In Jersey we know if you mob yourself up, you end up owned and controlled by the mob. Since there isn’t much difference between the mob and the government, the same principle applies. And the most recent application of the principle has to do with conscience, specifically religious conscience.

What happens when your conscience becomes a puppet on a government-string?

The Obama administration ran a planup the political flagpole requiring religiously-affiliated hospitals and universities to provide contraception services to their employees. Nobody saluted, least of all the Catholic Church, which, through its bishops, denounced the plan saying it trampled on their religiously-based opposition to birth control.

Retreating a hair, President Obama last week offered an equally unpalatable compromisethat doesn’t require Catholics to offer birth-control coverage, but requires insurance companies to provide it without cost in all plans they sell to Catholic and other facilities. Now the insurance industry has its nose out of joint.

The issue created a big enough stink throughout the conservative and faith-based communities that ordained Southern Baptist pastor and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee proclaimedin a speech to a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference that, “We’re all Catholics now.”

Shades of JFK’s 1963 “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech.  

The Feds control everything in health care and increasingly dictate, mandate and otherwise push people around at their whim. While some say that’s what happens when you take government money, this time even religious hospitals and facilities that don’t take a dime are coveredby the new rules.

Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, which doesn’t seek or accept government funds, a policy that otherwise gives them the freedom to do, act and speak as they please, will be required to comply.

Many Democrats say those with conscience or religiously-based objections are “ideologues” trying to force their beliefs on others. No mention is made by them of how in supporting this government dictate they’re forcing their beliefs on Catholics and others.

Take a look at this clip from C-Span (hat tip to Trent England of the Freedom Foundation) where Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA, says opposition by the Catholic Church and others to the birth-control mandate is a product of an “extreme minority’s ideology” (11:00).

New Jersey Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg, in his usual stumbling, bumbling manner, agrees saying, “Ideology should never be used to block women from getting the care” (13:51).

And Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, in the best tradition of demagoguery and Orwellian Newspeak said, “Our opponents will look for any excuse to impose their ideology on women’s rights,” and called opposition to a government mandate that steps on the free exercise of religion “big government at its absolute worst” (14:39).

Using their definitions, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a horrible big-government ideologue because his civil rights crusade stemmedfrom him being a Baptist pastor. Patty Murray, say hello to your soul mate, Bull Conner.

Sure, others in Congress have stepped forward in a bi-partisan fashion to push back against the original mandate and the alleged “compromise,” but it’s still out there together with the mentality of “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you – just cede your freedom of conscience to me.”

Government funding or involvement is like free cocaine or inexpensive ink-jet printers – feels or looks good on the front end, but when you’re hooked it’s a damned expensive habit as your dealer jacks the price or you find out that ink cartridges have a next-to-zero life span and replacements cost more than the original printer.

It’s not that government shouldn’t interfere with matters of conscience, it’s that people of conscience shouldn’t involve themselves with government, because when they do, conscience becomes subject to Patty Murray’s strings.

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com