How strangers acquire not just the power but the right to make rules others must obey is a central preoccupation of political philosophers. Grand theories of legitimacy spring from the brows of such giants as Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke and Hegel. It is rare that we get a ground’s eye view of the how these institutions take root.
But we have such a view in New Haven, where colonists first purchased a vast tract of land in a deal that rivals the Dutch purchase of Manhattan, and thereafter set about to create a government. The record is scant, but real enough. It comes in the...
March 19, 2012
By the time my parents arrived in North America, all the land was taken. There wasn’t any left to claim. The continent, from one end to the other, belonged either to private owners, the government or to Indians on reservations. We walked onto a playing field owned by others, and, like most Americans, had to fight for a place of our own. I will spend the better part of my adult life paying a banker for the fantasy of calling a sliver of the earth mine. When that banker is in danger of default, he can count on the government to bail him out; if I default, I become homeless.
Things...
March 18, 2012
I am profoundly ambivalent about American history. We tell ourselves that ours is a history of inclusion, yet we gloss over the acts of theft and genocide that drove the natives off the land. And never mind the periodic bouts of xenophobia from which we suffer. Or the tragic history of slavery and the still mixed messages we send to African-Americans. We’ve become a people, of sorts. Huzzah, huzzah.
But the dream of a people bound and equal under the law inspires even when reality falls far short of fulfillment. This is the land of Everyman, right? We’re a City of a Hill,...
March 15, 2012
If you are not from New England, odds are you don’t understand the significance of a town green. It is a city’s center, a haven, if you will, from the particular cares and concerns dividing a community. The town green is where the people can and do meet. New England towns typically have greens. They are part of the folklore of the region, a place where town meetings and congregational churches place a premium on civil cooperation and participation.
That’s the vanilla, Norman Rockwell vision of the world.
In New Haven, things are just a touch different. You see,...
March 13, 2012
March 12, 2012
Everyone, it seems, wants to be a pundit. That includes J. Harvie Wilkinson, III, a federal appellate judge and one-time contender for a seat on the...
March 11, 2012
Michelle Alexander writes in this morning’s New York Times about mass incarceration and plea bargaining. She wonders what would happen if...
March 8, 2012
Lawyers who tell war stories are tedious bores. I mean, we all have stories to tell, right? What makes your story so special that I should stop what...
March 7, 2012
Any man married for more than a decade should have an intuitive grasp of the dignitary interests served by the right to remain silent when accused. I...
March 6, 2012
Here's the latest in the ongoing saga of the Bridgeport school board crisis. Unless you have followed the story to date, this will not make a lot of...
March 2, 2012
I hope Tanya McDowell will forgive us, someday, for our hypocrisy and cruelty. I hope her son will as well. But first she will have to serve her...