Jonah, here’s a quote from Burke that speaks to this issue of consistency of principle versus the complicated balancing of competing moral goods: “The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes; and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false. The rights of men are in a sort of middle, [emphasis original] incapable of definition, but not impossible to be discerned. The rights of men in governments are their advantages; and these are often in balance between differences of good, in compromises sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil.” I hope to have an NRO piece up in the coming days that’s all about this sort of middle ground.