Until reading the comments section of this post on pharmacists refusing to fill perscriptions for moral reasons yesterday, I had no idea that the American pharmacy was the last bastion of Big-L Libertarian Utopia. If you read the comments, and suspended everything you know, you would think the follownig:
Pharmacies can sell whatever they want, whenever they want.
Pharmacists have the right to refuse to fill a prescription for any reason, and some pills are more offensive than others.
In a pharmacy, a ten year old can buy a pack of cigarettes, order an abortion, peruse porno mags, and sip on a .40. You can even sell beer on Sunday, even if they don’t have photo id. The heavy hand of government regulation stops at the doorstep of a pharmacy, you know.
Anyone can be a pharmacist- you don’t need to be trained or licensed or anything. You aren’t dispensing dangerous drugs with possible interactions or health issues- you are just engaging in commerce, ‘selling’ things. Strictly business decisions, here.
Contrary to popular belief, pharmacies are not required to pay taxes, they do not have to adhere to local zoning and constructions standards, they are exempt from the ADA. Their toilets can even use 20 gallons of water per flush, and employees don’t have to wash their hands. Stupid sanitary health standards- damn government meddlers.
In other words, it is just a libertarian free-for-all in your local pharmacy- and hey, if you can’t get what you need at this pharmacy, you just go next door to the other pharmacy, because everyone in the country lives in a town with multiple pharmacies. You know- ‘market solutions’ and all.
So the next time you need a pill to cure something, and the only place to get this heavily regulated drug is in the safety zone of a pharmacy, just remember that they don’t have to sell it to you. You might be black. Or gay. Or a single mother. Or a former drug user. Or an immigrant. Or Catholic. Or Jewish. Or maybe you have tattoos. Or listen to heavy metal. Or, sin of sins in the market driven society- you might be poor.
The last thing we want to do, though, is require that pharmacists fill prescriptions written as a result of a private contractual matter between a licensed physcian and his/her patient. We can’t rquire that they fill those prescriptions or demand that the patient to a provider that will.
Why, if we do that and involve the heavy-hand of government, we will go and crush the last stronghold of Libertarin Utopian ideals in our society. We couldn’t allow that to happen.
You just have to have principles, you know.
Aaron
No shoes, no shirt, no service.
We need to pass some laws to stop this kind of discrimination at restaurants.
After all, the county certified their cleanliness, and they have a business licence and tax id from the state.
I also think any surgeon who refuses to do absurd breast enhancements or sculpt my head into a coneshape should be fired as well. The state licenses you, just get on with the conical implant!
Mona
Ok,I thought this was a reasonable site. You may be protecting what you see as your base, but if these ideas above evince what is usual here, I’m in the wrong place. Bye.
Kimmitt
Mona, it’s called “irony.”
jdm
OK, John, I get it now. Your way or the highway – well, OK, it is your blog.
As far as I could tell not one person, and certainly not Mona, invoked the Big L crap you’re spouting. Mona, in fact, denied it. But it was just too tempting for you to ridicule by exaggeration people who argued civilly and seriously.
And by the way, perscriptions are not contracts, they’re permission slips.
DecidedFenceSitter
Amen, JDM. I actually found the debate there informative, and a discussion of the usual arguments, as I see them:
1. Whether small town residents have a right to obtain medicine at their local pharamacy.
2. Whether there is a legal obligation for pharamacists to provide prescribed medicine.
3. Whether pharamacists have a right to not stock an a particular item due to their personal morality.
Have I missed any?
Gregory Litchfield
Nice, John. Can’t bring yourself to honestly debate an issue? Well, just make yourself a stawman that you can wack away at. All the satisfaction of winning an argument, without ever actually engaging in one.
mds
As far as I could tell not one person, and certainly not Mona, invoked the Big L crap you’re spouting.
Oh, for God’s sake. So did you not read the relevant thread, or did they skip the reading comprehension section at your unregulated private school? It was a wall-to-wall orgy of unfettered free markets, the government having no right to force pharmacists to violate their consciences, because they are businesses and nothing more, and lots of bemoaning of the potential slippery slope of government regulation. On and on it went, with no one catching on that this is a coordinated assault on a woman’s right to contraception by the usual suspects to whom the current Republican party is captive. The Michigan legislators that passed the bill permitting doctors to refuse to treat gay people are not libertarians, either. Health care is not a business like any other, nor does it function as a free market with rational players. Yet Mr. Cole had to ridicule by exaggeration people who argued civilly and seriously? Civility was indeed present at times. But with no inclination to determine the background of the issue, “seriously” was very much in doubt. When I pointed out that there was at least one documented case of a pharmacist not giving the “permission slip” back, it was asserted that that was irrelevant, because that wasn’t the example that Mr. Cole posted. (I should note that as well as being civil, Mona responded to the additional information seriously and consistently.) The point is, there’s a lot more lying behind this than appeared in the post. But that’s not Mr. Cole’s fault. Do your own homework. Mr. Cole has finally seen the ugly face of the theocrats driving the agenda of our party. And they’re not headed for a Randian utopia.
John Cole
Mona, JDM, and Gregory:
Yes, I can ‘fairly’ debate an issue. Go read the previous comment thread and come back here. I accept your apologies in advance.
In case you want to save some time, here is this:
The phrase ‘free market’ appears 15 times.
Go through and check the comments and the suspension of reality- no one should be allowedto force phaarmacists to do anything- it is all about his/her decisions. All this post does is mock that, because pharmacists are forced to do any number of things, as I pointed out here.
BTW- How exactly have I debated unfairly?
mds
All the satisfaction of winning an argument, without ever actually engaging in one.
There are over 120 comments, some by Mr. Cole, on the other thread, Litchfield. Is this a Monty Python sketch, where that “isn’t an argument?” And if Mr. Cole’s outburst is a strawman, feel free to point out how none of it follows from any of the viewpoints espoused in those comments. How is denying service on the basis of color a strawman, when the case in question involves denying service on the basis of creed? Or are only certain rigidly-defined areas of conscience acceptable?
And DFS:
Have I missed any?
Yeah, the actual situation in Illinois, in the article Mr. Cole linked to, which he even tried to point out in a comment. Whether there is a legal obligation for pharmacists to provide prescribed medicine stocked by their pharmacy.
Mr Furious
I, for one, tought it was a hysterical straw man beating, John. Nice job.
I thought it was a pretty good debate. Didn’t get too ugly, and people got their points out there.
Yeah, John is taking some liberties with today’s follow-up, but he is essentially correct. Just because this is the “Land of the Free” doesn’t mean you can do whatever the hell you want. Not if you have accepted the responsibilities to do a job.
20 gallons per flush…Good stuff.
John Cole
The irony of it all is that most of the people spouting about ‘market solutions’ don;t even understand what they are talking about.
In rural WV, the market solution means there is only ONE pharmacy in many towns, if that, because two pharmacies wouldn’t be able to make a living. That is the market solution.
Whether people recognize it or not, they were spouting off Big-L libertarian nonsense, which is what I mocked in this post. Pharmacies are heavily regulated industries, pharmacists recieve numerous years of training- so much so that there are pharmacy departments at universities all over the country, are licensed by the state, and pharmacies and pharmacists are subject to a shitload of rules, regulations, standards of practice, etc.
The idea that the state requiring them to dispense prescription drugs that they have in stock or to require them to refer patients to pharmacies that do have it in stock is somehow some awful, horrible intrusive government action that denies the tenets of free market capitalism and puts an onerous amount of burden on the pharmacists is FLAT OUT FUCKING A ABSURD.
And already this thread is approaching farce, because already people are denying what was said in the previous thread, which is right there in front of their lying eyes.
Mason
Where do I get one of those 20-gallon/flush toilets? I’ll sell part of my soul for a toilet that only needs to be flushed once!
ppgaz
Mona, take a breath. You sound like a sore loser.
Look, there are key pivots here in this argument. For example, dispensing is not the same as selling. It is the dispensing that pharmacists go to school for. Dispensing that is regulated by law and board oversight. Dispensing is the glue that holds the doctor-patient-pharmacist relationship together. Dispensing is the core of the pharmacists’ practice.
NOT SELLING.
The fact that money is paid does not make the practice “selling” any more than a doctor is “selling” care because he gets a fee.
Doctors practice medicine. Pharmacists practice the dispensing of drugs.
Whether you like it or not, there are things here that are bigger than the weepy bathos of individual pharmacists, who then arrogantly decide to step in and skew the process. There is the process, and its integrity depends on pharmacists dispensing to the valid scrip. Simple, cut and dried. If that isn’t acceptable to the pharmacist’s “conscience”, then he is free — free as the wind blows, to coin a phrase — to do something else for a living.
Last … and I do mean last, because this topic is now beaten to death …. don’t act like a sore loser. You’ve actually done very well. Internet discussions tend to be for the thick-skinned. Hang in there, keep at it … and don’t whine. Never let them see you whine.
the UNPOPULIST
This is your response?
Speaking of “brave and self-correcting.”
semm
Maybe you would be so kind as to clarify your position John, as I don’t think your viewpoint is nearly as different from that of your commenters in the last thread as you may believe.
I would imagine that you wouldn’t care if the pharmacy owner decided to not sell items that where not medicines (pornagraphy ect…)
Would you support the shop owner’s right to refuse to sell any medicinces which are not ‘time-critical?’ Say, allergy medications or viagra?
Do you support the right of pharmacies to determine what medicines they keep in stock? (Lets say for now they are only ‘allowed’ to make this decision base don that they percieve demand to be; though could you imagine a trial where one was trying to procecute a pharmacy because someone claimed that moral motivations determined what he kept in stock?)
If you said yes to both of the above questions then the only question here is whether, because we licence them (this seems to make a great deal of difference to you), pharmacies have an obligation to potential customers to sell certain time-critical medications.
This is a reaosnable point, and I’ve heard good arguements on both sides of it. Surely though, there’s no reason to go crazy wiht the strawman arguements because someone disagrees wiht you on this point.
S Ty
Monsieur Homais
Although Homais is not central to the plot of Madame Bovary, he is an absolutely essential part of its atmosphere. He is a pompous speechmaker, endlessly rattling on about medical techniques and theories that he really knows nothing about. His presence serves, in part, to heighten our sense of Emma
Dave Ruddell
Mason asked:
“Where do I get one of those 20-gallon/flush toilets?”
Come to Canada my friend! While I don’t think we have any 20 gallon models, we still have the 3.5 gallon ones. Dave Barry wrote an article a while back about the black market in Canadian toilets.
mds
Okay, given all the use of the word “strawman,” I’m grabbing something from the end of the other thread:
Why should a private business be forced to do ANYTHING inside their PRIVATE ESTABLISHMENT?
So, when John Cole makes a follow-up post taking this very reasoning to its logical conclusion, he gets dumped on for attacking a strawman? Maybe you big-L libertarians should stop peddling so much goddamn straw.
John Cole was not referring to some classroom hypothetical scenario. He was pointing out the reaction to an executive order mandating that pharmacists dispense medications that the pharmacy has in stock. The reaction of the religious right was to distort the contents of the order, and scream yet again about how opressed they are. The religious right are making a massive push to deny women access to contraception, using legislatures in various states to push for “conscience clauses” that protect employees from the consequences of refusing to dispense medications stocked by their employers, which doesn’t sound all that free-market. So stop acting like this is a seminar for Libertarianism 101.
John Cole
What MDS said.
Again, I don’t care what over the counter stuff they refuse to stock, but when they refuse to sell prescriptions they have in stock, refuse to refer the patient to someone who will sell them the prescription, or, in the most extreme case, take the prescription, refuse to fill it, and refuse to give back the script so the patient can go somewhere else.
I agree this ‘radical’ position is not unreasonable, yet according to the comments thread in previous posts, I have shed my libertarian creds and am pushing for government coercion of private businessmen. Hence this post.
anomdebus
“Forcing to do” != “forcing not to do”
Someone may disagree with both, but one does not mean the other.
ppgaz
“…scream about how oppressed they are …”
Precisely. It’s always about the “right” to assert “God’s law” over the laws of man. It’s always about theatrics and posturing.
When God’s law trumps the law of man, then you are at the mercy of the loudest mouth and the biggest ego amongst those who pretend to speak for God. You are licensing tyrants.
Give me ten lousy laws of man for every one of “God’s laws” that some slimy tent revival preacher wants to shove down my throat.
I’d be more open to “God’s law” if God Himself would start blogging and speak directly to me.
But I ain’t listening to these pompous, hypocritical, lying, self-serving power-grabbing assholes who claim to speak for God.
FC
There is no government cooersion in forcing employees to do what their employers want or quit. Stocking the pill is prima facie evidence that the employer wants the pill sold. It is the other side who wants to protect employees from being fired by employers for violating the wishes of their boses. The libertarians are us.
timekeeper
It appears that John and I are in agreement, but we were looking at two different portions of the same article and drawing different conclusions.
I looked at the interview with the pharmacy owner (in which he stated that he did not stock the morning-after pill, and complained about the effect of Blagojevich’s decree) and John looked at the actual reporting, in which the reporter states that it only applies to pharmacies which stock the medicine. It sounds like two different stories have been compressed into one, and leads to confusion. Why did they interview the pharmacy owner is he is not affected by the bill?
If the reporter is correct, and the bill only applies to pharmacies that stock the medicine, I fully support the governor, John, and anyone else who has argued that point of view. If not, and Watson will be required to start carrying a medicine to which he is staunchly opposed, I stand by my original position.
As to employees, I still say that they need to be canned if they refuse to fill a prescription for any medication which is stocked by their pharmacy (which is an implicit acceptance of the product). Jail time is in order if they fail to follow the laws already in place.
timekeeper
I should have read the original thead again before posting here because Buddy posted the text of the order, which SUPPORTS my position, that pharmacies will be required to dispense prescriptions they do not stock, unless the customer chooses to be referred someplace else.
That is the heart of my objection to the decree, because it mandates the sale of an item regardless of the pharmacy owner’s policies.
Several of you have been accusing others of attacking straw men, and then setting up one your own. This is not about refusing to provide birth control medication to only unmarried woman (which would be illegal, nor is it about disapproval of extramarital sex (which it isn’t). It is about facilitating non-surgical abortion, which is strongly opposed by many. Requiring a pharmacist to stock such a drug is the same as requiring all OB/GYN doctors to provide abortion on demand. While I am pro-chioce, I understand the arguments advanced by the pro-lifers, unlike the hysterics in here who are one step from screaming about bloody coat hangers and the Salem witch trials.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
If you read the comments, and suspended everything you know, you would think the follownig:Pharmacies can sell whatever they want, whenever they want.
How disingenuous.
No, if you really read the comments, what you’d think is that some people have the audacity to think that the US government has no legal right to FORCE a business to sell a certain product, as long as all the products they DO sell are legal and they don’t illegally discriminate in their refusal to sell.
Just a couple of requests:
Please, someone shout out another private business that is forced by law to sell a particular product. Anyone? Anyone?
Please explain why the Governor of Illinois should be allowed to, by executive order, negate the Illinois
Andrew J. Lazarus
Motel clerk. You are required to let rooms to black people, and interracial couples, even if their presence in your motel is morally objectionable to you. That has been the law for 41 years now. You may be aware that this law changed the practice on the ground in a large swath of the United States.
This is not really an argument about conscience per se: not one of you libertarians has been willing to admit you don’t approve of the Civil Rights Laws either. Unless you are willing to take that leap (and end up looking a lot more like Cole’s caricature in the main post), I conclude that the difference is that you have no sympathy for the conscience of racists but a great deal of sympathy for the conscience of prudes who don’t want to help out girls in trouble, the nasty little sluts.
timekeeper
Andrew: Try being a bit more on point. We’re not talking about discrimination (not renting to black/interracial couples), we are talking about a pharmacist selling something *not sold to anyone* previously, forced by gubernatorial fiat. We are not talking about refusing to sell birth control pills to an unmarried woman (while selling them to a married woman), we are talking about the government taking away the rights of the store owner to control his inventory in a non-discriminatory fashion, by forcing him to sell something he chose not to sell before.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
It was a wall-to-wall orgy of unfettered free markets, the government having no right to force pharmacists to violate their consciences, because they are businesses and nothing more,
…oh, yeah, AND because it’s against the law to force a health care worker to perform a professional duty against his conscience. But law-be-damned, right, as long as some governor will issue an executive order without so much as consulting any of the professional pharmacists associations.
On and on it went, with no one catching on that this is a coordinated assault on a woman’s right to contraception by the usual suspects to whom the current Republican party is captive.
That’s an agenda-centric way of looking at it, especially since many of these anti-Plan-B pharmacists plainly state that they sell The Pill with no problem. Your conscious effort to refrain from distinguishing The Pill from Plan B prevents you from understanding the other side.
Health care is not a business like any other, nor does it function as a free market with rational players.
Because you say so?
A pharmacy is exactly a business like any other, and pharmacies have functioned for decades and will continue to function in a free market if meddling Governors will stop violating personal liberties and current law.
The point is, there’s a lot more lying behind this than appeared in the post. But that’s not Mr. Cole’s fault. Do your own homework. Mr. Cole has finally seen the ugly face of the theocrats driving the agenda of our party.
I’m sorry, are we supposed to pretend that this pharmacy issue or Schiavo is “the agenda” of the GOP? Funny, I thought there was a war somewhere that was the primary agenda-driving item, but hey, if you say so…
One problem with the “theocracy-phobes” is that they seem incapable of realizing that there are many who agree with the *chuckle* “theocrats” (as if legislating based on moral principles was unheard of instead of the norm for 200-odd years) on certain issues on the basis of rational conservatism. Instead, they choose to pretend there’s a scary monster called Theocracy behind the closet door, whine that “too much morality” is the biggest problem we as a nation face, and gainsay anything the “moralists” propose, even if it is in line with Buckley’s conservatism and the law of the land.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Motel clerk. You are required to let rooms to black people, and interracial couples,
No, the motel clerk could refuse to rent rooms to these people, as long as they also refused to rent rooms to anyone else (so that discrimination was not an issue). Of course, they would go out of business in a heartbeat, but there is no government official coming to their motel demanding that they rent their rooms under penalty of the law.
ppgaz
Over and over again, the same wrong bullshit gets posted here.
Pharmacy is not “selling”, it is dispensing. There is a difference.
Look it up, research it, understand it. Pharmacies do not go out and “market” products to whoever walks in the door with money. They dispense, according to strict regulation and law. It is one of the most regulated businesses in the world.
Don’t take my word for it. Talk to the board of pharmacy in your state.
Pharmacies are not and should not be “free” to act like any other business. The things they dispense are dangerous, and the circumstances are life-and-death.
Dispense. Not sell. Different.
Dispense. Dictionary. D.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Timekeeper, the government forced motel owners to sell something that they never had before: rooms to black people. You are trying to draw a distinction between a pharmacist who refuses a service unconditionally and a motel clerk who refuses a service conditioned on the race of the guest. There may be some validity in this distinction, but NOT in the libertarian argument I was responding to. The complaint that government was ordering a businessman to perform a morally objectionable service has nothing to do with whether that service is available to others in circumstances that the businessman does not find objectionable. It is an absolute claim that applies just as well to racists as to hypermoralist pharmacists.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
They dispense, according to strict regulation and law. It is one of the most regulated businesses in the world.
And the “strict regulation and law,” like the Illinois
Francis
Common carriers. (trains, planes and subways.) They MUST provide service.
Has anyone on either thread actually looked at the laws of various states? California, for example, allows pharmacists to refuse to fill ‘scrips only in the exercise of PROFESSIONAL judgment.
The Free Exercise clause does not allow people to ignore laws of general applicability. (see US Sup Ct. decision of “employment div. v. smith”)
And doesn’t anybody see the Establishment Clause issue created by conscience clauses?
If your religion prevents you from doing your job in the manner that the state insists, change jobs.
timekeeper
ppgaz: Repeating the same thing over and over again does not make it true. Pharmacies *sell* drugs; the prescription is the piece of paper that allows them to sell controlled substances to the customers.
If pharmacies only *dispensed* medications, as you insist (over and over and over and over and over), there would be no need for pharmacists, as a clerk could type the info into a computer and put the appropriate pills into the brown plastic bottles. Pharmacists are also expected to understand the possible ramifications of drug interactions, and can be held liable if they fail to inform their customers of the possible side effects of the drugs.
You keep bringing up the issue of regulation, but cab drivers, bartenders, hairdressers and massage therapists are licensed, and restaurants and grocery stores have health regulations to follow, lest they be shut down. Should I contact my governor because Safeway and Albertson’s don’t carry my particular preference in soda?
Andrew J. Lazarus
A taxi driver is a good example. He is licensed to provide a public service. If he refuses to take you where you want to go, he loses his license. Perhaps pharmacists likewise?
It would behoove the libertarians to stop latching on to racial discrimination as a lifesaver in my example. First, it doesn’t apply to taxi drivers who refuse to take anyone to certain destinations, but more importantly, it leaves you arguing not an absolute case for proprietors to do what they want, but that they can do so only if it is non-discriminatory. If you take the latter view, you have to justify why government intervention may overrule an employee’s animus towards blacks but not his animus towards sexually-active women.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Common carriers. (trains, planes and subways.) They MUST provide service.
But are common carriers required by law to provide specific products (fly mandated routes at mandated times, for instance)? If so, we might’ve found one example of government forcing a private business to sell a “product.”
Of course, it’s still not the same thing as the pharmacy case, because there is no moral objection by the airline to override, but it’s a small step.
If your religion prevents you from doing your job in the manner that the state insists, change jobs.
Again, as someone who has gone through the pains of changing occupations, I don’t feel that a 40-year veteran pharmacist should be thrown out of his profession for his conscientious (and often legally-protected) refusal to sell a product that didn’t even exist when he chose his profession. If you do, then we differ.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
A taxi driver is a good example. He is licensed to provide a public service. If he refuses to take you where you want to go, he loses his license.
He does? That will come as a shock to many Bostonians!
Everyone is mentioning transportation services, which are a difficult to equate with a pharmacy which sells hard goods. Is there any business that sells goods that is legally mandated to sell a certain product?
Birkel
And I support this guy’s right to fire his employees for smoking. Because, you see, it’s about not having government tell him how he has to run his business.
Consistency because not maintaining consistency on these issues leads to more government control of all of our lives.
And government control of people’s lives leads to disaster. See e.g. U.S.S.R.
FC
Can I assume then, Birkel, that you oppose Concience Clauses that prevent pharmacy owners from firing pharmacy employees who choose to place their personal foibles about sex over the profitability of the pharmacy?
bezerkkewpie
“Please shout out any other job in America where you are forced by government order to sell a product or perform a service that is morally objectionable to you.”
Police Officer. I’m a pacifist so being required to shoot someone is morally objectionable to me. I shouldn’t be a police officer.
If part of the job description is against my values, I need to change my job.
Birkel
You can assume nothing, FC.
Ask me a question and I’ll be happy to answer it, if, that is, I come back to the post.
I have no problem with private businesses requiring their employees to honor their terms of employment. And if employees can get their employers to sign terms of employment that benefit them–well then great.
Meanwhile, those contracts have to be legally enforceable according to the Restatement. And of course the 13th and 14th Amendments prevent some contract terms. And there are lots of other things that are prevented but let’s just assume we’re all arguing in good faith and let’s not attribute ill will to opposing arguers.
So if you were to ask me whether legally binding contracts should be honored? My answer is yes, naturally.
FC
Birkel, that was an A+ dodge. BRAVO!
Do you support the Concience Clause as proposed by Pharmacists for Life, with the express statement that Phramacists can decline to sell medicines that their employers wish them to sell, and the state requirement that their refusal to do so cannot, in any way, jepordize their employment or prospective employment in an employment at will state?
timekeeper
Andrew:
A taxi driver is a good example. He is licensed to provide a public service. If he refuses to take you where you want to go, he loses his license.
Ummm, no. There are certain areas (mostly in big cities with high crime rates) to which taxi drivers will not take passengers, nor pick them up. Drivers do not lose their licenses because of such a policy.
Further, I don’t think any of us are defending pharmacists who sell drugs only to certain classes of people, as you keep trying to accuse us. We are talking about a very specific case—a drug that works as a chemical abortion, which pharmacists are refusing to sell to ANYONE.
Compuglobal is right when he points out that transportation and other services are not directly comparable with vendors like pharmacies.
ppgaz
Nope, you can’t have it both ways.
You cannot have a society that rests on laws, and then some members of society deciding which laws apply to them and which don’t, arrogantly announcing that their “principles” are “above” the law.
It simply will not work, no matter how many layers of sugar coating and pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo you try to use to put lipstick on it.
Sharing a country — a republic, in particular — with people who have different views and different ideas about these things requires the ability to do just that: Share. Share the space, share the responsibility, share the burdens, share the freedoms. And this sharing requires agreements, which must be based on a foundation of laws.
If you can design a rigidly regulated and controlled scheme for the distribution of drugs which has room for loopholes allowing *ANYONE* in the system to decide when, where and to what extent to make up his own rules of behavior and procedure — as long as he dresses it up in “religious” excuses — and that scheme can hold together and work, please post it.
Personally, I think pharmacists are an anachronism. The idea that they “must” be there to protect patients may have been marketable in 1950. It is now 2005. Most of the “protections” afforded by their services can be codified and automated.
What will happen here is that if pharmacists start thinking and acting as if they are somehow moral guardians of people’s bloodstreams, pharmacists will be made unnecessary and will become obsolete. It would be fine with me if that happened today. The idea that a patient and doctor together make a medical decision for that patient, and then have to stand in line at Walgreens and get moral permission from a fucking pharmacist to carry out the decision, is ludicrous, and simply will not stand. I won’t stand for it.
In short, there is more at work here than the whiney bathos of the pharmacist’s “principles.” I have my own principles, and it’s my bloodstream the drugs will go into. STFU and get out of my way, mister overpaid and overblown pharmacist. I don’t need you. You are an expensive middleman and if you were smart, you wouldn’t kill the goose that laid your golden egg.
Nobody is forcing any pharmacist to be a pharmacist. If the work is too difficult, then do something else.
Birkel
Dodge?
Perhaps you don’t read so well.
I’ll cut and past it for you:
“And if employees can get their employers to sign terms of employment that benefit them–well then great.”
Try again and I’ll wait here, patiently.
MunDane
John,
I read your site often and find you both infuriating and right-on at times. THis is one of those times yu are infuriating.
Let me pose a hypithetical: All OB/GYN can do abortions, it is a part of their med school curricula, and many will do so in limited cases. My wife had an ectopic pregnancy before our first child was born. That developing fetus had to be removedd or she would have become sterile after it ruptured the Fallopian tube, and the resulting infection may have killed her.
Her Pootie Doc is an evangelical Christian, and felt no qualms at saving her reproductive life and possibly her life by performing the abortion. Does this mean, in your world that he should be REQUIRED, by writ of law, to perform an abortion on Suzie Cheerleader who got knocked up after having a wild orgy celebrating the latest football win?
Business people decide all the time to serve or not serve those that could use their services. (Besides in the case in California, there are several pharmacists in the pharmacy. One did not want to fill it. Any of the others could have been asked to do the prescription.)
And as someone pointed out, the contract is between you and the pharmacist. The Doctor merely grants a permission slip to purchase the medicine. Pharmacists do end up going to schools post graduation that are just as rigorous and demading as medical school. In fact, a pharmacist is held liable in a court of law if he or she dispenses a medicine that they know will intereact with other drug that the patient is taking. Not the doctor who prescribed the medicine
Andrew J. Lazarus
Except, they do. Yes, drivers do this sometimes. Sometimes people cheat on their income tax, too. But the law is quite clear, a taxi has to take passengers anywhere they ask in their service area. Here’s the code for San Francisco. Feel free to find some city whose ordinances say the opposite.
Birkel
ppgaz,
It almost sounds like the market–cue dark music–will put the moralizing pharmacists out of business. Something I wouldn’t mind myself so long as the government stays out of it.
But your rant against “middle men” is a widely misplaced, and thoroughly debunked by economic professionals, notion. And it’s a notion that has led to many unfortunate circumstances in the world.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Police Officer. I’m a pacifist so being required to shoot someone is morally objectionable to me. I shouldn’t be a police officer.
Not really on-point here. The government would not force you by law to shoot anyone in the unlikely event that you are a pacifist cop.
So we are still looking for an example of a private business that is forced by law to sell a particular product OR any other job in America where you are forced by law to sell a product or perform a service that is morally objectionable to you.
Also… someone please explain why a 40-year veteran pharmacist should be punished and possibly thrown out of his profession for his conscientious, legal refusal to sell a product that didn’t even exist when he chose to become a pharmacist.
Andrei
“No government should EVER make a citizen abrogate his/her moral principles under penalty of law — period.”
So what about all those folks who signed up for the National Guard and now realize it goes againt their morals to kill people? Can we let them all come home from Iraq now?
And on the flip side, what about a satanist, whose morals align with things like drug use, drug trafficking, or rampant sexual deviancy that might include minors who are 14 and over.
Or is it that at some point, a line has to be drawn with regard to just how much people should be allowed to follow their “moral principles” no matter what religious belief it is founded in?
Cole is correct on this pharmacy issue imho. Pharmacies are regulated businesses. We have put laws into place because we recognize the importance of needed regulation at some level for products that have life or death consequences. In that regard, the feelings or morals of the individual come second to the law or regulations, which currently allows for these drugs to be prescribed by doctors for patients they have consulted with. Putting individuals personal moral principles in front of the larger role the law must play is as bad an idea as letting soldiers in the armed forces dictate who they want to shoot and when they feel like doing so rather than having the generals run the show giving them orders.
If people have a problem with fulfilling scrips because it flies in the face of their own personal morals, they need to find another job.
Birkel
Making the “they’re a regulated business” is stupidity astride ignorance.
Every business in America is regulated to some degree or another.
It’s a strawman argument for people who want more state control of daily life.
Andrei
“So we are still looking for an example of a private business that is forced by law to sell a particular product OR any other job in America where you are forced by law to sell a product or perform a service that is morally objectionable to you.”
Doctors face this problem when they have to save the life of a patient they know to be murderer or a child molester. If they refuse to help the patient when brought in, they can end up losing their license. Jail? Not sure of any examples of that, but they’ll get sued for malpractice to the point where jail might seem like a nice option to them.
It makes for great t.v. even.
Birkel
Making the “they’re a regulated business” argument is stupidity astride ignorance.
Every business in America is regulated to some degree or another.
It’s a strawman argument for people who want more state control of daily life.
(Forgot the word argument the first time. Whoops. Sorry for the double post.)
Andrei
“Every business in America is regulated to some degree or another.”
Ok. How about:
They’re a heavily regulated business with very strict rules and laws that require certification, years of education and adherence of the regulations to even be allowed to pratice the profession.
If you think the regulations to running a pharmacy is the business equivalent of running a grocery store, a restaurant or some mom and pop clothing store– heck even running something like Amazon.com — I’d say that would be stupidity astride ignorance.
Birkel
Sure…
until you consider the zoning laws, liquor licenses, EEOC guidelines, SEC filings, building codes, Dept. of Health codes, licenses for beauticians and about 20k more pages of FEDERAL regulations plus all the STATE regulations to boot.
I refuse to argue with people so oblivious. Best of luck to you.
mds
Birkel, before you go…
Do you support the Concience Clause as proposed by Pharmacists for Life, with the express statement that Phramacists can decline to sell medicines that their employers wish them to sell, and the state requirement that their refusal to do so cannot, in any way, jepordize their employment or prospective employment in an employment at will state?
Oh, wait, you answered this already:
“And if employees can get their employers to sign terms of employment that benefit them–well then great.”
…by not answering it at all. Twice, yet.
Perhaps Compuglobalhyperwhatzit can take time off from chuckling about what stupid fools we are for worrying about theocrats, and answer it instead? Though you also seem to enjoy using some previously-unknown definition of “strawman.” Of course, you’re right:
A few people somewhere in rural America might have to face the natural consequences of their sexual behavior
can’t possibly be saying that women are getting what they deserve for having sex. No wonder you’re not worried about the radical religious right.
Whoops, another strawman built by describing Pharmacists for Life and quoting you.
Gekkobear
Whoops, I need some medication, and its not sold in my town.
Guess I go without.
Cause, you know, driving to the next town over is like, wayyy to much effort to get prescription medication. I mean, I’m in a tiny town in Kansas with Just one pharmacy, and Kansas City is like, a 45 minute drive. No way I could possibly make i there and back…
Nope, guess I do without unless the Government gets involved.
But thats ok, I trust the Government to make the minimal necessary laws and not pass overly intrusive laws that drastically affect myself and others.
I also beleive the world is flat, and the moon landing was staged…
ppgaz
Amazing but true … if you hang around here long enough, you’ll see everything.
A paean to middlemen! Let’s turn back the clock on 100 years of improvements in efficiency, and start reintroducing middlemen into our product streams!
Letter to Wal-Mart: You guys are missing out. By using jobbers, you can decrease your profits and end up having to raise every price in your store by 20-30%!!! We don’t need no stinking drop shipments!!
Tell you what. If one arrogant, meddling fuckhead in between me, my doctor and my pill bottle is a good idea…. why stop at one? How about Pharmacy Clerks for Christ? They can reject the scrips *when they come in over the phone*!!! Thereby saving the busy pharmacist all the time and trouble necessary to stick his goddam nose into my business!!
Brilliant!! You rightwing creeps are just absolutely brilliant!!!!!
Give me a break.
Andrew J. Lazarus
You know, John Cole really does live in a rural state. I don’t know if he leads a rural life.
But I know about the “libertarians” in this comment thread: citified. Probably without any kids either. And working the kinds of jobs (and lives) where sure they have an extra hour and a half to go to some other pharmacy (‘course, that pharmacy might not sell contraceptives either) in that car they surely own. You guys understand America about as well as Paris Hilton does.
John Cole
You know, John Cole really does live in a rural state. I don’t know if he leads a rural life.
Grew up in a town of 350 people without a pharmacy. Closest one was 10 miles away, and they have agreements with another pharmacy if something was not in stock.
I live in an urban setting (morgantown) right now, with multiple pharmacies, but there are numerous small towns in WV that are not the same way. The people screaming market solutions don’t know there ass from a hole in the ground.
And the other funny thing is that they simply don;t understand that when a town has only one pharmacy, and they scream ‘market solutions,’ they fail to recognize their own ignorance. When a town has only one pharmacy, the market has spoken already- the town can not sustain two.
It is really apparent that the people running their mouths about market solutions are completely and totally out of touch with rural America, rural poverty, the lack of transportation, etc. Quite frankly, it is becoming apparent they don’t give a shit, either, despite all their flowery rhetoric.
But it is ok- if they have their way, there is a solution. Not only will you not be able to get morning after pills or contraception to prevent pregnancy, they will prevent all abortions so you have to carry your baby to term.
Problem solved. Now let’s go talk about free markets some more.
timekeeper
Hmmmm.
I live in a small city (about 22000 people. The nearset big city is Everett, which is about 40 miles away (if one takes the ferry). (The nearest shopping mall is a bit closer, at only 30 miles away. It only has about 50 stores, though.) You’re right, I don’t have kids, since I’ve never been married. However, I don’t own a car, and I don’t drive.
I haven’t used the term “market solution, so this may not apply to me, John, but *ahem* I AM PRO-CHOICE. Don’t characterize my position as trying to ban abortion as well. I am not attempting to ban any type of contraceptive or procedure.
FC
Timekeeper, then, please respond to this:
Do you support the Concience Clause as proposed by Pharmacists for Life, with the express statement that Phramacists can decline to sell medicines that their employers wish them to sell, and the state requirement that their refusal to do so cannot, in any way, jepordize their employment or prospective employment in an employment at will state?
So far, none of the “libertarians” have been willing to give a yes or no. Will you be the first?
jdm
I would support a variation of the CC in that a pharmacist-owner may decline to sell certain medicines.
I live 5 miles away from the nearest town of a 1000 or so which has a single, limited stock pharmacy and 12 miles away from the nearest two cities which have multiple pharmacies. I have children. I drive.
I have just as much “hick cred” as JC and I still disagree with him on this. I can also do it without the ad hominem BS.
FC
That’s nice, JDM, but it’s not what we’re talking about. The clause protectes employees who ignore their bosses. You’re debating something that no one has proposed except you. Come back to the real world where the employees are expressly ignoring the owners of the stores they are employed by, not your imaginary world where CVS dosen’t want to dispense the pill.
Real easy – repeat after me “I do not support the Concience Clause as proposed by Pharmacists for Life.”
What should anger libertines more – one small mom-and-pop or hundreds of thousands of chain stores having their reputation tarnished by employees they are unable to get rid of due to government regulation? I know what I care about.
jdm
FC: I stated what I would support, which means I would not support the CC as written. Geez, are all you people so abrasive in real life?
timekeeper
I do not support the Conscience Clause as proposed by Pharmacists for Life.
I think that I have made that clear numerous times, but you wanted the exact wording, so there it is.
Dodd
I think Mr. Litchfield covered this perfectly in the second comment to your previous post: The owner of an establishment has every right to decide what stock he will carry, an employee should do as directed by his employer.
If the owner of the hardware store chooses, for *any* reason, not to carry 1 1/2# galvanized nails and you need them because (to make this analogy match your doctor-patient one as closely as possible) the instructions for the prefab deck you bought from a third-party call for the, you are free to go somewhere else to get them. You are also free, if it irritates you enough, to cease patronizing his store. But I very much doubt you’d say that the state gov’t has the right to force him to carry them.
However, if the store carried them and some employee (the analogy will get stretched mercilessly here) refused to sell them to you because he thinks only non-galvanized nails like the one’s used to crucify Jesus should be sold, then you’d have legitimate cause to complain to the manager/owner and expect hin to do something about it if he expects to keep you as a customer. But the gov’t still wouldn’t have the right to force him to. That is *also* a private contractual relationship, after all.
Buddy
“But I know about the “libertarians” in this comment thread: citified. Probably without any kids either. And working the kinds of jobs (and lives) where sure they have an extra hour and a half to go to some other pharmacy (‘course, that pharmacy might not sell contraceptives either) in that car they surely own. You guys understand America about as well as Paris Hilton does.”
So much for your ‘knowing,’ as you are incorrect on all counts. As one of those who has been accused of being a ‘Big L’ libertarian (that
John Cole
What kind of heavily regulated nails are you buying, Dodd?
Compuglobalhypermeganet
The people screaming market solutions don’t know there ass from a hole in the ground.
Because you say so, right? Riiiiight. Market solutions are already taking place, with alliances between doctors and pharmacies. Doctors are dispensing Plan B directly to their patients. The pharmaceutical industry appears to want Plan B to go OTC, which would offer more options for women.
And how might an enterprising, capitalist pharmacy fill the demand created by people who are unable or unwilling to get to a drugstore that sells Plan B within 72 hours?
Hmmmmmmmmm….
Well, it took me about 5 seconds to Google this site: ONLINE Plan B delivered 1-day Fed-Ex, anonomously!
(web address can’t be posted, I guess, but you can google it yourselves)
With these market solutions representing the tip of the distribution iceberg, it seems that forcing pharmacists (often illegally) to act against their consciences might be just an exercise in vindictive religio-phobia by those who seek to punish those who don’t think just as they do.
By the way, a hole in the ground is where I planted my azaleas. My ass is what you arrogant pr!cks can kiss.
Kimmitt
Er, the online pharmacies aren’t particularly well-regulated; I’d be less-than-thrilled to try to use them.
Especially if I were, you know, a relatively uneducated person who lacked internet access.
You have convinced me that folks who are well-educated and middle-class have other options, but that’s generally true.
FC
Compuglobalhypermeganet, could you describe the effectiveness curve for Plan-B over a 72 hour period? Feel free to use the words “steadily decreasing.”
Could you also discribe the difference in effacy of plan B at hour 12 and hour 36? Feel free to use the worlds “substantially lower”
While doing this, could you describe the principal of “deadweight loss,” as it pertains to mail order of items that decrease in effacy over time? Feel free to use the words “substantial effect.”
Now, LIBERTARAIANS, HO!!@#!
John Cole
By the way, a hole in the ground is where I planted my azaleas. My ass is what you arrogant pr!cks can kiss.
That was at least amusing, although I might ask Compualphabet to check his posts for an accurate measure of who, precisely, is most arrogant.
At any rate, just give up. You are debating law or reality or even principles with market absolutists. You are better off arguing evolution with 7th Day Adventists.
No matter how many times you point out that the highly regulated practice of being a pharmacist dispensing highly regulated drugs that require a prescription from a highly regulated medical community, they are going to come back and tell you that the ‘earth was formed in 7 days about ten years ago.’
It is pointless.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
I don’t believe I represented online Rxs as the ONLY market solution, although they will no doubt be a part. As far as internet access goes, for the hundreds of people in the USA who could not get onto the internet in 24 hours, phone orders are taken as well. I can hear it already: “BUT WHAT IF THEY DON’T HAVE A PHONE, YOU ELITIST!”
It has become clear that some folks won’t be happy until everyone in America can order a Plan B pill by mental telepathy, to be delivered to his/her door in 30 minutes with a complementary bottled water.
Again, what did some of these people bitch about before Plan B was available?
jdm
What brand of bottled water?
Compuglobalhypermeganet
No matter how many times you point out that the highly regulated practice of being a pharmacist dispensing highly regulated drugs that require a prescription from a highly regulated medical community, they are going to come back and tell you that the ‘earth was formed in 7 days about ten years ago.’
I’m pretty sure that your seeming inability to distinguish between free market capitalists from religious fundamentalists tells us more about your recent pathology than mine.
Again, please accept that there are non-religious people who side with the religious right on certain issues for reasons entirely apart from religion, just as there are highly-religious people who side with liberals on certain issues.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
“I’m pretty sure that your seeming inability to distinguish between free market capitalists from religious fundamentalists”
???
Nice typing, me…
s/b “capitalists AND …”
Andrei
“…until you consider the zoning laws, liquor licenses, EEOC guidelines, SEC filings, building codes, Dept. of Health codes, licenses for beauticians and about 20k more pages of FEDERAL regulations plus all the STATE regulations to boot.”
Laughable. Yeah, guess what? Pharmacies have to deal with all those regulations PLUS all the other strict legal regulations regarding the drug industry, medical policies and laws they have to follow, not to mention the amount of education REQUIRED to get a license to even practice.
Yeah… owning and running a liquor store is the business equivalent of becoming a pharmacist.
I nearly busted a nostril shooting my coffee through nose when you brought up beauticians. I’ll have to remember that joke when I sit down with my friends who are in residence right now.
Hey! Didn’t you you hear? Becoming a beautician is HARD WORK and all those damn regulations they have to follow. Why they don’t get paid as much as pharmacists, I’ll never know.
ppgaz
Aside from the fact that the “free market solves everything” idea has no basis in fact (where is the empirical support for this idea? We seem to have plenty of evidence that the opposite is true — the free market creates problems, at least as effectively as it solves them) …one of its many shortcomings is that it presumes a value (dollar) imperative for everything.
You would think that the God-Squad would be the first, not the last, to recognize that depending on a value (dollar) driven paradigm is sure to create collisions between God-dogma (oh, I mean “moral values”) and Buck-mongering (oh, I mean “profit motive”).
Trying to substitute one dogma (free market is the answer to all things) for another (God’s law, as interpreted by ) is just ….goofy.
If you believe in the free market approach to everything, then enjoy your Wal-Mart world and your government-by-corporate-contributors. In other words, enjoy the fucked up situation you have now.
I’ve often wondered how long the crazy right and the “corporate conservatives” would get along before they discovered how much they should detest each other. I guess now we’ll find out.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Aside from the fact that the “free market solves everything” idea has no basis in fact
So YOU know of an economic system that “solves everything” (your words, not mine) perfectly? Please let the world’s governments know about it, so that we can all enjoy the bliss and prosperity that no doubt await.
The free market is creating solutions for THIS DILEMMA which are far more desirable than the government forcing law-abiding citizens to act counter to their consciences.
You would think that the God-Squad would be the first, not the last, to recognize that depending on a value (dollar) driven paradigm is sure to create collisions between God-dogma …and Buck-mongering …
You do realize that the free market has correcting mechanisms that would help drive out a “buck-monger,” while “forced” markets don’t, right?
The God-Squad are also likely to enjoy the free market’s propensity to let them enjoy the freedom of their consciences. So I wouldn’t hold your breath on that “Judeo-Christian revolt against capitalism.”
If you believe in the free market approach to everything, then enjoy your Wal-Mart world and your government-by-corporate-contributors. In other words, enjoy the fucked up situation you have now.
Yeah, I sure wish we had around-the-block lines for toilet paper and potatoes, like those government-run economies.
FC
What a Dilemma! I wonder if there is an option other than pure free-marketeering and government run economies.
ppgaz
Like I said, show me da money. Show me the evidence that “free markets” handle something like the byzantine, convoluted and regressive health care system in a large country with diverse demographics like ours.
Is that why France, for example, has better and cheaper healthcare than we do? Why millions of their citizens don’t go without care, as they do here, unless they get sick enough to show up at an emergency room? How’s our infant mortality rate doing compared to other non-third-world countries?
How do you like the cost of your health insurance after you get laid off from your job?
Have you looked into the situation with the free-market situation in childhood vaccines lately? The business is not profitable … all the money is in the glamor drugs (the ones they can advertise on tv). How’s that free market working?
Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, please.
Kimmitt
So YOU know of an economic system that “solves everything” (your words, not mine) perfectly?
Sure, regulated free markets tend to be spectacularly effective.
ppgaz
Nice try at deflection.
The point was, is, and will be, that there is no factual basis for believing that a “free market solution” can resolve the issue on the table here.
The intellectual equivalent of “let ’em eat cake” is not a “free market” solution. It is dismissal of the problem by sweeping it under the nearest rhetorical rug.
Look at it this way: If “let ’em get their prescriptions filled somewhere else” is a good answer, then “let the asshole pharmacists get another job” is also a good answer. And more effective, since it goes directly to the core of the situation.
Fuck the patients? No thanks, fuck the pharmacists instead.
Get it? And it’s customer-based. All the market types should appreciate the value of a good customer-driven solution, right? I mean, if the market doesn’t serve the customer, whose interests does it serve? The question, as they say, answers itself.
ppgaz
By the way, that’s game, set, match.
You can pick up your consolation prize on the way out.
buddy
Actually ppgaz, that
Compuglobalhypermeganet
The point was, is, and will be, that there is no factual basis for believing that a “free market solution” can resolve the issue on the table here.
Ummmm, except that it already IS resolving the issue, as described above. But why slightly alter a pill’s distribution paradigm when you can force religious people to act against their consciences, right? That’s MUCH more fun!
Look at it this way: If “let ’em get their prescriptions filled somewhere else” is a good answer, then “let the asshole pharmacists get another job” is also a good answer. And more effective, since it goes directly to the core of the situation…Fuck the patients? No thanks, fuck the pharmacists instead.
I thought I’d heard retarded reasoning before, but…
The market will ensure that NO ONE gets fucked. But you don’t want that, do you? Not when there are religious people to “fuck” for their beliefs! Hate is no basis for needless regulation.
By the way, that’s game, set, match. You can pick up your consolation prize on the way out.
Sorry, but I don’t enter the Special Olympics. Hope you got your “Winner’s Hug.”
Compuglobalhypermeganet
regulated free markets tend to be spectacularly effective.
And if the involved parties insist on having an Rx involved in Plan B distribution, the regulation in this case should ensure that the pharmacist has the right not to fill a perscription (as long as it is an indisciminate refusal), but that he cannot preclude, even for a second, the customer from seeking alternatives for obtaining the drug.
A good analysis I read elsewhere offered a unique explanation of this whole dilemma. It has to do with the common misinterpretation of the rights of a customer vs. the rights of a vendor. I can buy a car, but ONLY if the seller is willing. A woman has the right to an abortion, but ONLY if a doctor is willing to give it to her. She can’t force a doctor, no matter how qualified he might be to perform it, to give her an abortion. So no matter what rights the customer claims, the seller must be willing to sell the product.
Kimmitt
The market will ensure that NO ONE gets fucked.
Article of faith, not fact.
TM Lutas
In NYC, if any pregnant woman knocks on a Church door, they are guaranteed to get the resources necessary for them to keep the baby. That’s whether they need education on how to get housing, etc. or they need the Cardinal to write them a $5000 check to cover expenses nobody else will cover. The Catholic Church stepped up to the plate and put their money where their pro-life mouth is. That’s an impressive show of substance no matter where you come down on the issue of abortion.
There’s no reason that supporters of this drug couldn’t come up with work-arounds that would ensure that every woman in america could gain useful access to this drug. It seems like they would rather have executive orders issued in violation of state law (which means it’s just showboating that’s going to get tossed out in the courts).
It’s classic liberalism, all show, no substance. That doesn’t impress me.
John Cole
While I admire the behavior of the Catholic church in the situation you described, I would like to point out money is not a controlled substance, and stating that ‘supporters’ of this type of pill should make it available somehow is just silly.
Kimmitt
I was about to say.
Andrew J. Lazarus
It seems to me there is some confusion about the rights of vendors—when the vendor is a deputed agent with special privileges (the sale of controlled substances). To me, it’s more like going to DMV and being refused a license because they think you’ll use your car for speeding.
timekeeper
To me, it’s more like going to DMV and being refused a license because they think you’ll use your car for speeding.
No it’s like going to the DMV and being told that they don’t handle Concealed Carry Permitting, but if you go down the street to the County Sheriff (another governmental agency), they will be more than willing to help you.
Kimmitt
I want to live in a world where that analogy made sense.
timekeeper
Kimmett: Just leave the “Reality-Based community” and enter reality.