Law Commons^™

Facts, Values, Justification, Democracy, Don Herzog

Reviews

Equality, you might think, is the more or less universally shared value of the modern world, or the West, or anyway these United States. “We strive to ensure that the values upon which our country was built, including our belief that all people are created equal, are reflected in everything our nation does.” That’s from the 2016 Democratic Party platform. And look! “We continue to encourage equality for all citizens and access to the American Dream.” That’s from the 2016 GOP Platform. Of course, the parties disagree deeply on the demands of equality. If they share an abstract concept, as …

Review Of The Dark Side Of The Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism In America, Donald J. Herzog

Reviews

In this elegantly written, provocative, and sometimes just plain provoking book, punctuated by bits of anguish and rather more pique, Richard Ellis worries that the American Left has been so passionate about equality that it has run roughshod over liberty. So put, the thesis is not exactly news. It has been the recurrent lament of conservative indictments- Tocqueville's is the canonical statement, but he has plenty of precursors and followers. And it has its scholarly variations, too, such as Arthur Lipow, Authoritarian Socialism in America: Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement (1982). No profound surprises are on offer here.

If Taxpayers Can't Be Fooled, Maybe Congress Can: A Public Choice Perspective On The Tax Transition Debate, Kyle D. Logue

Reviews

In When Rules Change: An Economic and Political Analysis of Transition Relief and Retroactivity , Shaviro takes the various strands of the existing literature on retroactivity and weaves them together, applying his unique combination of legal expertise, political pragmatism, and theoretical sophistication in public finance economics as well as political science. The result is a subtle, balanced, and scholarly treatise on transition relief and retroactivity that should serve as the starting point for all future research in the field. In its stated objectives, the book is admirably ambitious.

This Review will, in a broad sense, follow Shaviro's characterization of the …

Taking Decisions Seriously, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

The New Deal era is one of the great turning points of American constitutional history. The receptivity of the Supreme Court to regulation by state and federal governments increased dra- matically during that period. The constitutionalism that prevailed before Charles Evans Hughes became Chief Justice in 1930 was similar in most respects to that of the beginning of the twen- tieth century. The constitutionalism that prevailed by the time Hughes’ successor Harlan Fiske Stone died in 1946 is far more related to that of the end of the century. How this transformation occurred is a crucial and enduring issue in …

Review Of The Selling Of Supreme Court Nominees, By J. A. Maltese, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

John Anthony Maltese has written a genial book on a subject of enormous importance and enduring interest-presidential selection and senatorial consideration of Supreme Court nominees. Readers new to this field will find The Selling of Supreme Court Nominees a helpful introduction to it. Those more familiar with it will not find much that is surprising.

The Supreme Court In Politics., Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

Despite all that has been written about the bitter struggle initiated by President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to a seat on the Supreme Court, its most remarkable feature, that it was waged over a judicial appointment, has drawn relatively little comment. Two hundred years after the Philadelphia Convention, Hamilton's "least dangerous" branch - least dangerous because it would have "no influence over either the sword or the purse, no direction either of the strength or the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever"'-had come to occupy so important a place in the nation's political life …

Review Of Concerning Dissent And Civil Disobedience, By A. Fortas, Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

Noah Chomsky has written of Justice Fortas' essay that it "is not serious enough for extended discussion." It would be a mistake to dismiss the essay so lightly. The prestige of Justice Fortas' office almost inevitably will gain for the essay an audience it would not otherwise have had, among whom will be those who will confuse the office with the argument. For some this confusion will insulate the argument from criticism. For others it will tarnish the office.

A Guide To Diplomatic Practice, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"Sir Ernest Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice was first published in 1917. It was the first systematic treatise on the practice and procedure of diplomacy to be printed in the English language, covering a field already occupied in other languages....

"...[T]he author compiles a wealth of data accumulated in research and long experience in what may perhaps be described as the professional diplomatist's book of forms and precedents... It is chiefly a digest of diplomatic data intended to afford practical guidance in the routine of diplomatic organization, precedence and ceremonial, procedure, immunities, international congresses and conferences, the making of treaties …