The Law & Liberty Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Design for Liberty: A Conversation with Richard Epstein Jan 12, 2020

Show notes

In this conversation, Liberty Law Talk discusses with Professor Richard Epstein his new book Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration, and the Rule of Law. Professor Epstein notes that the rule of law requires substantive commitments to generality in application and that it must ensure predictive efficacy if private property and commerce are to flourish. Unfortunately, much of the American Constitution’s attempt to provide these commitments has been lost in the abuses worked by the administrative state and the judiciary’s refusal to scrutinize legislation and rule-making that slights the takings and contract clauses of the Constitution. Professor Epstein also analyzes and discusses the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill as egregious extensions of these practices.

Taming Globalization: A Conversation with John Yoo Jan 12, 2020

Show notes

In this podcast, John Yoo discusses his new book, co-authored with Julian Ku, Taming Globalization: International Law, the U.S. Constitution, and the New World Order. Yoo focuses attention on the proliferating sources of international law in treaties, conventions, agreements, and customary international law that transnationalists believe should be more easily incorporated into America’s constitutional and domestic law. Yoo’s arguments, however, are not reactionary. After highlighting the constitutional and philosophical arguments made by transnationalists on behalf of this posture, Yoo discusses how the Constitution’s structure of separation of powers and federalism can be utilized in aiding America in the growing international legal environment by ensuring that the fundamental doctrines of the Constitution guide the process.

Scholasticism and Political Freedom Jan 12, 2020

Show notes

In this edition of Liberty Law Talk, we discuss with Russell Hittinger, the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, Jacques Maritain’s Scholasticism and Politics, recently republished by Liberty Fund. The text is

a collection of nine lectures Maritain delivered at the University of Chicago in 1938. While the lectures address a variety of diverse topics, they explore three broad topics: 1) the nature of modern culture, its relationship to Christianity, and the origins of the crisis which has engulfed it; 2) the true nature and authentic foundations of human freedom and dignity and the threats posed to them by the various materialist and naturalistic philosophies that dominate the modern cultural scene; and 3) the principles that provide the authentic foundation of a social order in accord with human dignity. (more…)

The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Justice Clarence Thomas Jan 12, 2020

Show notes

This discussion with Professor Ralph Rossum of Claremont McKenna College explores the jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Rossum posits that Justice Thomas practices an “original general meaning” approach that seeks concord among the three major strands of originalist theory. Justice Thomas incorporates both the framers’ original intent and that of the states’ constitutional ratifying conventions, as well as Justice Antonin Scalia’s public meaning methodology. Thus Justice Thomas, rather than standing underneath the stature of Justice Scalia, among others, may have a far richer constitutional hermeneutic than many of his originalist brethren. Rossum also discusses Justice Thomas’ appeals to the natural right teaching of the Declaration of Independence in certain decisions.

Understanding the Progressive Constitution Jan 12, 2020

Show notes

During the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked to define the particular political philosophy that best captured her political ideals. She answered by asserting that she was not a liberal but a progressive. The hope of the progressive is best understood, Clinton observed, by looking back to its roots in the early twentieth century. While the term “liberal” is typically associated with a belief in larger government and more programs to assuage inequalities, Clinton argued that progressivism best contains and expresses the philosophical premises of the belief in government’s firm, superintending role in modern civil society. Given this interesting statement and the current debates over federalism and the powers of the commerce clause, Liberty Law Talk thought it would be profitable to explore the intellectual roots of progressivism in a conversation with noted expert, Ronald Pestritto.

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath Jan 12, 2020

Show notes

Held within the vault of the Hoover Institution for decades, Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War, presents the former president’s thoughts on America’s involvement in World War II and his reasons for believing that American leadership failed miserably in postwar diplomacy. George Nash, author of a previous biography of Herbert Hoover, is the editor of Freedom Betrayed, and joins Liberty Law Talk for a discussion on the ideas and observations that Hoover made in the book.

Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America Jan 12, 2020

Show notes

Harold Koh, former Dean of the Yale Law School and current legal adviser to the Department of State, annually exhorted entering Yale Law students with the phrase, “Welcome, to the Republic of Conscience.” Walter Olson, Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, argues in his new book Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America, that the “Republic of Conscience” Koh believes in is best understood as an ideological educational entity that teaches an unconstrained understanding of the power of law and government. This revolution in legal pedagogy has mightily contributed to the numerous changes that have swept self-governing institutions, Olson argues. American legal education has not for some time understood its mission to be the mere preparation of future lawyers. Instead, primary stock has been placed in inculcating the notion that law and litigation are primary opportunities to advocate for social change according to progressive ideals.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

The Law & Liberty Podcast

Related Podcasts

1

2

3

4

5

6