First one is from Karen, one of the Lawyers, Guns and Money commenters (I don’t know if she wants her full name attached) about Lent: “Lenten discipline isn’t supposed to make us miserable. In fact, the Christian life is supposed to be the opposite of miserable — as Jesus said, he came to give us life ’more abundantly.’ Not in the Prosperity Gospel kind of paganism, where we’re rewarded with mansions and yachts, but in the understanding that we don’t have to appease angry deities and we don’t have to endure injustice. God gives us the strength to repair the world; Lent teaches us to control our appetites where they need a little control. We have to think about our actions. Lent is the ‘leg day at the gym’ of the liturgical year, not the jail sentence.”
Second, from Theodore Roosevelt: “No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.”
Third, by Scott Lemieux, on libertarians (the guys who pretend they believe in limited government) who think Trump sending people without due process is nothing to worry about: “It’s obvious that “why do you care so much about THIS” is a concession that you’ve got nothing on the merits. But “if the a candidate tells racist lies about immigrants and goes on to win a plurality of the vote the Fifth Amendment is therefore suspended for the entirety of his term” sure takes that move in a sub-Schmittian direction.”
Finally, one from Bluesky (I think) on why Republicans can come together more effectively: “This comes of the difference of a party (usually) in favor of defending the status quo (Republicans) — everyone shares the same goals, it’s easy to maintain party unity. A party that is based at least in part around changing the status quo has to deal with innumerable groups that might have very different ideas about how they want the status quo to change.”
