I was considering writing a post on the latest issue that the American right has been trying to club US President Barack Obama over the head with, namely the influx of unaccompanied minors arriving as refugees at the US border with Mexico, but for the most part I think Jon Stewart (for a transcript see here) and Stephen Colbert have covered it pretty well. For a more positive story about church groups working to help immigrant families, there's this article. Otherwise, all I'd like to add is to reiterate that the assertion that this influx is primarily due to Obama's immigration policies is clearly false, as not only has the US not seen a spike in similar arrivals from other Latin American countries, but Mexico and Costa Rica have also seen a large increase in refugee applications from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador (and it's not like Obama's supposed "amnesty" for immigrants would be attracting people to Costa Rica). Also, while this influx of children, with or without accompanying parents, may indeed strain resources at the border, it's not like the US as a whole is in any danger of being overwhelmed by an "invasion" of a few thousand children; it is, after all, a rich nation of 300 million people, so it can absorb these kids easily. Finally, it occurs to me that one could make a pretty dramatic film showing the journey of a child refugee escaping from a deadly environment in their home country and trying to reach the US despite all the obstacles in the way (including a not completely welcoming reception at the US border). Who knows, if it was done well it might actually improve ordinary Americans' attitudes toward undocumented immigrants, though it no doubt would have no effect on the die hard immigrant haters.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
World Events and Hobby Lobby
There's been a lot going on in the world that I'd like to comment on. There's the recent eruption of violence between Israel and Hamas. There's the continuing struggle in Iraq, which I have commented on only a few weeks ago, but which has seen a number of further developments, including the prospect of a Kurdish declaration of independence, which has received a mixed reaction (though I see no reason why nations shouldn't break up if that's what's best for their people). There's the continuing tension in the South China Sea due to China's recent power plays in the area, and there's also the protests in Hong Kong against the Chinese government's reluctance to allow real democracy. There have been disputed elections in Afghanistan. There is the little-mentioned but still continuing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar (Burma), which the always admirable Dalai Lama recently spoke out against.
But rather than talk about a complex, difficult issue or one I've discussed at length before, I'll instead stick to a brief rant on why the US Supreme Court's recent decision in the Hobby Lobby case is stupid and harmful on so many levels that it matches their money-equals-speech decisions for harmful stupidity (on the other hand, having skimmed through most of it, I can say that Ginsburg's dissent is very good). First of all, the idea that corporations can have religious beliefs is ludicrous. Anyone with even a minimal knowledge of law knows that there are two types of "legal persons", "natural persons" (i.e., human beings) and "juridical persons" (corporations, governments, and so on). The latter are also known as "artificial persons" or "fictitious persons", and for good reason:they don't eat, sleep, breath, relieve themselves, or have sex – and of course they don't go to church, temple, or mosque. Their owners may have religious beliefs, but the reason they form a corporation in the first place is to create a separation between the actions of the owners and the actions of the corporation, such that the former is not fully responsible for the latter (the so-called "corporate veil"). Furthermore, one person's exercise of their religious rights cannot be allowed to seriously infringe on the rights of others, as allowing corporations to not provide important health benefits to their employees would. This decision creates a horrible precedent that will open the door to all sorts of ludicrous claims for religious exemptions, despite the majority's nonsensical assertion that they only intended it to be a narrow decision (once you've stated that corporations can have religion, all kinds of nutty claims become possible). The majority also argued that, despite the blatantly obvious fact that the forms of contraception Hobby Lobby was complaining about did not actually cause abortions as they claimed, the courts had no right to pass judgment on the correctness of anyone's religious beliefs. This is dubious at best; when people refuse to take their children to the doctor because they claim religious objections to modern medicine, we don't let them get away with it, and if someone claims that their religion says black is white, up is down and people of strong faith can fly if they jump off tall buildings, I think a court would be perfectly in their rights to call that nonsense. Then there's the fact that if Hobby Lobby did have beliefs, it is obviously a hypocrite. Not only is Hobby Lobby still willing to pay for Viagra and vasectomies, it also invests in companies that make drugs used in actual abortions, and much of its stock is made in China, a country that not only actively encourages abortions but frequently coerces and even forces women to have them. This decision, like the one allowing unlimited spending by individuals on elections, only benefits a small number of people (in this case the owners of "closely-held" corporations) but harms far more. And finally, if there is one thing we do not need, it is more unwanted children in an already vastly overpopulated world, so any effort to make contraception harder to obtain is much more immoral than whatever these fools imagine it might be used for.
But rather than talk about a complex, difficult issue or one I've discussed at length before, I'll instead stick to a brief rant on why the US Supreme Court's recent decision in the Hobby Lobby case is stupid and harmful on so many levels that it matches their money-equals-speech decisions for harmful stupidity (on the other hand, having skimmed through most of it, I can say that Ginsburg's dissent is very good). First of all, the idea that corporations can have religious beliefs is ludicrous. Anyone with even a minimal knowledge of law knows that there are two types of "legal persons", "natural persons" (i.e., human beings) and "juridical persons" (corporations, governments, and so on). The latter are also known as "artificial persons" or "fictitious persons", and for good reason:they don't eat, sleep, breath, relieve themselves, or have sex – and of course they don't go to church, temple, or mosque. Their owners may have religious beliefs, but the reason they form a corporation in the first place is to create a separation between the actions of the owners and the actions of the corporation, such that the former is not fully responsible for the latter (the so-called "corporate veil"). Furthermore, one person's exercise of their religious rights cannot be allowed to seriously infringe on the rights of others, as allowing corporations to not provide important health benefits to their employees would. This decision creates a horrible precedent that will open the door to all sorts of ludicrous claims for religious exemptions, despite the majority's nonsensical assertion that they only intended it to be a narrow decision (once you've stated that corporations can have religion, all kinds of nutty claims become possible). The majority also argued that, despite the blatantly obvious fact that the forms of contraception Hobby Lobby was complaining about did not actually cause abortions as they claimed, the courts had no right to pass judgment on the correctness of anyone's religious beliefs. This is dubious at best; when people refuse to take their children to the doctor because they claim religious objections to modern medicine, we don't let them get away with it, and if someone claims that their religion says black is white, up is down and people of strong faith can fly if they jump off tall buildings, I think a court would be perfectly in their rights to call that nonsense. Then there's the fact that if Hobby Lobby did have beliefs, it is obviously a hypocrite. Not only is Hobby Lobby still willing to pay for Viagra and vasectomies, it also invests in companies that make drugs used in actual abortions, and much of its stock is made in China, a country that not only actively encourages abortions but frequently coerces and even forces women to have them. This decision, like the one allowing unlimited spending by individuals on elections, only benefits a small number of people (in this case the owners of "closely-held" corporations) but harms far more. And finally, if there is one thing we do not need, it is more unwanted children in an already vastly overpopulated world, so any effort to make contraception harder to obtain is much more immoral than whatever these fools imagine it might be used for.
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