Framing the Dialogue

Posts Tagged ‘responsibility’

Eminent Affront

There is good news and bad news behind this headline:

Crafton out $1.8 million over land dispute

First the good news…The Borough of Crafton (near Pittsburgh, PA) was ordered to pay $1.8 million to the previous owners of a property that the Borough seized through eminent domain in 1999.  The judgement included $1 million for the property, approx. $600,000 in interest, and $200,000 in legal fees. 

Read more…

Life Without Lawyers

“momentum has carried us to a point where we no longer feel free in daily interaction.  Almost any encounter carries legal risk.  Lawyers are everywhere, both literally – the proportion of lawyers in the workforce almost doubled between 1970 and 2000 – and in our minds, sowing doubt into ordinary choices.  Americans increasingly go through the day looking over their shoulders instead of where they want to go.”

Author Philip K. Howard proposes to liberate Americans from too much law in his book Life Without Lawyers acknowledging that law is vital to freedom, but can also destroy freedom.  As in the above quote from this book who has not stopped himself from saying something thinking that it might be taken wrong? 

Read more…

The Death Of Common Sense

Death of common senseA had this book a while and thought that it would be a good one to follow The Law by Frederic Bastiat reviewed last week.  Although published fifteen years ago The Death of Common Sense provides a direct insight into the substitution of common sense for bureaucracy in America.  Common sense and responsibility is replaced with tens of thousands of pages of rules that promote inaction rather than progress.  Having worked for many years in government I can attest to the ability of civil servants to skillfully avoid decisions contrary to the letter of the regulation even though they make complete sense.

Read more…