While acknowledging the gulf between philosophy and reality, an MEL item should be viewed as a non-coercive operational permission.
The pilot retains a right not to accept the MEL operation to cover the situations where either
(a) there exist current operational considerations, or
(b) there is some overarching consideration
which makes the operation undesirable.
The balance against inappropriately conservative pilot use of this let out is the subsequent tea and bikkies session with the chief pilot ...