First on the mandate to provide access to contraceptives (HT to my friend John B):
The quote from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney regarding congressional efforts to overturn the HHS mandate could take days to unpack. As Yuval notes below, it’s an affront on several levels.
“Let’s be clear about what’s at stake,” said Carney. “The proposal being considered in the Senate applies to all employers — not just religious employers. And it isn’t limited to contraception. Any employer could restrict access to any service they say they object to. That is dangerous and it is wrong. . . .” (emphasis added).
An employer who doesn’t provide a (“free”) vending machine in the break room isn’t restricting employee access to soft drinks.
An employer cafeteria that doesn’t serve (“free”) hamburgers isn’t restricting employee access to meat.
An employer that doesn’t construct a (“free”) parking garage isn’t restricting employee access to parking.
An employer that doesn’t maintain a (“free”) nursery on its premises isn’t restricting employee access to child care.
But a president who commands that American employers provide a service that violates their core religious beliefs clearly restricts the free exercise thereof.
Here of course is Bryan Caplan channeling someone that I only first read two years ago:
I didn’t want to goad Krugman by quoting Ayn Rand against him. So I waited for one day to pass. This passage from Galt’s speech is one of Rand’s best:
“It’s only human,” you cry in defense of any depravity, reaching the stage of self-abasement where you seek to make the concept “human” mean the weakling, the fool, the rotter, the liar, the failure, the coward, the fraud, and to exile from the human race the hero, the thinker, the producer, the inventor, the strong, the purposeful, the pure–as if “to feel” were human, but to think were not, as if to fail were human, but to succeed were not, as if corruption were human, but virtue were not–as if the premise of death were proper to man, but the premise of life were not.
I’d rather make the same point with humor rather than anger. But unseemly anger doesn’t make you wrong.
Remember the footage in 2010 of that big Tea Party rally in the Chicago Loop, the one where someone was wielding a big poster with Ayn Rand’s picture? I thought, What is going through Nancy Pelosi’s mind now, watching Atlas shrugging?
Great links WC.
I think all private employers should provide free medium rare hamburgers, and runny eggs for breakfast, on company time. Along with raw oysters, sushi, and Caesar salad.
For the adventurous, free blowfish.