High Times

"Heh. Skim milk."

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Today’s Ruminant finds Jonah on an uncharacteristic high, and no, his good mood can’t be attributed to a certain substance that was recently discovered in the White House. He’s actually in elevated spirits because a recent AEI event prompted him to rediscover the work of Paul Cantor, a late scholar at the University of Virginia who analyzed pop culture through a conservative lens. He begins today’s program with a thorough exploration of Cantor’s work, before delivering similarly overlong rants on the American Founding and the purpose of the Supreme Court. Sometimes, the Remnant can feel like a wonderful drug.

Show Notes:

–Jonah and friends discuss Paul Cantor

–“The Macbeth of Meth”

–Vanity Fair: “America Has a Supreme Court Problem”

–The Remnant celebrates the Fourth of July

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Comments (61)
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  1. Dustin C

    Sarah should host the Remnant while your out.

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    Ben Connelly

    Thank you for doing a bit on Paul Cantor! It would be good to get someone on to talk about Shakespeare though. That’s honestly the more important stuff I think. I don’t care if that’s snobby - I’m not a TV guy.

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    Ben Connelly

    The Iliad was not on a scroll first! It was in Homer’s head!

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    Ben Connelly

    Podcast Guest: Dispatch subscriber Justin Perry. Given your interest in rats and dogs, I think he would be a good guest. I’m pretty sure other subscribers, including him, have also asked to get him on.

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    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Thank you for sharing that hilarious send-up of a progressive's concept of Lady Justice, Mr. Goldberg. But filing cabinets and typewriters? That's so ... Stasi! Made me shiver to hear and tremble to contemplate; I'd have definitely chosen another career if that's what Lady Justice was all about.

    Every time I hear people talk about the "weaponization of the Justice Department," I laugh. The statue of Lady Justice has a blindfold and a scale, in order that she may determine equal justice under law. But she also has a sword in order that she may execute justice. She's already weaponized, and must be, but if you're getting the equal justice under law part right, that's a feature not a bug.

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    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    No, Mr. Goldberg, your first instinct was exactly right:

    The arguments in favor of the POTUS' alleged power to cancel student debts (without a showing of individualized need, which is what the statute actually authorizes) are, and always were, and always will be, HACK ARGUMENTS.

    They are laugh-out-loud are-you-serious? oh-my-God-you-are-then-you're-a-liar-or-a-moron arguments.

    The Department of Justice and the Solicitor General's office should be ashamed. (And some of them, privately, almost surely are.)

    (The standing arguments that had to be resolved before reaching the merits, by contrast, were good-faith arguments. But that's conceptually very different.)

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  7. Brian Swafford

    Suggestion for guest:
    We never get tired of hearing from David Bahnsen, or AB Stoddard

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  8. Richard Kennedy

    I’m quite late in my question here. On The Greatest TV Shows Ever, I wonder about TV’s Citizen Kane.
    What TV series was revolutionary in such a way that its ground breaking is now considered normal? Hill Street Blues is the earliest long form narrative from week to week that I can think of. Even shows that aren’t consciously longform have elements of it while plots often resolve in each episode. Others?

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  9. Marieannehendrie

    When my daughters were born they had a constitutional right to control their reproductive lives-now they don’t. What’s changed-spoiler alert it wasn’t the text of the constitution-so spare me your “judges just enforce” the law bs. Conservatives have for decades advocated for judges to adopt their interpretation of the constitution, why is Ms. Clinton’s position any different?

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    The Bell Tower

    I once told my ex-girlfriend’s mother that professional wrestling was the closed thing we have to Shakespeare in modern times because it’s live performed but usually pre-scripted and shows almost nightly. Since she was a Shakespearean teacher, you can imagine how that one went over.

    I think I also said The Rock could someday be president in that conversation. This was the late 90’s, mind you. If it ever happens, I’ll feel like Bram Stoker predicting TR’s presidency.

    Anyway, I think the Supreme Court must always be conservative by nature in the dispositional sense and not just because of the limitations of their job. The rarity of their position, the time it takes to earn the credibility to get there, the lifetime appointment. Pretty sure Federalist judges long outlasted the Federalist Party.

    Policy starts with the glandular urges of democracy, it filters through a House with many representatives and factions who rotate every two years. It’s ratified by a Senate with a bunch of six year terms and larger constituencies and is r’confirmed by a president who can only represent a very large constituency.

    Take that and filter it again through a court that has the features represented above and is required only to interpret the rules passed. Trump may have picked justices but none of them can accurately be described as Trumpish because such a thing would have to last for far longer and prove more durable before it could exist on the court.

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