Author: Joel Levin

Democracy is a strange, unwieldy, flawed, and maddening thing, rife with failures, crowded with bullies, full of misfortune, and embarrassed by contradictions. Those who claim to be brilliant political theorists or shrewd social observers try to construct better political systems, which, at least since John Locke in the late 17th century, has meant a democratic system.

When President Joe Biden campaigned for office, and then recently when Justice Stephen Breyer announced his impending retirement, Biden stated and then reiterated that he would choose an African American woman for the U.S. Supreme Court. His right, or technically his privilege, to choose who he wants is relatively without question, and the Constitution itself provides no criteria whatsoever as to who should be chosen.

The Supreme Court has declined to stop the new and bizarre Texas abortion law from going into force. The case is Whole Women’s Health v. Austin Reeve Jackson.

As we received news from the actual and not metaphorical front, that is, the military situation, then evacuation in Kabul, we were instantly tempted to make a variety of moral judgments.

Almost 50 years ago, when I was in 7th grade in junior high school – before we knew better and decided to universalize middle schools in an attempt to segregate those who had experienced puberty on the one end, but had not turned into full-fledged bullies, prima donnas, anxiety disabled, or egomaniacs on the other – I had my first encounter with local government in action.