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John Fogerty's disciplined focus

This week at The Objective Standard, I look at the disciplined musicianship of one of my favorite rockers, John Fogerty.

Give me liberty, or give me permission?

The Pepperdine School of Public Policy will be hosting a day long conference in Costa Mesa, CA, on October 16 on the many ways government forces us to get permission for things that really should be ours by right. From occupational licensing laws to building permits to laws forcing you to get permission to speak, the government imposes permit and licensing requirements on countless undertakings. This event will bring in a group of nationally renowned experts to talk about the economic, social, and legal consequences of The Permission Society. And I'll be speaking. The event is free, but seaing is limited, so registration is required. Please join us!

Discussing the history of socialism with Armstrong & Getty

Yesterday, I participated in a special extended podcast with Armstrong & Getty and Craig Gottwals, talking about the book Heaven on Earth by Joshua Muravchik. It's a history of socialism, and we got into not only the history, but the theoretical problems with socialism, why it inevitably leads to totalitarianism, what the difference is between socialism and fascism...and why I probably would have been a socialist if I had lived 150 years ago. It was actually a lot of fun. You can listen here.

Charles Sumner's principled attack on slavery

At The Objective Standard this week, I take a look at one of my heroes, Senator Charles Sumner, who on this day in 1852 gave his first speech in the Senate, entitled "Freedo National, Slavery Local."

Talking about Jacob Bronowski in Sacramento Wednesday

Friends, I'll be in Sacramento Wednesday to talk about my new book on the life and ideas of Jacob Bronowski. I've been given the somewhat challenging task of relating his work to the practice of law...but I think I can do it! Please join us if you can!

How about the 1865 Project?

You may have been hearing lately about the New York Times' "1619 Project," a series of articles about slavery and its relationship to America. Some of it's pretty good. But it embraces one essential lie, and I discuss that in an article this morning at Reason.

Excerpt:

Across the map of the United States, the borders of Tennessee, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona draw a distinct line. It's the 36º30′ line, a remnant of the boundary between free and slave states drawn in 1820. It is a scar across the belly of America, and a vivid symbol of the ways in which slavery still touches nearly every facet of American history.

That pervasive legacy is the subject of a series of articles in The New York Times titled "The 1619 Project." To cover the history of slavery and its modern effects is certainly a worthy goal, and much of the Project achieves that goal effectively. Khalil Gibran Muhammad's portrait of the Louisiana sugar industry, for instance, vividly covers a region that its victims considered the worst of all of slavery's forms. Even better is Nikole Hannah-Jones's celebration of black-led political movements. She is certainly correct that "without the idealistic, strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different" and "might not be a democracy at all."

Where the 1619 articles go wrong is in a persistent and off-key theme: an effort to prove that slavery "is the country's very origin," that slavery is the source of "nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional," and that, in Hannah-Jones's words, the founders "used" "racist ideology" "at the nation's founding."

(Read the rest...)

Also worth reading are Damon Linker's response and Michael Guasco's superb point at Black Perspectives.

I also spoke this morning about the Times series with Armstrong and Getty. We covered a lot, and if you missed it, you missed out. However, I'll post a link to the podcast when they put it up.

Update: Here's the Armstrong & Getty conversation.

Edward McCartan delighted in the sensual world

My latest article in The Objective Standard features one of my favorite artists, the little-known sculptor Edward McCartan.

My new article on the Arizona Constitution's "Private Affairs" Clause

...has just been published in the Arizona State Law Journal. You can read it here. 

Excerpt:

The Arizona Constitution says “No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law.” This language is notably different from that used in the federal Constitution’s Fourth Amendment and analogous provisions in other state constitutions. It is found in only one other constitution: that of Washington State, from which it was copied, and where courts have developed a robust and protective Private Affairs jurisprudence. Yet Arizona courts have not done the same. On the contrary, despite repeatedly acknowledging that the Arizona Constitution can and should protect a broader range of rights than the federal Constitution, they have largely failed to give effect to that principle and have so far developed virtually no significant protections of private affairs that differ from federal protections.

Arizona courts have claimed that the Private Affairs Clause is “generally  coextensive” with the Fourth Amendment, except in cases “concerning officers’ warrantless physical entry into a home.” But the Clause expressly protects both “private affairs” and also the home, indicating that it should protect a significantly broader set of substantive rights. Nonetheless, courts have largely neglected the linguistic and historical differences between the state and federal provisions, with the result that Arizonans now live with an anomaly: Their courts, while giving lip service to the idea that the state constitution is more protective than federal law, apply it no more broadly in practice. At the same time, Washington case law that interprets language identical to the Arizona Clause does provide stronger protections than federal law.

This article is the first to attempt an overall interpretation of the Private Affairs Clause. I review the relevant history and text, to explain why and how the Arizona constitutional privacy right must be viewed as broader than that protected by the Fourth Amendment—and, at a minimum, in line with Washington state law.

Read the rest...

The battle for values in American Westerns

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. In The Objective Standard, I look at what that film did to the Western genre, and what the older Westerns had to teach us.

Speaking at TOS-Con in Utah next week

I'll be speaking at The Objective Standard's summer conference in Park City, Utah, next week, on the subject "Leading an Enlightenment Life in an Anti-Enlightenment World." Other speakers include Richard Salsman, Alex Epstein, and Isaac Morehouse. Tickets are still available!