Michael Auslin:
In medieval times, “villeins” were a class of serfs who held the legal status of freemen in their dealings with all people except their lord (according to the American Heritage Dictionary). How close are we to becoming “villein citizens”? When faced with the capricious nature of the state, we fall back on what seems to be our freedom, yet increasingly our liberty is defined not by the will of the people but by government bureaucrats and elected officials. In our relations with our fellow citizens, and with private institutions, we continue to believe we are free, accorded rights by law and possessing a centuries-old apparatus based on custom to protect those rights, and act as such.
Yet in relations with the federal government, we are increasingly seen and treated as serfs, with no protections save what the lord at the time deigns to give us.
What rights are we worried about this time?
Let us be clear (to use a phrase currently in vogue), when the state gets to determine what counts as a religious organization, and when it determines what that organization must do, then we are not free men, but serfs to an increasingly confident master. That is the nub of the HHS-mandate ruling.
Oh, of course, the right of your employer to meddle in your medical affairs.
19 comments:
we are increasingly seen and treated as serfs, with no protections save what the lord at the time deigns to give us.
well, at least up until the Republicans control the government, again. Then it's all good and reasonable. Ignore those Patriot Act provisions. Look! Iran! BOOGAH BOOGAH! Be SCARED! Give up your Social Security and Medicare, or WE ALL DIE!
Hmm, I guess I should add more context, which once more reveals someone complaining about the fact that more Americans can get contraception paid for if they want it.
With freedom, more is less.
Once again with the projection because surely the typical right wing attitude is feudal, with them being the quality and the rest of us villeins, peons and untrustworthy varlets. This bozo is just flailing about looking for some not completely laughable debating point and, natch, failing. Only desperation would lead one of them to seize on such whiggish arguments about the authoritarian state.
I am finding it boggling that the wingnutteria is actually deciding that contraception is the hill they want to die on.
Awesome.
Look, I have a seventeen year old son. I suspect if you tell him that in a year, birth control will be illegal, he might actually kill you.
For some reason, "Lords" made me think of the "New Lords of the Purple Sage".
Which isn't actually their name.
Carry on.
~
when the state gets to determine what counts as a religious organization
Yet increasingly in our serfitude the state also gets to decide what counts as a charitable donation, a dependent, and income! Also, did serfs vote?
Thank goodness for organized religion - teh most democratic of all institutions. I mean, Teh Church would nevar evar dream of limiting your Freedoms or dictating what is and is not acceptable behaviour.
when the state gets to determine what counts as a religious organization
Yet increasingly in our serfitude the state also gets to decide what counts as a charitable donation, a dependent, and income! Also, did serfs vote?
and the state allows those organizations to keep all the money they rake in...oh, the hitlermanity!!!
How the sam-hell did that happen? I hate repeating myself!
Don't you worry, we have a janitorial staff of newly-purchased serfs.
Niiiice monkeys! Where can I purchase one of these monkeys? Clouds gets worn out sometimes and haz to do other stuff.
Wait--- you said "serfs". Can't say I want one of those. We have each other so that wraps up our serf quota. What I really want is a skilled hygienic monkey with a small appetite and the kind of ambition that will keep it in the library during its off hours.
Monkey butlers are nothing new around here.
Using google, there is an inexplicable mix of pics under "monkey butlers". It appears that some people think that monkey butlers are women with strange bathing suits.
I must be sure to specify when taking applications that I'm not interested in women with strange bathing suits.
I think the girlie pics might involve buttling, monkey-style.
See there's gotta be a variety of monkey butlers. Mikey's I see as kind of a Rochester, jaded, seen it all but capable in difficult situations. Wiley's would be more like the Sting bellboy in Quadrophenia, wiry, eager but slightly fiendish. Me, I want an orangutan Jeeves.
Slightly fiendish? Hmmm. Yeah.
Rochester rules!
I tend to express disappointment over the khakis and denim work shirts, but my monkey does just enough to keep the household running, and is just careful enough with his monkey turds, that much is to be forgiven.
I do NOT, however, know where he goes at night...
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