Last I checked the First Amendment was not the "only amendment".
True, but since it's the one that refers to the free exercise of religion, it's the only one I could think of that seemed relevant. If you meant some other amendment, perhaps you could let me know which one.
The right to free exercise is one in which the religion may be practiced freely. Not through burdensome legislation.
And you can. As I said, if you oppose abortion on religious grounds, the first amendment protects your right to not have one forced upon you. That's about it, though.
There is also the right to the produce of our work, our possessions, which are being dictated as under the government's discretion.
What amendment are you referring to here?
It's as simple as that: you must purchase health insurance. Yet the fourteenth amendment says "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". The property amendment is violated. In fact, it is so oddly violated as to be construed as enslavement of a person to a private insurance company.
No, your right to due process is not violated here. If you feel otherwise, you are more than free to take your case to court, that's where the right to due process happens.
To wit: let's say the insurance company ends up requiring your entire take-home pay. Pretty obvious what that would be: slavery, serfdom.
You forgot one: complete fantasy. No insurance company requires your entire take home pay, none even come close!
Now back it off, say 80% of your income. Are you telling me you're 20% free, and so that's okay by the Constitution?
You're still in the realm of fantasy, since insurance premiums are not that high.
But, even if we say, for the sake of argument, that your insurance premiums are prohibitively high, there is still no Constitutional issue here: your right to due process is not violated.
You need a better insurance plan, that's all. Check around, I'm sure there are cheaper plans available. Like any republican would tell you, that's the free market at work!
So too any percentage. The Constitution prevents us from being enslaved, even "just a little enslavement".
Who are you quoting there? If you are referring to the 13th Amendment, those words aren't in there.
We can only be obligated through our agreements, and taxed through events. Otherwise: it's enslavement.
Yup. Nothing about a requirement that health insurance includes contraception (the point of this thread) violates that. Neither does the health insurance mandate.
Now, I will grant you the mandate does have Consititutional problems, but those involve the commerce clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8), but that doesn't involve any infringement on your personal rights, religious or otherwise. It involves the scope and limits of the federal government.
Oh, so now when I pay a private insurer it's called a "tax".
Nope, it's still called a premium. Just like when you pay car insurance, as mandated by the state you live in.
Well it's not a tax, it's an enforced monopoly, even more so by the compelling of people to buy the (nonexistent) product.
It's not a monopoly, because there's more than one insurance company.
Such has never been tolerated in the United States nor in the colonies before it. Compelling people to buy something, just because they exist! Again, this is enslavement.
It's not enslavement at all. If you're unclear, I suggest you look up the word's definition.
See, I agree with you that the mandate is a bad idea. I disagreed with it when Governor Romney instituted it here in my state, I just don't call it what it is not. It's not slavery.
"Then it came burning hot in my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house, he would sell me for a slave." -- Bunyan
See, one of the main characteristics of slavery is that human beings are bought and sold as property. That doesn't happen with the health insurance mandate. Thus, it isn't slavery.
-- A2SG, it may be many things, and I'll agree with a lot of characterizations of it, but not that one.....
