Justin Katz
I had been thinking about a Robert Whitcomb column earlier, and it could not have been more timely. Writes Whitcomb: The terminology has been successful in cutting taxes for the wealthy and reducing programs that particularly assist the middle and lower classes. More generally, it makes Americans forget that the socio-economic walls are getting higher.…
Rhode Island’s marriage law is astonishingly specific when it comes to which relatives men may not marry: Men forbidden to marry kindred. — No man shall marry his mother, grandmother, daughter, son’s daughter, daughter’s daughter, stepmother, grandfather’s wife, son’s wife, son’s son’s wife, daughter’s son’s wife, wife’s mother, wife’s grandmother, wife’s daughter, wife’s son’s daughter,…
If one presses, as in the comments to a post by Don Hawthorne, it is possible to get a straightforward answer. Writes Bobby Oliveira of the Constitutional requirement that religion be banned from the public sphere: Since everyone will not choose to participate, based on belief systems, you cannot allow some belief system to obtain…
Long before September 11, even before the 2000 elections, it seemed to me that our culture, and therefore society and government, was moving toward the right. This is not to say that I expected, or desired, a loss of the broad principles of fairness, mutual respect, and mutual responsibility that drove the leftward lurch. However,…
There have been times, over the past year, when I’ve felt compelled, in public and private intra–Anchor Rising discussions, to defend commenter Anthony. This is how he reciprocates: If you can’t vote for Chafee over Sheldon Whitehouse, you are not a Republican. You are not a conservative. You are just a disgruntled, pathetic sore loser.…
Is it worth forcing change in the Republican Party at Rhode Island and national levels by voting for a Democrat whom I despise, or would it be enough simply not to vote (or to write in Ronald Reagan)? And a related question: Is the “slightly better” leadership of the Republican Party only postponing, perhaps with…
The flier at left, which arrived at my house within the past week (fittingly, on garbage day), will stand as the final motivation for me to actually take the time to go out on primary day and actively vote against Linc Chafee. No doubt exacerbated by current events and the specific fears that plague aware…
Charles Bakst correctly identifies one of the reasons I’ve been feeling more favorably toward Steve Laffey of late: … the more Chafee attacks him, the cooler and calmer Laffey tries to come across in debates and ads. More significant, perhaps, has been the gradual emergence of the oh-so-sincere face of Sheldon Whitehouse into view. Culpability…
Within the past week, my wife had to drop my niece off at Tiverton High School (of which town both we and my brother-in-law are relatively new residents), and she returned with this commentary: “That school is a dump. I hope they improve it before our children have to go there.” It is with that…
I’d like a specific answer, from Mayor Laffey, whether this (PDF) is satire: There are many people who are too weak to live by any moral principles; they decide what is best by their own irrational whims and desires. These cowards attempt to justify their actions in two ways. Firstly, they try to bring others…