I have not been as overwhelmed with grief at the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act as some of my fellow conservatives. I was wondering whether I was just being naive, but since I just listened in person to a talk from Paul Clement, who actually argued the case on behalf of the states before the Supreme Court, and his feelings seemed to resonate with my own, I feel a little more confident now to share what might... Read more
One of the central questions in the Obamacare ruling is whether Congress has the power to tax inactivity or tax the failure to purchase something. This is the most obvious retort to the cigarettes analogy. Granted, Congress has the power to tax the purchase of a cigarette, but does Congress possess the power to tax you for not purchasing a cigarette? Roberts begins to addresses this in the opinion he authored on p. 41. There are three considerations, he says,... Read more
Along with a number of other media folk, I’m at an event hosted by the Alliance Defense Fund to learn their perspective on current religious liberty issues. I’m surrounded by the conservative legal brain trust. The Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare hit this place like shock and awe. No one saw this precise scenario — with Kennedy among the dissenters who would have overturned the entire act, and Roberts casting the decisive vote in favor of the ACA and justifying... Read more
One of my best friends – Cameron Doolittle – is President and CEO of a ministry called Jill’s House, a ministry in the DC area (I’ve had the fortune to visit) which gives extended, overnight care to children with special needs so that the parents of those children, parents who are often enormously over-taxed, can have some time to rest and regather their strength. Even under the best of circumstances, marriage and child-rearing are difficult. Doing so with children who... Read more
Ann Romney is, by all accounts, a lovely, gracious and good-hearted woman. Since friends of mine are friends of hers, I am encouraged in the knowledge that Mitt Romney, should he become President, would have the support, the guidance, the strength and the unconditional love that comes from a phenomenal wife like Ann. A piece in the National Review explains Ann Romney’s battle with multiple sclerosis. If you are only a casual observer of politics, you might not even know... Read more
Hank Stuever writes in The Washington Post a review of Bristol Palin’s reality show, which debuted last night on Lifetime, called “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp.” The review does not get off to a good start. Stuever notes that “the young Palin claims [her memoir] was a bestseller,” and in context the implication is clear that she’s lying. Apparently Stuever is too lazy to look for himself at the New York Times bestseller list at the time Bristol’s memoir appeared.... Read more
My recent posts challenging the standard “culture war” narrative (here) and addressing the caricaturing of conservative evangelicals (here and here) stirred up some conversation — a conversation that’s been illuminating for me. Some of my progressive Christian friends (most of whom responded very appreciatively to these posts) seem to have been laboring under the very sincere conviction that a conservative Christian who complains of caricaturing or scorn is hugely over-reacting. After all, it’s the Christian Right that is strident, rancorous... Read more
As anyone who follows the news already knows, President Obama decreed unilaterally that the United States government will cease deporting illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria: You must have come to the United States before your sixteenth birthday. You must be younger than 30 presently. You must have lived in the United States for five years without a criminal history. You must have either graduated from high school or served in the military. The significance of the President’s decision is... Read more
Pornographic Images I first saw naked women in pornography magazines by flashlight in an underground fort I had built with my brother and friends in an empty field beside a train track in Tracy, California. We had raided the fort that another group of boys had dug, found copies of Playboy and Hustler and hurried back to our fort. I was nine years old and had very little idea what naked women looked like. I had never seen naked women... Read more
With father’s day looming, I couldn’t resist linking to this story, in which a woman expresses shock and dismay that the father of her child, who has also sired 20 other children with 15 other women, does not turn out to be such a great daddy. Read about it here. Of course, at the time, she had only known that he had four other children with other women. So he seemed like a winner! Of course, for the woman’s daughter,... Read more
Philosophical Fragments
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