Blog Posts

Jury selection is scheduled to begin next week in the case of Derek Chauvin, the police officer accused of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis late last spring. The death of Mr. Floyd sparked protests, and riots across the country on the theory that his death was demonstrative proof of...

The opening moves in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government have dramatic and rhetorical appeal, even if they lack coherence. Strictly speaking, there was no “state of nature” in which fully capable and competent individuals struck bargains with one another. And...

Biblical exegesis isn’t something you’ll find much of here. I am no scholar of the Bible; indeed, I am a sinner through and through, a man of unclean lips as Isaiah might say.
But I can’t get the story of Jesus’s words to the lame man at the...

In the fall of 2017, something extraordinary happened. An object entered our solar system, headed toward the Sun, then rounded the Sun and headed back out of the solar system. The path it took, its apparent luminosity, and the speed at which it traveled, make it unlikely to be a random...

The best thing about the pandemic? I’ve discovered podcasts. One of the best is Lex Fridman’s, called, simply, Lex Fridman Podcast.
Fridman is a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in machine learning. He began the podcast in...

The problem with natural law theories can be simply stated: They beg the question they need to resolve.
Consider John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government. In chapter two, when discussing punishment for violation of the law of nature, he writes: “it would be...

There’s some crazy sort of death-spiral on display in American politics before our very eyes, and I cannot figure out what it is, or what to do about it. It is enough to note it, and submit the pathology to scrutiny.
As always, a good place to start the diagnostic...

Legitimacy, the near magical property that distinguishes the use of naked power from lawful authority, is conferred upon the state in three ways, the German sociologist Max Weber taught a century ago. There is tradition, of a sense of authority derived ancient custom and usages; think of...

The acquittal of Donald Trump was a foregone conclusion in his first and second impeachment trials. Now Senators are suggesting that a bipartisan commission study the riot/insurrection of January 6, 2021. Such a commission would produce a report similar to that produced after the 9/11...

The Senate trial in the second impeachment of Donald J. Trump is unlike any other trial in American history. It is so unique, I wonder whether it should be a trial at all. There is nothing like it in our jurisprudence.
The former president has been accused by the House of...