The Public Interest articles from June 1994

The Public Interest archives from June 1994

Execution by quota?
June 22, 1994... ON MARCH 17, 1994, the House Judiciary Committee voted to incorporate the Racial Justice Act into this year's Omnibus Crime Control Bill. The Act essentially would create quotas for the administration of the death penalty, under the assumption...

Should immigrants assimilate?
June 22, 1994... MY NAME IS HERB / and I'm not poor / I'm the Herbie that you're looking for / like Pepsi / a new generation / of Haitian determination / I'm the Herbie that you're looking for." A beat tapped with bare hands, a few dance steps, and the Haitian...

The politics of school violence.
June 22, 1994... ON JANUARY 23, 1986, eighteen-year old Eric Hawk, a student at the senior high school in suburban Surrattsville, Maryland, was waiting in the school parking lot to board his bus at the end of the day. Another eighteen-year old student, who had...

Disorder and the court.
June 22, 1994... IN THE CURRENT debate over what to do about crime in America, national political leaders focus on the "grand" crime issues--capital punishment, gun control, the length of prison sentences, and the number of police on the streets. But on the local...

Is "rationality review" rational?
June 22, 1994... IN THE CULTURE war over homosexuality both sides are deploying heavy rhetorical artillery. The air is full of bold claims and extreme characterizations. Sexual egalitarians often dismiss opposition to the gay and lesbian agenda as prejudice....

Why our democracy doesn't work.
June 22, 1994... AMERICAN government does not serve us very well. Moreover, because our periodic elections are only a weak error-correcting process, this has been the case for a long time. This is an awkward conclusion for a political economist who is not...

The new mercantilism.
June 22, 1994... IN ONE OF HIS many insightful observations, John Maynard Keynes noted that "practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." He noted further that the...

Restoring our moral voice.
June 22, 1994... AUDIENCES THAT are quite enthusiastic about the communitarian message, which I carry these days to all who will listen, cringe when I turn to discuss the moral voice. One of my best friends took me aside and gently advised me to speak of...

The Anatomy of Antiliberalism.
June 22, 1994... DURING A DECADE that produced more books about the inadequacies of liberalism than about its intrinsic virtues, among the finest unabashedly liberal works was Stephen Holmes' Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Yale, 1984)....

Fire with Fire.
June 22, 1994... WOMEN'S FIGHT FOR equality did not end when women won the vote seventy-three years ago. Equal in theory but often not in practice, many women turned to feminism to help them fight the remainders of inequality. While these remainders were real,...