Variations on a theme

Proposed: Liberals are vastly more insulated from diverse points of view than are conservatives, and have had to exempt themselves from real intellectual rigor to preserve their worldview. Cases in point:

David Bernstein: SG Verrilli Relies on the Constitution’s Preamble

This strikes me as part of a pattern I detect throughout this litigation and especially in the SG’s oral argument: the government’s lawyers seem to have no idea how conservative jurists typically think about  the Constitution.  Instead, they make arguments that would get almost unanimous nods of approval in the Harvard (or Columbia, the SG’s alma mater) Law School faculty lounge, but are not remotely persuasive to the other side.

Jeffrey Anderson: Breyer's Missteps

Breyer’s first example cites a power that, so far as I know, Congress has never claimed. [. . .]

Breyer’s second example, however, isn’t accurate. Congress did not require the farmer in Wickard v. Filburn to buy wheat. It limited the amount of wheat he could grow.  He may have decided to buy wheat in response, or sell less of his allotment and keep more of it for his own use, or take other courses of action, but he was not required to purchase wheat under penalty of law — a fundamental distinction.  [. . .]

Breyer’s third example is, indeed, of an actual congressional power, but its relevance to the case at hand seems mysterious.

Tamara Shayne Kagel: I've Never Dated Anyone Without Dating Their Politics, Too

As a lifelong Democrat, I never thought I would be in this place. I never thought I would have to confront this dreaded unforeseen fear -- the terror that is, for me, dating a Republican. I don't even know very many Republicans. [. . .] I grew up knowing very few Republicans and the rare ones I did know got made fun behind their backs, be it children or adults. [. . .]

Naturally, he doesn't think it's a big deal. He keeps saying we can always find common ground. But I find myself angry with him for things that I expect to take for granted. He admitted to me that the word "liberal" for him had a bad connotation and that the word "conservative" did not. It's hard to blame him when this is a common phenomena in our country now so that only 20% of the population identifies as liberal while 40% is willing to identify as conservative. I tell him this is a direct result of the vitriol that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have injected into our discourse and he shouldn't buy into their demonizing of the left. But for my boyfriend, "liberal" means big government inefficiency. I'm normally a calm person, but when he said this, I was close to flipping out. How could he buy into all that? He's a smart person, he reads reputable news sources. And yet, I continually find myself mad at him for buying into conservative propaganda.

Charles C. W. Cooke, outnumbered but not outsmarted:



(I remember Danny Schecter as WBCN's "news dissector" in Boston in 19--. Haven't thought of him in x number of decades.)

Thanks to Carl Scott of Postmodern Conservative for linking.
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