Justin Katz

A Note on Rejected Comments

By Justin Katz | October 12, 2006 | Comments Off on A Note on Rejected Comments

We’ve had enough readers email to ask why their comments have been rejected that it’s worth offering a preemptive explanation. Since we’re constantly inundated with automatically generated comment spam, we employ a variety of solutions to cut down on the amount. One solution is to close down comments and trackbacks after a certain period of…

Reading the Fine Print on Healthcare

By Justin Katz | October 5, 2006 |

When one brushes away the rhetoric, one finds the contradictions beneath. In one post, RIFuture notes Charlie Fogarty’s new healthcare plan, which, I discovered after wading through the usual political policy mire, will be funded in part as follows: Rather than spending state tax dollars on tax cuts for the wealthy few, high-priced consultants and…

When the Snakes Do the Talking

By Justin Katz | October 3, 2006 | Comments Off on When the Snakes Do the Talking

They sure teach the kids to string their thoughts together at the University of Rhode Island. Consider Gabriel Lugo’s letter to the URI student paper, The Good 5¢ Cigar, apologizing for mistakenly “paint[ing] the author’s person with the same irrational beliefs” as some fundamentalist Christians whom that other student had, in a limited way, defended.…

The Trust of Children

By Justin Katz | October 3, 2006 |

Via a predictably political RI Future post, I came across this even more predictably political DailyKos post: You do not abuse the trust of children. If you find out about the possible abuse of children, you have a duty to stop it. A duty. An imperative. An oath. All those words that men say, and…

Foley: The Political Sitcom’s Season Premier

By Justin Katz | October 3, 2006 |

For more than a year, now, I’ve been directing conversations with my politically-interested friends toward an issue that has concerned me as one who has found (very) modest success as a socio-political writer: my growing disinterest in the political debate du jour. A prominent experiential example: I used to check the Corner two to five…

By the Way (A Political Angle)

By Justin Katz | September 29, 2006 |

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.…

The Judiciary Continues to Shine Its Murky Light on Marriage

By Justin Katz | September 29, 2006 |

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,…

Favoring the Non-Participatory

By Justin Katz | September 17, 2006 |

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…

Winning or Losing in Context

By Justin Katz | September 17, 2006 |

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,…

Controlling the Tides

By Justin Katz | September 13, 2006 |

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.…