This time the issue is advanced medical directives and their interpretation by courts: New regulations permit these court rulings—which are often literally a matter of life and death—to be held in secret. This is terrible development. We have open courts in free societies for a reason. Secrecy permits corruption, discrimination, and heightens the potential for profound injustice. Indeed, secrecy permits the law not to be followed at all.
Living will disputes are not issues of national security where confidentiality is sometimes justified. The way to keep people complacent is to, quite literally, keep them in the dark.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
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