Opinions

By Sean Illing America’s commitment to free speech is uniquely radical. The US Constitution treats freedom of expression as the master freedom that makes every other possible. And our legal system reflects this view, which is why it has always been incredibly difficult to suppress or punish speech in this country. But there has never...

By David Leonhardt Guido Calabresi, a federal judge and Yale law professor, invented a little fable that he has been telling law students for more than three decades. He tells the students to imagine a god coming forth to offer society a wondrous invention that would improve everyday life in almost every way. It would...

By Medea Benjamin Ecuador’s April 11 election that led to a 5-point victory by conservative banker Guillermo Lasso over progressive candidate Andrés Arauz was not what it appeared to be. On the surface, it was a surprisingly clean and professional election, as our CODEPINK official observer delegation witnessed. But a fraud-free process for casting and...

By Liam Higgins Almost unnoticed in the aftermath of the February 7 national election was the death of the movement that dominated Ecuador’s political landscape for 14 years. Founded by former president Rafael Correa among others, Alianza Pais, failed to place a single member in the new National Assembly and its presidential candidate, Ximena Peña,...

By Peter West “There is an urgent need today for the citizens of a democracy to think well.” These words, which could have been written yesterday, come from Thinking to Some Purpose, a popular book by the British philosopher Susan Stebbing, first published in 1939 in the Penguin ‘Pelican’ books series, with that familiar blue-and-white...