SCOTUS, Hobby Lobby and Canned Worms

[TexasTowelie]

Belshazzar’s Feast by Rembrandt

By Carol Morgan

The SCOTUS/Hobby Lobby decision has given me a severe headache. Just like Citizens United or McCutcheon, today’s decision opens up a Pandora’s box of enormous proportions that can never be contained or controlled again.

This is becoming a habit with the Roberts Court.

Lawmakers, corporations, SCOTUS and world leaders…all of us, each of us…is a hapless victim to the illusion of control.

Control? The reality is this: We have none at all. For every action, there’s an effect; perhaps it comes sooner than later. And some of it, we can’t possibly predict or foresee at the time when a law is created or a strategy planned. Perhaps, the poet, Robert Burns, recognized man’s illusion of control long ago: “The best laid schemes of mice and men, often go awry.”

In America’s case, it’s more like “run amok”. We keep making very bad decisions with an eye toward solving the immediate, rather than the long term.

It’s called “unintended consequences”; effects we cannot see, results we cannot predict. It’s like the old Buddhist tale of the woodcutter who goes through a series of life events, only to remark, “Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, who would know? Only time will tell.”

Today’s court decision is reminiscent of Rembrandt’s painting, Belshazzar’s Feast; the handwriting’s on the wall and it’s blinding glare illuminates the fear of those in attendance at the banquet table.

So many of contemporary conflicts and problems are the painful birth of our past actions, a quick and dirty, knee jerk reaction to solve a problem without thinking about the long term consequences; future results, cause and effect, karmic consequences--it doesn't matter the label, it comes from something as simple as not thinking things through or believing in the fallacy of the absolute and constant, the comforting myth that nothing will change. It's the illusion of control that we, as humans, believe we can exercise over an uncontrollable and constantly evolving universe.

To fully understand the concept of unintended consequences, look no further than Sociologist Robert Merton (1910-2003) who founded the sociology of science and coined the terms we use with great regularity; “role-model”, “self-fulfilling prophecy”, and “unintended consequences”.

Robert Merton was a genius. Every single lawmaker and world leader needs to read and reread his 1936 sociological paper: "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action".

Merton believed that all social action has the possibility for three outcomes:

1. An intended solution that creates new and additional problems beyond the original problem.

2. An intended solution that creates an additional lucky benefit, outside and unrelated to the original problem.

3. An intended solution that creates a perverse effect to the originally intended effect.

Right now, we are reaping the unintended consequences of the actions, policies and legislation of the world leaders, lawmakers, corporations, and individuals in our past, some dating all the way back to the Industrial Revolution. Some specific examples:

1. This year marks the 100th anniversary of World War I which was supposed to be the “war to end all wars”, but in reality, the “Great War” merely led to new and ingenious methods of destroying each other, which led to other wars, which led to the redrawing of country borders which led to other wars, which led to the atomic bomb to stop the war which led to the Cold War, which led to Vietnam, et nauseam…as Winston Churchill remarked in hindsight, “We killed the wrong pig.”(Refer to Merton’s #1)

2. When we divided countries to stop wars and genocides, religious conflicts, to move away from colonialism or nation-building; we created new problems. We now see the bitter harvest of those strategies in Sudan versus South Sudan, Israel versus Palestine, Pakistan versus India, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. (See Merton’s #3)

3. Unintended consequences plays out closer to home in Texas. The Tea Party Conservatives hoped to make it harder for women to obtain abortions by passing a dubious women’s health law that, in reality, had nothing to do with women’s health at all. Those strategies have resulted in a new Texas phenomenon: Do It Yourself Abortions. Record numbers of women are seeking out the ulcer medication misoprostol (which induces an abortion in the early months of pregnancy) at flea markets and pharmacies skirting the border between Texas and Mexico. (See Merton’s #1 and #2)

The SCOTUS created more unintended future consequences today.

I shudder to think of the future possibilities emerging from today’s Hobby Lobby decision. Will religious preferences dictate our career possibilities and potential future employment? Will job seekers limit their employment search to only those employers who mirror their own religious and political philosophies? Could an Islamic employer force a Christian employee to abstain from eating or drinking at work during Ramadan? Could a Jehovah Witness employer eschew blood products and transfusions as a part of their group health plan?

Where does it end? Today’s decision demolishes many of the religious and personal boundaries that we took for granted and replaces them with ones that have the inherent potential to be more threatening and dangerous.

I certainly hope SCOTUS finds the can of worms they’ve opened up today to be a very tasty meal. They’re going to be eating it for a long time.

And so will we.

http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2014-06-30/scotus-hobby-lobby-and-canned-worms#.U7MgKrFCz2Q

Posted with permission granted to present Ms. Morgan's blog in its entirety.

[littlemissmartypants]

1. They have let the Genie out of the bottle for sure.

The veil has been pierced. There's no going back.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, TexasTowelie.