Legal System

By practicing plumbing without a license, Joe is bucking the system in a truly heroic way.

Woods and Gutzman have selected twelve cases to illustrate this disregard of the Constitution. By no means are all of these examples of judicial misconduct; the legislative and executive branches have been at least as guilty as the judicial in seeking to enhance government power.

Nothing government can do can take away our freedom; and if we are a people who are truly free, the government will have to follow.

The question posed by the title of this book raises a further question, as the authors are well aware. If the Constitution is indeed dead, why does this matter? American conservatives have in past days been accused of "Constitution worship":

Judge Napolitano has organized his excellent book around a central metaphor. He contrasts sheep, who follow their shepherd with unquestioning devotion, and wolves, who are alert to protect themselves:

In fact, the government has already tried and failed to alleviate the Maryland crab crisis. Perhaps we should let capitalism have a crack at this problem.

If you do believe that they do more good than harm, consider the unseen costs. What kind of private alternatives are being crowded out by the very presence of the police?

The prospect of high profits after natural disasters should attract firms to disaster-prone areas, but if they are not allowed to earn high profits after disasters, they might as well do business in safer environs.

But in fact, they have become responsible for great evil, the leading one of which is to contribute to the great lie that government is doing good for us.

PDF of Peter Klein’s PowerPoint presentation.