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Partnership, Democracy, and Self-Rule in Jewish Law
Get PDFLiberal political theory has long relied on a metaphor of contract: autonomous adults coming together to agree, by unanimous consent, on the basic structure of a just society. But contract is a strange metaphor with which to explain society. Contract law is based on a morality of strangers acting at arms-length. In contrast, decent societies and the governments they set for themselves must be based on a commitment of mutual responsibility. What makes us fellow citizens—fellows of any variety—is accepting that we are all in this together. Jewish legal and midrashic traditions can be a useful corrective to the atomistic metaphors underlying most liberal political theory. The Jewish tradition has never had the luxury of imagining self-sufficiency, that government itself is the primary source of unjust power, or that individuals could be free in a state of nature. We too can no longer ignore that a solitary human being is a dead human being, that we need government to make spaces in which we can be free from want, resist oppression by non-governmental power, reverse the destruction of the natural commons on which we depend, and engage in the communal activities that make life meaningful. The partnership metaphor, I argue, can make visible the mutual concern and collective effort that must characterize decent and just governments in an age of economic challenges and ecological crises. The goal of liberalism should not be individual self-determination but the freedom to live together in peace, prosperity and justice
Are Digital Services Taxes Imposed by Other Countries Creditable Under IRC Section 903? Yes. But, What if the Opposite Is True?
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My Body, My Choice: Biblical, Rabbinic, and Contemporary Halakhic Responses to Abortion
Get PDFSince the Supreme Court grounded the right to an abortion in a constitutional right to privacy, legal and societal debate has continued around the status of a fetus in utero, a woman’s countervailing claims, and the interests of states and society as a whole. As American courts have faced an issue that intertwines legal, moral, and philosophical questions, so too the halakhic process confronts analogous complexities. The main line of Jewish tradition makes a much-needed contribution to the discussion of abortion. Without sharing the view that the fetus is from conception fully a person, it stops short of a complete dismissal of the value problem in destroying a fetus. However, whatever value attaches to “potential life,” the primary concern lies with the woman. She exists. Her voice and her needs must be heard. And her life, (no matter how slim her chances of survival), health, and mental well-being come first
Of Arms and the Militia: Gun Regulation by Defining “Ordinary Military Equipment”
Get PDFRecent mass shootings have placed pressure on Congress and state legislatures to regulate semi-automatic rifles and handguns in the interest of public safety. However, the Second Amendment provides that, “[a] well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. There is no obvious public safety exception.
Semi-automatic rifles, handguns, and other kinds of arms can be regulated more effectively by defining the “ordinary military equipment” militia members are expected to provide. This may be accomplished using the rationale employed by the United States Supreme Court in its 1939 decision of United States v. Miller, which upheld the National Firearms Act of 1934. The Firearms Act regulated automatic weapons, including machine guns, short-barreled shotguns, and short-barreled rifles, by requiring possessors to register them and pay a substantial tax. In its 2008 decision of the District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the holding in Miller.
In Heller, the Supreme Court found that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. The Court in Heller stated that Miller “stands only for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to certain types of weapons” and that it “does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. Thus, the rationale employed in Miller is still effective and shows how certain types of weapons may be regulated