Thursday, March 22, 2012
See For Yourself
See For Yourself by MSW. My response: I suspect we would pay more attention to what the bishops say on these issues, including when we agree, if they would spend more time listening to us before speaking for the entire Church. Some of us have expertise in these matters that is greater than what they (or their staffs) have.
Warning for Dems in Pew Survey
Warning for Dems in Pew Survey by MSW
This has as much to do with lies by the Susan B. Anthony fund on the effects of health care reform as it does any action having to do with contraception. This poll as limited usefullness unless there is a crosstab having to do with 2008 voting preferences. If the change in the belief on Obama and hostility to religion is all among McCain voters who watch FoxNews, then it says more about the success of that meme rather than the actions of the administration on women's health.
I'm sure if you phrased the question on whether religous employers should have the right to get between a woman and her doctor, you would get a very different answer. Indeed, the two facts that apologists for the bishops ignore are that contraceptive coverage has been required since December 2000 and that it was not feminists in HHS that decided it should be covered with no copay, but the National Institutes of Medicine.
This has as much to do with lies by the Susan B. Anthony fund on the effects of health care reform as it does any action having to do with contraception. This poll as limited usefullness unless there is a crosstab having to do with 2008 voting preferences. If the change in the belief on Obama and hostility to religion is all among McCain voters who watch FoxNews, then it says more about the success of that meme rather than the actions of the administration on women's health.
I'm sure if you phrased the question on whether religous employers should have the right to get between a woman and her doctor, you would get a very different answer. Indeed, the two facts that apologists for the bishops ignore are that contraceptive coverage has been required since December 2000 and that it was not feminists in HHS that decided it should be covered with no copay, but the National Institutes of Medicine.
The Ryan Budget: The Law of the Jungle
The Ryan Budget: The Law of the Jungle by MSW
My comments: Libertarianism is no cancer. Indeed, the hierarchy of the Church could use a decent respect for liberty and tolerance, which they seem to be deficient in, even as they call for respect of their conscience rights while ignoring the conscience rights of church employees (or, for that matter, members). Speaking in our name on issues in the public square while being tone deaf to our wishes is not sufficient for us to follow their lead, so most of us don't.
Catholic Randians (and there are more libertarians than Randians) like to think that charity is a private matter, which it is. What they are tone deaf to is the demand for justice, which is a matter for the state. It includes the responsibility to either require a living wage or, if this would be a hardship to most employers, to have the state backstop the ability to pay one with tax subsidies for families. Randians in the Church can be forgiven for not highlighting this, as the Church is notorious for underpaying its staff. Indeed, there would be no birth control issue if every pregnancy were met with a $12,000 a year salary boost (after taxes and tax benefits are factored in).
The GOP is just tone deaf enough to pass the Ryan Budget, even if it is political suicide. Ryan's own district won't like it, so his career in Congress won't be long if he has any kind of decent opponent. This is not a negotiating document or a political document, its a fundraising document.
If the GOP were willing to negotiate, premium support actually works in the context of health care reform, as long as they drop the pipe dream of repeal. It does not work outside of it, where seniors can be excluded. It is a key part of Social Insurance, which is necessary in the interests of justice to hold seniors and their families harmless for accidents of birth and death. Large families or families where the parents have died are no more entitled to a windfall on this front than small families or families with living seniors are responsible for bearing the cost of their support and care. Social insurance gives every family an equal standard of living in relation to the responsibility to care for their elders. Providing the emotional care is bad enough without having the prospect of bankruptcy going with it. Of course, a free market might have families with seniors demand the ability to cover them on the family insurance policy, which means everyone still pays for the care of seniors, but unevenly.
The Church's opposition on assisted suicide would be strengthened, no weakened, if it would return to its tolerance of letting people die when it is there time, essentially passive euthenasia. The tribalist buy-in to the pro-life's fetish for preserving all life, even when hopeless, needs to stop, as is the implicit acceptance that people die early when you ease their pain aggressively. The purpose of suffering is personal epiphany, not some egotistic desire to appease an angry God with self-torture.
The Medicaid changes are a throw-away. Reagan's New Federalism, as well as several tax reform proposals actually have Medicaid being entirely federalized in exchnage for dropping tax deductions for state tax payments. Droppping these deductions in tax reform AND block granting Medicaid will be a non-starter for most governors, even Republicans.
To be fair to Ryan, the responsibility to close loopholes rests with the Ways and Means Committee, not the Budget Committee. I don't see him instructing Ways and Means to do tax reform that drops all deductions, which is what it would take to get this done - however the 25% rate that Ryan wants needs to be replaced with a 27% rate, unless you enact a VAT on top of it and drop special rates for dividends and capital gains. Then you can go lower, but probably need to drop the 10% rate in doing so and take most families off the tax rolls.
Not cutting defense is a non-starter, although merely going with the cuts the Pentagon proposed might be middle ground. Budget balance will never be the goal with either party, just structural balance until the nations which buy our debt complain.
My comments: Libertarianism is no cancer. Indeed, the hierarchy of the Church could use a decent respect for liberty and tolerance, which they seem to be deficient in, even as they call for respect of their conscience rights while ignoring the conscience rights of church employees (or, for that matter, members). Speaking in our name on issues in the public square while being tone deaf to our wishes is not sufficient for us to follow their lead, so most of us don't.
Catholic Randians (and there are more libertarians than Randians) like to think that charity is a private matter, which it is. What they are tone deaf to is the demand for justice, which is a matter for the state. It includes the responsibility to either require a living wage or, if this would be a hardship to most employers, to have the state backstop the ability to pay one with tax subsidies for families. Randians in the Church can be forgiven for not highlighting this, as the Church is notorious for underpaying its staff. Indeed, there would be no birth control issue if every pregnancy were met with a $12,000 a year salary boost (after taxes and tax benefits are factored in).
The GOP is just tone deaf enough to pass the Ryan Budget, even if it is political suicide. Ryan's own district won't like it, so his career in Congress won't be long if he has any kind of decent opponent. This is not a negotiating document or a political document, its a fundraising document.
If the GOP were willing to negotiate, premium support actually works in the context of health care reform, as long as they drop the pipe dream of repeal. It does not work outside of it, where seniors can be excluded. It is a key part of Social Insurance, which is necessary in the interests of justice to hold seniors and their families harmless for accidents of birth and death. Large families or families where the parents have died are no more entitled to a windfall on this front than small families or families with living seniors are responsible for bearing the cost of their support and care. Social insurance gives every family an equal standard of living in relation to the responsibility to care for their elders. Providing the emotional care is bad enough without having the prospect of bankruptcy going with it. Of course, a free market might have families with seniors demand the ability to cover them on the family insurance policy, which means everyone still pays for the care of seniors, but unevenly.
The Church's opposition on assisted suicide would be strengthened, no weakened, if it would return to its tolerance of letting people die when it is there time, essentially passive euthenasia. The tribalist buy-in to the pro-life's fetish for preserving all life, even when hopeless, needs to stop, as is the implicit acceptance that people die early when you ease their pain aggressively. The purpose of suffering is personal epiphany, not some egotistic desire to appease an angry God with self-torture.
The Medicaid changes are a throw-away. Reagan's New Federalism, as well as several tax reform proposals actually have Medicaid being entirely federalized in exchnage for dropping tax deductions for state tax payments. Droppping these deductions in tax reform AND block granting Medicaid will be a non-starter for most governors, even Republicans.
To be fair to Ryan, the responsibility to close loopholes rests with the Ways and Means Committee, not the Budget Committee. I don't see him instructing Ways and Means to do tax reform that drops all deductions, which is what it would take to get this done - however the 25% rate that Ryan wants needs to be replaced with a 27% rate, unless you enact a VAT on top of it and drop special rates for dividends and capital gains. Then you can go lower, but probably need to drop the 10% rate in doing so and take most families off the tax rolls.
Not cutting defense is a non-starter, although merely going with the cuts the Pentagon proposed might be middle ground. Budget balance will never be the goal with either party, just structural balance until the nations which buy our debt complain.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Cohn: "Stunning Immorality of Ryan Budget"
Cohn: "Stunning Immorality of Ryan Budget" by MSW
My take on Ryan:
This is just for show. With the Budget Control Act, his committee is largely irrelevant - as it should be. His Medicaid proposals are a non-starter, because they would hurt current seniors who need nursing home care and the Tea Party would never allow them to go through, nor would AARP. The Medicare proposals he lays out are incoherent, because they include repealing Obamacare. The only way premiu...um support works is if both mandates and pre-existing condition reforms in the law remain in place.
The only tax change that will pass is a grand bargain at 28%, not 25%. That 3% is the difference between structural balance and ever expanding debt. Obama holds all the cards, since he can get the same level of revenue, and then some, by vetoing any extension of the Bush tax cuts. If Grover Norquist and the leadership don't get the inevitability of more revenue, the donors who will be paying it certainly do, provided they believe that Obama won't geek on extending the Bush cuts.
The conflict is all for electoral show. Once all the congressional primaries have been held, a deal will be reached because GOP donors want it that way, unless they already know Obama will geek on extending temporary tax cuts (in which case we might as well all vote for Romney).
My take on Ryan:
This is just for show. With the Budget Control Act, his committee is largely irrelevant - as it should be. His Medicaid proposals are a non-starter, because they would hurt current seniors who need nursing home care and the Tea Party would never allow them to go through, nor would AARP. The Medicare proposals he lays out are incoherent, because they include repealing Obamacare. The only way premiu...um support works is if both mandates and pre-existing condition reforms in the law remain in place.
The only tax change that will pass is a grand bargain at 28%, not 25%. That 3% is the difference between structural balance and ever expanding debt. Obama holds all the cards, since he can get the same level of revenue, and then some, by vetoing any extension of the Bush tax cuts. If Grover Norquist and the leadership don't get the inevitability of more revenue, the donors who will be paying it certainly do, provided they believe that Obama won't geek on extending the Bush cuts.
The conflict is all for electoral show. Once all the congressional primaries have been held, a deal will be reached because GOP donors want it that way, unless they already know Obama will geek on extending temporary tax cuts (in which case we might as well all vote for Romney).
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Bishop urges change in 'church teaching concerning all sexual relationships'
Bishop urges change in 'church teaching concerning all sexual relationships'
The bishop is absolutely correct that a rethinking is necessary. The question of first princples is not just about sex, but whether all morality is for God or for man. Was the sacrifice of Jesus a blood offering to an angry God or a vision quest by a loving God to feel human brokenness? When Jesus said that his yoke is easy and his burden light, was he telling the truth? If so, how can we believe that every sexual sin is mortal - especially when venial sin's actual meaning is "sins of Venus" - which implies sex?
While a total rethinking of all sexual morality is required, which would include a reexamination of birth control (and how using birth control is no different procreatively than sex after menopause), rethinking whether homosexual sex is licit within the bounds of a monogamous sacramental relationship need not involve such rethinking, as blessing such relationships is affirming and well within the scriptural teaching that when two become one in marriage, they leave their families and cleave to their spouse. This is as true for gays as it is for straights, especially when a gay spouse faces uncooperative family members in trying to assume their God-given role as next of kin in hospital care.
The bishop is absolutely correct that a rethinking is necessary. The question of first princples is not just about sex, but whether all morality is for God or for man. Was the sacrifice of Jesus a blood offering to an angry God or a vision quest by a loving God to feel human brokenness? When Jesus said that his yoke is easy and his burden light, was he telling the truth? If so, how can we believe that every sexual sin is mortal - especially when venial sin's actual meaning is "sins of Venus" - which implies sex?
While a total rethinking of all sexual morality is required, which would include a reexamination of birth control (and how using birth control is no different procreatively than sex after menopause), rethinking whether homosexual sex is licit within the bounds of a monogamous sacramental relationship need not involve such rethinking, as blessing such relationships is affirming and well within the scriptural teaching that when two become one in marriage, they leave their families and cleave to their spouse. This is as true for gays as it is for straights, especially when a gay spouse faces uncooperative family members in trying to assume their God-given role as next of kin in hospital care.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Dillon on Contraceptives & Expectations
Dillon on Contraceptives & Expectations by MSW at NCR
Going back to Ozzie and Harriet is not what society needs. She does raise an interesting point, however, on the empowerment of women to work or not work - or if they have the better job to allow their spouses to stay home and care for the children. As younger women are now better educated than women, this is increasingly an option, provided women are socialized to accept a non-working spouse (even after the kids go to school - golf anyone?)
Rather than stepping between women and the coverage that their doctors say is essential to them, which sometimes are necessary for reasons other than birth regulation, it should, as an employer, pay women a living wage (or their husbands) - defined as a $12,000 raise whenever a child is born - or even on the way so that the family can relocate to bigger housing before the blessed event occurs. If Catholic Charities, Parishes, Catholic Schools and Catholic Hospitals all adopted that policy, none of their employees would opt for contraception for economic reasons. Of course, conservatives are likely to quickly object, saying that individuals should be responsible for their child bearing decisions. Our task, and indeed the task of Catholic theologicans, should be to say in no uncertain terms that they can't have it both ways.
The Church should provide an example of living wage policy. Sadly, it is not the case. They should also use the efforts they are wasting on contraception (even though no one is listening) to advocate for a large enough child tax credit so that economics is not a factor in childbearing - or even so that it actually encourages it. I would even go further and advocate the excommunication of Catholic employers who don't pay such a living wage, since they are essentially participating in the decision to abort or use contraception. Of course to do that, the Church must offer such a wage and make sure its vendors do the same thing.
Sadly, the reason that this is still an issue is that Catholic theologians have dropped the ball. Natural science tells us that until gastrulation, the development of the blastocyst is entirely controlled by the DNA of the mother, even though the paternal DNA is present. It is not until gastrulation that paternal DNA interacts with maternal DNA in development and that bad matches or incomplete DNA is weeded out and the whole of the genetic code controls the development of the child. In classical ethics, the higher follows the lower - which means the actions of the physical shows what is happening on the spiritual level. This seems to indicate that if the maternal DNA is in charge, it is the mother's life energy that is in control of development before gastrulation.
This brings up the point of where the soul resides. Neuroscience has shown it does not reside in consciousness. Consciousness is an effect of thought, not its cause. If there is a soul (and because I believe in the resurrection as witnessed by the apostles, so I do), it resides not in the brain only but in every cell of the body, including the egg. It has to be the energy that stops entropy from acting on the body and that energy must begin at gastrulation, but cannot exist before. It is no longer acceptable to allow the argument to exist that ensoulment cannot occur until the brain can receive a soul - since neuroscience proves this is not the case. Either there is no soul or it is in every cell. Theologians should champion an "ever cell" theory of ensoulment - even if doing so requires that they concede that Humanae Vitae was in error on this issue. The reason they can't bring them selves to do that is a question for sociology, not theology.
Going back to Ozzie and Harriet is not what society needs. She does raise an interesting point, however, on the empowerment of women to work or not work - or if they have the better job to allow their spouses to stay home and care for the children. As younger women are now better educated than women, this is increasingly an option, provided women are socialized to accept a non-working spouse (even after the kids go to school - golf anyone?)
Rather than stepping between women and the coverage that their doctors say is essential to them, which sometimes are necessary for reasons other than birth regulation, it should, as an employer, pay women a living wage (or their husbands) - defined as a $12,000 raise whenever a child is born - or even on the way so that the family can relocate to bigger housing before the blessed event occurs. If Catholic Charities, Parishes, Catholic Schools and Catholic Hospitals all adopted that policy, none of their employees would opt for contraception for economic reasons. Of course, conservatives are likely to quickly object, saying that individuals should be responsible for their child bearing decisions. Our task, and indeed the task of Catholic theologicans, should be to say in no uncertain terms that they can't have it both ways.
The Church should provide an example of living wage policy. Sadly, it is not the case. They should also use the efforts they are wasting on contraception (even though no one is listening) to advocate for a large enough child tax credit so that economics is not a factor in childbearing - or even so that it actually encourages it. I would even go further and advocate the excommunication of Catholic employers who don't pay such a living wage, since they are essentially participating in the decision to abort or use contraception. Of course to do that, the Church must offer such a wage and make sure its vendors do the same thing.
Sadly, the reason that this is still an issue is that Catholic theologians have dropped the ball. Natural science tells us that until gastrulation, the development of the blastocyst is entirely controlled by the DNA of the mother, even though the paternal DNA is present. It is not until gastrulation that paternal DNA interacts with maternal DNA in development and that bad matches or incomplete DNA is weeded out and the whole of the genetic code controls the development of the child. In classical ethics, the higher follows the lower - which means the actions of the physical shows what is happening on the spiritual level. This seems to indicate that if the maternal DNA is in charge, it is the mother's life energy that is in control of development before gastrulation.
This brings up the point of where the soul resides. Neuroscience has shown it does not reside in consciousness. Consciousness is an effect of thought, not its cause. If there is a soul (and because I believe in the resurrection as witnessed by the apostles, so I do), it resides not in the brain only but in every cell of the body, including the egg. It has to be the energy that stops entropy from acting on the body and that energy must begin at gastrulation, but cannot exist before. It is no longer acceptable to allow the argument to exist that ensoulment cannot occur until the brain can receive a soul - since neuroscience proves this is not the case. Either there is no soul or it is in every cell. Theologians should champion an "ever cell" theory of ensoulment - even if doing so requires that they concede that Humanae Vitae was in error on this issue. The reason they can't bring them selves to do that is a question for sociology, not theology.
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