A howler-packed Michael Lind screed against libertarians and classical liberals asserts, among other tall things, that John Stuart Mill, Benjamin Constant, and Thomas Macaulay were apologists for “autocracy.” I do my bit to correct the historical record at Cato at Liberty. Meanwhile, Will Wilkinson and Jason Kuznicki challenge Lind’s gross misrepresentations of Mises and Hayek, while Damon Root and Roderick Long take on some of his other errors. Sam Schulman, on Twitter, has fun with “Michael Lind’s eccentric view of history, upon the pinnacle of which stands – Michael Lind.” And yet more: Sam Bowman, AdamSmith.org, Brad Schlesinger, Pejman Yousefzadeh.
Tagged as:
WO writings
In a new Reason symposium on how to revitalize the American job market, I explain my answer to that question.
More: This set off a round of discussion on employment blogs including Jon Hyman (nominating FLSA for vaporization), Suzanne Boy (concur), Daniel Schwartz (leave laws), Suzanne Lucas (citing “the fabulous Overlawyered.com”), the ABA Journal, Tim Eavenson, Jon Hyman again, HR Daily Report, and Russell Cawyer. Also relevant on age discrimination laws: a June symposium in the NYT’s “Room for Debate” feature; ComputerWorld on age bias and IT.
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accolades,
age discrimination,
wage and hour suits,
WO writings,
workplace
I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on New York’s vote last Friday to legally recognize same-sex marriage. I also applaud the inclusion of protections for religious institutions (and would have favored strengthening the protections beyond the current level). The WSJ frames the discussion as “Two Views from the Right,” and they’ve got Maggie Gallagher giving the opposite side.
Tagged as:
same-sex marriage,
WO writings
Not really any legal content, but I’m in the New York Times Book Review today with a review of Mary S. Lovell’s enjoyably gossipy The Churchills, a history of England’s most celebrated political family, which concentrates more on the clan’s personal entanglements than its achievements in oratory or war-making. You can read it here.
Tagged as:
WO writings
I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer on the Supreme Court’s Wal-Mart v. Dukes decision. The headline (”Reining in Frivolous Class-Action Lawsuits”) is theirs; I wouldn’t use the term “frivolous” to describe the case, which after all did convince the Ninth Circuit, if not any of the Supreme nine. An excerpt:
…The misconceptions about this case begin with the identities of the real combatants. On NPR’s Marketplace this week, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick described the plaintiffs as “1.5 million female employees of Wal-Mart who are trying to file a class-action suit.” But, of course, most of those women are not “trying” to do anything of the sort.
Rather, a relative handful of them have hired lawyers, and those lawyers daringly sought to get themselves declared the legal representatives of the other 1.496 million (or however many), who have expressed no inclination whatsoever to sue. …
The message of this ruling is simple: Employees have to prove that they have been legally wronged, not just cash in because somebody else was.
More about Wal-Mart v. Dukes here, here, and here (& welcome readers from Ira Stoll/Future of Capitalism, Jonathan Adler/Volokh Conspiracy, State Bar of Michigan blog, Omaha World Herald (editorial), Real Clear Politics, and, on the headline issue, Elie Mystal/Above the Law).
Tagged as:
Wal-Mart v. Dukes,
WO writings
I’ve got an instant analysis up at Cato at Liberty of the retailer’s big Supreme Court win today in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the class action certification case. The Court ruled unanimously that the Ninth Circuit had jumped the gun in certifying the case as a class action, and 5-to-4 (Scalia writing) that plaintiffs had failed to assemble the evidence needed for certification. (& welcome Real Clear Politics “Best of the Blogs”, Atlantic Wire, Nicole Neily/Daily Caller, Jon Hyman, SCOTUSBlog)
More: Josh Blackman (with a comment on the Court’s recognition of the work of the late Richard Nagareda), Hans Bader, Jim Copland, John Steele Gordon. Spot-the-errors dept.: Dahlia Lithwick. Briefs and other resources on the case at SCOTUSBlog.
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class actions,
Ninth Circuit,
sex discrimination,
Supreme Court,
Wal-Mart,
Wal-Mart v. Dukes,
WO writings
Soaring prices have lately rocked the used-car market, which — I argue in a new post at Cato at Liberty — should cast even more doubt on the wisdom of some of the federal government’s recent interventions in the auto business.
Tagged as:
autos,
WO writings
I’ve got an op-ed in today’s New York Post. It begins:
For the service goat, assistance monkey and emotional-support iguana, it could be the end of an era. Under new federal rules taking effect Tuesday, the Americans with Disabilities Act will no longer compel shops, restaurants and other businesses to accommodate a menagerie of supposed service animals brought in by the public. Only dogs and some miniature horses will qualify. Moreover, dogs will qualify as service animals only if they’ve been individually trained to assist with a disabled human’s needs.
“The provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort or companionship do not constitute work or tasks for the purposes of this new definition.” And they’ll need to be on-leash unless their work requires otherwise.
Finally. You’d think the Obama administration had, in a fit of common sense, for once chosen to heed a public outcry about zany regulations-gone-mad.
But as usual, the politics are more complicated than that. …
Read the whole thing here. Relatedly, Kevin at Lowering the Bar has some free advice for persons with service monkeys, namely that their allegations of service-animal status are more likely to win favor if they don’t dress up four of the little guys in pirate costumes on Bourbon St. in New Orleans’ French Quarter. And from Olympia, Wash.’s KPTV: “Man with service snake lobbies against bill.”
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service animals,
WO writings
[cross-posted from Cato at Liberty]
New York state senator Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) is crusading to ban pedestrians’ use of cellphones and other mobile devices while crossing the street. It’s for your own good, you must understand:
“When people are doing things that are detrimental to their own well being, then government should step in.”
The Daily Caller asked me to write an opinion piece about this proposal so I just did. Excerpt:
Phone use on the street has become near-ubiquitous in recent years, yet over nearly all that time — nationally as in Gotham — pedestrian death rates were falling steadily, just as highway fatalities fell steadily over the years in which “distracted driving” became a big concern.
In the first half of 2010, the national statistics showed a tiny upward blip (0.4 percent), occasioned by a relative handful of fatalities in a few states. Even a spokesman for the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, Jonathan Adkins, seems to agree it’s premature to jump to conclusions: “You don’t want to overreact to six months of data,” he told columnist Steve Chapman.
Like others who seek quasi-parental control over adults, Sen. Kruger tends to infantilize his charges. He told the Times: “We’re taught from knee-high to look in both directions, wait, listen and then cross. You can perform none of those functions if you are engaged in some kind of wired activity.”
This drew proper scorn from columnist Chapman: “Actually, you can perform all those functions and dance an Irish jig, even with text messages or rock music bombarding you.” That some ear bud devotees don’t take due caution is no reason to pretend they can’t.
C.S. Lewis, Lily Tomlin and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood all get walk-on parts as well.
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cellphones,
traffic laws,
WO writings
