Tag: law

In Conversation: Antonin Scalia

~ Mark

What I do wish is that we were in agreement on the basic question of what we think we’re doing when we interpret the Constitution. I mean, that’s sort of rudimentary. It’s sort of an embarrassment, really, that we’re not. But some people think our job is to keep it up to date, give new meaning to whatever phrases it has. And others think it’s to give it the meaning the people ratified when they adopted it. Those are quite different views.

Really enjoyed this interview. I need to keep an eye out for this Jennifer Senior character, as I just remembered her really good article on high school.

In Conversation: Antonin Scalia

The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese (review: 3/5)

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

Each chapter of The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese takes on a broad topic, like criminal law, tort, money, or sex. Author Adam Freedman brings up the main vocabulary (habeas corpus, misdemeanor, legal tender) and some of the more obscure ideas (per stirpes, res ipsa loquitur), exploring their roots along the way, and most importantly, grappling with why in the world we accept such tortured language.

The legal system and lawyers are convenient punching bags (I would be more surprised if Freedman had a difficulty finding things to puzzle over), but I didn’t expect the book to be quite so funny. He often seems like a stand-up comic: introduction, development, punchline. It seems like every paragraph had some bit of goofiness. Plenty of the jokes were just corny, but much of it was good. I also like that Freedman keeps a few running gags across sections and chapters of the book, like the recurring “four-hour erections” bit from an early chapter on legal disclaimers.

I don’t expect to buy it or ever read it again, but it was perfect for a few mornings on the train to work. You can read an excerpt from the first chapter to get a feel for it, or take a look at Freedman’s blog of the same title, The Party of the First Part.

The Law (review: 5/5)

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

Frederic Bastiat was an economist and writer in France in the early 1800s. His short book/ long essay The Law is one of the best pieces of political science writing I’ve read in a while. I loved this book. The Law is about the purpose and place of law in society, and Bastiat makes his case so clearly it brings me to tears.
One of the sections I particularly enjoyed was his critiques of other well-known French political theorists like Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Condillac. He examines the pessimistic worldview that informs their visions of society, in the end saying,

Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes that this clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free human beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have received from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for themselves!

I also thought Bastiat’s critical look at classical education to be pretty perceptive. The case he makes is this: that classical education necessarily focuses on ancient thought, and that “antiquity presents everywhere ‚Äî in Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome ‚Äî the spectacle of a few men molding mankind according to their whims, thanks to the prestige of force and of fraud”. Learning about these ancient societies is not a problem per se. The problem arises when thinkers and teachers “offered them for the admiration and imitation of future generations… They took for granted the grandeur, dignity, morality, and happiness of the artificial societies of the ancient world.”

Some other great moments: the tired, dangerous notion of the “great man”; that “a science of economics must be developed before a science of politics can be logically formulated”; and some relevant, challenging words in light of our misadventures in Iraq and elsewhere:

I defy anyone to say how even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice.

Read this book.