Civil Liberties
The news cycle flows by so quickly, lately, that political actors and activists are learning it’s sometimes best to just keep your head down and let the controversy of the day join the rest of the noise tomorrow. Nonetheless, I think there’s something worth noting in the now-passed story about Russia funding some conservative commentators.…
Mark Steyn raises the peculiarity of the mysterious deaths of two businessmen who actually managed to beat the U.S. Department of Justice’s process-is-the-punishment racket. Apparently, the statistics suggest that the DOJ way overcharges its targets in the hopes of pushing for a settlement: “95 percent of cases are won by prosecutors, 90 percent of those…
… by the discomfiting fascist, Orwellian tone of this campaign from supposed good-government-group Common Cause RI: It’s bad enough on its face, but it’s worse when you break down the manipulative message. First, Common Cause wants you to believe that you can instantly identify “disinformation about voting.” Next, the organization asserts that you have…
Maybe some Millennials are too young to remember, but the ability of government school students to wear whatever t-shirts they wanted was once a major theme in the mainstream media. These days, we’re learning that it’s highly dependent on the message of the shirt: In 2023, the seventh grader at John T. Nichols Middle School…
John DePetro and Justin Katz put a spotlight on the aspects of controversies that nobody seems to notice.
We’re getting strong reminders, lately, that a free society with mutual respect for rights is vulnerable to those who have no such respect and don’t much like freedom. Among the most-stark examples I’ve seen is this incident, in which pro-Hamas Columbia activists encircle and bodily remove a student who objected to their destroying a campus…
The problem at the heart of well-meaning progressive policies is that they tend to ignore second-order effects. They want outcome X, so they push policy U and ignore that side-effects V and W also happen, and consequences Y and Z might not prove desirable. Housing mandates, for example, require on their face that we cede…
“Had the girl not broken the law by purchasing and using pepper spray, she likely would have been raped — or worse.” Sure, the story Stephen Green is sharing comes from Denmark, and sure, one big advantage we have in the United States is the Second Amendment. But policies change and, increasingly, our rights can…
Title IX has given generations of American girls and young women athletic opportunities on an equal footing, but that success has made it vulnerable to the latest social revolution.
Roger Kimball has in mind, here, the attacks on Donald Trump: The disappointing thing is how many Americans just don’t care, because the Democrats have whipped them into a frenzy of hatred. We are fortunate, indeed, to have basic rights protected in our fundamental laws, but no piece of paper can withstand the desire of…