A few good links

A Tenn. Republican claims getting people to sign up for Obamacare is like sending them to Auschwitz. No, I’m not kidding.
•A Princeton freshman has written an essay insisting he doesn’t benefit from white privilege: His grandparents, after all, worked really hard to build the family fortune. And talking about privilege is an insult to the American meritocracy! Some responses here, here and here.
I’ll throw in my own two cents: Yes, merit and ability make a difference, but they certainly aren’t the whole shebang. Check any career-advice book and you’ll be told that purely being good won’t do it. Networking, having the right social skills, promoting yourself, having a mentor or boss who’ll support you all make a difference.
Or if you prefer, just think of the Kardassians? Anyone want to claim their success is based on anything we can define as merit?
Or consider a story by Carl Hiassen, the author/columnist, back in the 1990s. A group of Haitian refugees coming to Florida found a group of Cubans whose boat had foundered and took them on board. When they reached land, the Cubans got to stay, the Haitians went home. Not because of merit, but because it’s government policy (or was) that Cubans are here fleeing Communist tyranny so they’re entitled to asylum; Haitians don’t get the benefit of the doubt.
•As you may have heard, the Supreme Court just approved sectarian prayers at government meetings so long as the speaker isn’t trying to convert or condemn the listeners. Dahlia Lithwick and Scott Lemieux weigh in on the reasoning behind it (like me, they find it dubious).