In 1996, Hillary Clinton published a perfectly hideous little book with a perfectly hideous title: It Takes a Village. I confess I haven’t read it. I don’t have enough seconds of life left to waste even one on the sociological musings of one of the most corrupt and odious politicians in American history. But I’ve read the reviews. I’ve skimmed the summaries. I get the drift.
While true of politicians of every stripe, the left is at least honest about its ambitions: every problem of the human condition can—and must—be solved by collective action, with them, or their guy, of course, in charge.
Even the so-called reformers, the “abundance Democrats,” still default to government building everything. They may want more abundance, but only after suffocating the private sector with laws, mandates, and regulations. Their idea of freedom is the freedom of the collective.
Do you really want abundance? Try limited government and property rights. Just try it.
Perhaps the only thing more detestable than the Clinton political dynasty is collectivism’s track record.
The Same Old Tropes
In It Takes a Village, Clinton trots out the usual tropes, all “for the children,” of course:
Government healthcare: Never mind that Medicare carries tens of trillions– with a "T"--in unfunded liabilities, or that Canada and Britain’s systems offer care so delayed and mediocre they might qualify as second- or third-rate.
Childcare subsidies: We’ve had versions of these since the Nixon era. The only consistent outcome has been the rising cost of babysitting.
Gun safety laws: Enough said.
Public education reform: By my count, we’re on reform version six or seven, and schools grow more dysfunctional by the week.
Universal Pre-K: A version of Head Start, which has been around since the 1960s, and which, by every objective study, has no impact on outcomes—or makes things measurably worse.
Clinton wraps these policy proposals in a carefully curated collage of personal stories—faith, family, and tender compassion—crafted to humanize her politics and reinforce her inevitability. But as with so much else in her public life, it’s mostly a fraud.
Take, for example, her origin story: that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest. A charming detail—except that he wouldn’t become famous until five years after she was born.
Like most politicians, Hillary Clinton is a fabulist and a grifter. In 2000, when she and Bill left the White House, she famously declared they were “dead broke.” That’s a quote. Yet by 2016, during her presidential run, she reported a net worth of $180 million.
In the intervening sixteen years--indeed in their entire lives--neither she nor her husband held a job of any financial consequence.
Reportedly, she made a million dollars from It Takes a Village—which is both a very long way from $180 million, and also, frankly, an instance of injustice in its own right.
Whatever Happened to "It Takes a Family"?
There was a time when Republicans offered, at least rhetorically, an alternative to this kind of statism and soft collectivism. Back in the ’90s, when Hillary Clinton was out selling It Takes a Village, U.S. Senator, and presidential candidate, Bob Dole shot back with a line that summed up the conservative counterpunch: “It takes a family.”
The idea, back then, was simple: parents—not bureaucrats, not school boards, not federal agencies—are best positioned to raise their children. Families shape virtue. The right of parents to raise their children was unquestioned.
Republicans once stood firmly on this ground. They defended a parent’s right to homeschool, even when state boards objected. They railed against Common Core—not because the standards were bad (though they were), but because they came from Washington. They insisted that curriculum choices, discipline policies, and school values belonged to local communities and, ultimately, to families. Government, if it must exist, should know its place and keep its distance.
I may be wrong, but weren’t Republicans the ones who made “Free Range Kids” a thing—marching under the banner that parents, not the state, should decide whether a ten-year-old can walk to the park?
Of course, scratch a Republican hard enough and you’ll find a collectivist underneath. Despite the campaign slogans, their policies nearly always rest on the same unspoken premise as the left’s: that every human problem can– and must--be solved by one more government program.
Still, when it came to matters of ethics, family, and children, Republicans used to at least gesture toward restraint. They warned about the destructiveness of centralized power. They waxed poetic about private virtue, local control, and the dead hand of Leviathan.
Less so, lately.
Clarence Thomas Joins the Village
It takes a family—unless that family includes a transgender child, in which case, according to the Republican majority on the Supreme Court, it very much takes a Village. Recently, the Court upheld a Tennessee law that strips parents of the right to seek gender-affirming medical care for their own children, ruling that the state—not the family—gets to decide.
Not done, this week the Supreme Court issued another opinion—this one written by Justice Clarence Thomas.
The case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, centered on a Texas law requiring online pornography sites to verify the age of all users and display state-mandated warnings about the alleged harms of adult content. Civil liberties groups, site operators, and First Amendment advocates challenged the law, arguing that it imposed unconstitutional burdens on lawful speech, invaded adult privacy, and treated viewers as presumed criminals unless proven otherwise.
Justice Thomas disagreed.
Writing for the 6–3 majority, Thomas upheld the Texas statute, holding that the law’s requirements were a reasonable—and imposed only an “incidental” burden on adult speech. The opinion treated age verification as the digital equivalent of showing ID at a video store or movie theater, and dismissed concerns about privacy, chilling effects, or the broader precedent being set.
It was, to put it mildly, a striking departure. Not just from free speech jurisprudence—but from Clarence Thomas himself, a justice long seen as a First Amendment absolutist, who has spent decades warning against state encroachment on expressive freedom. Yet here he is, leading the charge in defense of a paternalistic, state-run system of moral supervision—one that determines what content adults may access, and under what conditions.
In doing so, the Court’s conservative majority has embraced the very collectivist, statist impulses it once condemned—not to protect the Constitution, but to protect children. Or, more accurately, to protect themselves from the political consequences of appearing not to. Or something.
Apparently, protecting children trumps the First Amendment. Hillary would be proud.
The Law as Virtue Signal
And in the fashion we’ve come to expect from her Village, the Texas law may be the most toothless piece of legislation passed since democracy was invented. It will prevent—I have the study right here—ZERO children from accessing porn. None.
All an intrepid pre-teen need do is set their VPN to New York or California—states that very much believe in government intervention in every aspect of human life except, apparently, pornography—and the toothlessness of the Texas law becomes apparent. I’m sure downloads of VPNs are booming on the App Store.
Does Porn Even Harm Kids?
That’s the claim, of course—the moral linchpin of the entire Texas law and the Court’s decision to uphold it. But the evidence looks far less conclusive than the justices—or the lawmakers—seem to believe. There are studies that show correlations between early porn exposure and things like anxiety, body image issues, or earlier sexual activity. But there are just as many that show no lasting effects at all. The dirty little secret of the research is that most kids who see porn aren’t traumatized by it. They’re curious, maybe a little confused, and then they move on—like they did with Playboy magazines in the 1960s, or late-night cable in the 1980s.
And it's not like anyone is doing double blind porn studies on kids. There is really nothing in the literature than ought to be even believed, much less form the basis of a law that eviscerates the First Amendment.
In fact, the best predictor of whether a child is harmed by anything they see—porn included—isn’t the content. It’s whether they have parents willing to talk to them about it. You know--it takes a family.
But talking to your own kid isn’t nearly as satisfying as passing a law. So instead of encouraging stronger families or more open conversations, we outsource the job to the state. We hand the reins to the attorney general, and the content moderation board. And we tell ourselves it’s “for the children,” even as we build a culture where nobody is responsible for raising them anymore—except the Village.
The First Amendment, or Nothing
But even if we concede the case—grant, for the sake of argument, that consuming pornography is harmful to kids—it is still surely less harmful than living in a country without free speech.
Supporting free speech is easy when the speech in question is tasteful, popular, or affirming. Iran has that kind of free speech. So does China. The challenge—the whole point—is defending speech we find ugly, offensive, or morally suspect. That’s where freedom matters. That’s where it either exists or it doesn’t.
Apparently, Justice Thomas, the Texas Legislature, and most of the Republican Party don’t like porn. That’s fine. They’re allowed to dislike it. They’re even allowed to preach against it. What they’re not allowed to do—at least in a country that claims to value liberty—is criminalize access to it, burden its expression, or demand your government ID before you can watch it. And while they’re clutching their pearls, let’s not pretend they don’t consume it. If past scandals are any guide, Republican politicians watch more than most.
Perhaps Hillary should have named her book It Takes a Mullah.
Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
I’ve long been a critic of the Constitution. My view is best summed up by Lysander Spooner, writing in 1870:
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain— that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”
Beyond Spooner’s indictment, there’s the simple fact that the Constitution is poorly written. It’s vague where it should be precise, wordy where it should be clear, and often tries to say in one word or clause what properly needs two paragraphs. But what else would you expect from a document written by politicians with the goal of ruling others?
Still, for all its flaws, the First Amendment could not be more clear: Congress shall make no law.
No footnotes. No exceptions. No carveouts. No implied asterisks. No “unless it’s for the children” clause.
If the statists in the Republican Party want to ban pornography—the same pornography they almost certainly consume—then they should at least have the honesty to pass an amendment to their beloved Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law… except about porn.”
I’d oppose that amendment. But at least it would be honest.