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January 2, 2018|

The Price of Trump: Year One Reflections on an Unconventional Presidency

by Greg Weiner|

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 20: U.S. President Donald Trump celebrates Congress passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on the South Lawn of the White House. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Reflections on a Year of President Trump

Responses

He’s Good and Bad on Foreign Affairs, Good and Bad on the Economy

by David R. Henderson

Trump’s biggest triumphs for liberty are in the area of regulation and taxes.

Trump, the Great De-Mythologizer

by Daniel McCarthy

If there were a Cult of Trump, his supporters wouldn't criticize him. They do—oftener and in more serious ways than George W. Bush's fans criticized him.

Making Politics Possible Again

by Julie Ponzi

Those who fear that the good ideas Trump champions will be tainted by his unsavory character are not thinking politically.

Greg Weiner Responds to His Critics

by Greg Weiner

Nothing about Trump's lying or vulgarity has contributed to his policy successes.

August 22, 2017|Confederate monuments, Edmund Burke, Roger Taney, Thomas Jefferson

Can We Remember Well?

by Greg Weiner|

Perhaps, amid the profound divisions revealed by the national conversation over Confederate monuments, consensus could emerge over this: If their removal is justified, it should be carried out in the light of day.

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June 30, 2017|Brooke Harrington, Capital without Borders, Edmund Burke, Pierre Bourdieu, Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, tax shelters

In Trusts We Trust

by Graham McAleer|

 

Are tax havens immoral? The question is posed by Brooke Harrington’s extremely interesting book, Capital without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent.  Harrington teaches at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark but qualified in wealth management to “infiltrate” the secretive world of the super-rich and the advisors who shield their wealth.

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May 17, 2017|Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott, Presidential Power

Burning Down His House

by Greg Weiner|

 

No man enters the presidency prepared for the office, yet few chief magistrates have managed a stage entry as startlingly rife with incompetence and impropriety as Donald Trump. The reason is that the inherent, inertial conservatism of the office disciplines most of its occupants.

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May 15, 2017|Edmund Burke, Empire and Revolution, French Revolution, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Richard Bourke

The Principled Statesman

by David Walsh|

There is no doubt that Burke studies have received a new point of departure in Richard Bourke’s masterful Empire and Revolution.  This work of surpassing scholarship enables us to place Burke fully in the context of the political history through which he lived.  In many ways it is an authoritative demonstration of the Cambridge School approach of examining ideas in context, only here the connection is even more integral than is generally the case.  Burke not only developed his ideas out of the political setting in which he found himself, but shaped that setting through the sheer intellectual force of…

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May 9, 2017|Affordable Care Act, American Health Care Act, Donald Trump, Edmund Burke

Containing the Weapon of Mass Disruption

by Greg Weiner|

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 4: President Donald Trump looks to House Speaker Paul Ryan after the House pushed through the AHCA. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“[W]e expect he would work with Congress, as the Founders intended.” Scholars and Writers for America, Statement for Candidate Trump “We don’t have a lot of closers in politics and I understand why. It’s a very rough system. It’s an archaic system. You look at the rules of the Senate, even the rules of the House—but the rules of the Senate and some of the things you have to go through, it’s—it’s really a bad thing for the country, in my opinion. They’re archaic rules and maybe at some point we’re going to have to take those rules on because for the…

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January 31, 2017|Brexit, Edmund Burke, English Constitution, European Union, UK Supreme Court

UK Supreme Court Ruling Brings Greater Legitimacy to Brexit

by Mark L. Movsesian|

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

Last week, in an 8-3 vote, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Government of Prime Minister Theresa May must seek new legislation before starting negotiations to leave the EU—the so-called Brexit. The Prime Minister had argued that, in light of last June’s referendum in favor of Brexit, and pursuant to the Crown’s sole authority to make and withdraw from international treaties, she could commence negotiations without further legislative action. But the court held that withdrawing from the EU would effect a change in domestic law and that, under the British Constitution, the government may not take such action without parliamentary authorization. The June referendum in favor of Brexit was not legally binding; a new statute would be necessary.

The ruling was not unexpected. May’s Government already had prepared draft legislation, which it presented to Parliament a couple days after the decision came down. The legislation seems very likely to pass in some form. Although the Government resisted having to go to Parliament, undoubtedly because of the possibility of delaying tactics and other obstacles, on balance it seems a good thing. In the long run, Brexit will be seen as more legitimate if Parliament formally votes on it, with members of the Government and the opposition going on record. 

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November 2, 2016|burden of proof, Civic Associations, Edmund Burke, Enlightenment, Tradition, Tradition Project

The Value of Tradition in a Post-Enlightenment Age

by John O. McGinnis|

In my last post, I discussed how the Enlightenment gave a boost to liberty by making progress central to the aims of society and the scientific method central to its processes. But these new developments, in turn, raised serious questions about the value of tradition.  If past is to be surpassed, tradition becomes less revered. If the scientific method is prized, less formal ways of knowing, like tradition, become devalued.  Finally, progress continuously changes society, making traditional practices a less good guide for a future that is ever accelerating away from the past.

Thus, ever since the Enlightenment, tradition has to struggle for its place as a contending category for social organization. Nevertheless, it still has relevance. Here are three important remaining functions for tradition, ideas that have been distilled for me in my discussions at the Tradition Project.

Tradition as a Buffer. Even assuming that other methods are better at bringing out progress, progress itself has costs. It destabilizes society, and sometimes alienates citizens who do not feel they have a place in the world progress has created.  Thus, even as society progresses, it must respect traditions to avoid social upheaval. Edmund Burke, the greatest defender of tradition in Modernity saw this value, among others, for tradition.

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July 5, 2016|Donald Trump, Edmund Burke, Faction, George Will, Laura Ingraham, Mike Huckabee, Republican Party

George Will, Burkean

by Greg Weiner|

The forgotten etymology of “conservatism” lies in its hardly hidden first two syllables—to “conserve”—so when the Republican Party underwent its lurching metamorphosis from its commitments to constitutionalism, free trade, and chivalry to royalism, protectionism, and vulgarity, the news was not that George F. Will, conservative, stood still. It was that, in the terms of conservatism’s father Edmund Burke, the Republican Party may no longer constitute, properly speaking, a party at all. It is at risk of reverting to the primordial state of “faction” from which Burke rescued what he called the practice of political “connection.”

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June 30, 2016|Alexander Stephens, Brexit, Edmund Burke, European Union, Orestes Brownson, Roger Scruton, Secession

The Spunk of Albion

by Peter Augustine Lawler|

Blake's image of Albion from his A Large Book of Designs

You may have noticed that not much is said in this space about what goes on in other countries. It’s not that I don’t have opinions; it’s just I don’t imagine mine are worth much. I conspicuously didn’t take a stand on Brexit. It seemed to me there was a good case to be made for Britain’s leaving the European Union and a good case to be made for its staying in. I thought I’d leave it up to them. If I were British, I would have been more psyched up about the whole thing.

The outcome surprised me, because the past history of secessionist movements—such as Quebec and Scotland—has been of a petering out at the end. Just enough people get all prudent and make a safe choice. Not only that, all the factions of the respectably British cognitive elite—top politicians, public intellectuals, the business leaders, celebrities, the unions, and so forth—advocated making the Progressive choice. “Progressive” here means stay the course when it comes to evolving beyond the nation-state in the direction of larger and more cosmopolitan unions. We aspire to be citizens of the world, politics being that pathology that we shed as we move, as Tyler Cowen puts it, from being brutish to being nice.

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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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