…versus New Law School:
New Law School culture, growing out of the Critical Legal Studies movement that first surfaced in law schools during the 1980s, is quite different. In New Law School thinking, the law does not embody a rational system of justice—or even strivings toward such a system—but is essentially a political construct that has historically operated to keep the rich and powerful in their places of wealth and power and other groups—women, racial minorities, the disabled, and the poor—in their socially subordinate places. If this characterization sounds Marxist, that is because Critical Legal Studies—and its intellectual progeny, Critical Race Theory and Feminist Legal Theory—grew out of the New Left radicalism of the 1960s, which viewed American governmental and social structures as systems of oppression. It has also been influenced by postmodernist literary theory, with its assumptions that there is no objective truth or reality. In New Law School thinking, reason, free will, and personal responsibility are illusions, for all legal battles are actually struggles of race, class, and gender, in which power, not justice, is the ultimate goal. In New Law School scholarly writing, rigorous analysis of court opinions and the drawing of fine distinctions underlying legal arguments have been supplanted by “story telling”: personal narratives typically involving the law professors’ own experiences as members of an oppressed group with the race-gender-class matrix that is the source of their oppression. Since a shift in the power structure, not justice, is the goal, any tactic that coerces the recalcitrant into conforming to the new power regime is permissible in New Law School thinking.
Somehow, I suspect that the current Attorney General of the United States is a product of New Law School, as is his boss in the White House. Speaking of which, here is the latest outrage in the federal gun-running program:
In a surprise move in a controversial case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is opposing a routine motion by the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry to qualify as crime victims in the eyes of the court.
…The maneuver by Burke appears self-serving: his office ran Operation Fast and Furious on the ground, and two guns “walked” under Burke’s command were used in the firefight that murdered Agent Brian Terry. Burke’s provocative decision to block a routine filing seems intended to protect him in the event of a criminal or civil trial…
Laws are for the little people.
About the only thing missing is criminalization of reporting on it.
The New Law School description is absolutely chilling.
…power, not justice, is the ultimate goal.
An America under that “rule of law” will be a very, very different place from what we’re used to.
Are you saying Spock has a beard in this universe rickl?
When has it been different. The fact that we now recognize it because “they” are trying to codify the power grab is irrelevant. This nation was founded in an act of insurrection. Remember, the 4th of July is actually Colonial Insurrection Day but the central point remains that the War of Independence was fought about power and who controlled it – the right to tax without representation, the right to live and worship freely etc.
So, how is taxation with representation working? Not so well apparently. A singular problem remains for the tax cutters – the law of diminishing returns and I, like most folk, have no way of knowing when this will start to apply to the US Tax problem.
Two things are certain, revenues to the government must rise and expenses must be severely curtailed.
One other thing is also certain; until this country gets back to a more centrist set of policies we are going to have gridlock in both houses. So, a pox on your houses, let’s clean the slate and tell ALL our politicians exactly what we expect of them. Teach them to view elections as a job evaluation exercise that they may not survive as employees of the people.
revenues to the government must rise
To use someone elses phrase, “Let us be perfectly clear.” Revenue is tied to GDP. Tying revenue to anything else is misdirection. Is that misdirection lying? Only the person making the dastardly evil false vile destructive evil (did I say evil?) statement knows their intent for sure.
Andy Clark
This nation was founded on the idea that people have natural rights and that governments only exist to protect those rights. When those rights are interfered with by a government it is the right and duty of the people to throw off such government. The war was fought because the British government did not agree with that premise.
That the British still do not get it is very obvious.
Hopefully, this time we can throw off the oppressive government at the ballot box.