Selected Product:
| The Lost Art of Drawing the Line: How Fairness Went Too Far
Hardcover
Edition: 1
Author: Philip K. Howard
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: 2001-04-24
ISBN-10: 0375504222
ISBN-13: 9780375504228
List Price: $22.95
Average Customer Rating:
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The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation
ISBN-10: 1400065518
ISBN-13: 9781400065516
List Price:$25.95
Liability
ISBN-10: 0465039197
ISBN-13: 9780465039197
List Price:$20.00
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
The Lost Art of Drawing the Line will appall and irritate — and entertain — readers every bit as much as Philip Howard’s first book. Why is it that no one can fix the schools? Why do ordinary judgements fill doctors with fear? Why are seesaws disappearing from playgrounds? Why has a wave of selfish people overtaken America?
In our effort to protect the individual against unfair decisions, we have created a society where no one’s in charge of anything. Silly lawsuits strike fear in our hearts because judges don’t think they have the authority to dismiss them. Inner-city schools are filthy and mired in a cycle of incompetence because no one has the authority to decide who’s doing the job and who’s not.
When no one’s in charge, we all lose our link to the common good. When principals lack authority over schools, of what use are the parents’ views? When no one can judge right and wrong, why not be as selfish as you can be? Philip Howard traces our well-meaning effort to protect individuals through the twentieth century, with the unintended result that we have lost much of our individual freedom.
Buttressed with scores of stories that make you want to collar the next self-centered jerk or hapless bureaucrat, The Lost Art of Drawing the Line demonstrates once again that Philip Howard is “trying to drive us all sane.”
Howard Goes Too Far
| Customer Rating: | Howard's previous effort, "Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America," was spot-on. This one, unfortunately, takes the misguided and anti-liberty view that our courts are supposed to make law, rather than decide its legality.
Howard correctly excoriates the judicial approach which examines laws in anal-rententive detail, which finds "hidden meaning" where there plainly is none. He correctly prefers the precepts of common law over the intrusive restrictions of legislation. He believes judges should have the power to simply throw out obviously ridiculous cases. Yet, Howard goes too far, and has nothing but praise for the idea that judges should be able to use their "superior abilities" to make life decisions for us poor, simple regular folks.
He assumes that judges are the wisest members of society, and loves the idea that they are often appointed for life, which supposedly leaves them free to consider long term views. He wholly embraces the idea that judges should make law for the benefit of society, that they should decide social issues for our own good. (A typical example found in the book is his adulation of the anti-property rights Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, an elitist and moral relativist. In a case Howard highlights, Holmes ruled that a statute which restricted the workday of bakery employees "for their own safety" to ten hours was legal. Fortunately, the rest of the court voted against him, which Howard laments. Of course, there is nothing in the Constitution allowing the government to restrict workers' hours, nothing which allows any government interference in business practices; any attempt to do so is a monstrous "stretching" of the document and an assault on liberty. Yet Holmes is lauded by Howard for his efforts at social intervention.)
Essentially, Howard wants judges to run the country, because they are just so darn smart.
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Excellent book with some horrid editorial aspects.
| Customer Rating: | | Philip K. Howard, The Collapse of the Common Good (Ballantine, 2001) Howard's first book, The Death of Common Sense, should be required reading in high schools and law schools across the nation. Instead, it's supported by a select few and most of the country has never heard of it, despite our best efforts. So Howard releases another book, and I pick it up. The Collapse of the Common Good takes much the same refrain as The Death of Common Sense, but turns its focus from governmental process to the fallacy of individual rights. What is important here is not what Howard says (which is, naturally, common sense), but in how he says it. His arguments are persuasive and worded so that the average joe can understand what Howard is on about. As with The Death of Common Sense, this is a book that should be required reading. I do have one problem with the book, and that is the way that the endnotes are handled. Endnotes (as opposed to footnotes) are annoying enough, and publishers should realize that the endnote is archaic (now that students have access to computers, footnotes are easily achieved by even college freshmen; the use of endnotes by professional book publishers looks even more amateur), but The Collapse of the Common Good takes this annoyance to a whole new level by not including endnote numbers in the text; the exhaustive section of endnotes has them referred to only by page number. Perhaps I should have said "exhausting" endnote section. The complete unprofessionalism of the way what should have been footnotes are handled loses the book a full point. Other than that, though, another must-read from Howard. I think I'm going to start giving them as christmas gifts, and keep giving them until people get the message. **** |
Gets you thinking
| Customer Rating: | | I thought this book was an easy read. Howard does his best to light a fire under you to get you thinking. People are so worried about their individual rights, common sense gets thrown out with the bath water!!! This is a good motivational book for any elected official to read. I actually read this book for an assignment, and the book opened my eyes on really how inhumane or shallow our culture is becoming. |
Great book
| Customer Rating: | | Every politician, every lawyer, every judge, and especially every citizen in America should read this book. It explains clearly and concisely how bad laws and frivolous lawsuits are undermining our country. Everything has to have warning labels, everything has to be dumbed down, anything remotely dangerous (such as the teeter-totter or playground slide) has to be eliminated, and teachers aren't allowed to punish bad kids for fear of being sued. Government unions make it impossible to fire incompetent workers, and anti-discrimination laws cause the very discrimination that they are supposed to prevent. After reading this book, you will understand better why government, corporations, and society are not working as good as they should. How can they, with the guillotine of potential lawsuits hanging over our heads? |
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