Archives for May 2018

May 31, 2018|AT&T Mobility v. Conception, Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, Federal Arbitration Act, Lochner, Neil Gorsuch, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

An Epic Case, Its Not-So-Immaculate Concepcion, and a Few Thoughts on Conservative Jurisprudence

by Michael S. Greve|

U.S. Supreme Court (Travel Stock/Shutterstock.com).

In Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, the Federal Arbitration Act offered the court a second-best workaround to Erie's formless wasteland.

May 30, 2018|Common Law, Finding the Law, Formalism, Making Law, Stephen Sachs

Finding The Law

by Mike Rappaport|

Roman Motizov/Shutterstock.com

The common law understanding that what judges do is a matter of finding the law is enjoying a welcome return.

May 30, 2018|

Our Educational System: Should We Just Scrap It?

by Mary Clare Amselem|

(shutterstock.com)

Caplan’s proposal: Local and state governments should discontinue all funding of public education.

May 29, 2018|advisory rulings, Federalist 51, state constitutions

Some States Embrace an Advisory Role for Their High Courts

by James R. Rogers|

Texas Supreme Court

While the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to issue advisory rulings, some state courts embrace this power.

May 29, 2018|Adam Smith, Blaise Pascal, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ronald Coase, Skin in the Game

Skin in the Review: The Hidden Asymmetries of Taleb’s Skin in the Game

by James Bruce|

Nassim Nicholas Taleb speaks at Global Synergy Forum in Moscow, Russia, November 27, 2017 (Anton Gvozdikov/Shutterstock.com).

Nassim Nicholas Taleb offers a great deal of wisdom: it's unfortunate that it is obscured by painting with too broad a brush.

May 28, 2018|Eugene Sledge, With the Old Breed

I’ve been reading With the Old Breed, Eugene Sledge’s classic account of his experiences in the battles of Peleliu and Okinawa. Many have come to know his story from the successful 2010 HBO Series The Pacific that relied in part on his diary of these two battles. Sledge enlisted for the duration of the war +6 months in 1943 and, owing to his intelligence, was part of a military training program at Georgia Tech. There he could have earned his degree and joined the war effort in a highly skilled position of some kind, remote perhaps from actual fighting. However, he withdrew from the program, as many of his fellow classmates did, and joined the Marines to fight as a rifleman. And so he did. The narrative “Sledgehammer” provides is compelling, horrific, and fascinating.

May 28, 2018|Bohemian Tory, Declinism, Edmund Burke, Ray Bradbury, Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot

Sword of the Romantic Imagination: Kirk and Bradbury

by Lauren Weiner|

A vision of the Gothic, dieKleinert (alamy.com)

Two American authors who used the grotesque to re-enchant the world.

May 25, 2018|Administrative Adjudication, Due Process, Originalism

Administrative Adjudication as a Violation of Due Process

by Mike Rappaport|

BCFC/Shutterstock.com

Due process requires that every person have their day in court, and because of this a central pillar of the administrative state might be unconstitutional.

May 25, 2018|American Rule, Loser pays, Tocqueville