9.27.16
Defining Ideas
Earlier this month, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued its report Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties. The report, which was occasioned in part by the same-sex marriage debate, tries to determine the correct relationship between antidiscrimination laws and the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion. Currently, persons of […]
9.23.16
Defining Ideas
Hillary Clinton has revealed further details of her plan for the fiscal future of the United States. Her vision addresses both sides of the equation: how and from whom taxes should be raised; and how and for whom they should be spent. Her plan is squarely within the progressive tradition. She insists that “The middle […]
3.22.16
Federalist Society Review
One of the major unmarked developments in the past century of American law has been the decline of natural law thinking. Read any older treatment of, for example, property rights, marriage, or contract, and the unquestioned approach looks to natural law principles to set out the basic parameters of these social arrangements. Individuals by nature […]
3.21.16
Defining Ideas
The single most important phrase that changed the politics of Supreme Court nominations was Senator Edward Kennedy’s famous and shameful denunciation of “Robert Bork’s America,” with its back alley abortions, segregated lunch counters, and rogue police. From that point on, Supreme Court nominees of either party, and even potential nominees, have risked being attacked in […]
3.20.16
Wall Street Journal
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders might seem unlikely economic soul mates, but they share a mistaken reliance on zero-sum thinking and long-discredited economic policies.
3.17.16
Ideas.ted.com
What happens when a city is managed almost completely by private corporations? Visit Gurgaon, India, a boomtown of millions without a citywide system for water, electricity or even public sewers.
3.14.16
Defining Ideas
The wedge issue of the 2016 primary campaign is the rising hostility to free trade—and, specifically, to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. On the Republican side, establishment candidates like Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio have failed or fallen behind, while Donald Trump maintains a commanding lead going into Florida and Ohio thanks, in large part, to his protectionist […]
3.7.16
Defining Ideas
The death of Antonin Scalia has set up a nasty battle over who shall occupy his vacant seat on the Supreme Court. The battle does not just involve the endless political skirmishes now taking place between the White House and the Senate. It also extends to the larger philosophical debate over the constitutional theory of […]
3.5.16
Ricochet
In its first major argument since the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the newly constituted eight-member Supreme Court in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt had a spirited session on whether the twin requirements of Texas Law H.B. 2 constituted an “undue burden” on a women’s constitutional right to have an abortion set out in 1992 Supreme […]
2.29.16
Defining Ideas
Judging from all the hype, the economic book of 2016 is Robert Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Gordon’s book offers the definitive account of how the many technological innovations between 1870 and 1940 dramatically improved life in the United States. On the positive side, he accurately chronicles the major advances in electricity, public […]