Rights

George Washington sculpture found at Valley Forge, Pa. 

I read today about an unintended consequence of a recent Supreme Court decision which extended constitutional protection to gay marriage. It seems that insurance companies are refusing liability coverage to churches. Some time ago, a  bakery refused to participate in a gay wedding and was sued for damages and pain and suffering. The court awarded the plaintiffs tens of thousands of dollars,  bankrupting the small company owned by Christians. There are apparently a couple of suits pending against churches which have denied facilities and services to other gay couples. Defense costs alone will cost the churches many thousands of dollars, even if they are successful. If on the other hand they lose, well, they are being sued for hundreds of thousands since the aggrieved parties are charging personal damages as a result of their psychological distress. Frightened by these liabilities, insurance companies are backing away from any participation in those situations. 

Other conundrums over rights are popping like kernels in hot oil. Cities which have extended rights to undocumented immigrants, look to have accepted a liability for the actions of those they seek to protect. That clash of rights is most dramatically represented by a tragedy in San Fransisco where a recently released alien with a considerable felony record killed  a young tourist. The woman's family will undoubtedly bring a large civil suit against the city. 

In many communities, police who are increasingly fearful of prosecution for making instantaneous decisions in life threatening situations, are increasingly avoiding those situations. And murder rates are exploding. So the rights of the police are clashing with those who expect a right of security in their streets and homes. 

Some states have quietly provided sexual reassignment surgery to children as young as fifteen, without informing their parents. The state's have extended rights to children that  conflict with traditional rights of parents. Meanwhile, there are women who are worried about finding themselves  in the confines of ladies  rooms confronting large male-born-persons who have declared a different gender.

In many places older couples will leave their homes this summer since they are unable to pay the increase in school taxes necessitated by an influx of largely undocumented immigrants who have been granted a right to tax supported education. Simultaneously the senior citizen's children have lost income as a result of off-shoring of jobs in many cases, or a decrease in working hours in other cases as a result of the Affordable Health Care Act's redefining part-time work as 29 as opposed to 39 hours a week, forcing employers to reassign a quarter of their work hours. 

Scarce collegiate seats are now assigned to reinforce the rights of subsidized reparations to a range of protected groups, displacing many in the non-protected population to access both by limiting the seats available to them while inflating the unsubsidized tuition costs they must bear. 

It has become policy to tax labor and subsidize machines. So mandated minimum wage increases, along with various leave, and compensation laws - which are a sales tax to employers on labor -  are increasingly leading to the automation of jobs, which of course impose a 100% tax upon those displaced, while holding down wages across the board.  

While work is taxed, unemployment is subsidized in extended welfare and social security disability rights. Of course those with productivity high enough to retain the higher paid minimum wage jobs are gainers. So those who claim a right to a living wage then, are clashing with those who claim a right to employment. 

Okay, I can go on and on... Rights are slamming against each other at the fastest pace in my long lifetime. Some will go away, because, rights are what we can defend. Or have defended... Usually by burley men with guns. 

And the largest percentages of native born Americans in the nation's history tell pollsters that they would abandon their citizenships if they could. With micro cultures clashing over claims to rights, this was a sedated 4th of July.