No, House Democrats Aren’t Violating Trump’s Rights

“If the facts are your side,” famed attorney and former law professor Alan Dershowitz instructed his students, “pound the facts into the table. If the law is on your side, pound the law into the table. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table.” As Republican attacks on the US House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry grow in fury, they more and more resemble the third instruction in Dershowitz’s maxim.

Jojo Rabbit: A Choice Between Authentic and False Community

You know it’s a good movie when you clap spontaneously, laugh like a maniac, and feel your heart torn to shreds in the same two-hour stretch.  Jojo Rabbit is that movie.  Saw it last night and have a lot to say about it. If you haven’t seen this wonderful movie, stop reading, watch the trailer, and get your tix. If you have seen it and want to discuss, keep reading. 

Legislation, Laws, Not the Same Thing

How much do you respect and obey laws? How much should you? I suppose that depends on what you mean by “laws.” Most people confuse legislation for laws. Laws were discovered — usually thousands of years ago — while legislation is made up by politicians and imposed under threat of violence as if it were law. Occasionally, legislation is written to copy or reflect law, but not often.

Don’t Make Mark Zuckerberg America’s Political Truth Czar

Some politicians want Facebook to stop politicians from lying. They phrase that desire as a request for Facebook to “fact check” content posted by politicians, especially political advertising. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I’m not sure it’s  coincidence that the examples politicians offer tend to be drawn from content posted by their political opponents.

Roderick Long on the Plight of the Worker

In response to my Nickel and Dimed posts, my old friend Roderick Long referred me to his original review of the book.  Highlights of Rod’s review: Ehrenreich went “undercover” to document the lives of the working poor and the Kafkaesque maze of obstacles they face: the grindingly low wages; the desperate scramble to make ends […]

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Law, Legislation, or Unholy Writ

Laws include: don’t murder, don’t rape, don’t kidnap, don’t steal, don’t trespass, don’t vandalize. Legislation includes: pay this tax, don’t smoke that, don’t have consensual sex with that person, don’t sell that, don’t add on to your house, wear your seat belt, don’t park your car on your own property, don’t paint your house that color, don’t drive faster than this arbitrary speed, don’t open a business there, etc. Legislation is counterfeit “law”. It harms individuals and therefore it harms society.

Building a “Family Wall” Against Oppression

In Forty Autumns, author Nina Willner tells a beautiful family history of life in a family divided by the wall between East and West Germany. Particularly interesting were the coping tactics of her family in the totalitarian socialist East Germany. Her grandmother watched as this family weathered the arrival of the Soviets and the rapid transformation of East Germany into a surveillance prison state.