Chicago Boyz Archive

History Friday: The Rule of Law

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[The Rule of Law] means in the first place, the absolute supremacy or predominance of regular law as opposed to the influence of arbitrary power, and excludes the existence of arbitrariness, of prerogative, or even of wide discretionary authority on the part of the government …. It means, again, equality before the law, or the equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary courts … [and], lastly,… that, in short, the principles of private law have with us been by the action of the courts and Parliament so extended as to determine the position of the Crown and of its servants; thus the constitution is the result of the ordinary law of the land.

Albert Venn Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885)

Restated, Dicey says the Rule of Law consists of: (1) disallowing arbitrary power, restricting the use of power to what is permitted by law, (2) treating all person to the exact same law, in the same courts, without regard to their status, and (3) treating the officers of the government to exactly the same law as everybody else.

Nota bene: Each of these elements is crumbling before our eyes in America in 2013. In particular, Mr. Obama’s arbitrary use of executive power, unmoored from legal foundation, is literally frightening.

The Rule of Law is a standard we must demand and enforce as citizens. To the extent it has decayed, it must be restored. Any reform platform must include provisions to restore each of these features.

Calling For A Million Mutineers (With Some Backstory, A Plug for America 3.0 And A Really Cool Map)

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Robert Lucas

I recently ran across this quote:

For income growth to occur in a society, a large fraction of people must experience changes in the possible lives they imagine for themselves and their children, and these new visions of possible futures must have enough force to lead them to change the way they behave … and the hopes they invest in these children: the way they allocate their time. In the words of [V.S. Naipaul] economic development requires “a million mutinies.”

A Million Mutinies: The key to economic development, An excerpt from “Lectures on Economic Growth” by Robert E. Lucas, Jr. Professor Lucas is a Nobel laureate in Economics from the University of Chicago, so one of our homies.

Lucas is right. Major change, political as well as economic, requires a change in peoples’ vision of the future, and requires that “a million mutinies” break out against the status quo.

Read more

The Art of the Remake XII

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Otis Redding, That’s How Strong My Love Is (1965)

The most famous version, and a great one:

My favorite version: The Creation, That’s How Strong My Love Is (1966). The Creation perform live on the German TV show Beat Beat Beat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDnCZ7QfO3M

The original version, nicely done by O.V. Wright, That’s How Strong My Love Is (1964).

Here is a nice version by the Rolling Stones, on the Ready Steady Go show, in 1965.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p-RS3yq8B0

Our standard: “If you are going to cover a song, rip it apart a bit and make it your own.” Otis did it, taking the song farther down the soulful road it was on. The Creation took it to a different place, making it a rock song, but still with soulful singing. The Stones version is closer to the Otis Version, with saxophone, but still Stonesy.

A great song can withstand a lot of “ripping apart.”

UPDATE:

Bryan Ferry, That’s How Strong My Love Is (1978).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxr71scIW1E

UPDATE II

Tommy Young, That’s How Strong My Love Is (1972). She sang this song over the music track in one take. Nice.


Daniel Hannan Speaking at the Heritage Foundation about his book Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World

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Mr. Hannan gave a superb speech at the Heritage Foundation on November 22, 2013.

The speech is based on Mr. Hannan’s book Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World.

The Heritage site says this:

The core of his thesis is this: It is the English-speaking world, the “Anglosphere” (UK, Ireland, India, USA, Canada, Australia, … ) that somehow came to view the law as an ally of freedom rather than an instrument of state control. It is that very elevation of the individual over the state, in the law, that has brought us freedom and prosperity. In America and Britain, says Hannan, that principle has been taken for granted so long that now we risk losing it.

Starting around 49:00 Mr. Hannan describes a technologically advanced future which is clearly based on America 3.0, though he does not mention the book by name. Mr. Hannan gave America 3.0 a rave review, so we know he liked it!

Optimism: America’s Greatest Days Are Yet To Come, Mike Lotus Writing About America 3.0 on CommPRO.biz

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Thanks to CommPRO.biz for publishing my recent piece on optimism.

The subtitle of America 3.0 which has provoked the strongest response is this:

America’s Greatest Days Are Yet To Come.

In the article I ask:

 
Do you agree? Or do you think America’s greatest days are long gone? But if America’s greatest days are yet to come, then our personal lives and our business careers take on a more hopeful cast.
 
In the USA today we have a shortage of optimism. For the first time, Americans say their children and grandchildren will have a worse life than they did. But despair about America’s future is a factual, historical and analytic error. We are not on an inevitable road to tyranny and poverty. Predictions of the end of American freedom and prosperity are deeply mistaken.
 
Optimism must be based on facts, or it is just wishful thinking. So, what is the foundation for optimism about our future?
 

You can get the short answer in the CommPRO.biz article, or get the full and complete answer by reading America 3.0!