Slate Magazine - Big Idea, The

Why gay marriage, getting high, and going to Cuba will soon be legal.

Jacob Weisberg — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:06:57 EST

"I think this would be a good time for a beer," Franklin D. Roosevelt said upon signing a bill that made 3.2-percent lager legal again, some months ahead of the full repeal of Prohibition. I hope Barack Obama will come up with some comparably witty remarks as he presides over the dismantling of our contemporary forms of prohibition—laws that prevent gay marriage, restrict cannabis as a Schedule I Controlled Substance, and ban travel to Cuba. "You may now kiss the groom," perhaps, or—a version of the comment he once made about smoking pot—"I inhaled—that was the point."

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Irving Kristol saved the right from intellectual bankruptcy in the '60s. Who will save it now?

Jacob Weisberg — Sat, 3 Oct 2009 07:33:31 EST

The passing of Irving Kristol last month at the age of 89 coincided with the death, at a much younger age, of the intellectually serious conservatism he did so much to foster. As a liberal who was fond of both, I've been feeling the loss.

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It's time to stop the paternalistic meddling, Bloomberg.

Jacob Weisberg — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:02:28 EST

Last Monday dawned clear and bright in the nanny state of New York City. The newspaper brought word that the city's new health commissioner was working on ways to get residents to exercise more. That same morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his latest assault on unhealthy behavior. By 2012, the mayor hopes "to lower the proportion of adults who drink one or more sugar-sweetened beverages each day by 20 percent." Tuesday's news was about plans to forbid smoking at public parks and beaches.

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It's Republicans, not Democrats, who are trying to kill the elderly.

Jacob Weisberg — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 07:11:34 EST

Republicans charge that Democratic health care reform would, in Sen. Charles Grassley's words, "pull the plug on Grandma." According to Sen. Jon Kyl, the bills before Congress would ration medical treatment by age. Rep. John Boehner says they promote euthanasia. Alaskan abdicate Sarah Palin has raised the specter of "death panels." Such fears are understandable. It's not preposterous to imagine laws that would try to save money by encouraging the inconvenient elderly to make a timely exit. After all, that's been Republican policy for years.

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