Two More Strong Arguments for the Separation of Church and State:

Michigan, a Blue state that stupidly elected a Red government, is learning just how stupid its voting choices were. The Michigan House of “Representatives” has passed a religious oppression “freedom” bill that pretty much gives the finger to our Constitutional rights as guaranteed by the Establishment Clause:

The Michigan House of Representatives, led by Speaker Jase Bolger (photo, above, left, with Gov. Rick Snyder,) just passed a bill that would allow discrimination to become sanctioned by the state. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, akin to one that made nationwide headlines in Arizona but was vetoed, appears to merely force the government to step aside if a person’s “deeply-held religious beliefs” mandate they act, or not act, in a certain manner.

Supporters of these bills claim they allow people of faith to exercise their religion without government interference, but in reality, they are trojan horses, allowing rampant discrimination under the guise of religious observance.

For example, under the Religious Freedom law, a pharmacist could refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control, or HIV medication. An emergency room physician or EMT could refuse service to a gay person in need of immediate treatment. A school teacher could refuse to mentor the children of a same-sex couple, and a DMV clerk could refuse to give a driver’s license to a person who is divorced. 

Fundagelicals who support such “religious freedom” laws claim that the Founders were all about having a theocracy, but that argument would wash a lot of hogs. The author of the First Amendment himself (Thomas Jefferson) said it himself, time and again:

Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.

And, of course, he was not alone:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; 

That bit being written by one Mr. Ames, wih help from James Madison and others. Add in the Supremacy Clause, and you can see that what Michigan’s Teapublican government is attempting to do is not just unconstitutional, it’s extraconstitutional. Perhaps you could say “treasonous and seditious” instead. Or, how about “un-American and illegal as all Hell”?

This writer has occasional need to travel to the Thumb State, and would prefer not to be left to die by, say, a Nazarene physician from Michigan who doesn’t like Presbyterians and refused to work on me based on his religious objection. That would be allowed if the law in question were to be enacted.

People, here we have two reasons for the Separation of Church and State: the law itself, and what would happen if we did not have that law to protect us. It is time to run these Teapubbies out of office on an elctoral rail. And that soon.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Repubs Impose the Nation’s First “Uterus Tax”. Most Eligible Michigan Voters are Responsible.

Yes, you read that correctly. In Michigan, women who are raped may not have an abortion if their rapist impregnates them. UNLESS they purchased what is being called “rape insurance” ahead of time. Result: women need to plan for being raped, and pay out of pocket in case they are someday raped. Your humble correspondent feels that “rape Insurance” is the wrong term. Really, it’s a tax on people who can become pregnant.

It is a tax on fertile women, levied upon their functioning uteri. A “Uterus Tax”.This is a 100% “republican” idea, pushed only by repubs, voted for only by repubs. Repubs have successfully imposed it upon women in Michigan, and plan to spread it across the nation.

America, you just voted to give the party behind such obscene ideas even more power than they already had. You voted for it, and you are getting what you deserve. Almost all eligible voters are to blame for such travesties as these.

Perhaps you didn’t vote? By not voting against the GOPee, you helped Repubs to win.

Perhaps you voted third-party? See above.

Perhaps you voted “Republican”? You stupid f***, you truly do DESERVE this. Hope it hurts, motherf***er.

The only people who are blameless are those who voted for the candidate with the best mathematical chance to beat a Teapubbie. Every other eligible voter within the locale involved in a Repub outrage bears some measure of responsibility for the outrage in question.

This is just the first example of what America asked for during this week’s election. Look forward to years more of such revolting results. And as you are subjected to these manifold obscenities over time, remember: America voted for this. America asked for this. America demanded this. AMERICA’S VOTERS MADE THIS HAPPEN. As the Politicos like to say, “elections have conesquences”.

Maybe we’ll learn our lesson. Maybe after we get f***ed so brutally, so often, so painfully, the country will learn to ignore the propaganda, respect the facts, and get out to vote in our best interests for a damned change. Maybe.

But for the foreseeable future, we will all pay, as a nation, for the sins of the majority of actual voters.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Republican” Congress critter Thinks Climate Science is Just Like Surgery.

So, how about we arrange for a climate scientist to perform surgery on GOPee Rep. Benishek? Perhaps a vasectomy, gall bladder resection, or a colostomy? Dan Benishek, you see, thinks that since he is a surgeon, that makes him a “scientist”. He says so:

Rep. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.) says his medical background qualifies him to reject the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that emissions from human activity are causing the planet to heat up. Pressed to address scientific findings to the contrary, Benishek claimed that no peer-reviewed climate change studies have been able “to prove that there’s man-made catastrophic global warming.”

As of 2013, 97 percent of more than 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science papers have concluded that human activity over the last century has contributed to global warming. Nearly 200 scientific organizations worldwide, including the American Medical Association, the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences also endorse the consensus position.

“Well, I am a scientist,” said Benishek, who worked as a general surgeon for nearly 30 years before running for Congress in 2011. “You know, I believe in peer-reviewed science. But, I don’t see any peer-reviewed science that proves there is man-made catastrophic climate change.”

So, “studying the sciences” makes you a scientist, eh, boyo? That makes this writer a scientist, one supposes. Wow, who knew a couple of college classes (in between drinking bouts) made the Cranky One a scientist? Dang, the lucrative career opportunities that were foregone, because of the silly belief that one had to spend time and effort over a period of years in a specialty before declaring one’s self the master thereof.

And by the same token, if a surgeon is somehow automatically imbued with the ability to do all sciences of all types after graduating medical school, surely the same applies to anyone who has “studied the sciences”, yes? So, chemists should be performing brain transplants, physicists could easily do organ transplants, and astronomers could whip out heart bypasses without breaking a sweat. Right, Danny Boy?

If the distinguished gentleman really thinks that his medical education and time in the O.R. is truly the equivalent of advanced degrees and years of work in climatology and related disciplines, then let him show it. Volunteer to go under the knife as oceanographers and geologists demostrate their “scientific studies” on his internal organs. Put some skin in the game, if you’ll pardon the pun.

After all, the risk is much smaller: only Benishek would be at risk in this fantasy scenario. But the whole f***ing planet is at risk if we accept his “scientific” judgment on the all-too-real phenomenon of global climate change.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Michigan’s Government Interferes with the Free Market

Mr. Blunt and Cranky has noticed an increased amount of government meddling in the private sector over the past few years: legislation that voids contracts, creates burdensome obstacles to business and labor, and generally makes it harder for we schmucks to make a buck. Today’s example:

Michigan’s Right-To –Work Law, in which the government takes it upon itself to trash, void and re-write contracts to which they are not signatories.Mark this well, my friends – private industries and their workforces negotiated and signed contracts that made good business sense. And now some yahoo legislators want to shred those agreements without the consent of the parties involved. Much money will be lost by the companies, their workers, suppliers, and consumers as a result of this un-asked for governmental power grab.

Note that, contrary to the usual media-produced stereotypes, the meddlesome bureaucrats in this case are “Republicans”. In a perversion of the free-market principles on which they used to base their principles, they are using government influence to rig the markets in favor of those who give them cash. And to Hell with the private sector and their legal rights.

Yes, there is government interference in the free market. But it isn’t always where you expect to find it.

Mr. B & C