NEWS: Stuart E. Anderson of Great Falls, Montana: Asshole

Sure, it's OK to be angry, but your message gets lost when you speak with anger as many people's reactions to her commentary have proven. Maybe her message is just that she's mad who knows. It's one thing to get mad, scream, and yell. It's another to try and further an agenda while you're doing so (in my opinion anyway). It doesn't work. People tune you out. It's like my mom always told me "being louder doesn't mean you're right, and it doesn't mean people are going to listen to you". Also, I hope you weren't implying that I think women should be "demure and comply." I didn't think you were (I just wanna make it clear that I wasn't). But like I said, it's her deal, she can do what she wants (which goes without saying).
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Anyway, I've said my piece and more. If anyone has any questions about where I stand, you can message me privately. I'd be more than happy to get back to you.

i actually agree with your mom.

but in this case i think that a lively and heated discussion/debate has been facilitated by
Bitch_PHD's topic and tone. that's my story and i'm stickin' to it.

dunno bout 'y'all, but i often read her articles, then discuss them IRL with my friends. i get mad, then i get my friends mad, and then hopefully, we all get mad enough so that someone contacts thier congressman.

i admit its not the most civil way. but anger has a purpose.

Fair enough, I'll withdraw my criticism of Bitch_PhD then...

Ditto to you too attn_ho...

He did not violate any regulations silly.

Furthermore any regualtions that forced him to do work against his religious convictions would be immoral and unconstitutional. The medication in that specific case was not for anything related to the woman's health that she could not cover by abstinence, or driving a mile or so down the road to the CVS.

Forced labor of any sort is a form of slavery so yes it is pertinent, nor did I try to tie slavery to arabs alone, even if they do practice it more than some, and more openly that some.

I did not state or imply that only Arabs violate laws against slavery.

However it is obvious that they do it a lot.

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/UnitedArabEmirates.htm

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SaudiArabia.htm

I love how your sources come with disclaimers

I trust you now. It's SO obvious.
And you do very much imply that only Arab countries currently practice slavery, very nearly MORE than imply.

No one is forcing him to be a pharmacist. If dispensing prescribed medication violates his religious convictions, he is free to find another job.

You didn't actually read the linnks, did you? In fact, the woman in that case was 49 and taking bcp for a medical condition, not for birth control. Not that *her* motivations should matter, since she had a legal prescription. However, the fact that neither the pharmacist nor your own brilliant self actually *knows* why she needs the medication is but one of the reasons why neither he nor you is entitled to deny it to her.

There are two assumptions in particular here that I find especially troubling:

1) There are a half-dozen pharmacies available in every community. I'm sorry, but not every community has a hospital, and not every community has more than one pharmacy. Furthermore, if you're in a low-income bracket and without transportation, how are you to make it to another community to fill that prescription? And perhaps this medication is available through the mail, but does every citizen of the US know that it's available through the mail?

2) Women work against the feminist cause by getting upset by issues of discrimination and then writing about them. What? Is it how our text comes across as all shrieky and unreasonable? How is raising topics like this in the light of frustration so wrong? Sure, I would like for every article like this to have an easy answer as to what we can do about it, but isn't opening a public dialogue also 'doing something about it'?

And furthermore:

I'm sorry, but since you don't have ovaries, I'm going to dismiss this comment as ignorant and asinine.

SHE WAS A SLUT OK?!?! There is no law that says a decent men HAS to give a slut the ability to go around town whoring it up and not paying GOD's Price.

Now if youll excuse me, im going to go look at some of the fine SG photosets and fantasize about denying them birth control, because theyre sluts too.

It is not a job it is his business that he owns. As in he owns the freaking store. He worked for a long time to get a license as a phamacist and no laws specified that to become a pharmacist or operate such a business he had to sell such products. So yes you wanting to change the laws to force him to sell products he finds immoral is forced labor.

It is also bad for the community as it is likely he will shut down his pharmacy rather than comply and the good his shop does is a lot more important than providing one extra source of contraceptives in the community, which if you gave that much of a damn about you could work your way through school and get the same license and work your ass off and gather the capital to start a pharmacy.

Then some butt head will come along and want you to provide services that you find morally repulsive and lobby the legislature to make you do it anyway, if the world was just.

I saw no links in your article and you mentioned nothing of the kind in the text I read it like three or four times and regardless she can drive to the CVS down the road or any of several other pharmacies in that community. If he don't carry that medication, he cannot provide it, and he has a legal right not to carry it. Like I said a boycott is appropriate, legislation to force him to do work against his morals is not.

Any of that is supposed to justify forced labor? Tripe.

Nobody forces anyone to live in a given town or city, the community that was referenced does in fact have other pharmacies, living in that community is a choice of the people who live their.

No one's poverty is ever an excuse for slave labor.

The milisecond you start advocationg forced labor, that makes it comes across as vicious and immoral. Boycotts cool, statments of opinion against him, fine have at it, advocating legislation to force a person to do work against his moral convictions is forced labor and that is slavery, and that is way past shrieky and unreasonable.

Nothing is wrong about raising the issue, or bitiching about it or boycotts or even picketing his store. Forced labor is always wrong, and makes you far more in the wrong than he is.

He is being a jerk about his religion, Bitch_PHD is advocating slave labor.

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Those medications are a tiny fraction of the medications that a typical pharmacy provides to customers. It is not just a job it is his freaking store, not yours and does not have to carry any medication he does not want to.

If you change the law to force him to carry the medication one possible result is he shuts down the pharmacy and that screws the community out of a pharmacy. If you force him to stay open to obey your moronic law that is slavery.

That is the case anyway now, and has been for a long time your brilliance, and changing the law only means that some pharmacies will shut down, which will screw over a lot of poor and elderly people.

I understand that some large national chain pharmacies have issues with some things. I was told that for example Wallgreens will not carry any sort of alchohol.

Good advice for you.

Oh seriously, shut up with the "forced labour" drivel, Captain Histrionic.

He chose his line of business, and he knew in advance that aspects of that business would clash with his religious belief system. Do you think he told the relevant licensing board who were contemplating his suitability to be a pharmacist that he wasn't comfortable with all aspects of dispensing prescription pharmaceuticals? Do you think that they knew in advance that he was likely to pick and choose which prescriptions he would fill, before they decided to license him?

He went into this business knowing what was expected of him. If he didn't want to be "forced" into dispensing prescription drugs, he could have opened up an entirely different line of business instead.

The crux of this argument rests squarely upon the fact that holy crap, yes he fucking did violate the regulations that govern his practice. No amount of you sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALALALALALALA is going to change that.

For the fucking one thousandth time... He does not have the right to withhold medications from customers based on his religious beliefs. Dispensing medications that are prescribed by a doctor is pretty much what a fucking pharmacist does. Would you say the same thing about a town doctor who decides that since he or she is a Jehovah's Witness he or she will not give anyone a blood transfusion? Absolutely not... The woman in this situation was not getting birth control pills for the solitary purpose of not having children, but because she has a medical condition. If this man wants to force his religious beliefs onto others he should have chosen another line of work, like say...ummmm opening a fucking church.

As for your bullshit libertarian private property arguments about this being his store I can only tell you that his property became a whole lot less private when he decided to turn it into a heavily regulated business that people have to depend on.

Regulations, pfft! They're SLAVERY!

Reparations for the pharmacists!!!!

FYI munchkin, what he is doing is LEGAL and has always been LEGAL. The owner of a pharmacy is not required to stock any specific type of medication. BITCH_PHD is suggesting it should be illegal, as in the government should require that he buy and stock contraceptives.

So no Mr NumbSkull, he did not know anything of the kind in fact he problably knew the exact opposite as in knew that this was legal and he could do that.


YES MAKING SUCH A LAW IS FORCED LABOR.

He did not voiolate any law or regulations by refusing to keep conraceptives in his store. If you dispute this cite the law or regulation.

Second, such a law would violate the US constitution in several seperate ways explicitly the first amendment for starters. So it would be struck down in court the first time it was applied.

He is not "withholding" them. He is refusing to stock them in his store.

If he stocked them in his store then one might make an arguement that he was withholding medication based on his dislike of the religious convictions of the customer, which might fly in court. However his refusal to stock them at all is a matter of his religious convictions that such medications are immoral, and he wants no part of preventing the conception of life.

There is a difference.

So people of religious convictions you do not approve of should not be allowed to get professional licenses?

Germany in the 1930s had laws like that, and people who wrote enforced those laws were convicted of crimes against humanity. Think about it.

Having worked for over 10 years getting multiple degrees and a professional license in a heavily regulated profession where I am responsible for making decisions that if wrong can get people killed (kind of like a pharmacist), and then worked more years to build up capital and start a business and keep it within state and federal regulations, I feel very comfortable in telling you to kiss my ass sonny boy.

I would never tell a Muslim employee (for example) that he had to work on his sabbath or that he had to work on something that he found morally objectionable. If it became enough of a problem I might fire him, but not without honest reference as to his ability.

You do not own me or that Pharmacist and you have no right to, for example, force me to work on a weapons development program that I find morally objectionable.

That by the way would be a one to one correlation by the way, as the man in question (as I understand it) objects on the grounds that he feels contraception is killing potential children and so is violence.

For example, no one forced him to be a Pharmacist. His job is to fill prescritions.
If you find yourself working on a weapons program that you find morally reprehensible you will likely be looking for another job right ? Because you are free not to do that. No one will force you.