Rep. Lynn Woolsey & Cynthia McKinney, Code Pink scrunts

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus displays her totalitarian tendencies in this press release. I have noted the various aspects of American justice, liberties and public life she holds in contempt.

I expect political hardball on any legislation as important as the health care bill.

I just didn’t expect it from the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Who elected them to Congress? 1

The role the bishops played in the pushing the Stupak amendment, which unfairly restricts access for low-income women to insurance coverage for abortions, 2 was more than mere advocacy.

They seemed to dictate the finer points of the amendment, and managed to bully members of Congress to vote for added restrictions on a perfectly legal surgical procedure. 3

And this political effort was subsidized by taxpayers, since the Council enjoys tax-exempt status.4
When I visit churches in my district, we are very careful to keep everything “non-political” to protect their tax-exempt status.

The IRS is less restrictive about church involvement in efforts to influence legislation than it is about involvement in campaigns and elections.

Given the political behavior of USCCB in this case, maybe it shouldn’t be.  5

My comments below.

1. Contempt for representative government and the right of petition: The Catholic bishops are citizens of the United States and have the right to representation and to petition the government for the redress of grievances. Woosley certainly has no problem when advocacy groups supporting her political views engage in the same sort of behavior. Her contempt for the rights of those she disagrees with doing the same thing reveals her autocratic instincts.
2. Contempt for the truth: Nothing in the bill prevents anyone from getting an abortion: The rule prevents tax dollars payed by the citizenry from being used to subsidize a practice that a significant percentage of Americans find abhorrent. Nothing prevents a low income woman from getting an abortion. It only prevents her neighbors from being forced to pay for it against their will.
3. Contempt for life: Referring to the planned and executed death of a living human being as “surgical procedure” as if it were the removal of a mole or an appendectomy displays a complete, icy contempt for the lives of our most innocent and vulnerable citizens.
4. Contempt for liberty: Woosley believes that since the government retrains itself from collecting taxes on the already taxed income of parishioners donated to the Church, the Church is subsidized by the state. The implication of this is that all wealth and property belongs to the state and, therefore, any that is allowed to remain in the hands of the people is a subsidy. Referring to property not seized as subsidy means that you have no property and, whatever you have, is nothing more than an allotment given you by the state. This radically totalitarian view of the rights of people to their property and the fruits of their labor.
5. Contempt for equal protection under the law and equality of justice: Woosley here makes a thinly veiled threat to retaliate against the Church and its tax exempt status as revenge for crossing her. She basically states that retribution from the government for political dissent comes, not under color of law, but in the form of revenge orchestrated by state officials.

Woosley is a tyrant-in-waiting willing to use authority vested in her under the Constitution to usurp its meaning and purpose. She is an enemy of freedom loving Americans.