Author Archive | Randy Barnett

As has been noted elsewhere Patrick McGoohan, 80, died a few days ago. McGoohan achieved cult status as Number 6 on the short-lived series, The Prisoner. I watched the series in first run–as I recall as a summer replacement series. I found it awesome at the time up (“I am not a number; I am […]

The List Universe offers 10 signs of evolution in our bodies, with some nice accompanying graphics. (hat tip LGF): Through history, as natural selection played its part in the development of modern man, many of the useful functions and parts of the human body become unnecessary. What is most fascinating is that many of these […]

Larry Solum has a very important post today on Nelson Lund’s new paper on the Heller case. Larry makes explicit what was implicit in my blog post on Saturday. The bulk of Justice Scalia’s opinion is its original public meaning of the Second Amendment. The day after it was announced, I described Heller in the […]

Nelson Lund has just uploaded to SSRN a new and important criticism of Justice Scalia’s opinion in DC v. Heller: The Second Amendment, Heller, and Originalist Jurisprudence. While praising Justice Scalia for his originalist analysis that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms for purposes of personal and collective self-defense, the article mainly […]

Ed Whelan chronicles the apparent machinations by the trial court and Second Circuit to keep Ricci v. DeStefano below the radar (hat tip Powerline): As I

Ann Althouse posts 10 “random thoughts” on Clint Eastwood’s new film, Gran Torino, including number 5: “This is a good movie for people who like cars and guns and tools. There’s also a lot of drinking and, as I said, smoking. And a military medal, a lawnmower, and a dog. All the manly things. With […]

Last year I finally saw Jersey Boys in New York. It is a musical about the life of the 60s-70s group, The Four Seasons. The play tracks the origins, rise, and eventual demise of the group, which is a good plot device to present a whole lot of their songs. Upon seeing the play, I […]

The Minnesota lawyers at Powerline have been consistently precise in their coverage of the Minnesota election recount process. If I did not read their posts, I would have little idea of what has been happening. It allows me to translate what passes for factual reporting in the news media (including FoxNews). For example, I might […]

Dedicated readers of the Volokh Conspiracy know that, over the years, I have enjoyed blogging about movies and music every so often. Some examples of threads include posts about tribute bands, the Oscars and the sci-fi movie I was in called InAlienable. So I am interested in a new blog on the ideological politics of […]

here and here.

Ronald Pestritto had an interesting column in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (available here) on Theodore Roosevelt. Here is a bit: The fact that conservative politicians such as John McCain and writers like William Kristol and Karl Rove are attracted to our 26th president is strange because, if we want to understand where in the American […]

Tim Sandefur sends along the following clip that should get you going today:

Nice column on The Pragmatic Conceit–A new empty wave on NRO by Stanford Law student Anthony Dick. Here is a taste: To the extent that it performs any conceptual function at all, pragmatism seems to boil down to the more mundane concepts of flexibility, open-mindedness, and deliberation. A

The Moving Picture Institute “identifies and nurtures promising filmmakers who are committed to protecting and sustaining a free society, and supports their work through grants, travel scholarships, awards, internships, training workshops, and networking opportunities.” As part of it’s mission, it has initiated “Moving Minutes,” a series of clips about liberty from popular films. After you […]

My paper, The Misconceived Assumption About Constitutional Assumptions, has now been posted to SSRN. It addresses what has, for me, been a vexatious issue concerning the original meaning of the Constitution: speaking solely descriptively, does this meaning include the background assumptions held (by whom?) at the time the writing was enacted and/or amended? This turned […]