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February 11, 2020|Death Penalty, European Court of Human Rights, utilitarianism

The Death Penalty’s Demise and the Withering of Authority

by Theodore Dalrymple|

(Image by Proxima Justice @shutterstock.com)
I support the abolition of the death penalty, but its demise seems highly correlated with a weakening of crime and punishment in the UK.

January 2, 2020|Craig Lerner, Criminal Punishment, Death Penalty

Liberalism and the Death Penalty

by Craig S. Lerner|

Craig Lerner discusses the political, philosophical, and moral implications of the death penalty.

August 9, 2018|Avery Cardinal Dulles, Catholicism, Death Penalty, Liberalism, Pierre Manent, Pope Francis

A View of Pope Francis and the Death Penalty, with Something to Offend Everybody

by Richard M. Reinsch II|

Pope Francis lights the uniflamma lamp at the tomb of Saint Nicholas in Bari, Italy, July 7, 2018. (Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP/ Getty Images)
What happens to the authority of the modern state when it definitively leaves behind the death penalty?

May 25, 2014|Death Penalty

Killing Them Softly

by Theodore Dalrymple|

The only man whom I ever knew personally who was executed was the Nigerian writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa. The charge was trumped up, of course. “In this country,” he is said to have said as the hangman put the noose around his neck for a fifth attempt, “they cannot even hang man properly.”

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November 18, 2013|Death Penalty, Due Process, Hanging Not Punishment Enough, Larry Flynt, Propofol

Due Process and the Death Penalty

by Theodore Dalrymple|

No one would contradict me, I suspect, if I were to assert that human beings are not always wholly consistent. Indeed, those who are much more consistent than average are apt to excite our fear or condemnation rather than our admiration. To be faithful to a bad principle is worse than having no principle at all. And, as Emerson said, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Yet by what other law than that of non-contradiction are we supposed to argue? Argumentation cannot just be a cacophony of incommensurable assertion, with the one who shouts loudest, speaks longest or employs the best phrases, taking the honors. And this is so even if Gödel was correct, and there is no entirely consistent system of logic without necessity to assume, without proof, the truth of some of its suppositions.

Yet there are contradictions and contradictions. I mention this because I am going to write about the death penalty, a subject about which almost everyone is contradictory, including me.

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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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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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