An article in The Washington Post (30 January 06) begins with the news that “more than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs.” Pharmacists who don't want to fill birth control prescriptions will be allowed to refuse. The article suggests that doctors or nurses with “personal beliefs” against things like in-vitro fertilization or birth control may be protected.

What would the military think of comparable laws shielding the right of its people to refuse to do things against their “personal beliefs”? Not much. And that helps us see something fundamental about the military. Despite the fact that most of its members nowadays vote conservative, the structure of the military, the nature of what it does, is neither conservative nor liberal: it's pragmatic.

There seems to be a paradox here. Probably a lot of those in the military, at least according to my sense of things, do have “personal beliefs” like those that these laws are meant to shield in health workers. Would those in the military demand that health workers follow the same givens that they do in the military? Or would they be eager to have other professions be able to have personal beliefs trump a sense of duty?

If we let doctors refuse to treat based on personal “belief,” how far does it go? Can a teacher refuse to teach someone whose lifestyle she disapproves of? Can a checkout person refuse to take the money of someone whose skin color he doesn't like? I've thrown this in just to throw off some sparks. It drives those opposed to out gays in the military wild when the fact is evoked that sailors and soldiers in 1950 would have said they had moral objections to serving with African-American colleagues. Still, if a doctor can refuse to prescribe birth-control pills, can't he or she refuse to treat a person of another race?

The way this comes home to roost in the military is this. If we allow this kind of cherry picking to other professions, how can we deny it to the military? Can a servicemember refuse to follow a (legal) order if it's against his or her “beliefs” for whatever reason?

Part of the military's macho self-image, consonant with what I suggest in my upcoming book Why Liberals And Conservatives Clash is its essential conservatism, is precisely the way people have to deny their personal desires and feelings for the greater good. That's why it's conservative, to the extent it is; conservatism always insists that the general trumps the personal.

The way I put it is that the conservative world-view is based on fulfilling Absolute Actions, rules external to individuals that don't vary according to the situation. It not about doing it your way, it's about doing it the right way. Or the way you're told.

If the question comes up, 'Are you allowed to steal?' the conservative says, it's written: Thou shalt not steal. No: don't even waste my time. The liberal wants to know more about the situation. And that means, the liberal wants to talk about it. Steal what? Oh, a loaf of bread. From whom? From a millionaire? Why? To stave off starvation? Specifics of the situation are relevant to liberals. The hard-core conservative refuses to negotiate or “relativize” (conservatives know there's one way to do things: it's the Absolute Action). It's all about the principle, and the individual by definition takes second place to the principle.

Liberals, at their worst, talk too much. Conservatives, at their worst, don't talk enough, acting like a bull in a china shop in order to do something right here right now, even if it may not be the best thing to do in the long run. Thus, I argue, the currency of conservatism is action; the currency of liberalism is talk.

In fact, we need both talk and action. It's not an either/or; it's a both/and. The pen is neither mightier than the sword nor weaker. At the Naval Academy, we need physical scholars and scholarly athletes. Both of them is better than either alone. As I put it, my goal is to make thinking officers. And no, that's not an oxymoron.

My guess is that the military is not going to be too sympathetic to the idea of letting other professions shirk their duties. If the military has its duty, doctors do too. Suck it up, buddy. The military can even look awfully liberal sometimes. It's been a force for racial integration in this country. Sexual harassment is now (at least on paper) on the “verboten” list. Sometimes this creates silly situations; see an earlier column on this.

There's something in the military that transcends both liberalism and conservatism. And that may be one of the things I admire most about it. The military, despite what it says, isn't about principles. It's about pragmatics, what I called in an earlier column “figuring out how to get the Jeep out of the mud.” The military would never tolerate this nonsense about “I refuse to do my duty because of my personal beliefs” we're seeing in these (conservative) laws. I'd guess that the military would see this as more evidence of that civilian “softness” I've written about before.

The paradox in this move to exempt health service workers from sacrificing their “beliefs” to what they're supposed to do is that those proposing such laws are the same people who make a badge of honor of supporting the military: conservatives. I wonder if they realize that the military, ultimately, goes beyond belief to something else? Doing what you're trained to do as part of the larger whole is what we call professionalism and a sense of duty. It's the way we give back to the whole, but it means we don't get to act on our beliefs. In a fight between duty and personal beliefs, duty wins every time. Others should take a lesson.