Thoughts on Collectivists and Progressive Elitists from Notes to a Friend

In the reaction to President Trump's efforts to reduce the scope of government, some key characteristics of the collectivists, socialists, and Progressive Elitists are more openly clear than usual.

The socialists are going berserk.  Hysteria is a key component of socialism.  The madness of crowds, the imagined evils of business, the fears for the environment, the dislike for mankind and man's need to control his environment, the dislike for unequal accomplishment and award, fear of uncertainty, and the fear of being independent or of having to think independently.  Hysteria, alarmism, fear -- they all make the socialist want to trust his life and its care to government and to the collective.

Collectivists and Progressive Elitists are known to be less charitable than conservatives are and I am sure than libertarians are as well.  They look into their own souls and they see a lack of benevolence.  They are ashamed. They seek a cheap and easy way to convince themselves that they are benevolent.  By using the force of government, they can choose the causes of "benevolent" action and dilute the cost to themselves in time and money by making everyone contribute to their chosen causes.  Despite putting a gun to the head of others to achieve their goal, they convince themselves to an extent that they are now benevolent, but that conviction is most uncertain and uneasy.  It is difficult to completely evade the fact that they have done harm to some in order to fill the hole in their own souls.  They are cursed with at least the vague notion, that unlike them, the good man finds it easy and natural to view most other men in a benevolent manner because he sees introspectively his own good and noble soul and naturally tends to project that evaluation of what it is to be a man onto others.

Court Thwarts ObamaCare Attack on Religion

A judge, John L. Kane, of the U.S. District Court of Colorado issued an injunction against the rules of the Obama administration that the health care payment plans under ObamaCare must provide for contraceptives.  The Newland family owns the Colorado company Hercules Industries, which manufactures HVAC equipment and materials.  They are a Catholic family and their company has several hundred employees to which they will have to supply Obama administration approved health care payment plans.  They maintain that this violates their religious freedom and is in clear violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  The Jimmy Carter appointed judge ruled that the Newland family case was sufficiently good that the injunction against enforcement by Obama's administration should be granted until the courts make a ruling in the case.

In the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court ruling, the right of individuals in a corporate association to freedom of speech was maintained.  The Obama administration had claimed that freely associated people in commercial activities lost their freedom of speech.  The Obama administration is now saying that people associated in a commercial activity lose their freedom of conscience or religious freedom.  I do not think that claim will hold up any better with the Supreme Court than did their loss of another 1st Amendment right to free speech.

Read more at NetRightDaily.com: http://netrightdaily.com/2012/08/federal-judge-in-colorado-issues-first-injunction-against-hhs-mandate-expect-more-to-come/#ixzz22MfehyLP

To be clear, I have nothing whatsoever against the use of contraceptives.  But people who do should not be forced by government to violate their own moral values.  Even religious ideas that I believe are irrational must not be threatened by government, if we are to maintain freedom of conscience and the freedom to independent thought.