Quote of the day

"Charm, good looks, and inspiring rhetoric are no justification for abandoning one's base principles. If you're serious about liberty and smaller government, they must be trumps."  

-- Professor Stephen Bainbridge, over at his blog.

A tribute to Russell Kirk

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Russell Kirk, the American scholar and writer who did so much to establish the intellectual viability of conservatism in the post-World War II period. Tertium Quid over at From Burke to Kirk and Beyond has a wonderful tribute posted, with links, regarding Kirk's life and work. Do take a look: Russell Kirk Memorial today.

And if you are so inclined, perhaps take a moment or two to say a prayer or think a kind thought for Kirk, one of the great men of letters of the last century.

Should law school be optional for lawyers?

Here's an idea:  let people take the bar exam without having to go to law school.  I like it! 

An interesting interview with Stephen Fry

I ran across this recent interview with British actor Stephen Fry tonight.  It is a fascinating interview in its depth and seriousness.  One rarely sees this kind of interview on t.v. anymore.

On reading Roger Scruton

Here's a short discussion of reading one of my favorite writers, English philosopher (and recent revert to Christianity) Roger Scruton. 

A Hamiltonian defense of returning power to the states

Well worth a read.  As a Hamiltonian conservative (and not a Jeffersonian!) I heartily concur with the article's points!  First, for the Hamiltonian realism about the need for a strong and active federal government:

I have enough Hamiltonianism in my political DNA to believe that the United States needs a strong federal government.  Providing for the national defense, managing the country’s international engagements and commitments, supporting economic development through the provision of a sound national currency and the prudent (but not innovation-suppressing) regulation of financial markets, and the regulation of interstate commerce are all big assignments and they cannot be fulfilled without a strong national state.  In addition, the federal government has a special historical responsibility to assure African-Americans equal treatment under the law.  This responsibility, given to the federal government by the Civil War-era amendments to the Constitution and renewed by the Civil Rights movement, requires the federal government to monitor a range of practices in the private sector and in state and local governments across the land.  In a perfect world, the federal government would not need these powers, but with almost 400 years of history behind us on this issue, federal action remains necessary as we struggle to defeat the lingering after-effects of the great national curse of race prejudice.

But that strong, active federal government doesn't, in a Hamiltonian world, mean that the federal government should be omnipresent or have delusions of omnicompetence:

Even so, I believe that the time has come when we urgently need to move power and policy from the federal level back to the states and localities — not to weaken or undermine the strong federal government that we need, but to improve and defend it.  Vermont and Utah are very different places with very different ideas about social, educational and economic policy.  They have different needs and different priorities.  Only rarely can the federal government make the people in both states happy; more usually, the compromises built into federal policy and programs will irritate the residents of both states.  Left to themselves, the people in Utah and Vermont would develop very different policies on matters ranging from drug use to abortion to gay rights to education.  Within some very broad limits (and with special attention to race given its special constitutional status) I don’t see why, they shouldn’t be free to do so.

Hamilton generally gets a bad rap when it comes to questions of the proper scope of government power.  Many libertarians, and not a few conservatives, tend to view Hamilton as an early example of a modern liberal -- somebody who thought that federal power should be essentially unlimited.  A fair and balanced reading of Hamilton's writings and his career would indicate that such a view of Hamilton is mistaken.  While Hamilton believed in an energetic and active federal government, he believed that such a government should be limited in its powers and scope.  Not hobbled to the point of impotence, but not omnipotent over the States and local communities either.  Its a vision that is worth exploring and not dismissing.

The roots of the current American distrust of government

Where does the current boost in distrust of the government come from?  The roots are old, but the key right now is the Democrats' misreading of the public mood following the 2008 election, according to this analysis:  Big Government and Its Discontents.  As the article puts it:   "Government was not doing what Americans wanted. Therefore Americans wanted government to do less." Another story makes essentially the same point:  The Democrats' Big Disconnect.

St. George Tucker and the principle of judicial review

I've got a post up over at American Creation on early American constitutional theorist St. George Tucker and his views on judicial review.  Since there's a Supreme Court confirmation fight a-brewing, it might be interesting to think about the principle of judicial review a bit. 

Breakthough in the Romero assassination case

One of the great Catholic martyrs of the 20th century was Archbishop Oscar Romero, the prelate of San Salvador in the tiny Latin American country of El Salvador.  A man of deep faith, he fought for the legitimate rights of his people in the face of the brutal civil war that wracked that country in the 1970s and 1980s.  Archbishop Romero was murdered in his cathedral, while saying holy Mass, by a death squad.  For decades now the assumption has been that the criminal death squad was sponsored by the Salvadoran right-wing.  Now there is definitive evidence that such suspicion is true.  The Western Confucian links to the story:  Salvadoran President Apologies for Killing of Archbishop Romero.

Archbishop Romero was no Leftist; he was a far more dangerous revolutionary than any mere Marxist or left-wing fanatic.  He was a Catholic -- formed by the faith, loyal to the Pope, devoted to the Magisterium of the Church, committed to the Church's social teaching regarding the inviolability of the human person and the right of each one to live in peace.  A witness to the Kingdom of God and a messenger of the Gospel of peace, Romero stood up to a malignant social order that rejected the truth that each person is made in the image of God.   And for that he was gunned down by cowards wearing masks, by murderers grown fat off of the toil and misery of their people.  Romero was a martyr both for the faith and for his people. 

¡Óscar Romero, sacerdote santo de dios, ruega para nosotros!

Quotes of the day: on liberty and dialogue

• "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom that it must steal in upon them by degrees and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes in order to be received." - David Hume (1711-1776), Scottish Enlightenment philosopher. 

• "You can't ever reach a man if you don't speak his language.  If a man speaks the language of brute force, you can't come to him with peace.  Why, good night!  He'll break you in two, as he has been doing all along.  If  a man speaks French, you can't speak to him in German.  If he speaks Swahili, you can't communicate with him in Chinese.  You have to find out what does this man speak.  And once you know his language, learn how to speak his language, and he'll get the point.  There'll be some dialogue, some communication, and some understanding will be developed."  - Malcolm X (1925-1965), African-American activist.

2-tier associate status tested at prominent law firms

The economic crisis continues to affect major law firms, and as a result some of them are beginning to experiment with the associate track for new lawyer hires at their firms.  Here's the story, courtesy of the ABA Journal online:  'Cutting Edge' Tiered Associate Programs Identify Those With Partner Potential. 

This isn't a wide-spread phenomenon yet, but as economic reality continues to percolate through the major law firms, variations in the traditional law firm associate model are inevitable.   From Burke to Kirk and Beyond has a good short post on the unsustainable quality of much of big firm associate salaries at they developed in the past.  Sobering!