‘Ignorance of the law is no excuse.’ So say the legal textbooks, the judge’s rulings, and all the cavalcade of legal orthodoxy. Yet on the face of it, this seems unjust. How can I be accountable to a law I
This is part of a mixed series between my Substack and this website, complete with a jumbled posting order. Go here for the first in the series (I, II). The next article in Islander #5 is an intriguing argument by
Men always want more power. Separation of powers, as Montesquieu laid it out, is a means of playing this cupidity against itself. The American implementation is not so focused on the balancing of classes as Montesquieu was (albeit some element
The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause must compete with another famous definition of the American government’s proper relationship with the church: Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, wherein he wrote of a “wall of separation between church and state” (Dreisbach).
The name ‘Marco Rubio’ has been bruited about as a presidential possibility for years now, longer than I’ve been cognizant of politics in a meaningful sense (given I only started paying attention late 2015). Of late, however, he’s been the
Perhaps it is strange that I, a Tennessean and an American, should write my first candidate-specific political article on a British politician like Rupert Lowe. At any rate, I’ve been following British politics for a while now, seeing their tailspin
Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book II: Of the Rights of Things commences with a brief discussion of the origin of property. Therein he states, quite rightly, that the Dominion Mandate of Genesis 1:28 is “the only true
Parts One and Two laid out the usefulness of a metaphor for civilizations in history, the metric Scripture gives for understanding civilizations (I), and why several of the common genres of such metaphors are less than suited for purpose (II).
Read Part I here. Judge Just Judge Just succeeds Judge Pragmatic and brings what he calls a ‘metaphysical’ approach. He holds the work of judging to be ultimately a moral endeavor, a work of conforming to “our moral heritage” (Delaney
The difference between an ‘originalist’ judge and a ‘living Constitution’ judge is significant. Conservatives laud the first (sometimes) and damn the second; liberals damn the first and (sometimes) laud the second. Delaney approaches the question of judicial philosophy more circumspectly