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My review of Elmer Kelton's Law of the Land

In the latest Objective Standard, I look at the new anthology of Elmer Kelton's short stories, Law of the Land, just published by Forge Books. It's the fourth volume of Kelton's stories that Forge has published in recent years. Excerpt:

Kelton’s first novel, Hot Iron, appeared in 1956, and more than fifty books followed, including a memoir and a collection of news articles. But it was in 1971 that he achieved greatness, with The Day the Cowboys Quit. Also based on a real-life incident—an 1883 cowboy strike against five Texas ranches—that novel’s main character is a foreman named Hugh Hitchcock who initially sides with his boss, Prosper Selkirk, to put down a labor dispute. Selkirk has always treated his men fairly, Hitchcock thinks, and he decides their demand for higher wages is unfair. But when the strike ends, Selkirk dispatches ruffians to kill its leaders, and Hitchcock feels betrayed. He announces his candidacy for sheriff, and, once elected, brings charges against Selkirk and his allies. In the end, Hitchcock explains, it does not matter much whether they are convicted: What matters is that he has stood up for a principle.

One detects a foretaste of this magnificent novel in “In the Line of Duty,” a 1967 story included here, in which Texas Ranger Duncan McLendon must hunt down a friend and fellow ranger named Litt Springer, who has abandoned his duties as a lawman and is now simply murdering criminals. When McLendon learns that a third ranger, Billy Hutto, has been helping Springer, he confronts Billy:

“I thought you were a Ranger.”

“I am. But I’m a friend of Litt Springer’s, too.”

“Right now you can’t be both. . . . You better go to Austin, Billy.”

Billy was incredulous. “And leave you?”

“I don’t want a man with me unless he’s with me all the way. You took an oath, Billy. If you can’t live up to it, you better turn that badge in.”

After McLendon finishes the awful task of dispatching Springer, he immediately turns to his next job: finding and arresting the criminals his dishonored friend was pursuing.

Read the rest...

Oklahoma Supreme Court's J&J ruling strikes a blow against institutional derangement

George Will was kind enough to mention my work on "public nuisance" in his column today.

Why “public nuisance” is unconstitutionally vague

A couple weeks ago, I participated in a conference sponsored by George Mason University’s Law & Economics Center on the subject of “public nuisance,” an area of law that I believe has become unconstitutionally vague. You can watch my presentation here.

Yesterday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court essentially agreed, voiding the verdict against Johnson & Johnson on the grounds that the theory the plaintiffs were advancing was so vague that it would effectively outlaw anything and everything.

Talking with Bob Zadek about the libertarian constitution

A while back, I participated in a project sponsored by the National Constitution Center, to draft a new version of the U.S. Constitution that would be more libertarian in orientation. Here's what we came up with, and here's our explanation. This past weekend, I talked with Bob Zadek on his Bay Area radio show about the project, and about how we borrowed some ideas from state constitutions to better protect individual freedom. You can listen here.

November update

October was a busy month, indeed, and I have a few announcements. The first is that I’ve signed contracts and submitted manuscripts for not one, but two new books. The first is Some Notes on the Silence, my first book of poems, which is tentatively scheduled for publication in March. It’s partly inspired by the anti-free speech atmosphere we find ourselves in today, but it also includes some of my poems on American history and landscapes. I’m honored to have received some praise from some of my favorite poets, including Jennifer Reeser, who says “Timothy Sandefur’s poetic voice is as authentically American as any reader could hope to encounter.” I consider that high praise, indeed.

The second book, which I am calling The Furies, is about the friendships between Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand, who 1943 all published books that helped jumpstart the modern libertarian or classical liberal movement (Paterson’s The God of the Machine, Lane’s The Discovery of Freedom, and Rand’s The Fountainhead.) I’ve long wanted to write about this subject, and as I worked on it, it turned into (so to speak) a biography of the books themselves. I learned a great deal along the way about the politics and literature of the 1930s and ‘40s, and it was fascinating to dig into some of the personalities that influenced all three women One of the biggest surprises to me was how enormous the influence Sinclair Lewis was on all three women. This book is scheduled for November 2022, and I’m looking forward to you getting a chance to read it.