I'm twenty-one. I first became interested in current affairs around the age of 13. I started out as a liberal because my family was (and remains) left-leaning, and I flirted with libertarianism before  finally putting down roots in the rich soil of full-spectrum conservatism.

Where are the young conservatives? We few are huddling together for warmth on the nation's college campuses, trying to weigh what we see as a duty to poke some air-holes in the stifling left-wing orthodoxy that reigns hegemonic over institutions of higher ed. against the palpable social cost that accompanies the harsh and knee-jerk denunciations of our principles (however carefully articulated) that our speaking up inevitably triggers.

I really like this idea. A similar but different possibility would be the family mentioned in the Weekly Standard story that Peter Robinson put up on the front page this morning. But I like this story better, because however obviously generous that other act was, the optics of the Romneys swooping in and writing checks is a little less of a home run.

Professor, I wish I could partake in your daring optimism, but  electoral geography prevents me from doing so. All of this national "thematic" politics is very important to political junkies like us Ricochetti, but is not very important, I think, to anyone else. And regardless of how weak Obama seems on the level of nationwide thematics, I'm afraid it seems unlikely that the President will lose the necessary permutation of Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Nevada.

I sincerely hope that you are right and I am wrong. But I can't take the carnivorous political media's word for it that Obama is faltering. "Dewey defeats Truman" and all that.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsensical bluster. To allege that any conservative who prioritizes institutional deference over a substantive right-libertarian merits agenda (both are immensely important!) is some kind of closeted squish or insufficiently right-of-center is completely unfair, and belies a real lack of understanding about critical constitutional issues.

During the constitutionally abysmal Warren years, conservatives cried and cried that the Court should not set out to impose its members' ideological agenda (on either side!, we earnestly insisted) but instead should punt to the more accountable branches wherever possible.

Whether that value was put into practice in a plausible or intellectually honest way in Roberts's Obamacare decision is fair game for debate among reasonable thinkers (as Adam noted above). But to fume that the broader principle is somehow not a legitimate priority for conservative jurists is pitch your tent way, way outside the mainstream.

I'm an enormous Sutton fan (though he's a Williams alumnus, so I'm biased). 

Having heard him speak on campus a few times, in addition to reading his Obamacare decision, I think he would truly be a Roberts conservative in our novel understanding of what that means: a no-nonsense jurist with solid center-right instincts, but one who perhaps prioritizes procedural judicial conservatism (institutional deference to the elected branches, a prima facie reluctance to make major headlines from the bench, etc.) over substantive judicial conservatism (getting the outcomes we like).

As a ConLaw nerd, I have a lot of respect for that. I am glad that we have confident, brilliant ideologues like Scalia and Thomas, but I am also thankful that some on our side also really try and practice what we preach when we complain about liberal jurists'  procedural "activism."

Very glad to hear that, all things considered, you and yours are relatively unharmed.

And your ability to spin something that awful into a smile-inducing blog post complete with an awesome short fiction reference? That is serious poise.

But, Eric – liberals don't mind the government interfering in personal decisions, just so long as the politician in question isn't white, wealthy, and male!

Hey, wait a minute...

I was going to try and articulate precisely the same thought that Mollie just expressed.

"The Dark Knight" does not glorify or cheer on the senseless evil that its villain perpetrates; on the contrary, the film enlists every sympathetic character and the audience in rooting for his downfall.

Emily asks if we can "do" anything about depraved violence "from a cultural standpoint." But, of course, all we can do is precisely what Nolan's films do do: capture our entire society's collective imagination with tales of brave heroes looking pure evil in the face, staying strong, and punching back hard.

We should judge and value art by asking whether its message, as properly understood by reasonable citizens, uplifts our society. Not by asking whether a hopelessly inhuman monster might "get any ideas" from the bad guys' behavior.

If it wasn't the Dark Knight that set this freak off, it would have been something else. We've had criminally insane psychos long before we had Hollywood.

"Most of cultural problems on campuses come from undergrads having too much free time."

As a current undergraduate, I can say definitively that this is not the case.

None of Santorum's critics on the right, including me, take any issue with this sentiment. To set up "But surely we should not banish faith from the public square!" as if it were a rebuttal to our complaint that Santorum ought not act like a missionary who merely happens to be in government is to wage war against a straw man that only the Daily Kos kids would defend.

There is a difference between a deeply religious man looking to the Lord for personal guidance on how to run a business and a CEO who includes big chunks of scripture in the daily staff memo. In government, that distinction is a particularly important one.

Jim: All our hopes and best wishes go out to you and your family. Thank God you are all safe and together. Please let us here know if we can help in any way.

Judithann: A former Santorum aide has said publicly something to the effect of, "he isn't a Senator who is Catholic, he is a Catholic missionary who happens to be a Senator."

I feel that vision is completely at odds with any traditional American conception about the relationship between our government and our civil society, especially those articulated by actual conservatives.

With all due respect, and I mean that, such thinking is totally confused. They are not refusing to sell you anything on account of your beliefs, they are merely consulting their beliefs and judgments – be they religious, moral, aesthetic, or economic – in deciding what they, as private citizens, choose to stock and sell. They are not discriminating against customers, as you allege, any more than an ice cream parlor that does not happen to stock Pistachio is "discriminating" against customers who seek that particular flavor.

Here is, I think, a close parallel: is it in any way unfair or unethical for a Christian couple who owns a bookstore to decide they will not offer pornography for sale? If you agree that they would be within their rights, then you must also side with us and the pharmacists in question. The only difference is whether the product is ink and paper or a cocktail of chemicals; the principle is precisely the same.

The Lawrence O'Donnell stimulus plan: enlarge the House and Senate to employ tens of thousands of Americans as legislators!

This logic sounds good but is completely untenable. Where do you derive this natural right to buy whatever medicine you want at whatever store you want? If an entire community of Catholics would be happy to patronize a Catholic-run pharmacy, you would seek to ban their voluntary transaction of business because you wouldn't be happy shopping there?

And why stop at medicine? If a balanced diet is an important component for health, why not fine any grocery stores who deign to sell us fatty foods or don't display vegetables prominently enough for your liking? Why should department stores be allowed not to carry running shoes or exercise gear? "Our health can't be left up to shopkeepers' discretion!"

No way.

Thanks for the compliment, David, and thanks for checking out the kids table over here on the College Feed.