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May 1, 2020|

The Strange Rise of Bourgeois Bolshevism

by Nathan Pinkoski|

Hundreds of Antifa, Black Block, and Democratic Socialists of America gathered near City Hall in Portland, Oregon on February 8, 2020, to protest an announced Ku KluxKlan rally (Photo by John Rudoff/Sipa USA via AP Images).
We should contemplate American socialism’s fate: it deepens individualism and statism, and is not the rival but the patsy of state capitalism.

April 1, 2020|

Can We Patch Up the Right?

by Gerald Russello|

Supporters cheer President Donald Trump during a campaign rally Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
Conservatives should focus on how Americans actually live today and what set of economic and political arrangements make the most sense today.

Responses

What Conservatives Ought to Be For

by David B. Frisk

A fairly coherent Right still exists in America—and it needs help, not a re-founding.

A Better Conservatism Requires a Better Firmament

by Andy Smarick

Just because someone asserts that an approach is “conservative” doesn’t make it so, or make it it politically practical or responsive to our times.

March 2, 2020|

An Incarceration Nation?

by Barry Latzer|

Prison inmates listen during discussions with U.S. President Barack Obama at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution July 16, 2015 in El Reno, Oklahoma. Image: White House Photo / Alamy Stock Photo.
Compared to Europe, Canada and Australia the honest answer is “yes—but with good reason.”

Responses

Mass Incarceration Is in the Eye of the Beholder

by Clark Neily

Our system has become utterly cavalier in its use of the criminal sanction.

With Good Reason, Indeed

by Rafael A. Mangual

The best way to explain why we incarcerate so much is to explore what would happen if we didn’t.

The Undeniable Reality of Mass Incarceration in America

by Stephen F. Smith

We do imprison too many, and Latzer unduly minimizes the breathtaking severity of America’s criminal justice system.

Do Plea Bargains and Jail Stays Contribute to Mass Incarceration?

by Barry Latzer

Debates should continue about root causes, but attacking incarceration is not the right way forward.

February 3, 2020|

Sacrificial Politics and Sacred Victims

by Molly Brigid McGrath|

A Yale student mob in 2015 converges on Professor Nicholas Christakis for the crime of defending free expression in Halloween costumes.
The key to understanding contemporary Sacrificial Politics is to recognize what people of the Left hold sacred: victims of oppression.

Responses

“Woke” Lawyering and the Rule of Law Don’t Mix

by Amy Wax

As with politics, so with law: progressive wokeness ensures that ideas, issues, and legal interpretations once debatable are now placed beyond dispute.

Social Justice Rites

by David Azerrad

Anyone who has thought about identity politics must conclude that the term obfuscates more than it illuminates.

Intersectionality’s Fatal Flaw

by Stephanie Slade

lntersectionality makes no allowance for forgiveness, atonement, or reconciliation.

The Power and Peril of Sacred Identity

by Molly Brigid McGrath

Piety is not itself nonsense and we cannot do without the recognition that some things are higher, off-limits, and worth sacrificing for.

January 6, 2020|

How Economic Nationalism Hurts Nations

by Samuel Gregg|

Panoramic view of the Bethlehem Steel Factory in Bethlehem, PA. The factory operated from 1857-2003 (gary718 / Shutterstock.com).
The attraction of such policies is their promise of immediate action to reverse economic decline and promote national greatness, but do they deliver?

Responses

Comparative Disadvantage

by Oren Cass

If comparative advantage is created rather than discovered, refusing to play the game has consequences.

Economic Nationalism as Political Realism

by Daniel McCarthy

No market exists in a social vacuum, and hardly any market exists in a political vacuum.

Economic Nationalism Can’t Heal the U.S.

by Richard M. Reinsch II

We aren’t going to spend or policy-wonk our way out of decline and anomie in certain segments of our population.

Why the Case for Economic Nationalism Fails

by Samuel Gregg

American policymakers and citizens should acknowledge that the benefits promised by economic nationalism are illusory.

November 1, 2019|

Beyond the Ideological Lie: The Revolution of 1989 Thirty Years Later

by Daniel J. Mahoney|

Vaclav Havel at a November 1989 rally during demonstrations in Prague leading up to the collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia. Image: Mike Abrahams / Alamy Stock Photo
We in the West need to draw on the best anti-totalitarian wisdom, as never before.

Responses

Lie and Practice before 1989

by Krassen Stanchev

Because coercion could only work to a certain point, the default communist policy was deceit, even when everyone knew the regime’s positions were a lie.

Nationalism and the Spirit of 1989

by Peter Mentzel

If the current regimes in places like Hungary and Poland do indeed represent the “Spirit of 1989,” this is only true in a very partial way.

1989 and the Persistence of Ideology

by Flagg Taylor

As we remember the anti-totalitarian spirit of 1989, let us also recall that the spirit of Lenin is alive and well in China.

Anti-Totalitarianism Is Better than Faux Liberalism

by Daniel J. Mahoney

Chances are the ideological Lie will continue to haunt a modern adventure that has lost its true sense of purpose.

October 1, 2019|

“Two Kaisers in the Same Grave”: Prohibition at 100

by Richard Gamble|

Interior of a crowded bar moments before midnight, June 30, 1919, when wartime prohibition went into effect, New York City. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-123253 (b&w film copy neg.)
The centennial of Prohibition is an opportunity to retrace our steps and consider afresh the limits of politics.

Responses

One Cheer for Prohibition

by Scott Yenor

What goes into one’s body can sometimes be an object for public concern; the question is when and how.

Prohibition and the Constitution’s Limits

by Sean Beienburg

Prohibition may have been disastrous for America, but it reflected a deep respect for American constitutionalism we should envy today.

Prohibition, Protestant Unity, and Progress

by William J. Atto

The very people the nativists sought to Americanize or, failing that, oppress and restrict, were oftentimes the very ones who benefited from Prohibition.

Prohibition, Liberty, and Responsibility

by Richard Gamble

The question in 1919, and before and since, was whether such sweeping attempts at social control promoted responsible citizenship or undermined them.

September 2, 2019|

How to Get through the “Nationalism” Minefield

by Steven Hayward|

Candidates for U.S. citizenship take the oath of allegiance to become citizens during a naturalization ceremony at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., November 17, 2016. (image: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
The half-life of nationalism’s disgrace has proven very long indeed. Let’s stop being afraid of it.

Responses

Self-Rule Is the Basis of American Nationalism . . . Not Natural Rights

by Ted McAllister

Our experience of self-rule is how we attach ourselves to abstract principles like equality of right, not the other way around.

A Nation Is a Place of Hard Choices

by William Voegeli

Some on the Left actually see that they’ll never gain power in nations now in existence if their message is the illegitimacy of nations.

When “Constitutional Patriotism” Is Not Enough

by Wilfred M. McClay

Abstract principles cannot by themselves bind people together in any enduring way. That’s the problem with constitutional patriotism.

Nationalism or Bust!

by Steven Hayward

The nature and destiny of the commotion over nationalism is just beginning, and this is good news.

August 5, 2019|

80th Anniversary of a Poisonous Partnership: Hitler and Stalin

by Peter Kenez|

Moscow, August 23, 1939: Vyacheslav Molotov (foreground) signing non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, who stands behind chatting with Josef Stalin. (alamy.com)
When two dictators divvied up the weaker countries of Europe between them.

Responses

Whiplash: Communists Worldwide Scrambled to Adjust to the Pact

by Harvey Klehr

They were ordered to blame the Nazi invasions of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg in 1940 on the “rapacious” Western democracies.

Poland Preferred to Fight, Fought Bravely, and Lost Terribly

by Ryszard Legutko

It chose the honorable option (joining the democratic nations) when it might have allied itself with one dictator to try to ward off the other.

A Devils’ Alliance and a Civilizational Failure

by David Pryce-Jones

During the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the two nations’ secret police shared intelligence. The NKVD turned German communist exiles over to the Gestapo.

Comparing Two Totalitarian Monsters: Peter Kenez’s Reply

by Peter Kenez

In our discussion of the Molotov Ribbentrop pact we must conclude that the personalities of the two dictators mattered.

July 1, 2019|

Is Legal Conservatism as Accomplished as It Thinks It Is?

by Jesse Merriam|

Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, with Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, November 16, 2017. (AP / Sait Serkan Gurbuz)
If the demolition from the 2016 wrecking ball does not create this change in the legal world, I think it is safe to say the next populist uprising will.

Responses

Originalism: A Unitarian Church for the Legal Profession?

by Michael S. Greve

The irony: that legal conservatism seems to have triumphed now, at a moment when the political conditions that initially spurred it have ceased to obtain.

Originalism, the U.S. Constitution, and the Continuity of Fusionism

by John O. McGinnis

And in any case, Merriam does not identify a theory that would deliver better results than those delivered by originalism.

Abandoning Originalism Wouldn’t Be Very Conservative

by Mike Rappaport

Some conservatives are unhappy with modern originalism; the best path for them is not to abandon it but to promote a more conservative version. 

Notes on a New Fusionism

by Marc DeGirolami

There are too few legal traditionalists to achieve what Merriam wants; this argues for a restorative project that’s conceptual rather than demographic.

Normative Foundations of Originalism

by Michael O' Shea

Libertarian originalism tends to undermine conservative legal positions.

Conservatives and Originalism: Their Relationship, Reconsidered

by Jeffrey Pojanowski

Is there a connection between originalism and conservatism that runs deeper than crude results-orientation?

Legal Conservatism: Jesse Merriam Responds to His Critics

by Jesse Merriam

Conservatives, if they wish to preserve state and local governance, should resume their resistance to the incorporation doctrine.
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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.

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

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

Read More

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.

Read More

Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

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

Read More

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.

Read More

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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