But I think there's a twist here that she may have missed.
Barack Hussein Obama, our lovely Muslim president, is many things, but stupid is not one of them.
The HHS mandate is timed to come due right before the elections. It has always been timed to do this. Barack expended every bit of energy in his first year as President to make sure this happened. That's why ObamaCare had to be passed as soon as possible - he needed time to set up the HHS mandate. Sebelius did not pick the August 1st, 2012 mandate deadline out of thin air. The timing is crucial.
The mandate is designed to do two things:
1) Energize Barack's base right before the election,
2) Give the government the opportunity to take over every Catholic social service agency in the country.
If you think that idea expresses deep paranoia, I don't disagree.
That does not mean it is wrong.
Look, the man took over banks, he took over major players in the auto industry, for a lot less reason than this. Barack Hussein Obama is a fascist - he believes government should run everything.
Obamacare is designed to allow the government to take over the entire health care section of the economy. The last provision goes into effect in 2018. The Baby Boomers began turning 65 in 2011. They first wave is turning 72 by 2018. Mandatory Social Security retirement age is 70.
Obamacare takes over just as the Baby Boomers begin to enter hospitals and nursing care facilities all across America's fruited plain.
Think of all the people who will be thrilled to see Baby Boomers in body bags.
The Green movement is just socialism for tree-dwellers. Socialists, whether national socialists or international socialists, have no problem with Holocausts. You have to break a few eggs to make a workers' paradise. Eco-fascists have long said there are too many people on this planet. That's a common refrain of the Green movement. They are happy to start the depopulation by getting rid of the useless old people, the Baby Boomers whom they have always hated. Barack absolutely agrees that old people should be killed. He said as much.
Obama is a huge fan of Islam. The Catholic Church has always been the major opponent of Islam. It has also been a major opponent of socialism and fascism.
But it gets better.
Obamacare needs hospitals in order to implement socialist, Green and Islamist policies, especially death panels. Catholic hospitals treat one in six people in the United States. Catholic hospitals are unlikely to implement Barack's agenda. These hospitals generate far too much good will among the lower classes. That cannot be permitted to continue. It makes the government look bad. It makes Islam look bad. It makes the Greens look bad. These Catholics must be stopped.
So, the HHS mandate sets up a win-win for Obama. There are only three ways this can go: Catholic hospitals and social service agencies:
- Roll over and play Obama's game. That's obviously fine. In this scenario, they've been co-opted. Obama gets what he wants.
- Refuse to implement Obama's agenda, and voluntarily shut themselves down. That's fine. It takes them out of the equation, and as Ann points out, it allows Obama to paint Catholics as evil creatures who would rather watch someone die in extreme agony than discard their silly moral objections.
- Refuse to implement Obama's agenda and dare him to shut them down. That's fine. He won't shut them down, he'll take them over. Just like he did GM. Just like he did the banks. Only he won't give the hospitals back. They will, forever after, belong to the government. What a nice re-election present for Barack! A whole new line of hospitals all taken over in September or October, right before the election! And he will be taking them over for the people! He will be taking these wonderful hospitals away from the rich Catholic bishops! Barack will run them as they should be run, instead of according to stupid Catholic morality.
No.
He expects them to die.
Based on recent history, I think the most likely outcome is that if the law isn't changed, most "Catholic" institutions will roll over and comply with the law.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what happened in MA with RomneyCare. The law required Catholic Hospitals to administer abortifacient drugs to rape patients. Did the hospitals shut down? No. Did they refuse to comply and pay fines or go to jail? No. They complied with the law and administered abortifacient drugs. Of course they do so under the ridiculous fiction that they are only giving abortifacient drugs to women who aren't pregneant, but the reality is that there is no certain way to test for pregneancy at the point in time in which the drugs are administered.
So the reality is that, "Catholic" hospitals have been performing abortions in MA for years. Where is the outrage from the USCCB? Why haven't the MA bishops condemned the hospitals?
Most likely we will have a few John Fishers and Thomas Mores, but just as all Bishops but one rolled over for Henry VIII, the odds are most American bishops will roll for Obama or Romney.
Pax
This takeover of Catholic institutions happened in Mexico during the 1910-1930 period. Maybe our bishops need to require us to see "For The Greater Glory" to see how Catholics can and will fight back against Anti-Christian government tyranny. Viva Christo Rey!
ReplyDeleteObama is a black hat in the story, but to lay the blame soley at his feet is to ignore the truth of history.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1960s, US Catholic Bishops made a conscious decision to not only not oppose repeal of anti-contraception laws, but to encourage the repeal of anti-contraception laws.
How could they justify such an act? They did so by invoking a gravely mistaken notion of......religious liberty.
Catholic Bishops encouraged the availability of contraception.
Catholic Bishops and priests have refused to preach what the Church teaches on contraception.
Catholics have refused to live by what the Church teaches.
John F. Kennedy's election to the Presidency is still viewed by many as the high point of Church history in the US. His celebrated speech to southern Baptists (again invoking a false idea of religious liberty) is quite plainly heretical. Hooray for American Catholics...we elected a heretic President, that will teach those anti-Catholic bigots!
Among other things, JFK promised not to be swayed by Church teaching on....birth control!
Obama has a hodgepodge of Marxism, Islam, and Christianity for his intellectual foundation. Of course he's going to be wrong about a lot of things.
Catholics on the other hand have the revealed Truth of Christ found in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.
This whole mess is in very large part OUR fault.
Obama has done the Church a big favor. He got the Bishops to do something they'd refused to do for half a century: admit the Catholic Church is against contraception.
The problem is that they still won't admit WHY the Church is against contraception. They'd rather hide behind a very erroneous idea of religious liberty.
Pax
Excellent post, Andrew!
ReplyDeleteSadly, I have to agree. Our bishops and priests have a long way to go to bring us back in line with church teaching.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't disagree with your assessment of the administration, there is one thing you over look.
ReplyDeleteCatholic hospitals and other institutions have until August of 2013 - a full year following the rest of the country to "prepare" for the mandate.
Heritage Foundation says it goes into effect THIS August 1
ReplyDelete. So does National Review.
OSV says there is an extension for some entities to Feb 2013.