Nuns, NSA and Guns

The Nuns, NSA and Guns
It would seem that an order of Nuns has filed a petition to not provide birth control in any form stating that to do so would be a violation of their conscience and religious beliefs. Supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a stay late Tuesday preventing the government from enforcing the so-called contraceptive mandate against the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged. Apparently she agreed with them and gave the Obama administration until Friday to appeal her ruling , which they did, arguing that they, the Nuns, could get out of it by certifying that they don't want to provide contraceptive coverage. In that case, it would be up to a third-party administrator to decide whether to provide it. The Nuns lawyer responded with a 17 page appeal suggesting that by having them sign the paper it essentially means that they are advocating that someone else “sins” on their behalf.


But it's not just about the Nuns. The administration has called for all catholic groups to be forced into providing contraception (and in effect any religious group or organization) even though it goes against their religious beliefs.
Some of you reading this may think well that's just to bad for them but the law is the law. It may be,that it now a part of the law,but it's not morally right to force people into either violating their conscience or being seriously fined. I will also remind you that if they can force you to violate your religious beliefs, in violation of the first amendment, whats going to stop them from forcing everyone to violate their consciences? Would you be OK if the government passed a law saying that you had to cheat on your spouse, even though most in our society would disagree and all holy writings say no? What gives the federal government the right to force you or your religious group to violate your conscience? Seems to me the constitution says they don't.


In NSA related news, the Obama administration has asked for the FISA court to allow for the continuation of the NSA programs of mass collecting all of our digital data.
“The Obama administration moved on two fronts Friday to preserve the National Security Agency's controversial spy programs, appealing a major ruling against the agency while winning permission from a secretive court to continue collecting Americans' phone records.” (AP)
To start with we shouldn't have secret courts, this isn't the Soviet Union or North Korea, but the fact that the Obama administration would request that such a program continue (I know that Bush started all this but he resides in Texas now not DC and is of no importance to this discussion) tells me just how little regard that they have for the constitution and the rule of law, not that this is their only violation but it is one of the more blatant examples. This request follows the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon in which he called the NSA program "almost-Orwellian technology" and challenged its constitutionality. In the judges words:
"I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary invasion' than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,Surely such a program infringes on 'that degree of privacy' that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Indeed I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who cautioned us to beware 'the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power,' would be aghast.”
I don't think I could have said it any better.
On a side note Senator Rand Paul ® of Kentucky will be filing a class action law suit against the Obama administration and the NSA for their violations of the 4^th amendment via the NSA programs. He reportedly has hundreds of thousands of people joining him in this action, Ill keep you posted as I hear more about it.



I guess this wouldn't be complete if we didn't add another back door effort to regulate gun ownership. The Obama administration on Friday proposed two new executive actions to make it easier for states to provide mental health information to the national background check system,both pertain to the ability of states to provide information about the mentally ill and those seeking mental health treatment to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
One proposal would formally give permission to states to submit "the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands," without having to worry about the privacy provisions in a law known as HIPAA.
If I believed that this was really about keeping guns out of the hands of truly insane people I would be all for it but the wording is a bit vague. First “those seeking mental health treatment.” Why would they want information just based on someone who is seeking help? Why would you put that in a “ Criminal background check?” Does the fact that I have sought out mental health treatment for PTSD, and I am likely to again in the future, make me some sort of criminal? I can understand that perhaps those that have been institutionalized might need extra scrutiny but by doing this you are going to make a whole lot of war vets very leery about seeking mental health for PTSD if there is even the slightest chance that they could loose their guns or the ability to buy them.
The second part “out of potentially dangerous hands” is also a bit vague. It wasn't that long ago when the politically correct thought was that “every man is a potential rapist” so using that argument would suggest that all of us gun owners have potentially dangerous hands, If having a Penis makes me a potential rapist, then having a gun surely must make me a potential killer. I'm no more dangerous then anyone else who legally owns and carry a firearm but who exactly determines that, which leads to my third point.


This would be in violation of the HIPPA law, giving your doctor the right to report you with no warning to you and , from what I can tell, you will have very little recourse once your mental health issues have been sent. So I go in to see my doctor because I am depressed or having more nightmares then normal, due to PTSD related issues, and he is anti gun, all he has to do is submit my information to this data base and it could stop my ability to own or posses a firearm. No crimes committed, no laws broken, yet my name would be entered into a criminal background data base all for seeking help.


One last note, totally unrelated to the above.


Thank you to my fellow Iraq vets for securing hell. Apparently our blood and tears were not payment enough and the minions of hell crawled back out of their caves and have returned. Never forget.