next 3
years is going in depth in each of those -- a year for the history, a
year for the impact and a year for the story -- in some order,,,."
“We're working on 4 year public school bible curriculum. The first year
will be a summary of all three of those section. It's history, it's
impact and it's story. Then the next 3 years is going in depth in each
of those - a year for the history, a year for the impact and a year for
the story - in some order,,, The nation is in danger because of its
ignorance of what God has taught,,, If we don’t know it, our future
is going to be very scary,,, we really want
to get,,, be into the,,, high school level because we want to reach
as many as possible. Someday, I would argue, it should be mandated.
Here's a book that's impacted our world, unlike any other, and you're
not gonna teach it? There's,,, something wrong with that."
We all are well aware that there is a slippery-slope in regards to the decision in favor of Hobby Lobby's demands. Many writers are taking the high road of optimism. I on the other hand, I see things getting more tumultuous before they get better. And this is where the Reich's agenda comes into play (keeping in mind Green's Bible curriculum takes care of the implementation of the dominionist/theocratic ideology) . From Clifton's article cited above,
'Individuals and entities with religious objections to certain laws that protect others are seeking to use their religion to trump others,' Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, told Salon.
,,,
Center for Arizona Policy president Cathi Herrod heralded the Hobby Lobby lawsuit as a rare example of a 'business willing to step out in faith and literally risk it all to hold fast to their faith,,,'
Clifton then goes on to discuss how Green/Hobby Lobby is the poster child of the Reich by outlining some recent cases. Cases that where funded by or through the National Christian Charitable Foundation: McCullen v. Coakley, Elane Photography v. Willock, and the various "religious liberty" bills similar to SB 1062 that appeared in 13 other states.
Think of that as our starting point, testing the water of the SCOTUS if you will.
Remember what I said about the First Amendment? Here is what the
Hobby Lobby ruling has done by placing too much emphasis on the phrase "closely held."
The corporate plaintiffs' argument that they enjoy free exercise rights under the First Amendment and RFRA is in conflict with the text, history, and purpose of the First Amendment's free exercise guarantee. Amicus submits this brief to demonstrate that throughout our nation's history, corporations have been treated differently than individuals when it comes to fundamental, personal rights of conscience and human dignity. The First Amendment's free exercise guarantee has always been viewed as a purely personal liberty, guaranteeing the right of individuals to worship and exercise religion consistent with the dictates of their conscience. It has never been considered a right possessed by secular, for-profit corporations. Indeed, in the more than 200 years since the First Amendment's ratification, this Court has never held that secular, for-profit corporations may assert rights under the Free Exercise Clause.
,,,
The Hobby Lobby case, of course, deals in part with the question whether the federal [Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)] was or is intended to benefit the owners of large, for-profit, nonreligious corporations. Hobby Lobby's interpretation that it does would open the floodgates to exempt every business owner in the United States from the anti-discrimination laws, because there is no real middle ground. The forces behind Hobby Lobby have tried to argue that the Court should hold for Hobby Lobby because it is "closely held," but that would not limit the holding to a few instances, because over 90% of corporations are "closely held." If the Court sides with Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, it will open the Pandora's box of corporate law.
As for civil right, please
consider this in regards to the LGBTI community:
The Associated Press reported this weekend that social conservatives believe they have an opening to bring the state's religious freedom bill back in 2015. The legislation failed this spring; it passed the House, but stalled in the Senate after significant backlash from business groups. It would have prevented businesses from being sued if they refused to serve LGBT people for religious reasons.
"We are not going to let it die. We are very committed," Rev. Terry Fox, a leading Southern Baptist minister, told the AP. "The Body of Christ is a powerful movement when it comes together."
Gay rights advocates and social conservatives alike had watched the Hobby Lobby case to see how it might influence their cause. The Court's decision was decidedly narrow in its language, and some legal experts pointed TPM to Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurring opinion in the case as evidence that he would not support discrimination against LGBT people on religious freedom grounds.
But others warned on the day of the ruling that conservatives would likely take Hobby Lobby's win as their chance to resuscitate religious freedom legislation.
"The opinion really doesn't really resolve the question of whether for-profit businesses can seek religious exemptions from anti-discrimination law," Douglas NeJaime, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine, told TPM. "If I'm one of those groups, I'm going to pursue this."
Or this in regards to
women:
At a time when women make up more than half of the workforce, the ruling also further denies women equal rights in the workplace. “By setting women’s reproductive health care apart from all other forms of health care the Roberts’ Court has legally enshrined a new kind of gender-based inequality where only women are specifically subject to interference from their employer when it comes to personal medical choices,” continued Cotler. “We hope that the President will explore ways to ensure that women who will otherwise be denied reproductive health care by their employers are not left without coverage.”
And what about an individual employee's
religious beliefs:
The First Amendment's establishment clause prevents the government from requiring people to bear the burden of religions to which they do not belong and whose teachings they do not practice. To be sure, the U.S. government should accommodate religious beliefs and practices but only when doing so does not impose significant burdens on others. We accommodate, for example, those who object for religious reasons to sending their children to public school; no one is hurt if these families opt for a private school or home-schooling.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court consistently has condemned government accommodations that shift the cost of practicing a religion from those who believe it to others who don't. For example, the court struck down a state law that gave employees an absolute right not to work on their chosen Sabbath because of the burden it imposed on others. If most employees were Christian and took Sunday off, the statute would have forced the remaining, non-Christian employees to work every Sunday. This, the court said, violated the establishment clause: "The First Amendment ... gives no one the right to insist that in pursuit of their own interests, others must conform their conduct to his own religious necessities."
If the court grants these businesses the religious exemption they seek, it essentially would be directing the women who work for these businesses to bear the cost of the owners' anti-contraception religion.
And for shits-and-giggles, consider this bizarre case that is pending in regards to
individual employee's religious beliefs:
To explain, the Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby did more than simply allow religious business owners to ignore a federal rule requiring them to include contraception coverage in their employees’ health plans. It tore down decades of law protecting workers from bosses who, in the words of one Supreme Court decision, would “impose the employer’s religious faith on the employees.” Prior to Hobby Lobby, that same Court decision held that “[w]hen followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity.” Today, that is no longer the case.
,,,
Should Eden Foods prevail, however, it could shatter what may be the most fundamental assumption of any law protecting the free exercise of religion — religious exercise laws protect religious exercise, they don’t protect the right of an anti-government CEO to make a federal case out of every single thing the government does that he disagrees with.
Don't be lulled into believing that this "concern" for your religious liberty is mere coincidence. This is a well thought out and implemented plan beginning with the
take-over of the GOP in the 1990s by the Religious Right:
The formula they've concocted has been called the "15 per cent solution" by the Christian Coalition. Even in a well attended presidential election, only 15 per cent of eligible voters determine the outcome,,, "We don't have to worry about convincing a majority of Americans to agree with us," Guy Rodgers, the Christian Coalition's national field director declared at the 1991 Road to Victory conference. Most of them are staying home and watching Falcon Crest."
,,, "What the Christian right spends a lot of time doing," says Marc Wolin, a moderate Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress from San Francisco last year, "is going after obscure party posts. They try to control the party apparatus in each county. We have a lot to fear from these people. They want to set up a theocracy in America."
"They have acquired a very detailed and accurate understanding of how political parties are organized," says Craig Berkman, former chairman of the Republican Party in Oregon:
Parties are very susceptible to being taken over by ideologues because lower party offices have no appeal to the vast majority of our citizenry. Many precincts are represented by no one. If you decide all of a sudden because it's your Christian duty to become a precinct representative, you only need a few votes to get elected. Increasingly, they have the key say so on who will be a delegate at the national convention, and who will write the party platform and nominate the presidential candidate,,,
And if that candidate wins, guess what? We have a
SCOTUS filled with the likes of Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts.
Not a single justice appointed by either President Bill Clinton or President Barack Obama sided with Hobby Lobby. It was indeed only the justices appointed by socially conservative presidents who voted to keep women trapped in a bygone era. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, because both sides of the aisle have been saying for the last few election cycles how important it is with our aging Supremes to have someone in the position to nominate justices of an ideological bent they agree with, and the proof of that concept is in Citizens United, McCutcheon v. FEC, and now the Hobby Lobby case. These narrow decisions will have a lasting impact on American society, and they are decisions made by men who have not been in power for decades in some cases, a half decade in one case.
So for those of you who say apathetically that both parties are the same, I beg to differ. For those that say your vote doesn't count, yes it does; even if it is not for your ideal candidate.
