I was hesitant when the editors approached me to write something about originalism and stare decisis. The nature of this relationship has become one of the central questions for originalist judges and scholars, and an essay like this one cannot do justice to the range of answers now in research and development. Also, while I am moderately originalist-positive (some of…
Richard Reinsch: Today we’re talking with Steven Hayward about travails in American higher education made possible through cancel culture and Steven Hayward’s particular experiences at the University of California Berkeley. With this unsettling development, Steven Hayward, we’re glad to welcome you back to Liberty Law Talk. When you were last on, we discussed your book, Patriotism is Not Enough:…
The argument in David Stasavage’s book, The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today, is both more provocative and less sanguine regarding democracy than the title suggests. Despite the title, Stasavage does not present a variant of Whig history where the world inevitably moves toward ever greater realizations of equality and liberal democracy. Democracy,…
We should be astonished. For years now, the epicenter of New Year’s celebrations in England has been the tens of thousands of revelers who gather around the pillar in Trafalgar Square atop of which is the statue of Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson. A segment of the British public now wants him removed. Nelson led, fought, and died in the war…
I am honored and grateful to read the responses to my article commemorating the anniversary of World War II. I thoroughly expected my respondents to accuse me of alarmism because I warned that “We are at risk of remembering World War II by fighting its sequel, teaching the war’s lessons by reliving them, and remembering its mistakes by recommitting…
Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door in Wittenberg, decrying the indulgence racket of a corrupt Church. Michael Moore, who despite the resemblance, is no Martin Luther, attempts something similar in 95 minutes of documentary bluster, aiming his invective at the high church of Environmentalism. Planet of the Humans…
We are supposed to live in an increasingly secular age that has abandoned its religious roots and is now governed by non-religious moral and philosophical principles. Religious principles—frequently even religious questions—are artifacts of the past, at least among the educated movers and shakers of the intellectual and cultural world. But over the past decade or so, a number of scholars…
Mark Tushnet, a Harvard law professor, is the nation’s most prominent leftist legal scholar. He was one of the founders of critical legal studies, which understands legal reasoning and doctrine as a mask for political preferences. Tushnet has said that, as a judge, he would decide cases to advance the cause of socialism. When he was confident that Hilary Clinton…
Luke Sheahan’s debut book, Why Associations Matter, is surprisingly timely. Individuals and families have been sheltering at home. Yet questions about institutions and associations have been a major part of the pandemic. Can the state require religious communities to gather only online? In restricting in-person gatherings, can it distinguish between a sincere group of gun-toting critics…
Like being a non-drinker, it must be wretched being a Tory. In both cases, when you wake in the morning, that’s the best you’re going to feel all day. Ed West’s Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall, and Unlikely Return of Conservatism is not quite a eulogy for conservatism, but it…