Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

John Holbo:

Live by the flaming sword of true religious spirit technicality, die by the technicality: Dave Weigel calls this, from Yuval Levin, the ‘best riposte’ to the new HHS regulations…. [I]f this is the best they can do…. Levin’s objection is that HHS is just looking for a way… [to] say… technically we’re not… infring[ing]…. But the original complaint… [was of a] technical hitch [and that] calls for technical fix…. It isn’t the case that no one gave a damn about contraception… except as a convenient device to force religious believers to do things against their conscience for the sheer sake of forcing them to do things against their conscience…. Letting the private sector run [health insurance] is a concession to those who want the private sector to stay powerful, not a sop to those who want to throw Christians to the lions, like in the good old days. Now, courtesy of HHS, we have a fresh kludge…. Levin objects that all the change does is make a conceptual change that “makes the rule less insulting”…. Somehow removing the unintended insult, which was the only injury, is adding insult to injury….