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Theory & political commentary
It’s unclear exactly what he said, but on Monday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke during an oral argument for the first time in nearly seven years. What prompted the sabbatical from his studied silence? It appears he took the opportunity to make a sarcastic comment about the quality ...
According to a national poll conducted last week by Public Policy Polling, Congress is more noxious and scurrilous than a cockroach infestation. In a series of head-to-head comparisons, Congress also proved more unpopular than traffic jams, root canals, the despised band Nickelback and even ...
Today at the Stone, Stephen Asma brings some post-holiday season grinchitude to bear on the concept of universal love. The call to love all the world’s citizens as oneself is based on a “radical misunderstanding about the true wellsprings of ethical care, namely the emotions,” Asma writes. It is ...
Depending on what you’re reading, the deal Congress finalized late Tuesday night to steer us away from the fiscal cliff represents either a “complete rout for the Democrats” or a windfall for the rich at the expense of the working class. How can the spin machines on the left and right make these ...
At the beginning of December, I naively predicted that legislators would put an end to the fiscal game of chicken they were playing with the American economy. As the month and the year expire with no sign of compromise on the horizon, a dive off the fiscal cliff looks increasingly likely. It’s ...
It stands to reason that conservative parents would be more inclined to propagate the Santa myth, and not only because they tend to be more religious than liberals. Deception for noble motives has deep roots in conservative political philosophy. It was another era and a vastly different context ...
Like many of you, I am on vacation this week. For most Americans, Christmas week represents about half of the time off we will enjoy all year long. Compared with Australians (at least 4 weeks off, plus 10 public holidays), Brazilians (22 days of paid leave with a 33 percent salary vacation bonus ...
Note: This post is long. Click here to see the entire essay in a single page. The preacher in Ecclesiastes was wrong: as we approach the end of 2012, there is something new under the sun, or at least something new on the horizon. In 2013, with two cases to be argued and decided by the Supreme ...
While the horrific shooting of schoolchildren and their teachers was taking place inside the classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday morning, my students and I were discussing the final chapters of St. Augustine’s Confessions. Here is one of the passages we paused over from Book XIII ...
Now that Pope Benedict XVI has joined the Twitterverse, we will see how the pontiff wields the power of 140 characters. Early signs are only moderately encouraging. Before he started tweeting this afternoon, the Pope communicated with his flock primarily through encyclicals and messages ...
Let’s say you’re just now tuning in to reports that the world will end on December 21 when the Mayan calendar resets to zero. Maybe you’re one of the 35 million Americans who fear it will really happen. Maybe the prospect of solar storms, rogue planets and devastating floods is a welcome ...
This afternoon, the Supreme Court agreed to hear argument in two same-sex marriage cases: a challenge to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to overturn Proposition 8 and a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This is the first time the Supreme Court will consider ...
Last week, Praxis guest blogger Zane Friedkin drew on principles of Kantian ethics to build a case against the Obama administration’s drone campaign in the Middle East and North Africa. I agree that Kant can help guide the debate, and I too have serious misgivings about the recent escalation of ...
As our leaders in Washington, D.C., hurtle closer and closer to the fiscal precipice, it’s worth reminding ourselves of how a friendly game of “chicken” can end. This is what happened to a British schoolgirl last week: A 13-year-old girl died after being hit by a tram while allegedly playing ...
By Zane Friedkin (guest blogger) The drone war being waged by the Obama administration in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia has elicited more media attention than is typical of equally destructive U.S. foreign policy programs, more often than not ignored in the major domestic ...