Rafi said:
I'm more than comfortable financially myself so I administer the same or more in taxes as you do; but believe when I say that no tax deduction, donation to charity, or solicitation for spare change from a homeless man will ever be one one hundredth as injurious or exasperating as the self-righteous bloviating of you and other "no handout!" types in this thread whose financial accomplishment has imbued them with a cartoonishly bloated sense of misplaced moral superiority.

oyaji said:

Who is "they?" The answer, in short, is no. The federal government doesn't really have any constitutional grant of power that could support a "ban" on birth control per se. The state governments (and, also, the federal government) are constrained in regulating contraception by cases like this and other cases in the same line.

emperorreagan said:

Yeah, there's no worst choice if you're having financial problems than walking into a 7-11.

I think it might be a matter of people's perceptions that drive them to convenience stores - i.e., it doesn't seem like you're shelling out a lot of money if you pay a dollar or two for a hot pocket or a hot dog, but if you do the math you're doing poorly in comparison to what you could buy at a regular grocery store for the exact same thing.

SuperCrunch said:
But its still a fucking hot pocket. A processed, prepackaged peice of shit. Its not food thats going to be good for you health. Its likely going to have a shit load of calories and little nutritional value. Not to mention filled with various artificial ingredients. And I don't know about you, but I don't trust the FDA worth shit when it comes to deciding what man-made chemical isn't going to give me cancer if I eat it.

oyaji said:

That's what I figured. Most of the problems (meaning legal barriers) in this arena have come from the state governments. The US federal government is, by design, highly constrained in the sorts of activities that it may constitutionally regulate. The federal government must, in essence, have a specific grant of power on which to support legislation (and, by extension, regulation by agencies rather than congress itself). The broadest grant of power these days comes from the federal government's explicit authority to legislate in matters pertaining to interstate (and foreign) commerce. If unconstrained by Griswold and the cases which followed, the federal government could go after birth control in interstate commerce, i.e. it could ban the transport for sale of birth control across state lines and, perhaps, the manufacture of contraceptives intended for interstate commerce. But the federal government is equally constrained by Griswold. The Supreme Court has effectively said "contraception is a private matter that is protected from legislation and regulation, generally, by a right to privacy we have extrapolated from the text of the constitution."

Now, conservatives will go apeshit over the "activist courts" finding rights that do not exist within the four corners of the constitution. But it is well established from the text of the constitution and very early Supreme Court cases that the Supreme Court, absent a constitutional amendment, is the final arbiter on what the constitution means. And you don't see those conservatives complaining when the Court finds other non-explicit rights in the constitution, like the right of freedom of association that allows private organizations, like, say, golf clubs that ban Jews and Blacks, to restrict membership to their organizations on the basis of race and ethnicity.

Gee, ain't that interesting.

oyaji said:

Oh, for the love of Christ. Can we keep this particular paleoliberal trope out of this thread?

oyaji said:

And you are qualified to give us this alarmist view of the world and this absurd advice how, exactly?

Because you are some bottom of the totem pole runner at some shitbag trading house or some such in fucking MD or DC or something? I can't exactly recall what thoroughly unimpressive perch you occupy which gives you all this astonishing wisdom. Please do tell. Maybe you should dispense this advice in a newsletter to Warren Buffet and other savvy investors. You could call the newsletter "The A Little Bit of Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing Gazette."

oyaji said:
I predict the deafening sound of crickets for a while from the other side.

shapeshifter23 said:

Am I the only one who thinks this guy
oyaji oughta be a politics columnist here at SG? This guy's blog comments have a level of informed intellect, succinct irony and withering sarcasm that outwrites at least a couple of the staff bloggers here (whose names I will refrain from mentioning)...

CrazyBen said:
By the way, I think the best definition of globalization is the one Said came up with,

oyaji said:

You also have to be educated on how to use birth control. I wonder what our interlocutors think about sex education. Hmmmmm.

oyaji said:

You're missing the point.

Not only is birth control expensive, but one has to be educated in how to use it. The people least likely to be educated in how to use it are the same people who are least likely to be able to afford it.

So some snot-nosed Will Smith worshiping dude coming in and saying "birth control makes it possible to time when you have kids" is idiotic because you have to have the wherewithal to get and use birth control, and not everyone has that. Just because your parents were educated and responsible to have such a conversation with you does not mean that every parents have these qualities.

redheadedleague said:
I'm seeing it everywhere, yet almost no elected official will talk about it, because they don't want to be accused of "class warfare." Personally, I'm rapidly coming to the point where I think we could use a little class warfare. The great bargain with the middle class has been broken, and the upper 1% are running away with 90% of the wealth growth. If this country's economy continues to decay, it won't be them left holding the bag, it will be the rest of us.