Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Gerson on the HHS "power grab"
It's tough-talk, but I think it's true, what Michael Gerson writes: The HHS mandate, coming as and when it did, despite the efforts of more than a few of his Catholic supporters to stop it, is an "edict delivered with a sneer." This is also right, I think:
Obama’s decision also reflects a certain view of liberalism. Classical liberalism was concerned with the freedom to hold and practice beliefs at odds with a public consensus. Modern liberalism uses the power of the state to impose liberal values on institutions it regards as backward. It is the difference between pluralism and anti-clericalism.
An attractive liberalism is one that does not insist on liberalism "all the way down."
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2012/02/gerson-on-the-hhs-power-grab.html
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the
comment feed
for this post.
Prof. Garnet, could I possibly get you to opine on my pet theory, laid out in multiple comments to your Jan. 26 post (Confusion about "conscience") and to Prof. Berg's post today?
I suggest that this attack is not a clumsy mistake, but a well-calculated attack on the Catholic hierarchy, intended to demonize them and to put a wedge between them and rank-and-file Catholics. It's also intended to fire up the secular base, who, sadly, revel in anti-Catholicism.
Doesn't that fit the evidence much better than seeing it as a tin-eared oops? The sneer is deliberate.