Assistant Professor-University of Richmond. Formerly Assistant Professor-FAU, Postdoc-Brown University-PPE Center. I study ethics and political philosophy.
Joined May 2022
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Sam Director retweeted
Donald Trump is the authoritarian socialist president that Republicans used to warn about.
If Republicans win the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 2026 Midterm Elections, I’m going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America, $5,000! Thank you for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to signing those checks!
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
This $5,000 “Trump Dividend” promise was first made in Sept. 2026. Similar prior DOGE and tariff check pledges have not been paid out. It would cost ~$1.2 trillion and require congressional approval.
pbs.org/newshour/polit…
washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/…
Sam Director retweeted
Unrestricted birthright citizenship is unequivocally one of the greatest things about the US.
Sam Director retweeted
"problematic" instead of "immoral" is one of the great treacheries of our current language games.
Sam Director retweeted
In 1966, Robert Watts said if he were forced to carry a rifle, the first man he’d want “in his sights” was LBJ.
The Supreme Court said that was political hyperbole, not a true threat.
Now imagine if Watts had written it in seashells.
Sam Director retweeted
Imagining explaining to the Founding Fathers that the president imposed tariffs without an act of Congress and then removed them at the request of the King of England
Sam Director retweeted
Getting déjà vu? The White House is demanding that @jimmykimmel be fired for a joke he told. Again.
The government has no authority to police the speech of networks or late-night hosts, nor can it flex its power to pressure them to do so.
✍🏻: @StrangelEdweird
🖥️: @unherd
Sam Director retweeted
Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted over his now-deleted “86 47” social media post. But Comey’s speech is protected by the First Amendment. It is not a “true threat” and cannot justify federal prosecution.
Longstanding Supreme Court precedent is directly on point.
Sam Director retweeted
I’m pretty sure that wiping out “a whole civilization” will involve issuing unlawful orders.
Remove this man from office before he actually attempts to carry out what he’s threatening. We don’t know what he’ll do, but given the unhinged rhetoric, we shouldn’t wait to find out.
Sam Director retweeted
The extraordinary document offers a glimpse of a national campaign by the federal government to deprive detained immigrants of due process rights.
reason.com/2026/01/30/judge-…
Sam Director retweeted
This article of mine addresses all of the standard objections to open borders that libertarians raise (link below)
Sam Director retweeted
Maybe it was a mistake to make the head of DHS a woman who shot her dog in the face.
Sam Director retweeted
On Thursday, a federal judge unsealed internal government documents shining a light into how the Trump administration targeted pro-Palestinian foreign students — who were all legally present in the United States — for deportation.
Now we know that the government’s case was built not on criminal activity, but on the opinions expressed.
There are few things more un-American than masked agents throwing dissenters in the back of a van because the government doesn’t like what they have to say. But these documents prove that it was the students’ opinions alone, and not any criminal activity, that led to handcuffs and deportation proceedings.
The First Amendment means the government cannot punish speakers for their opinions, but that is exactly what the government is doing.
This can’t happen in a free society.
It can’t happen in a free America.
FIRE will continue to fight this egregious violation of the Constitution every step of the way.
I’m happy to say that my paper “Social Sanctions, Criticism, and Speech” is forthcoming at Social Theory and Practice. It's an attempt to define and critique cancel culture. Abstract and link below:
structures impose immense pressure on the speech of individuals. Recently, there has been extensive societal wrestling concerning social pressures and sanctions on individual speech. This paper explores this, specifically the phenomenon that has become known as “cancel culture,”
In the first two weeks of the newborn phase, I’ve been listening to tons of audiobooks while up late with the baby. So far, I’ve finished Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter, Hart’s Drug Use for Grownups, and Haidt’s The Anxious Generation.