BREAKING: Judge halts state's morning-after pill rules (drug stores CAN opt out)

I did? How? Wasn't your question specifically about a state policy and whether I agreed with it or not?

You said the policy takes away the pharmacist's freedom. If the law takes away the pharmacist's freedom without due process, that's a 14th Amendment issue.

I find your statement that the due process would come after to be highly amusing. First, he's only going to get a day in court if he violates the law. The choice you gave earlier in the thread was to dispense the drugs or find another profession. Second, what's his defense going to be?

The question is not whether someone has a trial after breaking the law, the question is whether the law they broke was already an imposition on their basic human rights. Otherwise, we could allow a state to outlaw being an atheist, and then tell the federal government they can't say boo about it because all the atheists are going to get tried for their "crime."

Really, by your standard is there any right that a state couldn't take away from its citizens?

Apples and oranges.

I was talking about the aspect of being forced without actually being "required." She doesn't put out, she loses her job, but he's not holding her down and raping her, he's giving her a "choice." I noticed you didn't respond to any of my other examples, probably because they aren't easily dismissed with a wave of the faux federalism wand.

If a state can force a pharmacist to stock and dispense something he believes kills children, why wouldn't they be able to to force a sports car delership to hit a hybrid sales quota? Why wouldn't they be able to force a convenience store owner to sell porn? Why wouldn't they be able to force a Jewish deli owner to sell pulled pork and shellfish? After all, they aren't requiring those guys to do that stuff, and the businessmen would get their day in court, right?

But since you raise the issue, I'm sure Thompson would have opposed those laws too on federalism grounds.

You seem to have a vision of Fred Thompson as a guy who believes that federalism is about allowing people to violate Constitutional rights as long as those people don't work for the federal government. You are sadly mistaken. You are also sadly mistaken if you think the aim of the Framers when they formed the federalist system was to shackle the federal government until it couldn't protect the rights of citizens living anywhere outside of DC. Federalism was not established to protect or enable government abuses of the citizenry.

And when did you stop beating your wife? If you want your arguments and questions to be taken seriously drop the ad hominems.

That's crap. What I said is true. Some government dipstick says we're going to take freedom (by your own admission) away from your fellow man with no justification (again by your own admission) and you are complaining that he might get his freedom back, and saying that he shouldn't get it back because some black-robed potentate took away some other citizen's freedom. Instead he should choose between losing his livelihood and violating his faith.

Are you willing to wear the chains Washington State prescribed for the pharmacist, which you want the federal government to leave in place? Tell me, what do you do for a living?

I find your statement that the due process would come after to be highly amusing.

I see why. I thought I knew what it meant but I've read up on it now and see I was wrong. My prior interpretation was that basically due process was you were entitled to your day in court to challenge the legality of government action. Now I see that it refers to the legality itself. Of course there's not much practical difference.

If the law takes away the pharmacist's freedom without due process, that's a 14th Amendment issue.

With this new understanding, the meaning of the 14th is that government can't take away freedom unless it can lawfully take away freedom. (That not *exactly* a tautology but it is very close.) This says nothing specifically about what freedoms can be lawfully taken away. The courts have decided that it's lawful to tell landlords to rent to homosexuals even if they object on religious grounds. So obviously religious objections are not *in themselves* sufficient grounds to overrule regulations even though religious freedom is guaranteed in the Constitution. I don't see why the same reasoning wouldn't apply to the pharmacy regulation. So what *other* right is being traduced in this case?

Really, by your standard is there any right that a state couldn't take away from its citizens?

Yes, of course, there are many. The state cannot require me to belong to a church. It can't prevent me from running a newspaper and printing whatever political opinions I choose. I can petition the government to make new laws or change or repeal existing ones. Etc.

... why wouldn't they be able to to force a sports car delership to hit a hybrid sales quota? [etc.]

It would be dumb but I suppose they probably could. Of course it'd really be up to the courts. But I don't see any difference in principle between this and requiring average fleet MPG.

That is not what I said which is that Thompson opposes the HLA on federalism grounds (and also because he doesn't think abortion should be criminalized). To me this says that he values federalism more than the right to life. And by the same reasoning, I think he ought to oppose this judge's meddling or else the basis for it. Unless, that is, he values religious freedom so much more than the right to life. Is that your position?

That's crap.

It's not. here's what you said

Why are you so eager to place your fellow man in chains because some black-robed potentate screwed someone over on a slightly similar issue?

which is an attack on me, not my position (because I am not "so eager," not eager at all, as I've been at pains to explain), and therefore ad hominem.

So what *other* right is being traduced in this case?

You don't think businesses have a right to refuse service? You don't think they have a right to control their inventory?

Who says? What if they just say you can only (for example) be a pharmacist if you convert to being a United Methodist or a Reformed Jew, because then there's no chance your religion will interfere with your "responsibility" to dispense abortifacients? What if they tell you that freedom of the press is fine, but they'll shut down your newspaper unless you run a "global warming awareness" story every week, or give the state a page of free advertising each day? If they can force a person to carry and dispense a product that will kill small children, why couldn't they do those things? Who would stop them? In your world, the federal government would be "meddling" if they lifted a finger against such obvious abuses?

It would be dumb but I suppose they probably could. Of course it'd really be up to the courts. But I don't see any difference in principle between this and requiring average fleet MPG.

The government has no business screwing with fleet MPG either, but that's already water under the bridge. The reason we lose these freedoms is because somebody says, "Well, they're raping that guy even harder than they raped that first guy, but they've got precedent on their side, so I guess thay can rape us all. Close your eyes and think of England."

Unless, that is, he values religious freedom so much more than the right to life. Is that your position?

You're asking a false question. Your question is based on the idea that this ruling is a violation of federalism. That is patently untrue. The state has violated the victim's religious and property rights and the federal government had every right to intervene.

Why didn't you answer my question? Let's see if you're willing to wear the chains Washington State has put on your fellow man. What do you do for a living?

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