1412 research outputs found
Sort by
The World of Deadwood: Property Rights and the Search for Human Identity
Get PDFThe year is 1876. Gold has been discovered in the fledgling camp of Deadwood, bringing hordes of new arrivals each day seeking to strike it rich. The allure of wealth is coupled with the allure of complete autonomy. There is no law. Although part of the United States, Deadwood is unaffiliated with any existing territorial government. It is free. Or is it? From this backdrop, HBO’s highly-acclaimed drama Deadwood springs forth. Series creator David Milch is frank about his mission behind the story: to explore how order arises from chaos. The assignment and protection of property rights play central roles in this journey from anarchy to law. In the world of Deadwood, where ownership of land can be worth millions, law’s promise and law’s pitfalls are both on full display. The stakes are high; the lessons are many.
Stories are powerful teaching tools because they marry information and context. Film and television also supply a picture of law in action, marshalling the power of the visual to make law more real, less abstract. Because of its rich complexity and invocation of ancient debates over what property is and who rightly can be deemed to own it, the three-season run of Deadwood provides fertile ground for this type of interdisciplinary study. Deadwood demonstrates that the interrelationship between property and law is complex, with many moving pieces and many valid points and counterpoints. Property has both naturalist and positivist attributes, it both pre-exists and coexists with the state, it is about economic power and personal identity, it supports both an individualist and communitarian mindset. Accounting for all of these strands in a balanced way is a lot to ask of legal institutions, especially inasmuch as the strands often are in competition with one another. Deadwood suggests that, while law is certainly a component piece in the puzzle of human relations, it alone cannot do all that we ask of it. And therein may lie the ultimate lesson: Law can be a blessing, but the human condition requires more
Liberalism: A Religious-Dependent Faith
Get PDFContemporary liberalism, both its American variant as well as its classical and European cousins,\u27 is often thought of as a secular political philosophy with little in common with various religious faiths, least of all Christianity. Indeed, many of liberalism\u27s most famous adherents, past and present, have taken a certain pride in distancing themselves from Christianity, most especially and perversely, Roman Catholicism.\u27 Yet, such views may be mistaken in having ignored the fundamentally faithbased grounding of contemporary liberalism: first, its optimistic metaphysics makes it possible for its adherents to ignore human sin and to assume that individual self-love and corporate other-love form a natural identity; and second, liberalism\u27s empirically empty defense of human equality elevates all human beings regardless of individual merit to equal dignity while rendering all other species subordinate, as means not ends.\u27 Without assuming a loving God, indeed in this case a Christian God who maintains an orderly universe and loves equally that which he has created in His own image, as materialists have been pointing out for centuries, such notions should collapse as indefensible absurdities.\u2
Were the Framers - and the Writers Who Influenced Them - Unable to Foresee the Extent of Secularization That Could Result from the Separation of Church and State?
Get PDFWhile the United States is filled with religious sects, denominations, worshippers, and even fanatics, the truth is that American society has become largely secular.\u27 When analyzing society\u27s trend toward secularization from a legal perspective, it is only natural to begin with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment 2-the clause responsible for the separation of church and state. But is today\u27s secular society really the brainchild of the Framers of the Constitution? Or is it an unintended result that was far beyond their realm of foreseeability? This Comment addresses these questions by surveying the writings of several influential Constitutional Framers. However, in realizing that even great thinkers were inspired by others, this Comment goes beyond the likes of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, and explores the works of John Locke and Adam Smith to discover the foundation upon which the Framers were working
Thirty-Third Annual Hooding and Graduation Ceremony (2011)
Get PDFhttps://scholarship.law.campbell.edu/commencement/1002/thumbnail.jp