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March 12, 2019|Alan Wolfe, Alexis de Tocqueville, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dwight MacDonald, Herbert Croly, Liberalism, Mark Lilla, McCarthyism, Richard Hofstadter, Right wing populism, The Politics of Petulance, Trumpism

What Does a Mature and Reliable Liberal Sound Like Today?

by Fred Baumann|

(image: alamy.com)
Alan Wolfe is no mere ideologue, but partisan blindness makes him unable to carry through on the urgent task he has undertaken.

March 22, 2017|Campaign Finance, corporations, Jonathan Adler, Massachusetts v. EPA, Neil Gorsuch, Richard Hofstadter

The Paranoid Style and Senator Whitehouse

by John O. McGinnis|

Richard Hofstadter wrote a famous essay, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. It is about the recurring tendency of our political actors to allege that there is a vast and powerful conspiracy against the public interest. The Masons were alleged to be at the center of the conspiracy early in the nineteenth century, the Catholics later in the century.

In his opposition to Judge Gorsuch, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse embraces this style of argument. In his  opening statement,  he asserted that there is a “machine” that helps conservative Republicans get on the Supreme Court and then write amicus briefs to show them which way to rule. He endorses the characterization of the Roberts Court as a “delivery service” for the Republican party and right-wing ideology.  How different in terms of respect for judicial independence is calling the Supreme Court a “delivery service” from referring to a judge as a “so-called judge?” Senator Whitehouse claims that this “delivery service”  continually offers up cases against the public interest, protecting gerrymandering, money in politics and the rights of corporations against the people.

Like all conspiracy theories, it has a simplicity about it. But its simplicity is delusive because the world is a more complicated place.

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December 2, 2015|American Hysteria, Andrew Burt, freemasons, HUAC, Populism, Richard Hofstadter, Samuel Dickstein, Theodore Adorno

Looking Rightward for the Crazies

by Lauren Weiner|

The college students we keep hearing about aren’t in the new book by Andrew Burt, but they sure meet the definition of American Hysteria: The Untold Story of Mass Political Extremism in the United States. Burt, a journalist and lawyer who writes for Slate, El País, and other left-of-center publications, in fact may not want to study the hypersensitivities that are spreading from campus to campus, from coast to coast—like when that Yalie confronted one of the faculty with: “It is your job to create a place of comfort and home for the students who live in Silliman. . . . It is not about creating an intellectual space! It is not!”

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September 28, 2015|Beatrice Potter Webb, Herbert Spencer, Libertarianism, Piotr Kropotkin, Richard Hofstadter, socialism, William Gladstone

The Most Misunderstood Libertarian

by Alberto Mingardi|

To the surprise of many, scholarship on Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) has flourished in the last few years. A towering figure in Victorian Britain, Spencer was all but forgotten after his death. His works, which taken together form a “Synthetic Philosophy,” seemed alien to 20th century academics in an age of meticulous specialization. Also his commitment to individual liberty and (seriously) limited government has not been too common in the discipline that he helped establish, sociology. Talcott Parsons famously called him a victim of the very God he adored: evolution. Toward the end of the 20th century, however, interest in Spencer began…

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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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