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Thoreau’s Ferocious Critique of Philanthropy Does Not Make Him “Selfish”

…“helping other people.” Thoreau avoided philanthropic enterprises not because he resented helping other people (there are too many examples in which he did provide help to others) but because he thought philanthropy was usually driven by selfishness. He wrote: “Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it.” Philanthropy, he thought,…

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Derek Chauvin’s Defense, in Keeping with a Long Racist Tradition, Seeks to Criminalize George Floyd

…who was murdered in 2012 by a neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, because he was presumed to be a menace by virtue of wearing a hoodie and strolling through a gated community. As Zimmerman told a 911 dispatcher, “these assholes always get away.” Or the Black birder, Christian Cooper, in Central Park in the summer of 2020, who was falsely accused by a white woman of “threatening” her. His threat? Asking her to keep her dog on a leash. Recall i…

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Unbuckling the Bible Belt: “Nashville” and the Nones

…n Americana soundscape for what Nashville country actually sounds like—because the show’s version of the country industry sounds way better than the reality. In crafting a “pure” country music scene unfolding in a mythical Nashville, ABC adopts a deep and gutsy ironic stance, because in reality, the roots/alt-country community has set its face like flint against mainstream country, and a pop sound won a long time ago. Like the idealized, calcified…

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Kagan: Establishment Clause Is “Hard”

…do anything, from bring hamstrung in this area. As to which test she would use in Establishment Clause cases, Kagan said:  [T]hat is a hard, hard question. Right now there are a multitude of such tests. The most established one, the oldest one, is the Lemon v Kurtzmann test, which is a three-part test focusing on the purpose of a governmental action, the effect of a governmental action – whether the governmental action has the primary effect of in…

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The Conservative Christian Case for Separation of Church and State

…politicians can appeal to spiritual leaders and gain their endorsement because the opportunities for abuse and ambition are too rampant. The same quid pro quo corruption that taints those tempted by lobbyists will await pastors when their support can yield inexhaustible American power. This is why America has passed laws to preserve the dignity and purity of the pastoral office, exchanging tax exemption (a unique phenomenon in the world) with the…

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Catholic Sex Teaching is No Laughing Matter

…as observed, and so might well respond that statements about homosexuality used in Persona Humana are those of psychologists and biblical writers, not its own. But no amount of indirection can obscure the Vatican’s decision to use this vilifying language and not some other, in Persona Humana as well as in the much more widely read Catechism of the Catholic Church. And have no doubt, such language has serious effects. Here in the US, the media regu…

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‘Pregnant Women’ or ‘People Who Can Get Pregnant’: How Do We Balance Recognition of Anti-Abortion Misogyny with the Erasure of Transmasculine People?

…less “froufrou” cocktail, are common insults in male groups and masculine-coded spaces. One of our social pathologies is a fear of the “feminization” of men (or people society insists are “supposed” to be men). Right-wing authoritarianism always stresses hypermasculine ideals, and right-wing authoritarians also tend to focus on having babies, often fearmongering about declining birth rates and a supposed “replacement” of “us” by racially coded “o…

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The Tyranny of Politeness

…te-sponsored wickedness and the canons of true politeness do not ban their use. When you use policy (rather than a gun) to kill innocent people, it’s called murder. When you ruin people by stripping them and their children of basic health care, that constitutes morally criminal assault. And make no mistake, when you boycott the inauguration (and promise resistance to) a presidency pre-announced as a compound of bigotry, misogyny, and the shredding…

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How Can the Former President’s Opponents Repudiate His Fascist Rhetoric Without Giving Him the Publicity He Craves?

…an ever: with multiple indictment trials looming, returning to the White House is the only surefire way to avoid jail time. In order to get there, however, he must a) lock up the nomination, and b) defuse the massive public response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which has propelled Democrats to victory even in deep-red states. He is betting on his Veterans Day comments being incendiary enough to achieve both aims. On one level, Trump’s comments…

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Romney “Walks the Line” on Immigration

…ng the line” (and fomenting outrage among base conservatives about Obama’s use of executive order—never mind the Bush administration’s use of the same) is meant to distract from the fact that the GOP does not have a viable, reasonable strategy for addressing the broken immigration system in a way that balances even the interests of its own stakeholders.   Yes, immigration is one of those big-time challenges that requires an everyone-at-the-table s…

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