I'm focused on refusal to pay because that's the particular concession the government is trying to force. If they where trying to force statements rather than money, I'd focus on 1st amendment issues. If they where trying to force people to use contraception, that would be my focus, I'm focused on the actual attack against liberty that is occurring.
If the amount of money is trivial, and if you cab put the prism aside for a moment, you can see that this isn't about paying but about the values of the employer. Making the financial element a trivial amount of money takes the money out of the equation leaving the conflict of values as clearly the salient element.
The salient element isn't so much a conflict of values (people will always have different values) but that one side is trying to impose support for its values on the other. The one example I used (partially to be humorous, but still containing the same essential problem, in a less practical way), was very expensive, but for most of the conversation I've had here (or elsewhere on SI) I was focused on the relatively inexpensive problem, rather than the expensive issue in the analogy. Its true that the expensive problem creates an additional point that its too expensive to practically pay for, OTOH with a cheap item, you have little reason to have a controversy in the first place, no one need go without, even without third party payment.
If you impose a curfew, a commonly recognized usage of the word, you are not charging into someone's home and beating him up, just denying him egress.
Denying someone egress of the their own place of living is applying force to them. Containing them in one place is a forceful act, and in this case the act is backed up by more direct physical force as well.
Parents impose their values on their children all the time.
Adults are not children. If the children are independent adults, or somehow equally capable, it would be wrong to impose values on them.
Employers impose their values on their employees all the time.
Employment is voluntary, not an imposition.
I have no authority over you. Neither do I have any role in providing you with anything other than civility.
The government doesn't properly have authority or a role in this area either. Also whether you properly have authority or not doesn't change whether something is an imposition (it may possibly justify the imposition, but that's not the same thing).
That example also introduces behavior, your behavior, which is your disagreeing with me.
If your going to consider that relevant behavior, then disagreeing with the employer about contraception, or actually buying contraception as part of the insurance contract (assuming the government's policy sticks) would be the behavior.
In the real situation employer forcing something on the employee here, its the government forcing something on the employer. The only action for the employer would seem to be employing people (its not taking money, since even organizations that have never taken a single cent of government money are not exempt). I'm not sure why you think taking an action is a big deal here, everyone takes actions, it would only be relevant if the action taking was one that reasonably accepted extra control (like taking government money, but that extra control should end when the flow of money stops), or that required extra control (like going on a murder spree, which would make it important for someone to stop you). You and I disagreeing about something on SI, doesn't fit in to either category.
But then your not talking about the reality right now, your talking about the analogies right? In the analogy the employer who wants a Ferrari (or the pack of gum, for my low cost example), didn't do anything to request, or accept, or justify or require, extra control, but not paying for the car or the gum isn't extra control (or "normal" control either, its not part of the ordinary control of an employer over an employee, its not control at all).
Your employer in this case is not imposing his sense on you to the extent that he is forcing you to alter your values, merely making you operate under his values
He would be close doing that if there was a job requirement that you not own or lease a Ferrari. Even then he's not really MAKING you operate under his values, just giving you the opportunity to do so in exchange for compensation. But if he just won't pay for your Ferrari (or you gum) then, at least on this matter, he is not forcing, or even pressuring you, to operate under his values.
Getting back to the real world example - If the Church wouldn't hire, or maintain in employment, anyone who used birth control, then it would be pushing its values. (Like Henry Ford pushed his values, over his employees, paying twice the going rate, partially to reduce turnover, and partially to push his values). I still think "impose" would be a bit of a stretch here (again since employment is voluntary, I'm assuming no slavery, indentured servitude, truck system, coercive monopoly on employment, etc.), but I would be unlikely to make an issue of it (in fact I could see myself using the term if I didn't think about it much). But that isn't what's going on here. |
