http://blogs.geniocity.com/friedman/2009/11/honor-our-veterans-and-dont-efface-their-experience-with-ideology-freakonomics-the-draft/ The ways law rules creativity and creativity informs the practice of law Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:55:57 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://blogs.geniocity.com/friedman/2009/11/honor-our-veterans-and-dont-efface-their-experience-with-ideology-freakonomics-the-draft/comment-page-1/#comment-3120 Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity » Blog Archive » Vengeance breeds vengeance; we our a country of laws, not torture. Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:39:15 +0000 http://blogs.geniocity.com/friedman/2009/11/honor-our-veterans-and-dont-efface-their-experience-with-ideology-freakonomics-the-draft/#comment-3120 [...] Addendum: I realized that in discussing the Oresteia in connection with torture and the rule of law, I was “betraying” my liberal arts background. But, of course, our blindness to the consequences of abandoning the rule of law because of the alleged necessities brought on by the 9/11 attacks goes hand in hand with a culture that has decided that money is the only valid measuring stick of value and that “free” markets are the best means of making all our choices, even our choices about war. [...] [...] Addendum: I realized that in discussing the Oresteia in connection with torture and the rule of law, I was “betraying” my liberal arts background. But, of course, our blindness to the consequences of abandoning the rule of law because of the alleged necessities brought on by the 9/11 attacks goes hand in hand with a culture that has decided that money is the only valid measuring stick of value and that “free” markets are the best means of making all our choices, even our choices about war. [...]

]]> http://blogs.geniocity.com/friedman/2009/11/honor-our-veterans-and-dont-efface-their-experience-with-ideology-freakonomics-the-draft/comment-page-1/#comment-3047 Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity » Blog Archive » Steven Levitt and Freakonomics can go to hell! Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:20:24 +0000 http://blogs.geniocity.com/friedman/2009/11/honor-our-veterans-and-dont-efface-their-experience-with-ideology-freakonomics-the-draft/#comment-3047 [...] On Veterans Day I expressed my disgust and contempt for Steven Levitt (he of Freakonomics fame) because his devotion to intellectual abstraction divorced from any connection to reality is, well, disgusting and contemptuous. The specific reason for my post on that day was Levitt’s proposition that a military draft, in his words, “puts the ‘wrong’ people in the military.”  Bob Herbert today expands on the point: The idea that fewer than 1 percent of Americans are being called on to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq and that we’re sending them into combat again and again and again — for three tours, four tours, five tours, six tours — is obscene. All decent people should object. . . . [...] [...] On Veterans Day I expressed my disgust and contempt for Steven Levitt (he of Freakonomics fame) because his devotion to intellectual abstraction divorced from any connection to reality is, well, disgusting and contemptuous. The specific reason for my post on that day was Levitt’s proposition that a military draft, in his words, “puts the ‘wrong’ people in the military.”  Bob Herbert today expands on the point: The idea that fewer than 1 percent of Americans are being called on to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq and that we’re sending them into combat again and again and again — for three tours, four tours, five tours, six tours — is obscene. All decent people should object. . . . [...]

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