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University of Chicago law professor Martha C. Nussbaum argues that turning up the collective nose is no way to make law.
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|7.15.04 @ 8:35AM|#
I think this part is interesting:
"All theories based on the classical idea of the social contract hypothesize that people are "free, equal, and independent" (to use Locke's phrase) in the state of nature. Their rough equality in power and resources is an important part of such theories, since they hold that people will get together and bargain about the shape of a state only when it is mutually advantageous to do so. That condition would be defeated were the bargain to include people with unusually expensive needs, or people who can be expected to contribute less than most to the overall wellbeing of the group."
The flip side of this is that arbitrarily expensive needs can't be guaranteed in any social arrangement. The alternative of mutual agreement isn't greater social understanding, it is structured rationing. If someone isn't capable of producing enough for their own needs, they can receive charity of choice or they can receive spoils of legislation. I don't see how dignity is enhanced in one over the other. It is just a terrible situation.
|7.15.04 @ 9:48AM|#
Mark Twain said that man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to. He never met George Bush, who never blushes, is never ashamed, and never makes mistakes, and therefore cannot be a whole human being.
|7.16.04 @ 2:30AM|#
Suppose you were an idiot. And then suppose you were a Bush. But I repeat myself.
|7.16.04 @ 7:29AM|#
Go suck on a saxophone, witch.
|7.16.04 @ 12:34PM|#
Simply great interview--more interesting and more serious than almost anything I have read lately, and with immediate relevance for our wretched political reality.