Two Congressional representatives have introduced the Religious Freedom Tax Repeal Act, seeking to repeal the fine on faith the Obama administration’s abortion-inducing drug, contraception, and sterilization mandate imposes:
The Religious Freedom Tax Repeal Act would stop the Obama administration from levying this huge tax on religious employers,” Representative Black said.
Most church-goers are used to announcements asking them to silence their cell phones before services begin. In a twist, Archbishop Lori of Baltimore did just the opposite, urging a congregation to pull out their cell phones and use them during Mass.
Read more on Archbishop Lori Tells Congregation: Pull Out Your Cell Phones For Freedom…
At the most recent Acton University, American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks gave a brilliant and paradigm-shifting speech on why advocates of free enterprise need to explain why it is the most moral, most fair, and most helpful system for alleviating poverty. You can download it here. (It’ll be the best 49 cents you spend this week.)
Read more on Don’t Eat Your Dog: The Surprising Moral Case for Free Enterprise…
On The Foundry, Sarah Torre writes about the many faith based challenges that remain to the Obamacare law. There are many organizations that are religious in nature, but are not themselves churches. To comply with the new health laws, they will be compelled to provide conscience violating services. Towards the end of the post, Torres quotes the president of Geneva College, Dr. Ken Smith:
“Modern Americans read the Declaration of Independence too individualistically,” says James R. Rogers. “We think of it as a revolt against high taxes and big government.”
Take the Declaration’s best-known complaint against the King, “for imposing taxes on us without our consent.” This is not about high taxes. Any tax, no matter how mild, that is imposed without a people’s “consent” would violate this principle. On the other hand, a very high tax, imposed with the consent of the people, would be unobjectionable.
Read more on Collective Action and the Declaration of Independence…
Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850)
This Saturday, June 30, is the 211th birthday of Frédéric Bastiat, one of the greatest political philosophers of the modern era. Considered among the founding fathers of classical liberalism, Bastiat is known for his simple and direct explanations of political and economic realities, his arguments against oppressive economic regulations and his clear and concise vision of a government of limited, enumerated powers, operating under the rule of law and unencumbered by favoritism or distributionist policies.
Bastiat drew on his Catholic faith and the writings of Adam Smith and John Locke to articulate a vision of limited, efficient government that respects each citizen’s God-given dignity, strictly adheres to the rule of law, and allows for a largely un-regulated economy in which individuals are free to pursue their interests through peaceable exchange with each other. His best-known works, and those most central to his ideas, are The Law and The Seen and the Unseen, articulating his central political and economic ideas, respectively. Read more on Bastiat’s Vision…
Obviously many people are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s ruling today. The decision was rather surprising for a number of legal and political reasons.
Writing about the HHS mandate in an Acton commentary in January, Dr. Donald P. Condit pointed to the moral threat that his health care legislation poses. Nothing has changed with today’s Supreme Court ruling. Condit wrote:
With the passing of time, it has become painfully obvious how relativistic and clouded are this administration’s sense of ethics. The subsequent threat to our liberty is crystal clear and faith leaders representing diverse traditions are speaking out against the White House’s assault on religious freedom in the most forceful way.
It is obvious that ‘Obamacare’ strikes against every aspect of Acton’s Core Principles. You can see more related to that point on Acton’s Health Care page.
We could learn a lot about liberty from our pioneer forebears, argues Meghan Clyne. And an exemplar of this model of freedom and self-reliance can be found on our children’s bookshelves, in the Little House books of Laura Ingalls Wilder:
Read more on Lessons in Liberty from a Little House on the Prairie…
I saw Joe Carter’s post on Entrepreneurship and Poverty earlier today, and it got me thinking back to a subject that has been nagging at me for quite a while. It seems to me that starting a business is simply too hard these days, and for rather artificial reasons. But perhaps I’m just biased, and it’s not as hard as I thought? Seeking the truth, I did what any millennial would do and consulted google.
What I found was a fascinating article from John Stossel. In it, he details all the regulatory hoops he would have to jump through in order to engage in the most basic from of entrepreneurship in Americana: the lemonade stand. Read more on Crushing the Entrepreneurial Spirit…
What would Diedrich Bonhoeffer have to say about the HHS mandate? Eric Metaxas–best selling author of the biographies on William Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer:Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy gives us some insight in this 2 minute video that explains the real issue behind the HHS Mandate: Religious liberty
