Canadian writer & editor
If Americans actually have the conversation about our disastrous prison policies, we'll understand the trends all move in very dangerous directions: we lock up more people, for less violent crime, at ever greater expense, breeding more dangerous criminals who often come out unemployable, violent and isolated.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
Newsweek, Jun. 15, 2009
Never believe in any faith younger than you are.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"Everything Vibrates", Slate, November 12, 2008
Taking legislative authority away from the federal government doesn't necessarily mean freer individuals. It might just mean granting vastly more authority to the states--which already have far broader police powers than most of us would care to admit.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"Read It and Weep: How the Tea Party's fetish for the Constitution as written may get it in trouble", Slate, January 4, 2011
The Constitution created a framework, not a Ouija board, precisely because the Framers understood that prospect of a nation ruled for centuries by dead prophets would be the very opposite of freedom.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"Read It and Weep: How the Tea Party's fetish for the Constitution as written may get it in trouble", Slate, January 4, 2011
I think men get nervous when women start counting the number of female senators, and whites become edgy when they hear the next Supreme Court seat will probably go to a Latino. This isn't always because they object to sharing the spoils, by the way; it just reminds us that the melting pot may not be working, and we haven't yet achieved the ambiguous national dream of becoming a nation of indistinguishable beige atheists.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"The American Dream of Homogenization", Slate, June 24, 2002
The fact that the Constitution is sufficiently open-ended to infuriate all Americans almost equally is part of its enduring genius.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"Read It and Weep: How the Tea Party's fetish for the Constitution as written may get it in trouble", Slate, January 4, 2011
Over the past few years, the Supreme Court was six times more likely to accept cases from an elite group of 66 lawyers than it was from more than 99 percent of those who petitioned the court. That's the finding of a recent Reuters special report called "The Echo Chamber." It illustrates how almost half the appeals accepted by the court over a nine-year period came from this cadre of elite lawyers--many of whom have personal connections to the nine justices.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"Amicus: The Super Lawyers", Slate, January 10, 2015
The First Aphorism of Religion Cases: Only the religious convictions of other people are weird. Yours are perfectly rational.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"Everything Vibrates", Slate, November 12, 2008
The Framers were no more interested in binding future Americans to a set of divinely inspired commandments than any of us would wish to be bound by them.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"Read It and Weep: How the Tea Party's fetish for the Constitution as written may get it in trouble", Slate, January 4, 2011
Pulling a crystalline, cogent rule out of the murk of the court's First Amendment, public forum, and Establishment Clause doctrine is an act of creation too complicated for mere mortals.
DAHLIA LITHWICK
"Everything Vibrates", Slate, November 12, 2008