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April 29, 2019|Democracy in America, Egalitarianism, Marriage Equality, Tocqueville

Tocqueville’s Rigorous Logic of Egalitarian Conformity

by James R. Rogers|

shutterstock.com (Photo by AumCreatephoto)
Initial steps down the path of equalitarianism in turn create their own momentum, picking up speed and insisting on ever more conformity.

May 25, 2018|American Rule, Loser pays, Tocqueville

The “American Rule”: The Rise of the Lawyer Class: Part II

by Mark Pulliam|

Tocqueville’s hopeful vision of the legal profession was naïve. 

May 24, 2018|Lawyers, Loser pays, Tocqueville

Is “Loser Pays” a Vestige of Oppression? Part I

by Mark Pulliam|

The American legal system's rejection of "Loser Pays" does not reflect a rejection of feudal hierarchies, but the triumph of the legal class.

April 24, 2018|Democracy in America, Judicial Supremacy, Tocqueville

Constitutional Amendment as a Path to Avoiding Robed Masters

by James R. Rogers|

The Bill of Rights (Jack R. Perry Photography/Shutterstock.com)
Tocqueville gives us good reasons to think that constitutional amendment is the best path to avoiding judicial supremacy.

March 20, 2018|Encyclopedic Liberty, Encyclopédie, French Revolution, Tocqueville

The Violent Bear It Away

by Richard M. Reinsch II|

The Holy Martyrs of Compiègne of the French Revolution.
Tocqueville, a much wiser and more prudent thinker than the Encyclopédistes, knew that such abstract political moralizing could only lead to political terror.

August 1, 2017|Black Lives Matter, Emile Durkheim, gender identity, Identity Liberalism, race, Resistance, Tocqueville, White Privilege

What Are They Thinking?

by Paul Seaton|

 

Recently, I raised the issue of the worldview of the Resistance to President Trump (“Resistance, in the Light of 1776”). I would like to delve further into the matter. It will take a few installments. Basically, what I hope to do is to put order in some readings, observations, impressions, and overhearings (I live in a university neighborhood, and one establishment I regularly eat at is the aptly named “One World Café”). This effort is neither scientific nor conclusive. Call it “political” in the sense Pierre Manent employs when he says les choses politiques arrivent en gros (“political things first come to sight in rough outline”).

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February 21, 2017|Centesimus Annus, Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Tocqueville, Wilhelm Ropke

Capitalism According to Michael Novak

by James R. Rogers|

I met the late Michael Novak as the lone Protestant attending the first Tertio Millennio Seminar. The first year it was a month-long seminar held in Liechtenstein. The basic form continues today, with around ten U.S. students joining around twenty European students. The European students that first year were mainly eastern Europeans; it was just a few years after the wall fell. Joining Novak in organizing the first seminar were George Weigel, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Rocco Buttiglione, and Fr. Maciej Zieba, OP.

The centerpiece of the seminar was focused study of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Centesimus Annus and, more broadly, Catholic social doctrine and teaching. Several American works were included at the time as well, including a couple of essays from The Federalist and a few selections from Novak’s book, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.

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November 2, 2016|Isaiah Berlin, Leo Strauss, Modernity and Its Discontents, Mr. Sammler's Planet, Nietzsche, Spinoza, The Prince, Tocqueville

Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois: A Conversation with Steven Smith

by Steven B. Smith|

This discussion with Steven Smith, author of Modernity and Its Discontents, explores what it means to be modern and why an age that has produced so many gains and advances has also produced so many counter-enlightenments and apocalyptic responses. To love the modern age well, do we need to love it moderately?

October 4, 2016|Adam Smith, American Founding, French Revolution, inequality, John Locke, Progressives, Rousseau, Thomas Piketty, Tocqueville

Rebuilding the Liberty Narrative: A Conversation with Gordon Lloyd

by Gordon Lloyd|

There is nothing more arduous than the apprenticeship of liberty, Tocqueville informs. While equality in modern democratic society is a natural tendency—one that grows without much effort—it is liberty that requires a new defense in each generation. In this spirit the next edition of Liberty Law Talk discusses with Gordon Lloyd the Liberty Narrative and its unending contest with the Equality Narrative.

December 24, 2015|Economic Freedom, John Adams, Miracle on 34th Street, Self Interest Rightly Understood, Tocqueville

The Spirit of Christmas Presents Meets the Spirit of Capitalism

by Richard Samuelson|

What Miracle on 34th Street Teaches Us About the Virtues of Capitalism.

Earlier this week I found myself watching Miracle on 34th Street. I never before noticed what a fine job it does explaining the connection between the market economy and virtue. If I taught economics rather than history I might use a few clips from the movie in class.

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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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