Legal Commentary

Libertarian Paternalism: Appearance vs. Reality

Posted on July 10, 2009
In the comments section of Russell Roberts?s link to my previous post, ?Charlie? makes some thoughtful points. I was going to respond in the comments there, but then decided a new post would be worthwhile. Charlie begins:Libertarian paternalism seems to aim to take paternalism and give it choice...

Thaler on Ski Slopes and Mortgages

Posted on July 06, 2009
So what does it take to get me to blog these days? Having an opinion is no longer enough. Apparently I have to be actively irritated.Richard Thaler is the newest contributor to the NY Times? Economic View, where in his first column he uses behavioral economics to justify new financial regulations...

Recipe for a Force Field

Posted on July 01, 2009
We don't yet have flying cars, much less jet packs. I like our Roomba, but domestic robots still have far to go before they can whip up an omelet, set the table, and pour the coffee. In these and many other areas, technology continues to lag behind the rosy sci-fi scenarios of my youth...

Exercise Breathings

Posted on June 22, 2009
I've long advocated the mental benefits of working out, and recently promised to offer some details about my own, somewhat peculiar regime. Here, I address the question: "How should I breath when I run?" My answer goes a long, long way beyond simply, "In-and-out...

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How Union Bullies Fund their Critics

Posted on May 24, 2009
The L.A. Times' blog recently reported that the Los Angeles police officers' union tried to bully the San Diego Union-Tribune into firing editorial writers who argue that "lawmakers should cut back on salaries and benefits for public employees in order to help close gaping budget deficits...

Surfing Dolphin Property Rights

Posted on April 04, 2009
Do the usual surfing rules apply when a human shares a wave with a dolphin? If so, I might have pissed off one of Flipper's kin, yesterday. But I think that because dolphins use waves differently from humans, both species can ride the same wave without conflict...

Longboard Helicopter! Shortboard Air?

Posted on April 02, 2009
Today I finally managed a surf move that I've been on working for over a year: a fin-forward take-off with a regular-footed pop-up, followed by a 180-degree spin and a goofy-footed ride, wrapped up with a switch-step back to regular. If you're not a surfer, that might not mean much to you, granted...

The Transcendental Value of Consent

Posted on March 27, 2009
Consent plays a prominent role in moral reasoning. I here offer a new, transcendental argument for the moral value of consent: Because an attempted justification aims, by definition, to obtain its audience's consent, justifications presume the moral significance of consent...

A Call for Citizen Courts

Posted on March 18, 2009
It stands as a fundamental principle of justice that we cannot entrust one party to unilaterally judge its disputes with other parties. This poses a problem for the resolution of disputes between a State and those subjected to its legal jurisdiction...

Original Reasons for Non-Originalism

Posted on March 15, 2009
Although some of my closest friends might respond with expressions of fury and disappointment, I am coming out of the closet on originalism. I am not convinced that we should interpret the Constitution's text to mean what those who ratified it thought it meant, over 200 years ago...

The Problem with Rational Expectations in Macro

Posted on March 11, 2009
I'm not much of a macroeconomist, which is why I haven't had much to say about the current financial crisis and recession. But I did have to take the standard macro courses in grad school, and I remember having one major methodological objection to the rational-expectations models we were learning at the time...

The Singles Map

Posted on March 02, 2009

Adverse Selection in BDSM Clubs

Posted on February 14, 2009
In last week?s Savage Love Podcast, Dan Savage responds to a 22-year-old female caller who digs BDSM. Her problem is that when she goes to BDSM clubs, she can?t find any young, attractive men. Instead, she mostly finds creepy, gross, dirty old men. In answering, Dan says:[T]here?s a lot of attractive people into S&M, they?re just not necessarily at the BDSM clubs...

Did Prop 8 Divorce Anybody?

Posted on February 08, 2009
Whew. It?s been a long time since I posted anything here, but this video (h/t to Julian) has been on my mind: "Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.My reaction, like Julian?s, was to get just a bit teary-eyed. If you can look at these photos and still oppose gay marriage, I think your moral intuition is broken...

Physical (Re)Education 101

Posted on January 18, 2009
My co-blogger and host, Glen, might object, but I'd argue that "agoraphilia" covers not just "love of markers," but also "love of the great outdoors." Surely, the meaning of "agora" reaches at least that far. Allow me, then, to update you on my adventures under the open sky; here, specifically: surfing...

Anarchist Chess

Posted on January 07, 2009
My boy, Kai, joined his school's chess club this fall and has ardently plunged into learning the game. He enjoys setting up the board next to his mom's favorite reading chair and playing both sides of lively matches, complete with violent captures and Star Wars sound effects...

The Scale of Consent

Posted on January 01, 2009
I recently posted to SSRN a working paper, The Scale of Consent, a copy of which you can download here. Here's the abstract:We often speak of consent in binary terms, boiling it down to "yes" or "no." In practice, however, consent varies by degrees. We tend to afford expressly consensual transactions more respect than transactions backed by only implied consent, for instance, which we in turn regard as more meaningful than transactions justified by merely hypothetical consent...

Honolulu Hapa

Posted on December 19, 2008
"Damn their lies and trust your eyes. Dig every kind of fox!" I here sing one for the freedom to mix it up as you and your honey alone see fit:"Hapa" means "mixed race" in Hawaiian. Skin-tone mash ups have profoundly enriched my life, first with the Honolulu Hapa herself and then with our own little hapas...

Hello, Jonah

Posted on December 02, 2008
Like it or not, we live in the belly of Leviathan. Friends of liberty tend not to like it. Rather than giving in to death-by-digestion, or the dreaded Lower Intestines of Statism, they struggle to escape. Hello, Jonah, describes that plight, prescribes a cure, and wryly notes the outcome:As with Nice to Be Wanted, Sensible Khakis and Take Up the Flame, a Creative Commons license allows pretty free non-commercial use of Hello, Jonah...

ThinkMarkets Blog Open for Business

Posted on November 30, 2008
I'm a bit late in announcing this, but I'm pleased to report the debut of ThinkMarkets, a new blog of the NYU Colloquium on Market Institutions and Economic Processes (formerly known as the Austrian Colloquium, which I attended throughout my time at NYU)...

Nice to Be Wanted

Posted on November 23, 2008
"The doggone law. The consarned law. The lousy, frickin', nit-pickin', noveau-Prussian, freedom-crushin' . . . ." Nice to Be Wanted twangs the sad tale:Like Sensible Khakis and Take Up the Flame, Nice to Be Wanted comes with a license allowing pretty free non-commercial use...

The Mathematics of the Blame Game

Posted on November 17, 2008
I recently received a survey of economists on the subject of the financial crisis. The primary goal is to find out what economists believe caused the crisis. The various contributing factors fall into two basic categories, which I will call ?government failure? and ?market failure...

Sensible Khakis: An Entrepreneurial Anthem

Posted on November 15, 2008
Entrepreneurs rock! You wouldn't guess it, though, to listen to rock music. (Marc Knopfler's, Boom, Like That, says something about the founding and rise of McDonald's, granted, but it hardly casts the enterprise in a very flattering light.) So in honor of entrepreneurs everywhere?but especially those in the board sports industries, whom I thank for making some very fun toys?I offer Sensible Khakis:Like Take Up the Flame, which I coughed up on YouTube last week, Sensible Khakis' license leaves you free to play it just for fun...

The Electoral College: Just Like Any Other Legislature

Posted on November 08, 2008
Don Boudreaux, in defending the Electoral College, makes the following excellent point:A related, but potentially more serious, objection to the Electoral College -- indeed, the objection that, I'm sure, motivates most people who object to it -- is that it can result in a minority of popular voters getting the candidate of their choice over the candidate receiving the greatest number of popular votes...

"Take Up the Flame"

Posted on November 08, 2008
The fight for freedom has seen brighter days, I grant. I think it will see still brighter days yet, though, if we can encourage another generation to join the cause. Towards that end, I wrote a song, "Take Up the Flame": As the song's credits indicate, I've dedicated the song to my old friend and mentor, Walter E...

A Poll Tax by Any Other Name

Posted on November 04, 2008
Via Julian, I find Ezra Klein and Rachel Maddow making a really good point: long waiting lines at the polls are another kind of poll tax. A time tax instead of a money tax.And as one of Klein?s commenters points out, this kind of tax may have been used to disenfranchise certain groups ? by, for instance, having fewer (and less functional) voting machines in poorer districts...

Voter Fraud in U.S. News Surveys?

Posted on October 15, 2008
In ranking law schools, U.S. News and World Report weights peer reputation more heavily than any other measure of quality. A school's reputation among its peers counts for 25% of its overall score in the rankings (the next-most important measure, in contrast, counts for only 15%)...

Reason.tv on Health Insurance

Posted on October 09, 2008
I'm featured in the new Reason.tv video, "How to Fix America's Health Insurance Crisis: GET SOME."Interestingly, you can see both of my offices in this video: my CSUN office (at 2:45) and my FRINGE office (at 3:59, right above the Hustler store).I think the video makes this pretty clear, but it's worth emphasizing again: there are real problems with the current healthcare system, and there are genuinely needy people who can't afford health insurance...

LSAT-Free Law School Admissions

Posted on September 24, 2008
The University of Michigan School of Law recent announced an innovative program to admit 1L law students who have never taken an LSAT exam. Under the Wolverine Scholars program, potential admits with especially good undergraduate records from the University of Michigan?Ann Arbor campus may apply for admission to the law school without having taken the LSAT...

Burn After Reading

Posted on September 19, 2008
I saw it Saturday. Highly recommended. It?s like Fargo set in the halls of power, or at least sort of near them. If you have a black sense of humor (and if you don?t, what?s up with that?), then go see it. What the Coen brothers do best is comedy, and they?re back in familiar territory...

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