Tag: Civil Liberties

Topics

Books

Buck v. Bell: Due Process of Law?

– Western Political Quarterly 6:4 (December 1953).
Excerpt: A quarter of a century has passed since Justice Holmes provided the eugenical sterilization movement with a constitutional blessing and an epigrammatic battle cry. His opinion for… More

Freedom and Loyalty

– The Journal of Politics 18:1 (February 1956), 17–27.
Excerpt: It is best to begin with what is familiar and, I hope, noncontroversial. Until the first World War there was no problem of freedom and loyalty to speak of in the United States.… More

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

The Importance of Being Amish

– Harper's (March 1973); reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984); reprinted in Contemporary Debates on Civil Liberties: Enduring Constitutional Questions, Glenn A. Phelps and Robert A. Poirier, eds. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1985), 28–34.

Violence, Morality and the Law

– The Intercollegiate Review 9:2 (Spring 1974).
Excerpt: In Political Violence and Civil Disobedience, Ernest van den Haag argues that the problem underlying civil disobedience is the question whether there is ever a moral right to… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Terms of Endearment

– Harper's Magazine, October 1980; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Privacy, Liberalism, and the Role of Government

– Liberty and the Rule of Law, Robert L. Cunningham, ed. (College Station, TX: Texas A & M Press, 1981).
Friedrich A. Hayek, distinguished scholar and Nobel laureate, has long been recognized as the moral and intellectual spokesman for classic liberalism and a free society. In January, 1976, a… More

Let Me Call You Quota, Sweetheart

– Commentary, May 1981; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: It was said of the late Justice William O. Douglas, and it was said by way of praising him, that more than any other judge in our time he dared to ask the question of what is good… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Voting Rights and Wrongs

– Commentary, March 1982; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is surely the most successful civil-rights measure ever enacted by the national government. Everybody—or, at least, everybody who has publicly… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).
Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Has the Burger Court Gone Too Far?

– Commentary, October 1984.
Excerpt: Only yesterday, it seems, federal judges were being admired for refusing to confine themselves to the modest but appropriate role of interpreters of statutory or constitutional… More

The Words According to Brennan

– Wall Street Journal, October 23, 1985.
Excerpt: Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. is an angry man who has begun to give vent to his anger off the bench and in public. Although his recent Georgetown University address… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

What Does the Constitution Expect of Jews?

– The Judeo-Christian Tradition and the U.S. Constitution: Proceedings of a Conference at the Annenberg Research Institute, November 16–17, 1987, David M. Goldenberg, ed. (Philadelphia: Annenberg Research Institute, 1989), 21–27; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: The short answer to this question is that the Constitution expects of Jews what it expects of everybody. George Washington expressed this perfectly in his famous (and very… More

Flag-Burning & Other Modes of Expression

– Commentary, October 1989; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: This summer, Washington was given patriotism and obscenity to deal with when the Supreme Court upheld the burning of the flag by an angry Gregory Johnson and when an embarrassed… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

When Men Are the Prey of Women

– Washington Times, October 25, 1994.
Excerpt: In 1971, the Supreme Court told us that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,” but nowadays a man’s vulgarity is more likely to be seen as sexual… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Women: An Uncertain Fit for the Multicultural Movement?

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 19:3 (Spring 1996), 733.
Abstract: Women do not fit well into the model of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism involves groups asking for recognition based on their cultural identity. However, women do not… More

Is There a Worldwide Conservative Crackup?

– Weekly Standard, August 25, 1997.
Excerpt: Ask a conservative what he wants to conserve and he is likely to say ” freedom,” including the freedom to spend his own money; hence, his dislike of taxes. But ask the… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

Where Are the Death Penalty Critics Today?

– Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2001.
Excerpt: Timothy McVeigh’s execution today is noteworthy, coming as it does a “mere” six years since the bombing in Oklahoma City and three since he was convicted and… More

From the Ashes Comes the Rebirth of Patriotism

– AEI Online, October 1, 2001.
Excerpt: The terrorist attacks of September 11 have inspired a greater outpouring of patriotism by the American people than have many previous wars, and numerous displays of the American… More

The Libertarian Dodge

– Claremont Review of Books, September 2003; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: There is a question as to why the Beacon Press would choose to publish this collection of Wendy Kaminer’s essays. It is not enough to say, as she does in a prefatory note,… More

Sticks and Stones?

– Commentary, June 2005.
Excerpt: In 1925, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, and in some circles became famous for saying, “if, in the long run, the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Interrogations and Presidential Prerogative

– Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2009.
Excerpt: Recently, an Episcopal church in Bethesda, Md., displayed a banner with the following words: “God bless everyone (no exceptions).” I confessed to the rector of my own… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Essays

Buck v. Bell: Due Process of Law?

– Western Political Quarterly 6:4 (December 1953).
Excerpt: A quarter of a century has passed since Justice Holmes provided the eugenical sterilization movement with a constitutional blessing and an epigrammatic battle cry. His opinion for… More

Freedom and Loyalty

– The Journal of Politics 18:1 (February 1956), 17–27.
Excerpt: It is best to begin with what is familiar and, I hope, noncontroversial. Until the first World War there was no problem of freedom and loyalty to speak of in the United States.… More

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

The Importance of Being Amish

– Harper's (March 1973); reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984); reprinted in Contemporary Debates on Civil Liberties: Enduring Constitutional Questions, Glenn A. Phelps and Robert A. Poirier, eds. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1985), 28–34.

Violence, Morality and the Law

– The Intercollegiate Review 9:2 (Spring 1974).
Excerpt: In Political Violence and Civil Disobedience, Ernest van den Haag argues that the problem underlying civil disobedience is the question whether there is ever a moral right to… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Terms of Endearment

– Harper's Magazine, October 1980; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Privacy, Liberalism, and the Role of Government

– Liberty and the Rule of Law, Robert L. Cunningham, ed. (College Station, TX: Texas A & M Press, 1981).
Friedrich A. Hayek, distinguished scholar and Nobel laureate, has long been recognized as the moral and intellectual spokesman for classic liberalism and a free society. In January, 1976, a… More

Let Me Call You Quota, Sweetheart

– Commentary, May 1981; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: It was said of the late Justice William O. Douglas, and it was said by way of praising him, that more than any other judge in our time he dared to ask the question of what is good… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Voting Rights and Wrongs

– Commentary, March 1982; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is surely the most successful civil-rights measure ever enacted by the national government. Everybody—or, at least, everybody who has publicly… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).
Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Has the Burger Court Gone Too Far?

– Commentary, October 1984.
Excerpt: Only yesterday, it seems, federal judges were being admired for refusing to confine themselves to the modest but appropriate role of interpreters of statutory or constitutional… More

The Words According to Brennan

– Wall Street Journal, October 23, 1985.
Excerpt: Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. is an angry man who has begun to give vent to his anger off the bench and in public. Although his recent Georgetown University address… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

What Does the Constitution Expect of Jews?

– The Judeo-Christian Tradition and the U.S. Constitution: Proceedings of a Conference at the Annenberg Research Institute, November 16–17, 1987, David M. Goldenberg, ed. (Philadelphia: Annenberg Research Institute, 1989), 21–27; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: The short answer to this question is that the Constitution expects of Jews what it expects of everybody. George Washington expressed this perfectly in his famous (and very… More

Flag-Burning & Other Modes of Expression

– Commentary, October 1989; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: This summer, Washington was given patriotism and obscenity to deal with when the Supreme Court upheld the burning of the flag by an angry Gregory Johnson and when an embarrassed… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

When Men Are the Prey of Women

– Washington Times, October 25, 1994.
Excerpt: In 1971, the Supreme Court told us that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,” but nowadays a man’s vulgarity is more likely to be seen as sexual… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Women: An Uncertain Fit for the Multicultural Movement?

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 19:3 (Spring 1996), 733.
Abstract: Women do not fit well into the model of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism involves groups asking for recognition based on their cultural identity. However, women do not… More

Is There a Worldwide Conservative Crackup?

– Weekly Standard, August 25, 1997.
Excerpt: Ask a conservative what he wants to conserve and he is likely to say ” freedom,” including the freedom to spend his own money; hence, his dislike of taxes. But ask the… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

Where Are the Death Penalty Critics Today?

– Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2001.
Excerpt: Timothy McVeigh’s execution today is noteworthy, coming as it does a “mere” six years since the bombing in Oklahoma City and three since he was convicted and… More

From the Ashes Comes the Rebirth of Patriotism

– AEI Online, October 1, 2001.
Excerpt: The terrorist attacks of September 11 have inspired a greater outpouring of patriotism by the American people than have many previous wars, and numerous displays of the American… More

The Libertarian Dodge

– Claremont Review of Books, September 2003; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: There is a question as to why the Beacon Press would choose to publish this collection of Wendy Kaminer’s essays. It is not enough to say, as she does in a prefatory note,… More

Sticks and Stones?

– Commentary, June 2005.
Excerpt: In 1925, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, and in some circles became famous for saying, “if, in the long run, the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Interrogations and Presidential Prerogative

– Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2009.
Excerpt: Recently, an Episcopal church in Bethesda, Md., displayed a banner with the following words: “God bless everyone (no exceptions).” I confessed to the rector of my own… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Commentary

Buck v. Bell: Due Process of Law?

– Western Political Quarterly 6:4 (December 1953).
Excerpt: A quarter of a century has passed since Justice Holmes provided the eugenical sterilization movement with a constitutional blessing and an epigrammatic battle cry. His opinion for… More

Freedom and Loyalty

– The Journal of Politics 18:1 (February 1956), 17–27.
Excerpt: It is best to begin with what is familiar and, I hope, noncontroversial. Until the first World War there was no problem of freedom and loyalty to speak of in the United States.… More

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

The Importance of Being Amish

– Harper's (March 1973); reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984); reprinted in Contemporary Debates on Civil Liberties: Enduring Constitutional Questions, Glenn A. Phelps and Robert A. Poirier, eds. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1985), 28–34.

Violence, Morality and the Law

– The Intercollegiate Review 9:2 (Spring 1974).
Excerpt: In Political Violence and Civil Disobedience, Ernest van den Haag argues that the problem underlying civil disobedience is the question whether there is ever a moral right to… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Terms of Endearment

– Harper's Magazine, October 1980; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Privacy, Liberalism, and the Role of Government

– Liberty and the Rule of Law, Robert L. Cunningham, ed. (College Station, TX: Texas A & M Press, 1981).
Friedrich A. Hayek, distinguished scholar and Nobel laureate, has long been recognized as the moral and intellectual spokesman for classic liberalism and a free society. In January, 1976, a… More

Let Me Call You Quota, Sweetheart

– Commentary, May 1981; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: It was said of the late Justice William O. Douglas, and it was said by way of praising him, that more than any other judge in our time he dared to ask the question of what is good… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Voting Rights and Wrongs

– Commentary, March 1982; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is surely the most successful civil-rights measure ever enacted by the national government. Everybody—or, at least, everybody who has publicly… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).
Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Has the Burger Court Gone Too Far?

– Commentary, October 1984.
Excerpt: Only yesterday, it seems, federal judges were being admired for refusing to confine themselves to the modest but appropriate role of interpreters of statutory or constitutional… More

The Words According to Brennan

– Wall Street Journal, October 23, 1985.
Excerpt: Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. is an angry man who has begun to give vent to his anger off the bench and in public. Although his recent Georgetown University address… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

What Does the Constitution Expect of Jews?

– The Judeo-Christian Tradition and the U.S. Constitution: Proceedings of a Conference at the Annenberg Research Institute, November 16–17, 1987, David M. Goldenberg, ed. (Philadelphia: Annenberg Research Institute, 1989), 21–27; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: The short answer to this question is that the Constitution expects of Jews what it expects of everybody. George Washington expressed this perfectly in his famous (and very… More

Flag-Burning & Other Modes of Expression

– Commentary, October 1989; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: This summer, Washington was given patriotism and obscenity to deal with when the Supreme Court upheld the burning of the flag by an angry Gregory Johnson and when an embarrassed… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

When Men Are the Prey of Women

– Washington Times, October 25, 1994.
Excerpt: In 1971, the Supreme Court told us that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,” but nowadays a man’s vulgarity is more likely to be seen as sexual… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Women: An Uncertain Fit for the Multicultural Movement?

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 19:3 (Spring 1996), 733.
Abstract: Women do not fit well into the model of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism involves groups asking for recognition based on their cultural identity. However, women do not… More

Is There a Worldwide Conservative Crackup?

– Weekly Standard, August 25, 1997.
Excerpt: Ask a conservative what he wants to conserve and he is likely to say ” freedom,” including the freedom to spend his own money; hence, his dislike of taxes. But ask the… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

Where Are the Death Penalty Critics Today?

– Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2001.
Excerpt: Timothy McVeigh’s execution today is noteworthy, coming as it does a “mere” six years since the bombing in Oklahoma City and three since he was convicted and… More

From the Ashes Comes the Rebirth of Patriotism

– AEI Online, October 1, 2001.
Excerpt: The terrorist attacks of September 11 have inspired a greater outpouring of patriotism by the American people than have many previous wars, and numerous displays of the American… More

The Libertarian Dodge

– Claremont Review of Books, September 2003; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: There is a question as to why the Beacon Press would choose to publish this collection of Wendy Kaminer’s essays. It is not enough to say, as she does in a prefatory note,… More

Sticks and Stones?

– Commentary, June 2005.
Excerpt: In 1925, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, and in some circles became famous for saying, “if, in the long run, the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Interrogations and Presidential Prerogative

– Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2009.
Excerpt: Recently, an Episcopal church in Bethesda, Md., displayed a banner with the following words: “God bless everyone (no exceptions).” I confessed to the rector of my own… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Multimedia

Buck v. Bell: Due Process of Law?

– Western Political Quarterly 6:4 (December 1953).
Excerpt: A quarter of a century has passed since Justice Holmes provided the eugenical sterilization movement with a constitutional blessing and an epigrammatic battle cry. His opinion for… More

Freedom and Loyalty

– The Journal of Politics 18:1 (February 1956), 17–27.
Excerpt: It is best to begin with what is familiar and, I hope, noncontroversial. Until the first World War there was no problem of freedom and loyalty to speak of in the United States.… More

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

The Importance of Being Amish

– Harper's (March 1973); reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984); reprinted in Contemporary Debates on Civil Liberties: Enduring Constitutional Questions, Glenn A. Phelps and Robert A. Poirier, eds. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1985), 28–34.

Violence, Morality and the Law

– The Intercollegiate Review 9:2 (Spring 1974).
Excerpt: In Political Violence and Civil Disobedience, Ernest van den Haag argues that the problem underlying civil disobedience is the question whether there is ever a moral right to… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Terms of Endearment

– Harper's Magazine, October 1980; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Privacy, Liberalism, and the Role of Government

– Liberty and the Rule of Law, Robert L. Cunningham, ed. (College Station, TX: Texas A & M Press, 1981).
Friedrich A. Hayek, distinguished scholar and Nobel laureate, has long been recognized as the moral and intellectual spokesman for classic liberalism and a free society. In January, 1976, a… More

Let Me Call You Quota, Sweetheart

– Commentary, May 1981; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: It was said of the late Justice William O. Douglas, and it was said by way of praising him, that more than any other judge in our time he dared to ask the question of what is good… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Voting Rights and Wrongs

– Commentary, March 1982; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is surely the most successful civil-rights measure ever enacted by the national government. Everybody—or, at least, everybody who has publicly… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).
Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Has the Burger Court Gone Too Far?

– Commentary, October 1984.
Excerpt: Only yesterday, it seems, federal judges were being admired for refusing to confine themselves to the modest but appropriate role of interpreters of statutory or constitutional… More

The Words According to Brennan

– Wall Street Journal, October 23, 1985.
Excerpt: Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. is an angry man who has begun to give vent to his anger off the bench and in public. Although his recent Georgetown University address… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

What Does the Constitution Expect of Jews?

– The Judeo-Christian Tradition and the U.S. Constitution: Proceedings of a Conference at the Annenberg Research Institute, November 16–17, 1987, David M. Goldenberg, ed. (Philadelphia: Annenberg Research Institute, 1989), 21–27; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: The short answer to this question is that the Constitution expects of Jews what it expects of everybody. George Washington expressed this perfectly in his famous (and very… More

Flag-Burning & Other Modes of Expression

– Commentary, October 1989; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: This summer, Washington was given patriotism and obscenity to deal with when the Supreme Court upheld the burning of the flag by an angry Gregory Johnson and when an embarrassed… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

When Men Are the Prey of Women

– Washington Times, October 25, 1994.
Excerpt: In 1971, the Supreme Court told us that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,” but nowadays a man’s vulgarity is more likely to be seen as sexual… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Women: An Uncertain Fit for the Multicultural Movement?

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 19:3 (Spring 1996), 733.
Abstract: Women do not fit well into the model of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism involves groups asking for recognition based on their cultural identity. However, women do not… More

Is There a Worldwide Conservative Crackup?

– Weekly Standard, August 25, 1997.
Excerpt: Ask a conservative what he wants to conserve and he is likely to say ” freedom,” including the freedom to spend his own money; hence, his dislike of taxes. But ask the… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

Where Are the Death Penalty Critics Today?

– Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2001.
Excerpt: Timothy McVeigh’s execution today is noteworthy, coming as it does a “mere” six years since the bombing in Oklahoma City and three since he was convicted and… More

From the Ashes Comes the Rebirth of Patriotism

– AEI Online, October 1, 2001.
Excerpt: The terrorist attacks of September 11 have inspired a greater outpouring of patriotism by the American people than have many previous wars, and numerous displays of the American… More

The Libertarian Dodge

– Claremont Review of Books, September 2003; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: There is a question as to why the Beacon Press would choose to publish this collection of Wendy Kaminer’s essays. It is not enough to say, as she does in a prefatory note,… More

Sticks and Stones?

– Commentary, June 2005.
Excerpt: In 1925, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, and in some circles became famous for saying, “if, in the long run, the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Interrogations and Presidential Prerogative

– Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2009.
Excerpt: Recently, an Episcopal church in Bethesda, Md., displayed a banner with the following words: “God bless everyone (no exceptions).” I confessed to the rector of my own… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Teaching

Buck v. Bell: Due Process of Law?

– Western Political Quarterly 6:4 (December 1953).
Excerpt: A quarter of a century has passed since Justice Holmes provided the eugenical sterilization movement with a constitutional blessing and an epigrammatic battle cry. His opinion for… More

Freedom and Loyalty

– The Journal of Politics 18:1 (February 1956), 17–27.
Excerpt: It is best to begin with what is familiar and, I hope, noncontroversial. Until the first World War there was no problem of freedom and loyalty to speak of in the United States.… More

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

The Importance of Being Amish

– Harper's (March 1973); reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984); reprinted in Contemporary Debates on Civil Liberties: Enduring Constitutional Questions, Glenn A. Phelps and Robert A. Poirier, eds. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1985), 28–34.

Violence, Morality and the Law

– The Intercollegiate Review 9:2 (Spring 1974).
Excerpt: In Political Violence and Civil Disobedience, Ernest van den Haag argues that the problem underlying civil disobedience is the question whether there is ever a moral right to… More

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

Terms of Endearment

– Harper's Magazine, October 1980; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Privacy, Liberalism, and the Role of Government

– Liberty and the Rule of Law, Robert L. Cunningham, ed. (College Station, TX: Texas A & M Press, 1981).
Friedrich A. Hayek, distinguished scholar and Nobel laureate, has long been recognized as the moral and intellectual spokesman for classic liberalism and a free society. In January, 1976, a… More

Let Me Call You Quota, Sweetheart

– Commentary, May 1981; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: It was said of the late Justice William O. Douglas, and it was said by way of praising him, that more than any other judge in our time he dared to ask the question of what is good… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Voting Rights and Wrongs

– Commentary, March 1982; reprinted in Walter Berns, In Defense of Liberal Democracy (Regnery Gateway, 1984).
Excerpt: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is surely the most successful civil-rights measure ever enacted by the national government. Everybody—or, at least, everybody who has publicly… More

Affirmative Action vs. the Declaration of Independence

– New Perspectives 16:1 (Summer 1984).
Abstract: Reverse discrimination is an effect of affirmative action that cannot be overlooked: it is discriminatory and it has victims. If laws may be used to discriminate against Whites,… More

Has the Burger Court Gone Too Far?

– Commentary, October 1984.
Excerpt: Only yesterday, it seems, federal judges were being admired for refusing to confine themselves to the modest but appropriate role of interpreters of statutory or constitutional… More

The Words According to Brennan

– Wall Street Journal, October 23, 1985.
Excerpt: Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. is an angry man who has begun to give vent to his anger off the bench and in public. Although his recent Georgetown University address… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

What Does the Constitution Expect of Jews?

– The Judeo-Christian Tradition and the U.S. Constitution: Proceedings of a Conference at the Annenberg Research Institute, November 16–17, 1987, David M. Goldenberg, ed. (Philadelphia: Annenberg Research Institute, 1989), 21–27; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: The short answer to this question is that the Constitution expects of Jews what it expects of everybody. George Washington expressed this perfectly in his famous (and very… More

Flag-Burning & Other Modes of Expression

– Commentary, October 1989; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: This summer, Washington was given patriotism and obscenity to deal with when the Supreme Court upheld the burning of the flag by an angry Gregory Johnson and when an embarrassed… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

When Men Are the Prey of Women

– Washington Times, October 25, 1994.
Excerpt: In 1971, the Supreme Court told us that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,” but nowadays a man’s vulgarity is more likely to be seen as sexual… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Women: An Uncertain Fit for the Multicultural Movement?

– Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 19:3 (Spring 1996), 733.
Abstract: Women do not fit well into the model of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism involves groups asking for recognition based on their cultural identity. However, women do not… More

Is There a Worldwide Conservative Crackup?

– Weekly Standard, August 25, 1997.
Excerpt: Ask a conservative what he wants to conserve and he is likely to say ” freedom,” including the freedom to spend his own money; hence, his dislike of taxes. But ask the… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

Where Are the Death Penalty Critics Today?

– Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2001.
Excerpt: Timothy McVeigh’s execution today is noteworthy, coming as it does a “mere” six years since the bombing in Oklahoma City and three since he was convicted and… More

From the Ashes Comes the Rebirth of Patriotism

– AEI Online, October 1, 2001.
Excerpt: The terrorist attacks of September 11 have inspired a greater outpouring of patriotism by the American people than have many previous wars, and numerous displays of the American… More

The Libertarian Dodge

– Claremont Review of Books, September 2003; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: There is a question as to why the Beacon Press would choose to publish this collection of Wendy Kaminer’s essays. It is not enough to say, as she does in a prefatory note,… More

Sticks and Stones?

– Commentary, June 2005.
Excerpt: In 1925, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, and in some circles became famous for saying, “if, in the long run, the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to… More

Under God

– In Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: On March 24, 2004, the Supreme Court heard arguments in still another of what civil libertarians insist on calling establishment-of-religion cases, Elk Grove Unified School… More

Interrogations and Presidential Prerogative

– Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2009.
Excerpt: Recently, an Episcopal church in Bethesda, Md., displayed a banner with the following words: “God bless everyone (no exceptions).” I confessed to the rector of my own… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More