Hobby Lobby Ruling Falls Short

As far as it went, the Supreme Court generally got it right in the Hobby Lobby-Obamacare-contraception case. Unfortunately it didn’t go nearly far enough.

The court ruled that “closely held corporations” whose owners have religious convictions against contraceptives cannot be forced to pay for employee coverage for those products.

I wish the court could have said this instead: (1) No one has a natural right to force other people to pay for her (or his) contraception or anything else (with or without the government’s help), and by logical extension, (2) everyone has a right to refuse to pay if asked.

For people about to celebrate the Fourth of July, these principles ought to be, well, self-evident.

Here's the rest.

This Week's Scribblings

TGIF: "Dump the Contraception Mandate and All the Rest"
Op-ed: "Let's Make 2014 the Year of Freedom for Low-Wage Workers"

Where’s the Win for Freedom?

Randy Barnett, Steve Chapman, and no doubt others are actually celebrating last week’s ruling on Obamacare. Why? Because Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion that the government can’t force us to buy health insurance under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. Thanks goodness, Barnett, et al. say, that the Court did not allow a dangerous expansion of the commerce power that would permit the government to force us to buy things.

Does that mean the insurance mandate fell? Oh no. The Court found another (and long-established) ground for the mandate: the taxing power. Anything the government can do through the Commerce Clause it can do through taxation.

So is June 28 really to be a great libertarian holiday from now on? Not for me. I’ll be too busy actually promoting individual freedom.

Question

What's there to say about a person who can't tell the difference between contraception and conscience?

Political Illogic

This is what passes for sophisticated argument in politics and the news media:

1. A (contraception, whatever) is desirable;
2. A costs money;
3. Therefore compulsory financing of A is both proper and imperative (either through taxation or an off-budget device such as “insurance”);
4. Opposition to 3 necessarily signals not only a denial of the desirability of A but also a wish to forbid the use of A.

Op-ed: Kill the Insurance Mandate

Everyone who believes he lives in a free country should be asking himself, By what authority do the Congress and the president force me to buy insurance?

My latest FFF op-ed is here.