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CREDENTIALS_RICHARD_POSNER

                                             November 6, 2015


Richard Posner-- conservative legal beagle and
chicago-style econ advocate-- has evidently
been trying to walk back some of his Bush
League idiocy in recent years, but the crap he
was coming up with back when it mattered is
way too nasty-stupid to want to give him much
credit for anything now.

This is a man who tried to defend the Supreme Court's
interference in the 2000 presidential election.

He wrote a justification-for-torture book "Not a suicide
pact: the constitution in a time of national emergency"
(2006). There's nothing quite like having a judge on the
bench writing a "oh, just fuck the constitution" book.

But the reason I bring up Posner here is that he
wrote an entire book on how intellectuals (excepting
himself, of course) should stick to their fields of       POSNER_DECLINES
expertise: "Public Intellectuals: A Study in Decline"
(2001).

One of his arguments is that you can't trust anyone with
tenure, because they're insulated from "market forces"
which normally act to ensure intellectual quality (just
like with Fox News). But then, you might also take this
as an argument against judicial independence (why exactly
haven't the legal scholars who advocated torture all been
disbarred?).

Anyway, if you're inclined to be a hard-liner about
fields of expertise, remember: Richard Posner is on your
side. Are you sure you want to go there?

(This is the kind of thing that *shouldn't* be an
argument that matters, but I suspect that it does:
Step carefully when in such company.)


                                                        AND_THE_LOSER_IS

           IS_POT_BLACKNESS_HEREDITARY




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