Too Many Laws and Too Little Freedom

“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military.”—Simone Weil, French philosopher

Too Many Laws and Too Little FreedomJohn W. Whitehead – We are caught in a vicious cycle of too many laws, too many cops, and too little freedom.

It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or a Nanny State Idiocracy. Continue reading

The West That Was: When Law Was Sovereign

The West That Was: When Law Was SovereignPaul Rosenberg – All of us in the modern West grew up believing that we were living under “the rule of law.” The truth, however, is that the rule of law – the sovereignty of law – ended a couple of centuries ago. And by losing it, we lost a primary driver of our civilization.

The sovereignty of law was never perfect, of course… it had to be applied by actual human beings… but it engaged the better aspects of human nature and thrived along with them. The systems that replaced it, on the other hand, thrive mainly upon human weaknesses. Continue reading

“Law” as a Jedi Mind Trick

“Law” as a Jedi Mind TrickPaul Rosenberg – About half the time it is used, possibly more, the word “law” is nothing more than a Jedi mind trick. There is nothing noble, righteous, or even ‘conservative’ about it. It’s a way for you to be abused via ignorance and inertia. We’ve all seen this trick in action, of course. It’s very common. And, sadly, more or less all of us have fallen (or rather, were pushed) into it at some point.

And, sadly, more or less all of us have fallen (or rather, were pushed) into it at some point. That complicates things because people generally don’t like to admit their errors. Continue reading

The Left vs. Logic

truthDeana Chadwell – More and more any foray into the news feels like a trip to Bedlam – rational thought is nowhere to be found; the inmates are screeching inanities, drooling at the mouth, and throwing excrement at anyone who dares to speak truth, at anyone who even dares to say the word “truth.” It’s not fair, however, to point out your opponents’ faults without some backup. So allow me.

Ravi Zacharias, world-famous Christian apologist and philosopher, addresses the issue of truth by breaking it down into three requirements:

♦  Logical consistency

♦  Empirical adequacy

♦  Experiential relevance

Those are a good place to start, but they need some elaboration.  So, what is logical consistency?  Loosely speaking, it means that the argument makes sense — like so many left-wing ideas don’t. Continue reading

Seedpods from the Garden of Stupid

lawClarice Feldman – Greg Gutfeld looks out on the sea of demonstrators against Brett Kavanaugh this week and characterized the display as “seedpods from the garden of stupid are blooming,” and it’s impossible not to agree.  The people who planted those seeds include more than 1,700 law professors who said Kavanaugh should be denied confirmation because he “displayed a lack of judicial temperament” in responding to the baseless, uncorroborated charges by Christine Blasey Ford of sexual misconduct.

Reviewing this campus insanity, Heather Mac Donald contends – with ample basis:

The Kavanaugh hysteria has provided the country with a crash course in academic victim politics.  The tribal denunciations of “privileged white males,” the moral panic over fantastical accounts of sexual predation, the spectacle of Ivy League law students claiming to feel “unsafe,” the assertion that a single uncorroborated outbreak of male teen hormones should cancel a lifetime of achievement in the law – all originate in the anti-Enlightenment ethos of the academy, embodied in critical race studies, feminist legal theory, and the attacks on the Socratic teaching method as anti-female and anti-“survivor.”  Continue reading