The Last Consolation of Jefferson Davis
A few years ago, Congress pardoned the Confederate president but his statues and namesakes may be starting to come down.
History
How Donald Trump Is Like John Hancock
The complicated political dynamics between rich presidential candidates and poorer ones far predate the 20th century.
Spies, Lies, and the Underground
A new book shines some light on the violent radicals of the 1970s but misses their biggest impact on American politics.
Bombs Drop in a Smithsonian Documentary and NBC Sit-Com
The ravages of Hiroshima; the misery of unfunny summer comedies
Friday A/V Club: Behind the Buckley/Vidal Debates
Free speech, flags, a police riot, and the other time Bill Buckley called Gore Vidal a queer
Libertarians, Conservatives, and 'Mischaracterizing' the 14th Amendment
Does the Privileges or Immunities Clause protect unenumerated rights?
College Students Adopt ISIS School of Art Criticism
The attempt to airbrush historical stuff from the present is the height of authoritarianism.
San Francisco's Private Police Force
The City by the Bay has a second, private police force...with a better record than the government cops.
Friday A/V Club: Anarchists Take Over Film Industry, Make a Revolutionary Children's Musical
One of the odder artifacts of the Spanish Civil War
Bernie Sanders and Gun Rights: More Than Just Electoral Expediency
What Sanders' third-party home had to say about guns in 1972
Why the 14th Amendment Protects Economic Liberty
A further reply to conservative law professor Kurt Lash
When the Irish Improvised a DIY Banking System
Just try to order a Guinness in a regular bank.
The Tragic History of China's Secret Labor Camps
Laogai prison survivor Harry Wu on human rights abuses in China.
Yes, the 14th Amendment Protects Economic Liberty
A reply to conservative law professor Kurt Lash.
The 2000s Is Pinned Down by the Reality of a World Post-9/11
A look at the flotsam and jetsam of culture keeps floating back to the same dark places.
Frederick Douglass on Liberty, Slavery, and the Fourth of July
"Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document."
How the Great Society Paved the Way for Modern Mass Incarceration
Lyndon Johnson's war on crime
Civil War Games and Apps Return Online
Anti-Confederate flag push led to some absurd outcomes that are being rolled back.
Blood and Leviathan
A Stanford historian thinks war is the engine that drives civilization. Is he right?
Confederate Flag Purge Goes Nuts Almost Immediately, Hits Harmless Strategy Games
Apple Store, Amazon drop products that are clearly not about upholding racist or segregationist views.
Gun Rights Benefited Black Americans During the Civil Rights Movement and Still Do
People demand "gun control" while grieving over the racist massacre in Charleston, but gun rights have proven pivotal to black Americans' safety and freedom.
Documentary Uniquely Nasty Chronicles the Government's Long and Cruel War Against Gay Rights
For decades, the feds would actively try to destroy the lives of homosexuals.
Remembering When the American Government Made Gay Citizens the Enemy
Wedding cakes were once the least of their problems.
Clarence Thomas and the Confederate Flag
Understanding Justice Thomas' vote in Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The Context of the Church Massacre
The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and the role it has played in Charleston
Is Obama's War Against ISIS Legal?
The president's rationalization for autocratic military action is a license for unchecked global war.
Magna Carta: A Libertarian Document?
If Magna Carta was a key moment in the West's advancement toward classical liberalism, the trajectory was neither straight nor smooth.
The DIY Flag Designs of the Early Republic
...and the Progressive Era's rather different approach to the national banner
The Making of the Mob Refuses to Mythologize History of Organized Crime
Docudrama series on AMC mixes archival footage with actor recreations.
Friday A/V Club: Vintage Metric Propaganda to Warm Lincoln Chafee's Heart
Plus an anti-metrification argument from the Whole Earth Catalog's Stewart Brand
"The story of technology is in fact the story of textiles."
Epic piece about how the threads that make the clothes we wear are figuratively the fabric of our lives.
Can the President Lawfully Ignore a Supreme Court Decision?
Conservative legal pundits take aim at "judicial supremacy."
NBC's Aquarius Has David Duchovny As a Sixties Cop Tracking Down Charles Manson
Premieres tonight at 9pm ET.
Let's Put Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill
Andrew Jackson was a slaveholder and serial abuser of executive power. Harriet Tubman championed human freedom.
What Magna Carta Can Teach Us About Libertarian Strategy
It's important not to conflate philosophy and strategy.
Feminism, Frankenstein, and Freedom
The individualistic works and lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley
Friday A/V Club: Mort Sahl's Guide to the Political Spectrum
How the left, the right, and the middle looked in 1967
Fewer Christians in the United States: Fourth Great Awakening Over
Just as I predicted seven years ago
