An odd blend of Texan and English East Anglian.

Romney has made one thing clear: the Republican base does not favor limited government. Republicans who do want limited government are a large minority of the party. Romney's success has made clear that fact. And that's a good thing.

It's on these kinds of issues that I part company with neoconservatives. Neocons have come to terms with the administrative state. No, it's worse. Neocons think they can use all that unconstitutional power for good purposes. Naive. Perhaps stupid. Definitely dangerous.

Solyndra got money under a general law to "promote innovations" in alternative energy. Same justification liberals always use, and it's perfectly analogous to justifications for IP laws.

And, it's OK if Nyadnar17 won't innovate. I'm not arguing for Nyadnar17's livelihood. Others will innovate. Free markets works like that.

It's been understood for some time.

Without special laws, how were Solyndra employees supposed to make a living? How were the old Bell telephone monopolies supposed to make a living? How are the state insurance monopolies supposed to make a living?

Scarcity is the most important and fundamental economic concept. If anything is B.S., it's asking for special laws to provide you with a living.

Like liberals, you conflate intent and practice. The intent of intellectual property laws was to spur innovation. In practice, intellectual property laws  stifle innovation.

There's a huge patent troll industry. Big companies use intellectual property litigation to shutdown small innovative companies.

And they're all saying the same thing you are: without special laws to protect me, how can I make a living?

No.

Some aspects of human experience are made by human action and subject to our intentional design, such as cooking a meal. Some things are not made by human action and are not subject to our intentional designs, such as tornados. Another kind of human experience is created by human action but is still not intentionally designed, such as markets and social institutions.

Some choice reading on the subject, here.

On the contrary, you've misread me. I'm not arguing against religious revival, but against the rhetoric of compulsion:

what will compel people to change?

We need not worry about that. In the absence of government coercion, most all societies become religious and conservative in temperament. 

Liberty Fund is doing God's work. Marvelous organization.

John, what about foreign law being used as precedent for US law. I didn't hear anything about that in the podcast. Do you address it in your book?

An excellent post!

I think this is exactly the wrong way to approach the problem. Positive (and perhaps positivist) policy prescriptions can't create a social utopia. We conservatives don't seek progressive ends, and we shouldn't use progressive methods. There is no positive government policy that can create a moral order.

Both neoconservatives and progressives believe that positive policies can mold society into some desired order. This belief is false.

Instead of positive policies we need negative ones. Our social decadence originates in coercive government policies. These policies create perverse incentives and corrupt the naturally emergent, naturally conservative social order.

In the absence of government coercion, most all societies in most all times develop thriving, family-based, and yes religious communities.

The neoconservative is wrong, and in some cases dangerously wrong, about how resilient societies develop.

Social order cannot be imposed rather it emerges. Every utopian program disrupts the naturally emergent, conservative social order.

I think otherwise. Libertarians rightly reject duties without rights.

A man has duties to his family, fine. What rights does he have over his family? Under the modern state, with modern family law, he has none.

A man has duties to defend the state. What rights does he have over the state? It appears he has none. The state now has unlimited power, with regulations that are not even voted upon by Representatives.

In this post-constitutional society, citizens have duties and government has rights. This is unjust, undesirable, an unstable.

I'm more Jeffersonian. A pre-Wilson/TR government appeals strongly to me.

When I wrote "Neoconservatives and Straussians" I didn't mean to imply identity but distinction.

They both distrust the development of society free of government control, even as they disagree on other matters, particualrly on the aims of government.

Those are statutory duties. One could fulfill all those duties and still be a poor citizen. In fact, your list is a subset of the Italian Fascist list of duties of citizens. It sheds no light on what a good citizen might be.

It might be useful to describe how your duties differ from the duties of men under fascism, socialism, and a free republic.

The market for drugs does not abate with legal restriction. Where drugs have been decriminalized, there is no increase in drug use or crime or anything else. Usually, there is a marked decrease in anti-social activity because black market effects are greatly reduced.

Prohibition does not work.

Rahe's argument from citizenship is a poor one. It is not for the government or even Rahe to decide what is required to be a good citizen, but the people themselves.

I don't do business with drug addicts. I don't hire them. I don't even talk to them. I don't deal with scoundrels who leave their families or blackguards who beat people. Most everyone  else I know does likewise.  These are the sanctions that matter.

At a fundamental level, social conservatives have more to learn from libertarians. Rahe and company conflate statute and law. That is an error.

The law is not made by lawmakers.