Legal System

No doubt punishment serves many purposes. It can deter crime and prevent the offender from committing further crimes.

End the lies, smears, and attacks against average people for their supposed intractable racism. Stop the federal occupation of local school districts in the name of racial balance. Dethrone the federal judges who impose de facto quotas in every public institution and mandatory preferences in every private one. Come clean on the real purpose of racial politics, which is not justice but power and political spoils.

Everyone knows about the class-action lawsuit against Hooters, the restaurant featuring waitresses in shorts and tight t-shirts. In the settlement, Hooters paid $2 million to the men who were denied the opportunity to serve as Hooter Girls, another $1.75 million in lawyer's fees, and created three new "gender-neutral positions."

Today's antitrust enforcement reduces tragedy to farce. A federal judge recently upheld the Federal Trade Commission's charge that Toys R' Us conspired to prop up the price of Mr. Potato Head. Why? Because the retail outlet liked to make exclusive deals.

Andrew Koppelman is clearly a writer of considerable intelligence, and exceptionally well-read in political philosophy, ethics, and law. But he puts his talent in the service of a bizarre idea.

George P. Fletcher, Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia Law School, thinks that the Timothy McVeigh trial teaches us an important lesson about the Constitution.

The Clinton administration has targeted a new batch of global enemies. It wants to crush them with the usual mix of negotiation, treaty, and enforcement through spying, fines, and propaganda. It's all in a day's work for the "world's indispensable nation"—the administration's new name for itself.

This is much more than a book: it is a confrontation. It consists of a lecture on constitutional interpretation delivered at Princeton University by Justice Scalia of the Supreme Court.

To most conservatives, constitutional interpretation is straightforward.

The conduct of contemporary American foreign policy flies in the face of the Constitution and much of our history.