Justice Scalia’s dissents in the two same-sex “marriage” cases are worth reading. The first opinion addresses the idea of judicial supremacy within the federal government—what Jefferson called “the despotism of an oligarchy”: “This ca...
Hillsdale, Michigan. A drive back from New England to the upper mid-West on Tuesday gave me ample time to hear the journalistic accounts of the Supreme Court’s decision on Arizona’s immigration laws. The first item of note was t...
The federal courts’ extraordinarily broad interpretation of the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause has long posed a problem for localists — which is to say, for community self-governance. That has never been more tr...
With three children raised and fledged, we managed to avoid their seductive pox and the kids are actually grateful for it. All three of them are engaged in creative professions. Pushing buttons makes for better button pushers but an imagina...
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS Dahlia Lithwick and Ezra Klein are a couple of my favorite pundits in the whole blogosphere. Lithwick is snarky, and Klein is wonky, but they’re both smart, opinionated, insightful, and info...
Free speech is a good thing. Respecting the value of the whole community is a better one.
There are many reasons to wonder about the wisdom of confirming Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. What strikes me most about her nomination is the typically phony way Washington and the mainstream media are packaging the event.
Devon, PA. No observer of American culture grasped its implicit contents better than did Alexis de Tocqueville, and no one since has better grasped its potencies as they have actually unfolded. Thus, for those with eyes to see, every episo...
OWEN TOWNSHIP, WINNEBAGO COUNTY, ILLINOIS: According to one legend, the word Iowa means “Place of the Drowsy Ones” in some extinct Indian tongue. This came to mind yesterday when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sam...
