"Are you sure I had a point A?" -- Ramesh Ponnuru's rhetorical misdirection

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A POST ABOUT ABORTION, OBAMACARE, SCIENTOLOGY OR THE SUPREME COURT, BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THAT ANY COMMENTS WE GET WILL BE ON THOSE FOUR TOPICS SO I'M TAKING THE VERY UNUSUAL STEP OF SHUTTING DOWN THE COMMENT SECTION FOR THIS ONE POST.

We've previously discussed something I call the cigarettes and cocaine argument.

"We just don't have the money for you to keep smoking. Do you realize that between your smoking and my cocaine habit we're spending more than two thousand dollars a week? You're just going to have to give up cigarettes."

There's a related bit of rhetorical slight of hand where the speaker is asked about A and B. He replies "I would love to talk about A and B." He then launches into a side topic, continues until the audience has lost the thread, then says with a bright, confident smile, "As I said a moment ago, I would love to talk about B, and then a few moments later, "I'm glad I could answer your concerns about A and B."

Case in point, here's Ramesh Ponnuru on the recent Hobby Lobby ruling:

Experience should also inform our evaluation of one of the main arguments against the ruling: that it will bring forth lawsuit after lawsuit as Scientologist employers make religious objections to covering antidepressants, Jehovah's Witnesses balk at covering blood transfusions and so on.

That's the argument with which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg closed her dissent to the decision, along with the warning that ruling on these cases will require courts to judge "the relative merits of differing religious claims."...

[Stage business and patter]

Let's say an employer did seek an exemption -- under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that governed the Hobby Lobby decision -- to a regulation requiring him or her to cover blood transfusions. The key questions for a court would be: Does the employer have a sincere religious objection to facilitating a transfusion for someone else? Does the regulation serve a compelling interest? Does it impose a substantial burden on the employer's beliefs? And is there a way to serve that interest while imposing a lesser burden?

None of those inquiries, performed the same way Alito performs the inquiry in the Hobby Lobby decision, requires passing judgment on whether the religious belief is a sound or compelling one.

There may be a case filed here or there. But nothing in the past or present suggests there will be a flood of litigation about Scientologist health plans. The courts aren't going to be passing judgment on the wisdom of different religious teachings. And access to blood transfusions will be affected by this decision even less than access to contraception will be.

Notice something missing? We have a perfectly reasonable example arguing that it is unlikely that a business owned by a Jehovah's Witness is likely to prevent me from having medical coverage that includes blood transfusions. That seems reasonable in large part because, as far as I can tell, Jehovah's Witnesses don't seem to care all that much if a lapsed Presbyterian such as myself has a blood transfusion.

Is the situation roughly analogous with Scientology and psychiatry?

I'd have to say no.

(I live in LA an I drive by this place all the time.)

Do Scientologists have a sincere religious objection to facilitating psychiatric treatment for someone else?

Hell, yes.

Does it impose a substantial burden on the employer's beliefs?

Damn straight it does.

Ramesh Ponnuru is, of course, playing the very lucrative Brooksian game of presenting a palatable conservative face to the kind of people who read the New York Times or Bloomberg View (as does, in a sense, Bloomberg himself). If the discussion turns to LGBT discrimination or Scientology vs. psychiatry, Ponnuru may not be able to pull that off so he drops a handkerchief on the inconvenient part of the table when he hopes no one is looking.

Like I said, this isn't a post about abortion, Obamacare, Scientology or the Supreme Court. We can productively disagree about all of those things, but if we can't agree on the need for good honest arguments we won't get anywhere.