Has there been a coalescence of executive authority which can overreach Constitutional limitations? Gone are the days of Madisonian democracy? Posner discusses his new book, The Executive Unbound.
‘There is a long-term trajectory, in this country and many other democracies, in the direction of executive primacy in domestic as well as foreign affairs, which one can identify only by comparing present to past. No one denies that the New Deal regulatory system gave presidents immense powers that did not exist prior to its creation, and that this system has only grown over the years. The financial regulation and health care laws are only the latest in a long series of delegations from Congress to the president, and they confirm that long-term trends have not been reversed in the Obama administration. We are talking about a continuous institutional development that reaches back almost a century and today is entrenched. It is time for legal thought to make its peace with it.’
Perhaps there has been, and as Posner makes the case, there’s not too much to be done about it.
Also On This Site: The Straussians are not too happy with it, as the comments suggest: From Volokh: Harvey Mansfield Reviews ‘The Executive Unbound’…
Harry Jaffa At The Claremont Institute: ‘Leo Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy’…From The Weekly Standard: Harvey Mansfield Reviews Paul Rahe’s “Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift”
Nor are libertarians. So, what about the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act?…Randy Barnett At Volokh: ‘My Answers to Questions Posed by Senators Durbin and Sessions’
Using J.S. Mill, moving away from religion?: From The Harvard Educational Review-A Review Of Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education.’…Repost: Martha Nussbaum Channels Roger Williams In The New Republic: The First Founder
A Few Thoughts On Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State and Utopia”
Interesting reading.
