Bootleggers, Baptists, and Fertility Clinics
Liberty Law | Essays
by Andrew Morriss
1d ago
The Alabama Supreme Court held in LePage v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C. that the parents of embryos created through in vitro fertilization could bring a statutory wrongful death claim when the clinic where their embryos were stored allowed the destruction of the parents’ embryos by an intruder. The decision prompted a firestorm of stories seemingly written to frighten Americans that fertility treatments were under threat. “The Fight over I.V.F. Is Only Beginning” (The New Yorker) and “The Beginning of a Bad TRIP—Alabama’s Embryonic Personhood Decision and Targeted Restrictions o ..read more
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A Classical Liberal’s Guide to Civilization-Building
Liberty Law | Essays
by Samuel Gregg
1d ago
The word “civilization” is unfashionable in our times. It implies a contrast, and that contrast is uncomfortable. If some societies have attained a cultural level that merits this designation, it may follow that other societies are less civilized or—worse—even barbarous. For many people today, making any such value-judgment is simply unacceptable.  Those who maintain that such distinctions can and should be made are usually labeled conservative, even traditionalist in their outlook. However, specific ideas about the nature of civilization have been taken quite seriously by key classical l ..read more
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A Plea Against State Court Activism
Liberty Law | Essays
by Trey Dimsdale
1d ago
A recent New York Times headline was itself almost as instructive and revealing as the article that followed. “The Quiet Way Democrats Hope to Expand Their Power at the State Level” details a strategy adopted by the Democratic Governors Association to support the campaigns of Democratic gubernatorial candidates who will have the opportunity to appoint state court judges in the next term if they win. Democrats, the article claims, are “locked out of power on the Supreme Court and still playing catch-up against Republicans in the federal judiciary.” State courts represent, according to the artic ..read more
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Embracing Scylla and Charybdis
Liberty Law | Essays
by Jana M. Stefanciosa
1d ago
On October 7, 2023, thousands of Jews were raped, tortured, kidnapped, and killed by terrorists. For many, what was most striking about the attacks was not that Hamas hated Jews, but the reaction in the West. Antisemitic attacks and harassment have reached levels unseen in decades, and many Westerners seem either willfully ignorant or tacitly supportive of Israel’s enemies. Many intellectuals who do important work highlighting sexual assault and the burden of coming forward as a victim are at the same time downplaying or outright denying the mass rape of Jewish women on October 7. “Believe all ..read more
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A Healthy Culture in a Healthy Economy
Liberty Law | Essays
by Paul Mueller
3d ago
A specter is haunting capitalism – the specter of “higher” things.  Or so an increasing number of thinkers among the New Right, the National Conservatives, or the Economic Nationalists might say. They insist that the “neoliberal” order of free enterprise and free trade has failed to deliver cultural and spiritual goods – and even economic goods – to large swaths of Americans. In their view, free enterprise capitalism built on a constitutionally limited rule of law lacks soul; and so we need “common good capitalism” or even “common good constitutionalism.” But defenders of free enterprise ..read more
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Human Dignity and the Politics of Dune
Liberty Law | Essays
by Kody W. Cooper
6d ago
Dune: Part Two is a blockbuster worthy of the name. Earning over $200 million dollars so far at the box office, it is the highest-grossing film of 2024, and proof that, in the era of superhero film fatigue—as well as the failure of storytelling that characterized Disney’s Star Wars trilogy—there is a real opening to attract audiences with new and interesting stories and adaptations in the space opera genre. Frank Herbert’s son Brian argued that Dune is to science fiction as Lord of the Rings is to fantasy, which naturally invites a comparison of the film adaptations. It is similar in ambition ..read more
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The Dark Specter of Liberal Mormonism
Liberty Law | Essays
by Walker Wright
6d ago
During the nineteenth-century debates over slavery, many of the institution’s most ardent defenders opposed a liberal society for being antithetical to the Southern slave economy. One theorist in this mold was George Fitzhugh, a Virginian lawyer and social theorist whom the famously-caned Radical Republican Charles Sumner described as “a leading writer among Slave-masters.” Writing only a few years before the outbreak of the American Civil War, Fitzhugh became one of the foremost apologists for the peculiar institution, arguably providing some of the most sophisticated anti-liberal, pro-slaver ..read more
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The Crisis in Teaching Constitutional Theology
Liberty Law | Essays
by Lee J. Strang
6d ago
I was surprised by Jesse Wegman’s essay, “The Crisis in Teaching Constitutional Law,” which purports to show that a newly “politicized” Supreme Court has exploded the possibility of teaching the foundation of our legal system. I hadn’t experienced a crisis teaching constitutional law and, to be honest, I was also a little embarrassed for my profession by some of the over-heated rhetoric by faculty Wegman interviewed. One of the interviewees even succumbed to sobbing: “While I was working on my syllabus for this course, I literally burst into tears.” The reason? “I couldn’t figure out how any o ..read more
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Hope for Harvard?
Liberty Law | Essays
by James Hankins
1w ago
Tacitus at the beginning of his Annals, after brilliantly summarizing all of Roman history in the space of a few paragraphs, ends by providing an answer to a question that must have arisen in the minds of his Roman readers. Why was it that the present generation offered such little resistance to the revolutionary transformation of the republic into a monarchy that Augustus had gradually brought about over the course of three decades? Senators used to stand up for their right to participate in governing the republic; indeed, in the previous century, they had fought a series of civil wars to def ..read more
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Sympathy for the Devil
Liberty Law | Essays
by Jill Jacobson
1w ago
Universities are one of the United States’ greatest strengths. Throughout the nation’s history, institutions of higher education have promoted free thought and open discourse, which are crucial to maintaining our stable democracy and unparalleled economic growth. Attendance was viewed as a clear benefit for both the student and society. But the legitimacy of American higher education is under attack and for good reason: many graduates now leave campus with an intellectual rigidity and homogeneity of viewpoint that is lethal to a pluralistic society.  We need our institutions of higher edu ..read more
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