Author Archive | Randy Barnett

It should be HUGE news when the former presidents of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil jointly announce that The War on Drugs Is a Failure. In their Wall Street Journal column today, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, C

From Little Green Footballs: Everything the media tried to pin on Sarah Palin, [Bobby] Jindal actually did: he promoted and signed a creationism bill (with help from the Discovery Institute), he took part in an amateur exorcism and claimed it cured a woman of cancer, and possibly worst of all, he pals around with people […]

I have heard the expression, “I will believe there is a global warming crisis when the people who tell me there is a crisis start acting like there is a crisis.” The same could be said about the global War on Terror. I once asked former Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff if he would be […]

For those who still watch the Academy Awards ceremony, as I do, but who would find it a little easier to take with a running commentary, Big Hollywood–the new libertarian and conservative show-biz blog–will be live-blogging the Oscars tomorrow night. To date, I am finding Big Hollywood to be a mixed bag as a blog. […]

Wish this had been around when my kids were babies. You can order yours here. Hat tip: Laura Barnett.

This morning, the Institute for Justice brought a lawsuit against the City of Boston asserting its client’s rights under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The new lawsuit involves a Cambridge tour operator who wants access to the Charles River via a boat launch ramp that is located in Boston. Boston refuses […]

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance in the UK is a sharp and provocative speaker and writer. Two nights ago, he gave a fiery address to the Conservative Future, a group of young Tories. Here is how the group reported the speech on its website: Last night Dr Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance, […]

I have been enjoying the recent dialogue over so-called liberaltarianism (links are in Ilya’s post). I don’t have that much to add except perhaps this: In a two party system, such as ours, each party is a coalition that is striving to get past 50%, unlike a parliamentary system in which governments are formed by […]

Blogger BK Drinkwater has a reaction to my post yesterday analogizing libertarianism first principles to a cheat sheet for a multiple choice exam: I’ve always found libertarianism to be an attractive political philosophy. But since I’m a pretty bad political philosopher—in fact, I suck at philosophy generally—the libertarian perspective has a couple of traps. The […]

Amidst the so-called “credit crisis,” there is much talk about how libertarianism is dead, or at least how libertarian first principles are irrelevant. One appeal of libertarianism is that its basic principles are simple and easy to understand. Private property, freedom of contract, self-defense, restitution for rights violations, etc. While some libertarians hold these principle […]

Readers of this blog know I have a thing for Lysander Spooner. This traces back to my reading No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority while an undergraduate at Northwestern. Much later as a law professor, I became acquainted with his other works. Indeed, it was his book, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, that started my […]

Most first year law students still study the case of Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon in which they read Cardozo’s sarcastic reference how she “styles herself a ‘creator of fashions.’” In fact, Cardozo notwithstanding, Lucy was a highly influential and innovative fashion designer. Wikipedia has a nice biography of Lucy here. Professor Allen Kamp of […]

CBS has just made available for free viewing on its website whole seasons of some of its “TV Classics” series. Beauty and the Beast, Beverly Hills 90210, Dynasty, Family Ties, Have Gun-Will Travel, Hawaii Five-0, The Love Boat, MacGyver, Melrose Place, Perry Mason, Star Trek: The Original Series, The Twilight Zone, and Twin Peaks. I […]

Saturday Night Live’s “Really?!?” segment on its Weekend Update is starting to be one of my favorites. Here is SNL’s “Really?!?” take on the Michael Phelps story. Second best line: “Parents, if your kid says ‘Michael Phelps smokes pot, why can’t I?’ say ‘you can, right after you win twelve gold medals for your country.’” […]

Readers who think they may one day want to be legal academics should make it a habit to read University of Illinois Professor Lawrence Solum’s Legal Theory Blog. There you will find his recommendations of recent legal scholarship, as well as his invaluable Legal Theory Lexicon. Today, for example, he explains the interpretation-construction distinction. We […]