Two fascinating cases this year involved interpretations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In both cases the Court leaves the statutory scheme roughly as the Court found it -- which is presumably the goal in addressing such cases, at least when the statute's legitimacy isn't itself the point. In another two cases this year the Court interpreted gun maker liability. They denied such liability in the one case and refused an invitation to deny it in the other. I'll also have something to say about a quick journey from terrorism to civil procedure, and about the scope of environmental review, before offering a concluding thought. Interpreting the disabilities act On June 20th the Court handed down its decision in Stanley v. City of Sanford, allowing what one might naively have considered "discrimination" against a disabled retiree firefighter in the the rejuggling of a pension plan. ` The "Sanford" involved is in Florida, a short drive north fro...
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Michael Bloomberg has never asked me for help. Nor should he, because I might play the part of a saboteur. But if he were to ask me for advice, and if I actually wanted to help him, this is how it might go. Bloomberg: I've repented of my former support of a racist stop-and-frisk policy. I'm running for the Dem nomination for POTUS. Now this inconvenient tape has shown up, of the way I was unreservedly devoted to that policy, fairly recently, and it has thrown the reality of my repentance into question for voters whose sympathetic attention I need. What can I do? Faille: Okay. The Dem base still loves the fact that you're anti-gun, right? Bloomberg: Have you been paying attention at all? I'm asking about stop and frisk. Faille: The two are not unrelated. A vigorous urban gun control policy can't be pursued if every coat pocket is considered sacrosanct. Bloomberg. Hmmmm. You've got a point there. But ... racism. The numbers. Faille: Yes, and ...
People talk commonly and, as it were, naturally about "social issues" as constituting a nest of issues distinct from the "economic" ones. It is not self evident what this means. After all, economics and sociology don't differ in their subject matter. They differ in their methods. If an economic issue is one an economist might discuss using the tools of his science, then everything human is an economic issue, for nothing is alien to supply and demand. And in that case, the separate nest of "social issues," the other half of the customary dichotomy, dissolves. Yet since it hasn't in fact dissolved, let's try to answer the question in the heading above. What counts as a “social” issue, as distinct from an issue within any other classifications, is largely a subjective matter. Broadly speaking, though, “social issues” are efforts to answer the question “what kind of a person do I think I am?” in the first instance and, collectively...
The gun control argument has heated up again, and this time a certain quote said to be from Thomas Jefferson is in wide circulation. This gives me another chance for pedantic digressiveness, my default mode of evasion these days. The quote getting wide circulation is this: "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Now: did Jefferson actually say that? One can't prove a negative, but it surely smells like a misattribution. It also sounds like a rip-off of the movie V for Vendetta , but let's leave that aside and stick with the founders. The Monticello website checked into this, here. Part of the confusion (as appears in the footnotes to the Monticello-site essay) may be that, especially overseas, there is no clarity about Jefferson's rol...