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Brian A. Smith Subscribe

Brian A. Smith is the managing editor of Law & Liberty. He is the author of Walker Percy and the Politics of the Wayfarer (Lexington Books, 2017). Before joining Law & Liberty, he taught politics and great books at Montclair State University from 2009-2018. He tweets at @briansmith1980.

March 13, 2020|Anarchism, James Scott's Seeing Like a State, Really Existing Socialism, science fiction, socialism, The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin and the Persistence of Tragedy

by Brian A. Smith|

Solar plant near Las Vegas in Mojave Desert, California (ADLC/Shutterstock.com).
We ought to read The Dispossessed to appreciate complexity—and the imperfection of our theories in the face of life’s messy reality.

January 31, 2020|postliberalism, Walker Percy

An Age of Theory and Consumption

by Brian A. Smith|

Walker Percy at Bechac’s Restaurant in 1984 (Image: Rhoda Faust).
To grapple with the highs and the lows of the human condition requires we reunite body and soul—to reknit what Descartes torn asunder.

January 27, 2020|Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard, wokeness

The Limits of Woke Politics

by Brian A. Smith|

From left, Democratic presidential candidates businessman Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., stand on stage, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, before a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Some on the Left are beginning to see the diminishing returns to wokeness.

August 30, 2019|Alexis de Tocqueville, Equality, fraternity, Liberty, road trip, Susan McWilliams Barndt, Walker Percy

Wayfaring in America

by Brian A. Smith|

Motorcyclist traveling on Route 66 in Arizona (Michael Urmann/Shutterstock.com).
Americans take to the road because it turns out that Bruce Springsteen was on to something: democratic souls are born to run.

June 14, 2019|Antonin Scalia, George Washington, James Madison, John Adams, Joseph Ellis, Robert Bork, Second Amendment, Thomas Jefferson

Joseph Ellis’s American Monologue

by Brian A. Smith|

Junius Brutus Stearns, "Washington as Statesman at the Constitutional Convention," 1856 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts).
In Joseph Ellis’ view, it’s just fine for us to love the Founders, but not for anyone to understand them in ways that might derail the march of progress.

March 29, 2019|authoritarianism, Johann Chapoutot, National Socialism, Nationalism, Populism

The Nazis Aren’t Who We Think They Are

by Brian A. Smith|

SS troops marching with victory standards at the Party Day rally in Nuremberg, Germany 1933 (Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com).
Reading The Law of Blood can help us understand the beliefs that animated National Socialism, and help us see what they were not.

January 24, 2019|Beto O'Rourke, Equality, Kamala Harris, Liberalism, post-liberalism, radicalism

The Woke and the Dead

by Brian A. Smith|

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii addresses the National Guard Association of the United States General Conference in Baltimore, MD, Sept. 12, 2016. (Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jim Greenhill/Alamy Stock Photo).
The Democratic primary may well offer the most demanding test of virtue-signaling ever yet devised outside of Ivy League presidential searches.

November 26, 2018|Anglo-American tradition, Edmund Burke, Friedrich Hayek, Isiah Berlin, João Carlos Espada, Leo Strauss, Michael Oakeshott, Natural Law, Winston Churchill

To Sustain the Anglo-American Tradition, Conversation Is Not Enough

by Brian A. Smith|

Statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square Garden in London, U.K. (Pajor Pawel / Shutterstock.com).
Why is it that the English-speaking peoples historically combined a deep love of liberty with a passionate devotion to their political duties? Can it last?

November 21, 2018|Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Dan Crenshaw, Donald Trump, Fusionism, Mike Gallagher, Republican Party

A Republican Party After Trump?

by Brian A. Smith|

Rep.-elect Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, is seen on the Capitol on November 14, 2018. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
If the Republican Party finds its way past the Trump-inflicted losses of November 6 and those to come, it will need new leaders.

November 2, 2018|great powers, Matthew Kroenig, nuclear deterrence, peace, United States, War

The Long Nuclear Peace

by Brian A. Smith|

Still image from Operation Crossroads, U.S. nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, July 25, 1946 (Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com).
Prudence sometimes dictates that we contemplate the unthinkable, if only to keep it at bay.
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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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Recent Posts

  • The Just Restraint of the Vicious

    For some contemporary criminal justice reformers, devotion to ideology leads to illogical conclusions about human nature and character change.
    by Gerard T. Mundy

  • Too Immature to be Punished?

    When I look back on my own life, I think I knew by the age of ten that one should not strangle old ladies in their beds.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Badge of Discrimination

    The British National Health Service has spoken: Wear the badge or declare yourself to be a bigot.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Judicial Takeover of Asylum Policy?

    Thuraissigiam threatens to make both the law and the facts in every petition for asylum—and there are thousands of them—a matter for the courts.
    by Thomas Ascik

  • The Environmental Uncertainty Principle

    By engaging in such flagrant projection, the Times has highlighted once again the problem with groupthink in the climate discussion.
    by Paul Schwennesen

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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