Philip K. Howard is a conservative who inspires standing ovations from liberal audiences (short example here). He says that governance in America -- from the capitol to the classroom -- has achieved near-total dysfunctionality by accumulating so many layers of piecemeal legalisms that the requirements of navigating them has replaced any hope of getting actual justice or effectiveness. Most attempts to fix the problems have made them worse. Howard thinks they can be fixed in a way that restores core functionality.
Howard is the author of Life Without Lawyers and Death of Common Sense and is the founder and chair of Common Good, a reform advocacy nonprofit.
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Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand is co-founder and president of The Long Now Foundation and co-founder of Global Business Network. He created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog (National Book Award), and co-founded the Hackers Conference and The WELL. His books include The Clock of the Long Now; How Buildings Learn; and The Media Lab. His most recent book, titled Whole Earth Discipline, is published by Viking in the US and Atlantic in the UK.
Philip K. Howard
Philip K. Howard is a lawyer, author and civic leader. He is the author of, Life Without Lawyers, as well as the best-seller The Death of Common Sense and The Collapse of the Common Good, and he is a periodic contributor to the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
He advises leaders of both parties on legal and regulatory reform issues, and wrote the introduction to Vice President Al Gore's book Common Sense Government. A practicing lawyer, Howard is a partner in the law firm Covington & Burling LLP. In 2002, Howard founded Common Good (www.commongood.org), organized to restore common sense to American public life. The Advisory Board of Common Good is composed of leaders from a broad cross-section of American political thought including, among others, former Senators Howard Baker, Bill Bradley, George McGovern, and Alan Simpson.
Howard is a civic leader in New York and is Chair-Emeritus of the Municipal Art Society, a leading civic group that spearheaded initiatives to preserve Grand Central Terminal.
Branch of philosophy that analyzes the state and related concepts such as political obligation, law, social justice, and constitution. The first major work of political philosophy in the Western tradition was Plato's Republic. Aristotle's Politics is a detailed empirical study of political institutions. The Roman tradition is best exemplified by Cicero and Polybius. St. Augustine's City of God began the tradition of Christian political thinking, which was developed by Thomas Aquinas. Niccolò Machiavelli studied the nature and limits of political power. Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) raised the problem of political obligation in its modern form. Hobbes was followed by John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the exposition of a social-contract theory. G.W.F. Hegel's understanding of historical development in terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis stimulated Karl Marx's dialectical materialism. John Stuart Mill developed Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian theory of law and political institutions, so as to reconcile them with individual liberty. In the 20th century John Dewey sought to counteract the dehumanizing aspects of modern capitalist society through a freer form of education. Until the end of the Cold War, the field of political philosophy was characterized by a division between Marxists and more traditional liberal thinkers, as well as by disagreements between left- and right-leaning liberals, such as John Rawls and Robert Nozick (1938–2002), respectively. From the 1970s, feminist political philosophy drew attention to the apparent gendered nature of many concepts and problems in Western political philosophy, especially autonomy, rights, liberty, and the public-private distinction.
Not a bad discussion, however, he based most of his "answers" on an [his] understanding of: common sense, what's considered reasonable, and intelligent judgement... how many people do you know, including our elected officials who have a "reasonable" grasp or measure of those attributes?
IF you don't define what is a "safe" piece of equipment for use on a construction site, then the foreman, who may not have much many ethic and needs to keep cost to a minimum, might be using equipment which could conceivably considered "reasonably" safe as long as you don't abuse their limits... and we all know that limits are pushed all the time on construction sites, industrial manufacturing, etc... Do I agree OSHA is over bloated and out of control? YES... but anarchy in the work place would be total chaos... Unless you made all who are in charge "criminally" liable for any "questionable" accidents... then they might think first before they sent employees into what "might" be considered hazardous situation without proper equipment (in good working order) and having given them proper training in the tasks they are being asked to complete... and I don't mean monetary fines (which they may be able to afford because of cutting corners) I mean mandatory jail time.
and how many of you feel that young people today, do not have the (or any) common sense that we, as baby boomers, were brought up with... when you walk, or drive your vehicles, while texting, listening to your ipod or talking blindly on your cellphone while Jay Walking in heavy traffic, at night, in bad weather and feel you're protected by a law that state pedestrians have the right-of-way... when they don't understand that that law ONLY applies when you 'look both ways and cross when it is safe to do so, without interfering with normal traffic'.
I, for one, feel there are too many silly ass laws on the books, but also realize they are there because of silly ass people who need them written down for them.
Too many laws? YES... Because of too many people without any sense of responsibility, common sense, reasonable judgement, personal integrity or standard morals....
Are we as screwed as Mr. Howard believes?... I believe we are MORE SCREWED and most of you don't know it yet!!!
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