Category: Morality and Legality
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What About Infertile Heterosexual Couples?
Keith Burgess-Jackson writes, The purpose and point of marriage, as everyone knows, and as the law has long recognized, is to bind a man and a woman to one another for the sake of any children they produce. Please, please, please don't say that infertile heterosexual couples are allowed to marry, as though that refutes…
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The Deep Meaning of Ferguson: The End of the Rule of Law
Ferguson is of course just one instance. But it is emblematic. As usual, Victor Davis Hanson gets it right: In the Ferguson disaster, the law was the greatest casualty. Civilization cannot long work if youths strong-arm shop owners and take what they want. Or walk down the middle of highways high on illicit drugs. Or…
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On Legal and Illegal Immigration
A reader from Down Under poses this question: America is experiencing immigration problems somewhat like Australia's. The idea of 'multiculturalism' some would say is beginning to show its flaws. Who do you believe should be allowed to enter your country? Please feel free to be as politically incorrect as you like. 1. First of all,…
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Ferguson
I have been asked my opinion. But before opining it would be better to wait until we know or at least have a clearer idea of what exactly transpired between Michael Brown, the 18-year-old black male, and the white police officer Darren Wilson. We know that Brown is dead and that the officer hit him…
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On Blaming the Victim
A reader wants my thoughts regarding the following hypothetical scenarios. I own a modestly nice car, say, a 2014 Honda Accord with some bells and whistles. I treat it fairly well, ensuring that it receives in a timely fashion all of the required maintenance. I get it washed and waxed with pride. The one deficiency…
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Robert Paul Wolff’s Misunderstanding of the Hobby Lobby Decision
Professor Wolff of The Philosopher's Stone writes, When we got back to our apartment, I turned on my computer to check the news, and learned of the pair of decisions handed down by the Supreme Court. That both decisions are disastrous goes without saying, but I think they have quite different significances. The Hobby Lobby…
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Enthymeme
There are unjust laws, but no illegal laws. Ergo, et cetera.
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Judgmentalism, Moral Judgment, Moral Relativism, and God
This from a reader: I still read your blog conscientiously, but sometimes stare at your words in ignorant awe. I have a question for you this morning which may be of interest. In a recent conversation with someone who described himself as a "gay" Christian (or is it a Christian "gay" ?), I gave reasons…
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William Sloane Coffin on Morality and Legislation
An old Powerblogs post written 28 March 2005 Coffin on Morality and Legislation William Sloane Coffin has this to say on p. 56 of Credo (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004): "We cannot legislate morality, only the conditions conducive to morality." To combine three serious mistakes in one short sentence is quite a trick. First,…
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Liberals’ Uneasy Relationship with the Rule of Law
Liberals are for the rule of law when it suits their collectivist, big government agenda, but only then. Peter Berkowitz: The left-liberal mindset endemic on the college faculties and law schools where Barack Obama’s political sensibilities were forged holds that morals and politics are subject to a universal reason to which the left-liberal sensibility is…
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The Zimmerman Verdict and the ‘Planetary’ Difference Between Left and Right
The significance of the Zimmerman trial is that it is emblematic of the deep and ever-deepening racial divide in this country despite the successes of the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s and the increasing participation of blacks in all institutions of our society, a participation culminating in the election of a black president…
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On the Zimmerman Acquittal
A. W. e-mails and I comment: I know you've been following this case. I must say I'm impressed by the outcome. Even though I believed that Z's account of the events was consistent and that the prosecution's case was incredibly weak, I was expecting the all-female jury to cave in to the pressure and declare…
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Morality, Religion, Law
The positive law codifies moral judgments the chief vehicle of which is religion. Attacks on religion therefore tend to undermine morality, and with it, the rule of law and respect for the rule of law. Is this thesis supportable? Religion could be kept private and out of the public square. Many think that it should…