It’s easy to forget that aging and illness occur within the four walls of a prison cell, equally as much as outside of their confines. Cancer ravages bodies, dementia confuses brains, arthritis stiffens fingers, and organs begin to fail—even in prison. It is when the body deteriorates, that
In the liberal ideal individuals pursue their own interests while participating equally in communal decisions, and have a say in the structures that directly and indirectly affect them—whether private arrangements or public/political ones. At the infancy of modern capitalism, one of the biggest hurdles to realizing this ideal
Despite being born on Italian soil, second-generation migrants in Italy are not automatically eligible for Italian citizenship. Until the age of 18, when they are allowed to apply to become Italian nationals, these “Italians without citizenship” are living in a legal limbo. A summer of Black Lives Matter protests has
Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court for almost a year in 2016. After Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Republicans pushed through the confirmation process for Amy Coney Barrett after voting in the 2020 election had already begun. In the very likely event that Amy
Interest group influence on American public policy and the political progress is so widely accepted it approaches the level of a truism. Political scientists since the 1970s have had their eye on the growth of this category at the expense of the power of formal political party organizations. But interest
Modern international sanctions are barbarism, disguised as diplomacy; the losses incurred from this lack of cooperation limits the potential of all humanity, and sanctions themselves serve only to diminish the humanity that lies in their paths, never the elite or system which they are allegedly focused on curtailing, reforming or
I was hooked. It wasn’t since I first saw Pulp Fiction on HBO that I was so enamored by a film. 1994’s Clerks on VHS shone forth to me a promise of a cinematic universe bound by pop culture ephemera and Star Wars references. Echoing many of the
It is nearly always productive to explore the tension between democracy and liberty, as this is not a tension that any society resolves on a lasting basis. Resolutions are by nature temporary and tenuous—immediately reviled, vigorously renegotiated, and, sometimes, productively reformed. That is why Annelien De Dijn’s Freedom:
The long expected death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg so soon before the election has all but guaranteed a 6-3 conservative supermajority on the nation’s highest court. The bitter, divisive, unforgiving politics of Supreme Court appointments has kicked into high gear once again. Just four years ago, a Republican Senate
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was called a crude misogynistic epithet by Congressman Ted Yoho, the largely universal furur grew, rightly, upon the misogyny of the statement. Lost in this however, is what he was reacting to: her argument that the recent spike in crime in NYC was caused by the COVID-19
It is difficult to offer a definition or even description of liberalism without referring to some kind of individualism. Liberalism assumes an inherent moral value in each person and defends their right to make their own decisions for their own lives. This has frequently put it into tension with nationalism,
From 1937 to 1960, one third of the population of mothers on the island of Puerto Rico were sterilized through manipulation and misinformation, while others became part of the first clinical trials for the first birth control pill after being misled to believe that the drug was already proven safe.