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May 30, 2012|Institute for Justice, Jeffrey Rosen, state licensing requirements

License to Kill

by Michael S. Greve|

Today’s Washington Post features a front-page article on “A legal case that’s not so open and shut,” featuring a challenge to a Louisiana state law requiring casket sellers to obtain a license that, inter alia, demands a layout parlor, an embalming room, and the employment of a state-approved funeral director. Plaintiffs are monks at St. Joseph’s Abbey, which lacks any and all of those accoutrements. Still, the monks find both economic and spiritual fulfillment in building caskets. It’s what they do when they’re not in prayer or lounging around the pool: blessed are you a monk swimming. (Belated Catholic joke alert.) What the monks demand to know, along with the rest of us, is where the heck the state gets off passing a law like that.

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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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