Ideological Fault Lines in (Post-)Mormonism

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I’ve found I’ve started to read Symmachus’ and Analytics’ exchanges in a sort of Received Pronunciation accent betwixt two older gentlemen engaged in determined battle. It’s quite nice, actually.

- Doc

[Symmachus]

I've started commuting to work again, and I generally listen to A.M. talk radio while driving. What strikes me about these conservatives is how frequently they use the word "they." This morning Glenn Beck was talking about an orchestrated conspiracy that "they" have to take away our stuff. The basic rhythm of the show was "They have the goal of acquiring 30% of the land in America by 2030, and 60% by 2040. They don't care about you. They want to take all of your stuff. They hate America. What are they going to do with the land they are stealing? I'll tell you in 60 seconds..."

In this exchange, I read the word "you" a lot. " e.g. "You are clearly unable or unwilling to enter a worldview that is not your own. It is meaningless to you, and you apparently have no problem with the state exercising its coercive power to impose an understanding of the reality you identify with…

Well, that kind of "they" is deliberately ambiguous so as to evoke something sinister, but I don't know what, in a conversation, is more unambiguous than "you" or less loaded. It's pretty clear, I thought anyway, who is being referenced and why. I characterized what you wrote because that is the only avenue I have to what you think. Perhaps you don't like characterization, but I'm not sure how I am supposed to separate your words from your thoughts. I characterize your words, which means I characterize your thoughts. My characterization may be wrong. Your conclusion after all this that, because the nuns don't meet an arbitrary and hypothetical standard of consistency by which they force people to forswear birth control, they are tools. Ok. I'll let others figure out if you've entered their worldview sufficient to understand them.

So if these nuns really think birth control is a form of murder, why not make their employees pledge never to use birth control? Why are they "perfectly happy to let people who want to [murder babies] do so," as long as the Sisterhood is paying for it through payroll benefits rather than health insurance benefits? Do they hate murdering babies less than BYU hates drinking coffee?

If they really think birth control is a form of murder and don't want to pay for it, all they have to do is make their employees sign a statement pledging they won't murder anyone this way. Presuming their employees are honest, this prevents the murders from happening and prevents their funds from being used to finance them.

Saying it is perfectly fine for them to finance murder through payroll but utterly unacceptable to finance it through health insurance premiums just doesn't ring like a well-thought out, sincere position to me.

I don't know if that really would be legal; the reason BYU can do something like that is precisely because it currently enjoys protections rooted in the 1st amendment jurisprudence. And again, you continue to miss the point: the rules of the administration were such that the burden was placed on the nuns to make the accommodation, but the accommodation should be the other way around (that 1st amendment thing, again). It's really not that hard, as 7 out of 9 members of the Supreme Court pointed out and as 9 out of 9 recently pointed out on another case of this sort.

1- The Obama administration didn't say reproductive health should be included in the healthcare legislation in order to stick it to conservatives. Rather, it was a sincere, internally consistent policy decision about what is good for America.

So murdering babies is good for America?

See how this goes?

2- I admit the following is simply a declaration of my own personal values, but I'll state it for the record: I give enormous deference to the conscience of individuals, but I fundamentally disagree with the concept that corporations are people and that corporations have consciences, and that corporations have natural rights.

Should each nun individually have argued their rights in court?

I totally agree that the Little Sisters of the Poor have a fundamentally different worldview than cosmopolitan Americans. However, when I analyze what they claim their values are, the place where they drew the line here seems arbitrary and not internally consistent. This leads me to believe they are being used as tools in the broader culture war.

Again with the "what they claim." Can anyone on the right or any person who is conservative have a legitimate grievance on social transformation (especially when those transformations are implemented in public policy), or are they by definition tools? Do they have to meet your criteria of what is "internally consistent" in order to be taken seriously? And does that standard apply to your own side in determining whether a response is genuinely motivated or the result of FOX or MSNBC propaganda? Is it only a cultural war when someone refuses to acquiesce? Is there ever a first strike?

I’ve found I’ve started to read Symmachus’ and Analytics’ exchanges in a sort of Received Pronunciation accent betwixt two older gentlemen engaged in determined battle. It’s quite nice, actually.

Yas, yas. Quite so.

[Analytics]

Well, that kind of "they" is deliberately ambiguous so as to evoke something sinister, but I don't know what, in a conversation, is more unambiguous than "you" or less loaded....

My point is that just as these talk radio hosts tell their audience what liberals think, you have a tendency to generalize about what I'm talking about and tell me what I think.

Your conclusion after all this that, because the nuns don't meet an arbitrary and hypothetical standard of consistency by which they force people to forswear birth control, they are tools. Ok. I'll let others figure out if you've entered their worldview sufficient to understand them.

It reminds me of this scene from As Good As It Gets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBz0BTb83H8

What's the secret to understanding the world view of these nuns and making them feel like you really, truly, understand what they think and feel? It's easy. Imagine a liberal. Then take away reason and accountability.

I don't know if that really would be legal; the reason BYU can do something like that is precisely because it currently enjoys protections rooted in the 1st amendment jurisprudence. And again, you continue to miss the point: the rules of the administration were such that the burden was placed on the nuns to make the accommodation, but the accommodation should be the other way around (that 1st amendment thing, again). It's really not that hard, as 7 out of 9 members of the Supreme Court pointed out and as 9 out of 9 recently pointed out on another case of this sort.

You keep insisting that I'm talking about a Supreme Court Decision, and I keep insisting that I'm talking about whether the sensibilities of the nuns on this issue are internally consistent and exist independent of the political climate. They are two different issues.

1- The Obama administration didn't say reproductive health should be included in the healthcare legislation in order to stick it to conservatives. Rather, it was a sincere, internally consistent policy decision about what is good for America.

So murdering babies is good for America?

Giving women reproductive freedom in this way is internally consistent with cosmopolitan values.

2- I admit the following is simply a declaration of my own personal values, but I'll state it for the record: I give enormous deference to the conscience of individuals, but I fundamentally disagree with the concept that corporations are people and that corporations have consciences, and that corporations have natural rights.

Should each nun individually have argued their rights in court?

I don't know on what basis they should do so. It was the corporation itself that was participating in America's healthcare system by providing insurance coverage to its employees. Not individual nuns.

The court case was about the corporation itself having a "conscientious objection" to funding its employees reproductive health through insurance rather than payroll. It was about the organization's "sincere religious beliefs." My opinion is that that is nonsensical--corporations can't conscientiously object to anything because corporations don't have consciences. Individuals who work and lead the organizations do. Sure. But the organization in and of itself? No.

Can anyone on the right or any person who is conservative have a legitimate grievance on social transformation (especially when those transformations are implemented in public policy), or are they by definition tools?

Yes. Of course they can have legitimate grievances. They can even have grievances that are internally consistent with their principles and make sense.

Do they have to meet your criteria of what is "internally consistent" in order to be taken seriously?

Well, the Supreme Court didn't consult me before agreeing to hear some of these cases, so the answer to your question is no--my personal opinion on such things has little bearing on whether this or that grievance will or will not be taken seriously.

And does that standard apply to your own side in determining whether a response is genuinely motivated or the result of FOX or MSNBC propaganda? Is it only a cultural war when someone refuses to acquiesce? Is there ever a first strike?

I'm not sure what you mean by "my side." My side is a lonely place. If what you refer to as "my side" is a misnomer for Democrats, then the answer is yes, the same standards apply to that side. No, it is not only a cultural war when someone refuses to acquiesce. Yes, there are first strikes.

[Symmachus]

My point is that just as these talk radio hosts tell their audience what liberals think, you have a tendency to generalize about what I'm talking about and tell me what I think.

I'm sure you really believe that.

It reminds me of this scene from As Good As It Gets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBz0BTb83H8

What's the secret to understanding the world view of these nuns and making them feel like you really, truly, understand what they think and feel? It's easy. Imagine a liberal. Then take away reason and accountability.

I have given up trying to understand what I think you're trying to say, since then you moan that I am telling you what you think. So what is your point here? That nuns lack reason and accountability, or that, ultimately, their real motivations are some kind of mystery and we're just playing a game where our imaginations fill it all in?

I don't think it's really that hard to see what their view is and why they hold it.

You keep insisting that I'm talking about a Supreme Court Decision, and I keep insisting that I'm talking about whether the sensibilities of the nuns on this issue are internally consistent and exist independent of the political climate. They are two different issues.

I referenced the decision only to the extent that it clarifies the issue we're talking about and better encapsulates the position of Little Sisters of the Poor than any of your hand-jerk Jeffrey Toobin characterizations. The nuns' position is perfectly consistent, not only with their Catholic beliefs but—and this was their contention—with the US Constitution. Your standard of consistency seems to be: "can I find a work-around that satisfies me, a non-Catholic person with no stake in the matter? Yes, I can imagine one that should work, therefore these people are inconsistent."

Giving women reproductive freedom in this way is internally consistent with cosmopolitan values.

I'm not even sure what "cosmopolitan" values are (and I would suggest for another thread that this is part of the problem of our cultural moment) let alone whether they tend towards some consistency. But surely, killing babies is inconsistent with cosmopolitan values, whatever they are.

The court case was about the corporation itself having a "conscientious objection" to funding its employees reproductive health through insurance rather than payroll. It was about the organization's "sincere religious beliefs." My opinion is that that is nonsensical--corporations can't conscientiously object to anything because corporations don't have consciences. Individuals who work and lead the organizations do. Sure. But the organization in and of itself? No.

This is completely nonsensical. A corporation is a legal instrument that enables people who associate in concert for a given purpose to have their cumulative acts treated as singularly representative of the individuals who so associate themselves. Any association of any kind that engages in the public sphere (or even if it doesn't) can have a moral interest in a given issue, just as it can have a pecuniary interest. Indeed, people often associate with one another and form a corporation precisely to advance a moral interest.

Should corporations be able to make a profit? After all, profit is an excess of funds as the result of buying, producing, operating or otherwise transacting. But only people can buy, produce, or operate. I pay a high class salon like SuperCuts good money to look as fabulous as I do—and yet, it isn't SuperCuts who cuts my hair, is it? It is Tanner (or Taylor; I can't remember, but it was definitely a name derived from some medieval profession). And I had to give zir a tip because people cut hair, not corporations.

[honorentheos]

At the core of the American experiment is an idea. That being, that birth is not destiny, that small "d" democratic access to opportunity leads to a better society for all of its members in aggregate, and that the nation is strongest and at its most virtuous, civically, when it seeks to remove the barriers to opportunity when they are recognized.

Many on the left mistakenly focus on where we've fallen short of the ideal and use it as a weapon or cause for being derogatory towards the institution as a whole. Many on the right see their own access to opportunity eroding or further out of reach than it seemed to have been for their parents and mistakenly see calls for progress in advancing access to opportunity as a cause of this. Or, perhaps more as a threat.

When one subtracts out the ideal - that of democratic access to opportunity - the partisans lose any chance of finding common ground and engage in a zero sum contest around so-called privilege. Enemies abound, and it is easy to find actual examples on both sides of people who do want to see the social order upended and send those at near the top down to the bottom so others can take their turn, or outspoken unapologetic racists or ultra-rich Marie Antoinette-types kicking down.

The Obama administration handled many things poorly. In fact, I'd argue they helped create the environment where Trump was possible. Rather than understanding that a representative republic demands politicians get together behind closed doors and work at compromises that they can sell to their constituents, the Obama admin often showed disdain for politics as such and instead leveraged national populism. Public statements calling for voters to push their representatives rather than being the grease that helped the wheels of government turn is absolutely a type of populism. And it had consequences for both the Democratic party and for how Republicans responded. That's not to vilify Obama. He did many good things. But he wasn't someone who could make things happen in Washington so he played to his strengths which largely meant leaning on his public speaking talents to appeal to the nation as a whole. Like it or not, this laid the groundwork for a coarse authoritarian anti-Obama to remake that into a repudiation of everything both parties stood for, rally around being called deplorables through vilification of Washington, and set fire to the civic institutions of American democracy figuratively and kinda literally.

Anywho, I am curious where one decides to draw the line on opting out of contributing to the civic good if one has specific moral objections they can claim? Could members of the Black Lives Matter movement opt out of paying taxes to the amount that would go to law enforcement if they feel the police are waging war against their young men? Can a healthy segment of American society opt out of contributing to military spending because they find war to be a form of killing babies, and the US being the largest arms dealer in the world morally abhorrent? Can a person claim they do not wish to fund schools if they do not have school aged kids? Not pay for libraries or fund the arts since they don't use those public services? Do we close parks when it turns out those in the highest tax brackets don't use them because they have private facilities of their own they prefer to use instead? Where's the line?

[Analytics]

It reminds me of this scene from As Good As It Gets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBz0BTb83H8

What's the secret to understanding the world view of these nuns and making them feel like you really, truly, understand what they think and feel? It's easy. Imagine a liberal. Then take away reason and accountability.

I have given up trying to understand what I think you're trying to say, since then you moan that I am telling you what you think. So what is your point here? That nuns lack reason and accountability, or that, ultimately, their real motivations are some kind of mystery and we're just playing a game where our imaginations fill it all in?

My point was mainly that something said in this conversation reminds me of something funny. When I say something that isn't intended to be taken 100% literal should I signal it with a "jk", a "lol", or perhaps a ?

Humor aside, the video clip does raise the issue of whether some people have a world view that really is less logical and less internally consistent than others.

You keep insisting that I'm talking about a Supreme Court Decision, and I keep insisting that I'm talking about whether the sensibilities of the nuns on this issue are internally consistent and exist independent of the political climate. They are two different issues.

I referenced the decision only to the extent that it clarifies the issue we're talking about and better encapsulates the position of Little Sisters of the Poor than any of your hand-jerk Jeffrey Toobin characterizations. The nuns' position is perfectly consistent, not only with their Catholic beliefs but—and this was their contention—with the US Constitution. Your standard of consistency seems to be: "can I find a work-around that satisfies me, a non-Catholic person with no stake in the matter? Yes, I can imagine one that should work, therefore these people are inconsistent."

It's fine to turn to the court cases to hear the nuns articulate their legal position, as well as to hear what the HHS department thought about it, and what the Supreme Court ruled. All of these things should be seriously considered when coming to our own independent judgments about the Constitutionality of the various issues.

However, when evaluating the Constitutionality of the ACA, the specifics of the plaintiff's beliefs are bracketed off. The judges want to know if the nuns' objections to the law are "sincerely religious" in nature, but otherwise they will avoid going into the details--the separation of church and state and all that.

In contrast, I'm not a federal judge. There isn't a wall between church and DiscussMormonism.com. Nor am I a post-modern sociologist who feels a professional obligation to refrain from judging the societies I describe. Rather, I'm just a guy who occasionally shares his thoughts on an obscure internet forum. In this particular thread, we are talking about differences in ideology between different groups. I feel it is appropriate and on-topic to talk about the ideology of these nuns, speculate about what drives it to be what it is, and to evaluate how rational it is. Those are issues you shouldn't find in a Supreme Court judgment.

Giving women reproductive freedom in this way is internally consistent with cosmopolitan values.

I'm not even sure what "cosmopolitan" values are (and I would suggest for another thread that this is part of the problem of our cultural moment) let alone whether they tend towards some consistency. But surely, killing babies is inconsistent with cosmopolitan values, whatever they are.

Looking for fresh words to describe the cultural divide, I'm playing with the words "cosmopolitan" and "provincial." In any case, from within the liberal/modern/urban/cosmopolitan framework, using birth control is not "killing babies." That is my point--it is internally consistent.

In contrast, the Little Sisters think it is abhorrent, intolerable murder when their own employees use birth control. They simply cannot tolerate their employees doing such a thing when it is financed through their insurance benefit, but they have no problem if the same people do the same thing if its financed through their direct compensation benefit. And they also have no problem with it if the insurance company pays for it, just as long as it is essentially a gift from the insurance company and not a written benefit in the policy.

I don't think that is internally consistent--at least not in a logical way.

The court case was about the corporation itself having a "conscientious objection" to funding its employees reproductive health through insurance rather than payroll. It was about the organization's "sincere religious beliefs." My opinion is that that is nonsensical--corporations can't conscientiously object to anything because corporations don't have consciences. Individuals who work and lead the organizations do. Sure. But the organization in and of itself? No.

This is completely nonsensical. A corporation is a legal instrument that enables people who associate in concert for a given purpose to have their cumulative acts treated as singularly representative of the individuals who so associate themselves.

It sounds like you just made this up with a bunch of words that sound legal and technical. What does it mean that a corporation is "singularly representative" of the individuals? It sounds like that means once you join a corporation to be your singular representative, you can no longer have another representative?

In any case, this is almost the polar opposite of how the IRS defines a corporation. According to them, a corporation is "a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners." (https://www.irs.gov/businesses)

Any association of any kind that engages in the public sphere (or even if it doesn't) can have a moral interest in a given issue, just as it can have a pecuniary interest. Indeed, people often associate with one another and form a corporation precisely to advance a moral interest.

That doesn't mean the corporation itself has a conscience.

Should corporations be able to make a profit? After all, profit is an excess of funds as the result of buying, producing, operating or otherwise transacting.

I didn't say corporations can't make a profit. I said they don't have consciences.

[Analytics]

Anywho, I am curious where one decides to draw the line on opting out of contributing to the civic good if one has specific moral objections they can claim? Could members of the Black Lives Matter movement opt out of paying taxes to the amount that would go to law enforcement if they feel the police are waging war against their young men? Can a healthy segment of American society opt out of contributing to military spending because they find war to be a form of killing babies, and the US being the largest arms dealer in the world morally abhorrent? Can a person claim they do not wish to fund schools if they do not have school aged kids? Not pay for libraries or fund the arts since they don't use those public services? Do we close parks when it turns out those in the highest tax brackets don't use them because they have private facilities of their own they prefer to use instead? Where's the line?

Currently, the law says something to the effect that atheists who have a moral objection to the law simply must obey it, but if you have a religious objection to the law, then the government must evaluate whether your compliance is really a "compelling state interest" and whether an accommodation can be found. I really, really, don't like this approach. Yes, we have freedom of religion. But I don't think that ever meant that you didn't have to comply with the law if a federal judges decides you have a "sincerely religious" objection to it. Did Thomas Jefferson really want government judges to be in the business of deciding what beliefs are bona fide religious that should be recognized as such by the state and how sincerely religious a given person really is?

If we don't want to force people to fight who have a "religious objection" to war, then get rid of the draft for everybody. If we don't want bakers who have a "religious objection" to baking a cakes to be forced to bake them, then let's agree that bakeries shouldn't be public accommodations and allow atheists to be bigots too. If it is morally abhorrent for nuns to offer comprehensive healthcare plans to their employees, let atheists trim down the benefits they offer their employees, too (or better yet, get rid of the tax incentives that cause employer-paid group health insurance to be a thing in the first place).

[honorentheos]

That's exactly why the underlying principle should be questioned. The ACA was a compromise that took a single payer system off the table. But while it relies heavily on employer-provided health insurance programs, it's disingenuous to argue the government is forcing a group to violate their beliefs by requiring a standard that includes reproductive rights as if it would then be different if the government was instead collecting taxes to accomplish the same end.

So it is reasonable to ask where one should draw the line on being able to opt out of paying into programs the government claims are for the common good but where a person may object on moral grounds.

I don't think the discussion is benefited by the details of religious vs secular beliefs. I agree the issue should be one of law. The argument in either direction should stand without appealing to atheists or religionists asserting they are being discriminated against one way or the other. That's part of the problem.

[Symmachus]

My point was mainly that something said in this conversation reminds me of something funny. When I say something that isn't intended to be taken 100% literal should I signal it with a "jk", a "lol", or perhaps a ?

Given how touchy you are about being misinterpreted, yes that would help.

Humor aside, the video clip does raise the issue of whether some people have a world view that really is less logical and less internally consistent than others.

I just don't think logical consistency matters that much. Peter Singer strikes me as a person who is logically consistent, but few people would find a Singerian regime palatable or desirable.

In this particular thread, we are talking about differences in ideology between different groups. I feel it is appropriate and on-topic to talk about the ideology of these nuns, speculate about what drives it to be what it is, and to evaluate how rational it is. Those are issues you shouldn't find in a Supreme Court judgment.

Yes, that is what I have been saying over and over. I honestly do not like being put in the position of having to defend the nuns' ideology; I have done so only to the extent that I'm trying to show there is an ideology there, that they aren't just "petulant children" and Fox News zombies. My point has been throughout this exchange specifically that this at root an example of a broader ideological conflict or cluster of conflicts. It adds clarity to know what these fights are really about; reducing them to contingent partisan framing and propaganda reduces clarity. This thread started out wondering why everyday interactions are increasingly poisonous and then quickly descended into a display of center-left self-love.

You are now arguing that, because of an internal consistency you perceive, "cosmopolitan values" somehow deserve precedence or preference or superiority (I mean, I assume you support this side)—I don't want to put words in your mouth again, but for some reason you keep asserting this as if it says something about the relative worth of the position. I am sure I have no idea one way or the other, as I said early on, but at least you are putting more and more of your cards on the table, whereas before it was like pulling Tiger teeth just to get a concession that it's not all craven Republicans + Fox News vs. "thoughtful" trans-Atlantic think-tanking conservatives and Democrats.

Looking for fresh words to describe the cultural divide, I'm playing with the words "cosmopolitan" and "provincial." In any case, from within the liberal/modern/urban/cosmopolitan framework, using birth control is not "killing babies." That is my point--it is internally consistent.

Yes, and my point is that within the traditional Catholic view, it is killing babies. You may not be aware, but the Catholic Church and many, many Catholics are quite vocal about this all the time. It is a much a more consistent worldview than whatever we mean by "cosmopolitan" or "provincial."

In contrast, the Little Sisters think it is abhorrent, intolerable murder when their own employees use birth control. They simply cannot tolerate their employees doing such a thing when it is financed through their insurance benefit, but they have no problem if the same people do the same thing if its financed through their direct compensation benefit. And they also have no problem with it if the insurance company pays for it, just as long as it is essentially a gift from the insurance company and not a written benefit in the policy.

The bolded part is flatly false. Show me where the Little Sisters, or any traditional Catholics, say they are totally fine with birth control in any form whatsoever as long as they don't pay for it. No, the opposition is consistent across the board. There are two parts to your characterization that you keep confusing: 1) compelling others to adopt the Catholic approach to birth control, and 2) being compelled by others to adopt a non-Catholic view of birth control in practice. You talk as if this were about 1), but it is about 2). They go for 1) to the extent that they can, but this was essentially about 2). There is currently no avenue open to them for 1), but that doesn't mean they are inconsistent.

Are vegetarians inconsistent because they can't impose vegetarianism on everyone? Is it logically inconsistent for vegetarians to resent being compelled to finance steak dinners for their employees because they don't also make them sign a "no meat" pledge? Or does respecting the "social contract" go both ways, so that vegetarian fanatic employers don't have to buy steak, but they also respect the fact that their employees can eat steak that they pay for themselves?

One struggles to see the consistency in your own position: you earlier claimed that the nuns needed to respect some kind of social contract by agreeing to pay for birth control for employees because that was law imposed on them, yet in not micromanaging the health care choices of their employees by having them sign pledges not to use birth control from any source they display an inconsistent worldview. So, on the one hand, they need to respect the choices of others and even pay for those choices, but on the other hand the fact that they do respect those choices by not invading employee privacy other shows that they aren't serious.

That doesn't mean the corporation itself has a conscience.

Can a corporation have a set of values for its members and employees rooted in a governing morality or not?

I didn't say corporations can't make a profit. I said they don't have consciences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy

[Analytics]

My point was mainly that something said in this conversation reminds me of something funny. When I say something that isn't intended to be taken 100% literal should I signal it with a "jk", a "lol", or perhaps a ?

Given how touchy you are about being misinterpreted, yes that would help.

Are you projecting? I suspect my lack of emoticons (e.g. ) caused you to misinterpret my amusement ( ) for for touchiness ( ).

Humor aside, the video clip does raise the issue of whether some people have a world view that really is less logical and less internally consistent than others.

I just don't think logical consistency matters that much. Peter Singer strikes me as a person who is logically consistent, but few people would find a Singerian regime palatable or desirable.

Desirability and logical consistency are two different things. I'm certainly not saying that logical consistency is a sufficient condition for a desirable world view, and I'm not necessarily even saying internal consistency is a necessary condition for a desirable world view. I am suggesting that it if hills somebody chooses to die on are not consistent with each other (e.g. sometimes they shrug their shoulders about their own people choosing to use birth control and other times they take the issue to the Supreme Court), something else is going on besides a rational expression and defense of their own values.

In this particular thread, we are talking about differences in ideology between different groups. I feel it is appropriate and on-topic to talk about the ideology of these nuns, speculate about what drives it to be what it is, and to evaluate how rational it is. Those are issues you shouldn't find in a Supreme Court judgment.

Yes, that is what I have been saying over and over. I honestly do not like being put in the position of having to defend the nuns' ideology; I have done so only to the extent that I'm trying to show there is an ideology there, that they aren't just "petulant children" and Fox News zombies. My point has been throughout this exchange specifically that this at root an example of a broader ideological conflict or cluster of conflicts. It adds clarity to know what these fights are really about; reducing them to contingent partisan framing and propaganda reduces clarity.

I don't disagree with this. I'm just pointing out that things have gotten more acrimonious, the willingness to compromise is diminishing, the division is getting more pronounced, and where the lines are drawn are shifting. There are reasons for those things.

You are now arguing that, because of an internal consistency you perceive, "cosmopolitan values" somehow deserve precedence or preference or superiority (I mean, I assume you support this side).

No, I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that if somebody is being inconsistent about what wars they fight in defense of their own values, it is an indication that something else is going on. For example, the Little Sisters' legal bills must be in the millions. Did they come up with that money themselves? I would guess not. Then who is footing the bill? Why? Do they have purposes other than a mere passion that religious organizations should not being forced to fill out a simple one-page form that declares their religious objection to providing birth control coverage?

Inconsistency is a sign something else is going on other than a rational expression of your values, whatever they may be.

Are vegetarians inconsistent because they can't impose vegetarianism on everyone?

Imagine a vegetarian organization that got a tax-subsidy on offering food to their employees in their cafeteria. A stipulation of the tax-subsidy said they had to either serve meat or file a one-page document that declared their religious objection to meat. Filing that objection would allow employees to get a free meal with meat down the street, if they wanted to eat there rather than the vegetarian cafeteria.

Say the organization decided to sue, saying they were so opposed to meat that it would be unconscionable to declare their opposition to meat; doing so would allow their employees to get free meat elsewhere if they wanted to. If they were that opposed to meat, I'd expect them to say that being a vegetarian was a condition of employment. After all, non-vegetarians could use their paychecks to purchase [gasp] meat!

If they were selective in their fanaticism and didn't require their employees to be vegetarians, I'd accuse them of being inconsistent in their moral outrage.