As you may know, Foster Friess, a generous financial supporter to Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign, appeared on Andrea Mitchell’s MSNBC show and made a widely-reported comment on birth control.
Here’s the exchange between Friess and Mitchell:
Mitchell: Do you have any concerns about some of his comments on social issues, contraception, about women in combat, and whether that would hurt his general election campaign would he be the nominee?
Friess: I get such a chuckle when these things come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex. I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are. And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it's such inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly.
Mitchell: Excuse me, I'm just trying to catch my breath from that, Mr. Friess, frankly.
That’s all I could find. Perhaps there’s a longer transcript available somewhere; if so, I’d like to read it. But that’s the exchange that’s being reported: my link is to the Wall Street Journal; the Journal’s link is to TalkingPointsMemo.
This past Sunday, David Gregory brought this comment up on Meet The Press; Andrea Mitchell was one of the panelists on the show. Here’s Gregory’s description of what Friess said (emphasis mine):
MR. GREGORY: This aspirin business, Foster Friess, who's a Santorum supporter, said to you on your program that the best means of birth control is putting a Bayer aspirin between your legs, which is kind of an old joke.
Here’s Mitchell correcting Gregory’s mischaracterization:
MS. MITCHELL: Yes.
Just for the record.
*****
Reading:
Re: Re: Bad Jokes - Michael Potemra, writing at The Corner. I like this post partly because Potemra is very clear on the problems with what Friess said, which is refreshing coming from someone writing from the Right.
I like this post even more because Potemra sees Friess as a living, breathing person, with all the complexity that entails, all the potential for missteps, all the potential for opening mouth and inserting foot, all the potential for reconsideration and apology. I’m very tired of people attributing earth-shattering - and always horrifying - significance to every word uttered by those with whom they disagree. It’s confirmation bias on steroids. People aren’t just cherry-picking facts to fit their preconceptions; they’re hypervigilant for incidents they can use to prove how terrible their opponents are. If someone who disagrees with them politically says a thousand decent things and one questionable one, they seize on the latter to prove that those who disagree with them are monsters.
Robert F. Kennedy said:
What is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.
It seems to me that our country - at least the part of it that pontificates about politics - today contains very few people who aren’t extremists. This state of affairs is scary; bodes ill for the future of the nation; and raises serious questions about the viability of our form of government. It’s also incredibly tiresome.
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It seems to me that our country - at least the part of it that pontificates about politics - today contains very few people who aren’t extremists. This state of affairs is scary; bodes ill for the future of the nation; and raises serious questions about the viability of our form of government. It’s also incredibly tiresome.
I think people have confused intensity with conviction, which is odd since when I see someone who is unable to distance themselves at least somewhat from how they feel about an issue, I generally suspect doubt rather than certainty.
There is a similar conflation of insensitivity with conviction (i.e., if you are unable to see/care how your words seem to those you disagree with, you must be a Persun of Integrity). There's a difference between political correctness and discretion/situational awareness, but I think that got lost somewhere along the line.
I'm not sure Gregory's summary was a mischaracterization of Friess' joke. The point of the move with the aspirin was to engage in birth control (also) by not engaging in sex. And it put a shared onus on the man, albeit the woman in those times was expected, for good or ill, to make the first move of saying, "No:" he was expected to understand that, as a phrase not too much later in vogue had it, "No means no," and he was expected to respect that.
From the link: Notice that there is no male moral agent within the joke:.... So--every phrase, every utterance, must have balance. How very politically correct.
And The joke was basically reductionist: reducing chastity to mere sex prevention. Nah. Speaking as someone who lived through the era when such jokes were in vogue, Potemra only tells half the story with his mind-reading interpretation. Chastity was--and is, AFAIK--not "mere sex prevention." It included that, in the context of "wait until marriage."
And These are among the reasons the joke was (properly, in my view) understood as offensive by many people. I am heartened that Friess recognizes this. I'm not sure he recognized this at all--or needed to. He's just a good and honorable man who recognized the fact of offense, not the reason for it (there being none, at bottom), and apologized.
Eric Hines
What do you think, Elise, about this business of the state forcing someone -- employers, insurance companies, the Catholic Church, whoever -- to pay for free birth control? It strikes me as most dangerous for the feminist supporters of the movement; but I'd like to tell you why I think so, and hear your input into it.
The reason anyone has a "right to contraception" at all in the United States -- in the practical, legal sense of having an enforcable right -- is Griswold v. Connecticut. Now Griswold held that states could not deny married couples the right to buy contraception because it violated their right to privacy.
When the state forces someone else to pay for that contraception, though, there is no longer a claim to privacy in the same sense. A decision is always the business of the person paying the bill.
It seems to me that this move by HHS does not endanger Roe or other follow-on cases, because it does not alter the concept of a right to privacy. It does, though, eliminate the idea that contraception (at least if obtained "for free" through work-related insurance) is a private decision. If the state succeeds in forcing the Church to pay, the Church can always absolve itself; but it has become a party with legal standing in the question of what kinds of contraception are appropriate.
For some reason my beloved liberal feminist friends -- of whom I have quite a few -- are interpreting Catholic opposition to this move as an attempt to oppress them, or women generally. It seems to me that the Church just wants to be left out of the business of contraception, and that a good feminist might reasonably want the very same thing for the Church.
I don't know enough law to speak about this intelligently, Grim. My gut level feeling is that the issue you raise will not be considered in a legal sense. That is, the provision of the ability to obtain birth control free of charge will not be considered to impact on the private nature of the decision to actually obtain it. The right to privacy pertains to the purchase and use of contraception not to the question of who pays for it.
I think the argument would be that just because my employer pays for my health care, that doesn't violate my right to privacy in medical matters; my employer has no right to see my medical records or be updated by my doctors. Thus, similarly, my right to privacy in obtaining contraception isn't impacted by the issue of who pays for it. I don’t know if that holds water legally but it seems to me a possible work-around.
(Hmm. I had a lot to say for someone who can't speak intelligently on the topic.)
As for this:
For some reason my beloved liberal feminist friends -- of whom I have quite a few -- are interpreting Catholic opposition to this move as an attempt to oppress them, or women generally.
I find this whole issue so upsetting I am unable to discuss it with any semblance of civility. This seems to me to be such a clear-cut First Amendment issue that I am unable to understand how anyone can not see it as such. "I want my birth control pills and I don't care if I have to gut the Constitution to get them" is a position I find abhorrent. (I view “I want my anything and I don’t care if I have to gut the Contitution to get it” in the same light.)
It seems to me that the Church just wants to be left out of the business of contraception, and that a good feminist might reasonably want the very same thing for the Church.
A smart feminist would. But history clearly teaches us that there are a lot of stupid people in the world; that those who think they have the upper hand rarely exercise self-restraint even when an ounce of foresight would dictate they do so; and that when principle collides with self-interest, principle often goes to the wall.
Like I said: no semblance of civility.
When the state forces someone else to pay for that contraception, though, there is no longer a claim to privacy in the same sense. A decision is always the business of the person paying the bill.
In fact, that privacy regarding purchase of contraception is destroyed by the Obama rule: the whole world knows, now, that Elise--and I (leave the rumor alone)--are buying contraception: we're buying health insurance.
As to the decision being the business of the person paying the bill: not any more. See Mead v Holder.
...the provision of the ability to obtain birth control free of charge will not be considered to impact on the private nature of the decision to actually obtain it.
Extend this into liability cases. You got knocked up: you cannot (as well as may not) claim benefits accruing from an accidental nature of that pregnancy: you paid for those contraceptives, Madam; it's your fault, your decision, that you chose not to use them. Your pregnancy was not accidental; it was deliberate.
OT (because I'm taking these as I come to them): I find this whole issue so upsetting I am unable to discuss it with any semblance of civility.
Be as uncivil as you must. You're among friends here (and it's your blog, in any event), and any discussion has to start somewhere. Civility often will follow clarity.
"I want my birth control pills and I don't care if I have to gut the Constitution to get them"
Aside from agreeing with you on the...suboptimality...of this argument, it has already failed in another, closely analogous, milieu. The broadcast networks were (finally) relieved of "equal time" free speech requirements when the Supremes averred, correctly, that there were simply too many outlets for free speech: restricting the right in the name of balance was beyond counterproductive; it was wrong. So it is with contraceptives: they're simply too widely available, and through too many techniques, for there to be any need, or any justice, in mandating they be purchased with OPM.
I ran some back of the envelope numbers on this to look at the alleged costs, comparing condoms to pills. I can buy a lot of condoms for the price of a month's pill supply. Even with the lower expected success rate of the condoms, the Pregnancy Expectation from using the entire month's supply of condoms in that month still is lower with the condoms.
Eric Hines
Thus, similarly, my right to privacy in obtaining contraception isn't impacted by the issue of who pays for it. I don’t know if that holds water legally but it seems to me a possible work-around.
It doesn't sound implausible to me. I wasn't thinking of the individual case -- 'Mrs. X may not buy contraception' -- but of the introduction of the third party as an interested party when we talk about the issue on a wider scale.
Building on Mr. Hines' calculations, why shouldn't the Church engage in lobbying to try to limit the types of contraception legally available -- at least under this law? 'If we're to be made to pay for this,' they may say, 'surely we have the right to try to keep the cost down as much as possible. Condoms are far cheaper, and ought to be what we are required to cover.' The failure rate of condoms could make them preferable to the Church, since they are less likely to interfere with conception.
Or, to introduce an actor with less moral issues at stake, why not a merely capitalist firm who wants to hold its insurance costs down? I remember a Dilbert cartoon about how the company health plan would no longer pay for glasses, but would now support a vision-correcting therapy. "Lasik?" Dilbert asked. "Squinting," the boss replied. So too with drugs and condoms, I would think.
On the wider scale yet, the only thing that can justify forcing employers/insurers/everyone to pay for Mrs. X's birth control is that her access to such birth control is a public good. That in fact does seem to be the argument: that family planning decreases health costs, which decreases the amount of taxes we must all pay to support public health.
If that argument is acceptable, then why should not some future president argue that no one shall cover any form of contraception? President Mark Steyn, for example, might believe that an urgent issue facing the nation is increasing fertility. He might even be right about that.
Now we're still not violating Griswold, because we're not banning a private decision; Mr. Steyn is just making a public decision of exactly the same type as the one Mr. Obama is making. The power to say that everyone must cover it is the power to say that no one shall cover it.
Apparently my dear friends believe the gate swings only one way.
Eric,
Be as uncivil as you must. You're among friends here (and it's your blog, in any event), and any discussion has to start somewhere. Civility often will follow clarity.
Ah, but there are two problems with that. First, civility has always been crucial to me in disagreeing with those on the other side. I think Cassandra's comment captures much of what I have always believed in this regard. It is a shock to me to discover that on this issue I find myself absolutely unwilling to even listen to the other side.
Second, for me there is nothing to discuss. To me, the is so clear-cut that - on this issue - I find myself both stupid and uncharitable in Addison’s terms:
A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.
I do not actually think I am either stupid or uncharitable. I have simply come up against an issue where I truly believe all the virtue and truth are on one side. An odd position for me.
Grim,
I’m going to start with a couple of side issues.
That in fact does seem to be the argument: that family planning decreases health costs, which decreases the amount of taxes we must all pay to support public health.
I agree that does seem to be the argument but I am unconvinced by it for two reasons. First, I’m unconvinced that providing birth control for free has any substantial impact on the number of pregnancies that occur. It logically seems like it would but I’m fairly sure this is an area where logic and reality don’t overlap much. Second, one could make a much more plausible argument that providing abortion for free would decrease the number of pregnancies that go to term and that probably *would* lower health care costs - if for no other reason than because we’d be providing health care for fewer people. Thus the “descreases health costs” argument may work with regard to requiring provision of the morning-after and week-after pills but I suspect the proponents of the HHS mandate would not want to try to make that argument too openly.
the only thing that can justify forcing employers/insurers/everyone to pay for Mrs. X's birth control is that her access to such birth control is a public good.
This may be the heart of both the issue of Obamacare and the issue of the HHS mandate’s impact on religious organizations. To force “everyone” to pay for another’s birth control seems to me to be within the scope of Constitutional government; we force “everyone” to pay for defense and food stamps and agricultural subsidies and so on. Done through taxes and with the Federal government providing the public good, fine. Forcing a particular person or institution to pay for someone else’s “public good” seems to me to outside the scope of Constitutional government. In other words, public goods should be provided by the government, paid for by taxation.
For the sake of argument, though, let’s say that we can live with providing the public good of birth control by dragooning private entities. The bar for forcing religious entities to provide it is much higher than simply calling it a public good. My understanding is that the government must demonstrate an overwhelming public interest. The HHS mandate comes nowhere near meeting this test.
Okay, back to your main point:
The power to say that everyone must cover it is the power to say that no one shall cover it.
Agreed. And this is the point I was making in my earlier post about what types of mandates might come down the pike in the future. As you say, once we start sweeping contraception (or health care in general) into the “public good” bin, we’ve got ourselves quite a can of worms.
Apparently my dear friends believe the gate swings only one way.
Yes, and this puzzles me. Those who support the HHS mandate are unable to grasp that when they open this Pandora’s box to benefit themselves, they leave themselves vulnerable to being harmed by it in the future. I truly do not understand why they cannot see this. Perhaps they know no history; perhaps they are so blinded by self-interest and ideology they cannot think rationally. Perhaps it’s what I talked about in my earlier comment: they believe they have the upper hand - and believe they will keep that upper hand. I honestly don’t understand what they are thinking and I find it very confusing.
I do not actually think I am either stupid or uncharitable. I have simply come up against an issue where I truly believe all the virtue and truth are on one side. An odd position for me.
But it's a perfectly correct position to take where things are deterministic: mathematics is just one example, but its simplicity provides an easy illustration--and one that, via a Polish proverb I've learned in the relatively recent past, ties in with this overall discussion: 2 + 2 = 4. And, as the proverb has it, two plus two must always equal four.
While we might argue about whether this or that truly is deterministic, some things truly are.
Besides, that's not the incivility to which I thought you were referring. And I'm not sure Addison's version is universally appropriate, either: it would seem to conflict with another claim, one which I prefer (and so it must be the better one... [g]): If you don't have any principles worth sacrificing for, you don't have any principles.
Eric Hines
that family planning decreases health costs, which decreases the amount of taxes we must all pay to support public health.
However, this proceeds, also, from the false premise that "we must all pay to support public health." No, we mustn't, except in the eyes pf the Progressives so anxious to spend OPM. Each of us is responsible for our own health costs; we don't get to freeload off others.
Now it's true enough that, once this responsibility--and freedom--are restored, then after family, private aid, charity, and the like are exhausted, there will remain a small number of individuals who still cannot (without going into why) honor their responsibility. These few are a legitimate topic of discussion for how much, under what conditions, and in return for what, public (government) assistance might be proffered.
In other words, public goods should be provided by the government, paid for by taxation.
Leaving aside the fact that "access to birth control" has not been established to be a public good, this seems wrong on a larger count: Government can provide nothing at all. We, as members of the social compact, provide everything; government is just our hireling, acting as middle man. Moreover, that only works in a free society: any government strong enough to compel the giving--any government strong enough to take away one thing--is strong enough to take away everything. In the end, though, and to your side issue point, government taxing us all to provide a thing is not materially different form government forcing a range of entities to provide that thing. The taxing just dilutes the forced provision--and not by much: the singled-out entities will raise their prices to all of us to cover their cost of the forced provision, or they will leave that business altogether--forcing up prices to all of us through reduced supply.
Eric Hines
government taxing us all to provide a thing is not materially different form government forcing a range of entities to provide that thing.
I disagree with this. It is the difference between the idea that everything in the country belongs to the Federal government/us all (previously we would have said "to the monarch") and the idea that what I own is mine.
We ask the government to provide us with certain goods and services and we decide as a democracy which goods and services will be included. We allow the government (through Constitutional amendment) to tax us to pay for those, thus giving up some of what we own. We do not, however, give the government the right to take whatever it likes and hand it out like Halloween candy.
I do not think it is an historical accident that the Bill of Rights includes the 3rd and 5th Amendments, which specifically limit the government's right to do as it likes with my property - nor do I think the ideas in those amendments are quaint anachronisms.
government taxing us all to provide a thing is not materially different form government forcing a range of entities to provide that thing.
I disagree with this. It is the difference between the idea that everything in the country belongs to the Federal government/us all (previously we would have said "to the monarch") and the idea that what I own is mine.
and
We do not, however, give the government the right to take whatever it likes and hand it out like Halloween candy.
And yet this is exactly what the government is doing when it requires a range of entities to provide a thing. It is asserting its ownership over what used to be our property, and it is thereby taxing us all through the price increases that must follow that mandated provision.
The mechanism is immaterial; the outcome is the same: we all pay more for that thing because we are required to do so by government--either directly through taxation or indirectly through business' price increases or reduced supply from businesses departing that industry.
Since government is populated by grown adult human beings, it of course knows this full well. Even by its own claimed purpose, then, there is no difference in the outcomes driven by government.
Eric Hines
We ask the government to provide us with certain goods and services and we decide as a democracy which goods and services will be included.
We made this decision some years ago when we ratified the Constitution and adopted the first 10 Amendments. Our Constitution clearly enumerates what those goods and services are:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States....
Nothing in there, for instance, about universal health care coverage. No subsequent amendment addresses the ability of government to single out particular businesses and require them to provide a good or service. The only thing we have are Amendments from the judicial bench in the form of Wickard, Griswold, Roe, Berman, et al.
And yet, until we get these distortions corrected, we're stuck with them. It's an erosion that's been going on since the New Deal, accelerated by FDR's ultimately successful court packing (which made possible Wickard).
Eric Hines
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