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By Scott Tibbs, October 13, 2017
I am allowed to say pretty much whatever I want on this blog without interference from government, because the First Amendment prohibits government from interfering with my speech. According to the logic used by Leftists, however, I am still being censored by government unless someone else is forced by the state to buy me a computer and pay for my Internet access.
This brings me to President Trump's action on birth control last week. Trump did not take away anyone's birth control by reversing the wretched ObamaCare birth control mandate. The administrative action, by itself, does not take anything from anyone. What Trump did was allow employers to choose for themselves whether to provide birth control, instead of having government force the coverage on them.
But for many on the Left, simply tolerating something is not enough. You must be forced to endorse that behavior, or you are oppressing them. Leftists claim they are being "oppressed" if government does not take someone else's money by force and give it to them. It is an absurd argument, and represents an incredibly selfish and arrogant entitlement mentality.
The principle is actually really simple. A right is something you possess naturally, without input from anyone else. It does not burden anyone when government is prohibited from entering my home at will and searching through my things. It does burden someone else if government forces employers to fund birth control against their will. If someone else has to pay for the thing you want, it is not a "right" and never will be.
It is important to note that this attack on religious liberty was implemented administratively by the Obama administration, not legislatively through an act of Congress. Leftists cheered when Barack Obama bragged that he had "a pen and a phone" and would bypass Congress when he felt like it. Well, President Trump has a pen and a phone too. If you live by the executive order, you will die by the executive order. This is why these things should be handled through Congress, not the Executive Branch.
This is one of the big reasons why evangelical Christians voted for Trump, despite his personal moral failings. Christians saw Trump as the last line of defense for religious liberty, especially considering that Hillary Clinton was openly hostile to religious liberty. Christians who held their noses and voted for Trump did so in the hope that he would keep his promises and reverse repressive policies like the ObamaCare mandate.
That gamble paid off last week.
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