Either I’m a leisured aristocrat or a political geek, but I’m probably one of the few Americans this week who has the time and interest to watch C-SPAN’s coverage of Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing. She once remarked that the hearings are a “vapid and . . . . Continue Reading »
For the last four years, I have been conducting, at New York University’s School of Law, a seminar on the trial of Jesus. The Wall Street Journal inveighed against it as educational inanity: if not exactly corrupting the youth, then at least leading them astray and squandering their tuition . . . . Continue Reading »
Today marks the fifteen year anniversary of the Murrah Federal Building bombing and I emailed an old friend, Jayna Davis, whose book, The Third Terrorist is by far the most accurate record of that horrific event. I reviewed her book for an old website some years ago . The review is here . . . . . Continue Reading »
And now, my conclusion about where Obamacare falls into the law-versus-politics schema I mentioned, below, in the context of marriage and divorce. There was one real highlight and moment of clarity for me in Obama’s now-infamous Baier interview: the sequence where the President insisted that, . . . . Continue Reading »
. . . from his dissent in Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois , in which the majority of the Court held that hiring or firing low-level government employees based on party affiliation violated the First Amendment, dealing a blow to the “If there’s a job that can’t be done by a . . . . Continue Reading »
Prof. John Hasnas is an excellent seminar leader, and, like Conor , I cheer on his clearsighted reiteration of the kinds of blindness to future or systemic consequences that a viscerally emotional approach to jurisprudence can bring. Yet Bastiat, whom Hasnas cites, seems to me vulnerable to perhaps . . . . Continue Reading »
The latest issue of Modern Age (Winter 2009) is now available for general consumption and features a symposium on Remi Brague’s amazingly erudite book The Law of God . Besides a very fine lead contribution from Mark Shiffman (who blogs over at Front Porch Republic ) you’ll also find short . . . . Continue Reading »
I can’t believe I’m having this conversation: I’m actually 100 percent positive that were Oprah on the Supreme Court she would do a good job. In a lot of ways, it’s just not that difficult a job. You need a reasonably intelligent, public-spirited individual who’s aware of . . . . Continue Reading »
Long have I railed against the way the phrase ‘sense of’ has crept, like ragweed, into our daily discourse at every level. But this, from Gail Collins in conversation with David Brooks, is particularly egregious and illustrative: And I walked away from the whole drama with a sense that . . . . Continue Reading »
Conservatives, postmodern and otherwise, often discuss the difficulties associated with the sometimes promiscuous assignment and declaration of rights in political discourse today. If we look at the American founding narrowly from the perspective of its Lockean influence, it’s easy to see the . . . . Continue Reading »
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