By no means are social-justice warriors always wrong. But they are untrustworthy, because they aren’t driven by a philosophy so much as an insatiable appetite that cannot take yes for an answer. No cookie will ever satisfy them. Our politics will only get uglier, as those who resist this agenda realize that compromise is just another word for appeasement.
Rick Santorum and Justice Roberts — Our Moral Champions
Kennedy’s position is “indefensible as a matter of constitutional law. . . . There is, after all, no ‘Companionship and Understanding’ or ‘Nobility and Dignity’ Clause in the Constitution.”
.. The Court today not only overlooks our country’s entire history and tradition but actively repudiates it.
The Supreme Court’s Lonely Hearts Club
In granting same-sex couples “equal dignity in the eyes of the law,” Justice Kennedy throws everyone under the “just married” limo. Dignity — the state of being worthy of honor or respect — is undeniably appealing. One reading of the majority opinion suggests, however, one isn’t dignified unless one can be married. But some of us can’t or won’t ever find that special someone. We might not have the luck or the timing or the inclination.
If dignity is predicated on being lucky in love, then what happens when your luck runs out?
.. But singleness includes everyone at some point, even those who are married: love ends; spouses cheat; someone dies first. To be in a marriage, no matter how strong, is always a precarious condition, which means that the dignity you’ve been given can be taken away at any moment.
.. It’s as if the words of Justice Kennedy and my grandmother, who, on her deathbed, begged me to get married, have melded together in my head, declaring my life lacking — emotions meet law and then throw me into a state of emotional insecurity.
.. What Justice Kennedy, and everyone else too, needs to remember is that simply being yourself — your single self — is already the fundamental form of dignity. Founding your dignity on something as flimsy and volatile as a sexual connection insures dignity’s precariousness as it enshrines your inherent unworthiness as a single individual.
Geographical Notes on Puerto Rico
Clearly, Puerto Rico’s troubles run much deeper than government debt, and there has been a lot of discussion about its underlying economic weakness. However, not much of the discussion seems to ask what seems to me to be an obvious question: what, exactly, should an economy in Puerto Rico’s position be doing?
.. Puerto Rico may to an important extent just suffer from being a slightly hard to reach island in a time when corporations place a high premium on easy, just-in-time shipments.