It Might Soon Be Legal for Employers to Force You Into a Genetic Test

[XenaLee]

In our depraved and wicked culture, the only privacy one is permitted is to engage in deviant sexual behaviors and criminality if you are a liberal Leftist and vote Democrat.

The rest of us are not entitled to any privacy, because as Leftists have been trumpeting now with great fanfare - the plebes in flyover country cannot be trusted with liberty or privacy.  Certainly they say that the last election proves we cannot be trusted to vote either.

Those of us who understand the scriptures recognize we are rapidly arriving at the place and time whereby everyone must be married, thought and deed to the beast - or breathing and making a living will be impossible.

This is just one more tool in such an arsenal of imposing that.

What if....  the reason behind wanting genetic info on every employee.... has a more diabolical purpose?  Like..... cloning, for instance.  Wouldn't want to spend time and money cloning someone with bad genes.  Sounds wacky?  What doesn't, these days?

[Idaho_Cowboy]

What if....  the reason behind wanting genetic info on every employee.... has a more diabolical purpose?  Like..... cloning, for instance.  Wouldn't want to spend time and money cloning someone with bad genes.  Sounds wacky?  What doesn't, these days?

I've had at least one boss that told me they wished they could clone me. 

[Cyber Liberty]

I've had at least one boss that told me they wished they could clone me. 

Have you ever told yourself you wished they could clone you?   

[INVAR]

What if....  the reason behind wanting genetic info on every employee.... has a more diabolical purpose?  Like..... cloning, for instance.  Wouldn't want to spend time and money cloning someone with bad genes.  Sounds wacky?  What doesn't, these days?

Whenever man decides to play God - it bodes horrifically ill for everyone.

[Smokin Joe]

I am opposed without reservation.  Databases can be compiled in ways that I am unable to comprehend or imagine.  It is enough for me to know that others can imagine those ways.  Heck, maybe I can be assessed a tax because of my DNA/mitochondrial advantages.  Or not.  I don't know what I don't know - and I'm speaking for the purity of intent in mapping my genetics.

Meanwhile, as a philosophical matter, I suspect many who may desire this genetic testing would find it abhorrent to drug screen a welfare recipient. 

Edit:  Spelling - drat!

I notice what seem to be trends, often reflected in advertisements for programs, actions, etc., and there has been a definite uptick in the number of ads wanting to document my bloodline or have my genetics tested.

An uncle did the geneology, back to before the Norman Conquest, so I doubt any outfit is going to provide me with much that isn't already available to me. Never mind that.

I also noted the selling angle that "I didn't know where I came from" being used to nudge people toward DNA testing to determine ancestry.

Overall, though, it seems someone out there wants to build databases of DNA, which can of course, be one of the most valuable tools totalitarians and eugenicists ever had.

Nothing like being able to say this group is the untermenschen, this the ubermenschen, and thus these will be used as thrall or eliminated, these as slaves or servants, while the rest will be the overlords (if they just have the right DNA).

Sorry, but I see a future of abuse, of targeting individuals for organ donation, a thousand abuses that can and will be justified by DNA, rather than allow for people to succeed or fail based on their willingness to work hard and be creative.

So, not only no, but Hell No.

[Lando Lincoln]

The horrors of science fiction novels are not difficult to conjure up here.

Let's say we begin mapping people's genetic make-up for the purposes of health wellness and management.  All is good. Now... your young son or daughter develops a grave illness. Well, let's have a look... Oh... little Tommy or Katie has terribly flawed markers in their genetics. Hmmm... we need to withhold the expensive treatment because... well, he/she is "flawed" and likely to have a short, unproductive life. Expensive for the system, too. The sound business decision is to make him/her comfortable and let them expire in due course.

Does this really sound too far-fetched?

[Smokin Joe]

  Certain genetic risks  are made riskier by bad habits - and the employee can be educated or encouraged to take part in wellness activities to help him live healthier.   

"Educated"? "encouraged" ?

OFF TO CAMP WITH YOU!

[DB]

I notice what seem to be trends, often reflected in advertisements for programs, actions, etc., and there has been a definite uptick in the number of ads wanting to document my bloodline or have my genetics tested.

An uncle did the geneology, back to before the Norman Conquest, so I doubt any outfit is going to provide me with much that isn't already available to me. Never mind that.

I also noted the selling angle that "I didn't know where I came from" being used to nudge people toward DNA testing to determine ancestry.

Overall, though, it seems someone out there wants to build databases of DNA, which can of course, be one of the most valuable tools totalitarians and eugenicists ever had.

Nothing like being able to say this group is the untermenschen, this the ubermenschen, and thus these will be used as thrall or eliminated, these as slaves or servants, while the rest will be the overlords (if they just have the right DNA).

Sorry, but I see a future of abuse, of targeting individuals for organ donation, a thousand abuses that can and will be justified by DNA, rather than allow for people to succeed or fail based on their willingness to work hard and be creative.

So, not only no, but Hell No.

Just wait until we're required to get a government permit to have children. Favorable DNA will get incentives and unfavorable DNA will get deterrents if not worse.

[Idaho_Cowboy]

Yo @Quix you see this?

[Smokin Joe]

Genetic testing would mean flirting with that dreadful "reality" thing, which some States are making illegal.


If I'm a 45 year old bearded male, but I self-identify as a 14 year old Chinese girl, which will the genetic testing report to my employer? Who are they to tell ME that I'm not a woman?, or Chinese?, or Black?, or a giraffe? That's racist, sexist, and homophobic! I see many lawsuits in this.
Genetic reality is infringing on my right to be a delusional weirdo. I'm suing!

Well, it could be interesting watching all the 'psychotic breaks' (via satellite, of course).

[DB]

Certain genetic risks  are made riskier by bad habits - and the employee can be educated or encouraged to take part in wellness activities to help him live healthier.   

Very disturbing. Lets have government force on you what government says is healthy and penalize you for what it says is unhealthy. Your good intentions are just slavery and making people property of the state to do as they see fit for the "greater good". The "science" says having the wrong attitude is bad for your health and the government is going to correct that attitude...

How foolish can you be?

[Smokin Joe]

In our depraved and wicked culture, the only privacy one is permitted is to engage in deviant sexual behaviors and criminality if you are a liberal Leftist and vote Democrat.

The rest of us are not entitled to any privacy, because as Leftists have been trumpeting now with great fanfare - the plebes in flyover country cannot be trusted with liberty or privacy.  Certainly they say that the last election proves we cannot be trusted to vote either.

Those of us who understand the scriptures recognize we are rapidly arriving at the place and time whereby everyone must be married, thought and deed to the beast - or breathing and making a living will be impossible.

This is just one more tool in such an arsenal of imposing that.

Yep. That's about how it looks from the cheap seats.

[Smokin Joe]

The point of the HRA is to identify risk factors that the employee can take steps to control.   Certain genetic risks  are made riskier by bad habits - and the employee can be educated or encouraged to take part in wellness activities to help him live healthier.   

Don't eat apples/eat apples, don't eat eggs/ eat eggs, don't eat butter/butter is better for you, et cetera.
How many studies have we seen deeming something to be 'bad' for us when it turns out it wasn't, how often have we been told something is 'good' when it isn't?

This is nonsense. Neither the government nor the medical profession would even assert the 'science is settled', yet they want to impose it?  No thanks, I'm not a lab rat.

[DB]

@Jazzhead

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”


― C.S. Lewis

[Lando Lincoln]

Yo @Quix you see this?

Hey wait! We got the makin's of a futuristic dystopia sci- fi novel. It will get better.

[Smokin Joe]

The horrors of science fiction novels are not difficult to conjure up here.

Let's say we begin mapping people's genetic make-up for the purposes of health wellness and management.  All is good. Now... your young son or daughter develops a grave illness. Well, let's have a look... Oh... little Tommy or Katie has terribly flawed markers in their genetics. Hmmm... we need to withhold the expensive treatment because... well, he/she is "flawed" and likely to have a short, unproductive life. Expensive for the system, too. The sound business decision is to make him/her comfortable and let them expire in due course.

Does this really sound too far-fetched?

Not at all. How many parents of perfectly normal children have been encouraged to abort because of possible birth defects? How long before that becomes mandatory under such a program? (Or "encouraged"? as in they will pay for the abortion, but not ever cover the child, maternity, or any costs associated with it.)

The new ubermensch, the new camps. It doesn't take science fiction to get there, only to be decanting the Alphas, Betas, and Gammas out of the artificial wombs (Brave New World, Aldous Huxley).

[Smokin Joe]

@Jazzhead

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”


― C.S. Lewis

QFT

[Jazzhead]

What if....  the reason behind wanting genetic info on every employee.... has a more diabolical purpose?  Like..... cloning, for instance.  Wouldn't want to spend time and money cloning someone with bad genes.  Sounds wacky?  What doesn't, these days?

You do realize, don't you, just how stupid you sound?   

Wellness programs are perfectly benign.   Employers are trying save health care dollars and they want to encourage healthy habits among the workforce.   What the heck is wrong with that?   Folks live longer, and employers save money.   One of the more useful takeaways from a health risk assessment is to alert folks to issues that they can address by changing  bad habits.  Like diabetes.   To be able for the health plan to provide such information, family medical history can be quite relevant.   And that's the "genetic information" problem faced  by wellness programs.   The bill appears to be an attempt to facilitate the promulgation of effective wellness programs, that VOLUNTARILY obtain family medical history in order to formulate an action plan for an employee.

These programs do work, you know.  They bring down an employer's health care spend and, well, I hate to say it to all you rugged individualists,  gets some employees to clean up their acts - eating healthier, giving up smoking,  losing weight, you name it .   You know, good old socialist paternalism,  in the name of helping an employer rein in skyrocketing health care costs.   

[Jazzhead]

Very disturbing. Lets have government force on you what government says is healthy and penalize you for what it says is unhealthy. Your good intentions are just slavery and making people property of the state to do as they see fit for the "greater good". The "science" says having the wrong attitude is bad for your health and the government is going to correct that attitude...

How foolish can you be?

Note to Board administrator:  We really, really need a "rolleyes" smiley. 

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

You do realize, don't you, just how stupid you sound?   

Did she really just say that employers want genetic testing for cloning?

[Jazzhead]

Whenever man decides to play God - it bodes horrifically ill for everyone.

Whenever man has the hubris to prance about like you saying he knows the mind of God, it bodes horrifically ill.   

[Jazzhead]

Did she really just say that employers want genetic testing for cloning?

It would appear so. 

The irony is, I know so many employers that really do care about the health of their workforce, and not just to improve the bottom line.   

[XenaLee]

You do realize, don't you, just how stupid you sound?   

Wellness programs are perfectly benign.   Employers are trying save health care dollars and they want to encourage healthy habits among the workforce.   What the heck is wrong with that?   Folks live longer, and employers save money.   One of the more useful takeaways from a health risk assessment is to alert folks to issues that they can address by changing  bad habits.  Like diabetes.   To be able for the health plan to provide such information, family medical history can be quite relevant.   And that's the "genetic information" problem faced  by wellness programs.   The bill appears to be an attempt to facilitate the promulgation of effective wellness programs, that VOLUNTARILY obtain family medical history in order to formulate an action plan for an employee.

These programs do work, you know.  They bring down an employer's health care spend and, well, I hate to say it to all you rugged individualists,  gets some employees to clean up their acts - eating healthier, giving up smoking,  losing weight, you name it .   You know, good old socialist paternalism,  in the name of helping an employer rein in skyrocketing health care costs.   

Well, we've already determined your level of stupidity (it is well-documented by now).  And notice....

I DID say "sounds wacky?" (note the question mark, as well).

Other than that.... you can KMA.

[XenaLee]

I've had at least one boss that told me they wished they could clone me. 

Lol....yeah.  I had a boyfriend once that I wished I could clone.  He was a good cook and really liked to cook for me, was a licensed massage therapist, didn't mind shopping with, loved the same music (smooth jazz and blues)  AND was damned good in the sack.   Oh...yeah.

[Wingnut]

Lol....yeah.  I had a boyfriend once that I wished I could clone.  He was a good cook and really liked to cook for me, was a licensed massage therapist, didn't mind shopping with, loved the same music (smooth jazz and blues)  AND was damned good in the sack.   Oh...yeah.

So he was a lesbian?