Sensible arguments opposing what seems like the wave of the future.
A legal expert examines “a dangerous approach to constitutional law that would jeopardize many basic rights and advances in equality.”
In his latest, Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School, delivers a lucid, convincing attack on a prominent legal philosophy, though he admits that it is unlikely to change its adherents’ minds. The author writes that the Constitution is an impressive document written by brilliant men who considered it a framework that defined the responsibilities and limitations of government. For nearly two centuries, judges interpreted it broadly to deal with issues in an ever changing world. Matters changed after World War II when the Supreme Court issued a series of decisions that infuriated conservatives, certain they were based on the judges’ personal (and liberal) values. At only four pages, the Constitution seems limited, but scholars maintained that intense study would reveal the Founders’ true intentions. Proponents of originalism postulated that those intentions, plus their beliefs at the time they wrote the document (and of those who wrote amendments), must serve as the sole determining factors for a legal decision. Chemerinsky maintains that this makes no sense. Madison and Hamilton violently disagreed on major constitutional issues of executive power and of Congress’ spending power. Who was right? The 14th Amendment, which guarantees “equal protection,” has long been taken literally, but the intent of the framers in 1868 was to protect freed slaves. Therefore, originalists insist, it does not forbid discrimination against women, racial minorities, the disabled, or gay citizens. They maintain that there is no constitutional right to privacy because the Constitution doesn’t mention it. In a disheartening look toward the future, Chemerinsky warns that the Supreme Court, now solidly originalist, will radically transform our nation in the decades to come. Roe v. Wade has been overturned already, and the author also explores rulings that restrict environmental protection and immigration and expand the right to carry guns.
Sensible arguments opposing what seems like the wave of the future.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-300-25990-2
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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