The Northern Review

Life is the soul’s nursery — its training place for the destinies of eternity. — Thackeray
Life cannot be the soul’s nursery if it is taken over by the state.  If the state and its “government” is to provide the what friends and neighbors from time immemorial provided to friends and neighbors what will be left for [...]

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Here is a piece in the New York Times about Sara Jane Olson, a woman involved in bank robbery, death, and the attempted bombing of police. She’s spending her time on parole coming out of prison in California at her home in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The case highlights for me the double standard of our judicial system [...]

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What would prevent these great Ponzi Schemes we are witnessing? Puting the Madoffs and Stanfords in jail for thier lies serves a purpose to be sure. But it seems to me every investor in their operations is culpable. Culpable in the sense that they should have known that the returns they were seeking were unrealistic. [...]

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What is the philosophy of law at work in the judicial decision making described below?In a case tried to a judge, the facts in question, and the legal question to be decided, are to be considered by application of the Uniform Commercial Code. The trial judge ignores the briefing of counsel on the issue of [...]

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Richard Posner, gadfly, law professor, pontificator, interesting thinker and sometime United States Circuit Court judge said this in a recent post on his blog with Gary Becker:

But the responsibility for preventing catastrophic risks to the economy caused by a collapse of the banking industry lies with the Federal Reserve, other regulatory bodies, and the Treasury [...]

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One of the wonders of the Internet is access to thought and creativity of so many people one would not have access to were it not for the Internet.  Here are some thoughts about determinism and law by Travis Morgan.
Laws and penalties are in place to condition us to act a certain way, if one doesn’t act [...]

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Seems the law is based on the notion there is complete free will, that there is no determinism which an individual does not have control over. When the law says there is criminal or civil liability it is saying the actor has made the wrong choice – that in the exercise of his or her [...]

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War in Palestine. Israel has invaded Gaza. Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel (occupied territory?) and Israel. Hezbollah in Lebanon has been firing rockets into the Golan Heights (occupied territory). Who is right? Who is wrong? Who is more civilized, who is less? Who is to blame? What time frames are the questions to [...]

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When I worked in Washington DC as a VISTA Lawyer I had the pleasure of meeting Justice William O. Douglas.  Being from Washington state Justice Douglas, from Yakima, Washington, was revered by many out here.  I met him in person when he swore me in to the Washington Bar in 1970.  He said many things [...]

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[Free speech is] an act of privilege, it ranks with the privilege of committing murder: we may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences. Murder is forbidden in both in form and in fact; free speech is granted in form but forbidden in fact. By the common estimate both are crimes, and [...]

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